My friends, as I said in this week’s bulletin, our Church Year is winding down, with just four more weeks after this one, and we are to Advent and the beginning of a new Church Year. Endings and beginnings, for us humans always call us to reflections of what has been good, perhaps not so good, with hope as we look to a new start, that there is the possibility of more that is good, or better. For us as Christians, this is even more true, especially the desire to once again try to be our best, for ourselves, but for others too.
The 1st reading today from Exodus, in Moses’ words from our God, suggest well I think what might be answer to all the violence we see in our world. In this 1st reading we might basically come away with the idea that we should, “do unto others as we would want them to do unto us.” Moses also lets the people know that their God, “is compassionate.” And this people would understand from past covenants or promises they had made with their God, that their response to others, must be the same – they too must be compassionate .
The Israelite people, being nomadic, lived with the notion that as they traveled from place to place, often through desert areas, they could experience life-threatening conditions and that it would be advantageous to come upon a “friend” who could help them out. Often, this help might come from a stranger – perhaps even an enemy. Thus, there was an understanding within their belief system that anyone, friend or foe, coming to their door, must be helped and ultimately treated as a “guest.”
The Catholic Bishops of this country wrote a pastoral paper in 1980 entitled, Strangers and Guests, and it was aimed at Midwest farmers, and care for the land, and the environment. It had the same focus as the belief system of our earlier sisters and brothers – looking past personal cares and anxieties to see a bigger picture.
Today’s gospel in our brother Jesus’ words from Matthew, builds on the thought of Moses in the covenantal mentality of God first loving us, and our response to love in return. Jesus simply reminds them, to love God, and their neighbor – that’s it! – for them and for us.
Bringing us back to the present then – how do we, as one Church Year is finishing, and another is “waiting to start,” assess our past year, and think about applying this seemingly simple request of “loving God and others?”
For those of us who have lived a while, we realize the difficulty of this request, at times. Jesus realized the difficulty too of this dual request when he said, “You can’t say you love God who you have never seen, and not your neighbor who you have seen!” Again, as always, we are asked to go deeper – to see beyond the actions that we perhaps can’t abide, and if you are like me, you must ask our God for help to do what you/I can’t do alone.
We sometimes feel stuck – almost as if we can’t do a thing to change the trajectory of life as we know it, so perhaps a personal story might help. I began work to complete my undergraduate degree that I began 20 years earlier when I was in the convent, by attending the College of Saint Teresa in the last year that it was open, 1989-90.
I was taking a course in Women’s Studies and a text we were using was divided into sections with different women authors writing each section. Because we were using several different texts, the professor decided to have each of us choose a chapter and present it to the class so as to get through more material.
I felt it was the work of the Spirit that I randomly flipped through the book and landed on a chapter about “Mother-Daughter Relationships.” As many of you know, I didn’t have a good relationship with my mother.
The author of this chapter made the statement that often it is the case in families that the relationship of women, Grandmother-mother-daughter – their ways of interacting with each other tend to follow throughout time, good or bad. In my case, I thought, talk about being “stuck!” I saw this “truth” in the relationship of my grandmother, mother and me – not good relationships – and my reaction was, “well, that stops with me!” And through the years with my own daughter, even though I had to many times fight the “tendency” to act on this “seemingly” family trait, I willed, along with the help of a good partner, something better for her and me.
So, friends, I share that story to simply say that we don’t have “to be stuck” and that we can strive continually, to be better, even our best. We are living in unprecedented times – in my 76 years, I am quite sure that I have never witnessed the amount of unchristian, and even inhuman actions – devoid of a sense of morality, character and values, as at this present time – one just becomes starved for goodness and a sense of service and caring for others. In addition, the lack of leadership in Church and state, in many areas, on issues where one would expect the “compassion” shown by our God is most troubling. Pope Leo is doing his part to speak against, for us, the unchristian behavior in our time, but few of our country’s bishops, including our own, are following his efforts.
Many of you are old enough to remember the terrible times in Ireland when the Catholics and Protestants were feuding, year after seemingly endless year — a conflict that only found resolution when the women from both sides came together, prayed, and basically said, “This is enough! Let’s not kill each other’s loved ones anymore!” One wonders if maybe mothers, sisters and wives of the Palestinians and Israelis might do the same!
So, my friends, again, horrible life situations cause, or should cause us to go deeper, to remember our roots, to find, at the end of the day, our best selves. The same can be said of the crisis in our beloved country with weapons of mass destruction—what are we thinking that allows the indiscriminate killing of our loved ones to continue? – especially our children: We are “so used” to these mass shootings that the news stories seldom, if ever, raise the easy-ness of obtaining a gun. Perhaps, it would serve us better to begin “feeling” more, to see the world as one, as sisters and brothers, all wanting the same basic goods—home, food, and safety for our families and friends. Let us all strive for this—demand that our leaders in Church and State tend to the basic, simple needs of all the people, a noble goal and prayer as we end one Church Year and prepare for the next. Amen? Amen!
