New ideas, thoughts come as I hike. These thoughts lead to new ideas. New ideas lead to new material for new homilies. (I can hear the chorus, “It is about time”.) Since I do not write out what I am going to say, what is said is very fluid, to say the least. The heading in the Sacramentary for these Sundays reads The .......... sunday of Easter. Then it appeared to me that there was something missing. What was missing was the word, "celebration”. We spend over 40 days in preparation. Preparation to once again celebrate, The great Mystery of our faith. This preparation is to provide us with new lenses so we can see in a new and more vibrant way, that which is our daily reality. We spend three days in the celebration, The Easter Tridium.
We now we are spending 50 days to see where our lives are centered within what we celebrate. With each such celebration the is new meaning given to the life we so many times call ordinary. We only have ordinary lives when we do not take the time to stop and reverence the Mystery dwelling within each and every, person, place, and action. These 50 days are saying to you and I, “stop and allow The Holy, The Sacred, The mystery to bubble up from within your life”, leading us to a depth of meaning which is way beyond what we ever could imagine, on our own. “This is what the Lord has done”, is doing and ever shall do, until the fullness of The Kingdom is revealed in and to this expectant world of ours.
As I mentioned last week, when I introduced the idea, that these weeks were a spiritual casserole. A casserole from which Mother church doles out to us, people places, events, and actions, intended for our nourishment. Intended for our encouragement. Once we have been nourished and encouraged it is OUR SACRED duty, OUR Sacred obligation to become bearers of this good news. We are to be the place of encouragement and hope for those who our God will certainly send our way. Watch for the contemporary suffering Christ, who will appear under many, many, different and unusual disguises. We have to have desire The Heart of God to be able to see beyond fear, hatred, prejudice, indifference, to the presence of His suffering Son ever before.
I was at the intersection at 44st. & Ray when the thought came, or should I not say, the question came what about our own personal casserole? How is this a reality in the life I am presently living? Well, my life is a casserole. In it, are many different ingredients. Some I have put in place, other ingredients are placed, or sometimes forced into the mix. In the kitchen casserole, that which holds all the ingredients together, is the canned soup. In the spiritual casserole that which holds it all together is the power of The Holy Spirit. There are so many thing in our life's casserole we wish were not present. We cannot deny them. They are part of our reality. To deny is to place ourselves, and as a consequence others, in real danger. Acceptance of our reality, in struggled prayer, allows the process of integration and reconciliation to happen. This Power at work is the Power of Love. This love has so often been described as fire. Well the casserole on the stove needs fire, heat to cook and so the ingredients are integrated, they are blended. The Fire, that is God's love, brings about integration, transformation, leading to reconciliation and freedom.
This is not a fantasy of mine. Here is what deChardin has written, “Love is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves". Wow! Isn’t that something to ponder, and ponder. So, then the power of LOVE is ever and always at work. It is at times like this we are given the opportunity to stop and reflect on the process at work within the casserole we call, everyday living. I will leave you with my second favorite saying of the above author, “Someday, after we have harnessed the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then the world will have discovered, for the second time fire".
Let us all then conspire together to bring this about. I have the belief, that with all of us uniting in this wonder-full endeavor it will happen. Our belief united with the Aisling, the dream of God, nothing can get in the way. Uniting the strength, the power of the two casseroles within each of us will be the source of that which otherwise would be impossible. With God, all things are possible. Let us give His love, His plan a chance. The opposite has not worked, has it?
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