“Once upon a time there was a man who looked upon Christmas as a lot of humbug. He wasn’t a Scrooge. He was a kind and decent person, generous to his family, upright in all his dealings with other men. But he didn’t believe all that stuff about Incarnation which churches proclaim at Christmas. And he was too honest to pretend that he did. “I am truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, who was a faithful churchgoer. “But I simply cannot understand this claim that God becomes man. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
On Christmas Eve his wife and children went to church for the midnight service. He declined to accompany them. “I’d feel like a hypocrite,” he explained. “I’d rather stay at home. But I’ll wait up for you.”
Shortly after his family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window and watched the flurries getting heavier and heavier. “If we must have Christmas,” he thought, “it’s nice to have a white one.” He went back to his chair by the fireside and began to read his newspaper. A few minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. It was quickly followed by another, then another.
He thought that someone must be throwing snowballs at his living room window. When he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the storm. They had been caught in the storm and in a desperate search for shelter had tried to fly through his window. “I can’t let these poor creatures lie there and freeze,” he thought. “But how can I help them?” Then he remembered the barn where the children’s pony was stabled. It would provide a warm shelter.
He put on his coat and galoshes and tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the door wide and turned on a light. But the birds didn’t come in. “Food will lure them in,” he thought. So he hurried back to the house for bread crumbs, which he sprinkled on the snow to make a trail into the barn. To his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to flop around helplessly in the snow. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around and waving his arms. They scattered in every direction - except into the warm lighted barn.
“They find me a strange and terrifying creature,” he said to himself, “and I can’t seem to think of any way to let them know they can trust me. If only I could be a bird myself for a few minutes, perhaps I could lead them to safety. . . .”
Just at that moment the church bells began to ring. He stood silent for a while, listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. Then he sank to his knees in the snow. “Now I do understand,” he whispered. “Now I see why You had to do it.” ”
Think of the many ways God has reached out to us to communicate with us since the beginning. The climax of God communicating with us in the Old Testament was when God formed the covenant with Moses on Mt. Sinai. God joined himself to us in a covenant and we were joined to God in a covenant. But we still sinned so God raised up prophets to call us back but only a small number of people paid heed to the prophets. Through one of the prophets, Hosea, God said that Israel has been like an unfaithful wife committing adultery by going after false gods. All through the centuries of the Old Testament God pursued us like a lover but we had broken the covenant and God had to make a new unbreakable covenant with us. For this new covenant, God would become flesh and bones like us, and shed his blood in the person of Jesus to convince us once and for all to accept his invitation to be his people. Jesus was the climax of God reaching out to us. As we heard in our Gospel today,
The Word was made flesh,
he lived among us,
and we saw his glory...
“Now I see why You had to do it” wrote Louis Cassels in A Christmas Parable. And indeed God had to do it, had to become one of us to make us understand because despite God’s best efforts throughout all the Old Testament we still didn’t get the message. Sometimes you have to, as we say, rub their noses in it to make them understand. Christmas is, in a sense, God rubbing our noses in it to make us understand. Christmas is God saying, “Maybe this will grab your attention.” The Letter to the Hebrews expresses it beautifully,
“At various moments in the past and by many means, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our time, the final days, he has spoken to us in the person of his Son.” (Heb 1:1-2)
God has spoken to us, the Word has become flesh. Let us allow God’s word to sink into our hearts. I will conclude with the prayer at the end of our second reading today:
“May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit.”
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
WEDDING HOMILY
Ladies and gentlemen,
We are witnessing a great moment in the lives of Emily and Anthony . So far they had been part of two different families but a few moments from now they will be forming a new family of their own. They are going to promise to God and each other and those here present that no matter how frail , ill or weak they would get in their life, they would always be there for each other. So far they were brought up in different families with different backgrounds. Like two creeks join together and become one river they become one. So far they have had different river banks and different waves and ripples and rapids in their lives, but now on they merge together and have only one flow and rapids , one rhythm of waves and share one shore in their life. They unite their minds and hearts together to live together as one.
Marriage is formed when the couples exchange promises to give themselves mutually and freely to each other in a definitive way. I stress the words mutually, freely and definitive way. They are indispensible element of marriage. Free consent to permanent union and the openness to having children are integral part of this sacrament. If these elements are absent, it cannot become a valid marriage. If they say no to any of these essential elements I cannot declare them to be married on behalf of the church.
Remember that there are not two but three parties in this marriage. The couples and God. God joins them. That is why marriage is called indissoluble. Actually they decided to marry not just today, but may be months ago. But that decision did not get an indissoluble nature as it was not confirmed with God’s will. They could give up their decision, even to this point. But now once they are uniting their decision to give each other permanently, permanently, in the will of God – God’s will which is immutable, their marriage becomes indissoluble. Our mind or our decisions change, but not God’s. God has only one decision and he doesn’t keep changing his decisions and plans.
Emily and Anthony, As God unites you today, for happiness and permanence of your marriage you need to pray together every day to God for the success of your marriage. I believe 100 percent success for marriages of those couples who pray every night kneeling together at the edge of their bed and ask God for success of their married life.
Marriage is a sacrament of love and commitment. Jesus said “ No man has greater love than this than laying down one’s life for others. There is no greater bond in this world , in human relationship than the marital bond. Book of Genesis says and man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife. Our bonds with our parents and our children are not intended for permanency. Those bonds become weak in our life, and they leave us at some point in life. But the bond of husband and wife is meant to last till death. The wedding vows take a life time to live out.
After living with his wife for two years a business man husband could not adjust with his wife and so he send his wife home with a note “ your product is not satisfactory. So it is returned”. The girl’s father was also a business man and he sends her back with a note “ Warranty expired , manufacturer is not responsible for it”.
Marriage involves a life time commitment. This commitment involves fidelity. You promise each other “ I promise to be true to you…. This involves you promise to avoid any mister or mistress in your life. This mister or mistress can be -work, a hobby, the children, even volunteer activities that can cut into romance time and the attention a couple needs to devote to each other. You need to spend Time Together. Life becomes busy: Bills need to be paid; the home must be maintained; children require attention. But all of life's demands should not be at the expense of spending quality time together.
You promise unconditional love: Love is a decision and not just a feeling. Love involves putting your partner’s needs before your own. You say in your promise- in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. To love unconditionally is a promise for the future. It has more to do with your decision to love than merely the feeling of love. Can you love him/her when his/her body has lost its vigor and beauty ? Can you love him/her through annoying habits and when he/she hurt you ? Not knowing what changes the future will bring, can you love each other when you become old, ugly, fat or senile ? That’s a lot to say a blind yes to.
You make a covenant with each other. You say: I will love you and honor you… A covenant is a promise that goes deeper than a contract. Contracts are legal documents that spell out rights and duties. Contracts can be broken if one party doesn’t hold up their end. A covenant on the other hand, goes beyond a 50/50 agreement. Sometimes one spouse will need to bend 75% while the other only gives 25%. It is not always fair, but it’s a promise that doesn’t count the cost. The first step in a successful marriage is for both husband and wife to put all their effort into the relationship—each giving 100%!
The three most important things to keep a marriage healthy are commitment, commitment and commitment. With divorce rate hovering around 50%, it may seem that commitment is out of style. It is not that human nature has changed much. But the culture we live in has changed. No longer is there a strong cultural support for a lifelong marriage. We live in a throw away society; if something breaks, our first impulse is to get a new one rather than fix the old. This cultural change contributes to making commitment harder than it used to be. So it is a challenge. It is a call to live in the grace of Jesus. Jesus said: You can do nothing with out me. So it is a life fully trusting the Lord. You may be called to adapt to many factors that are beyond your control. It takes a long time to create a good relationship. A good marriage teaches us that failure is human and forgiveness comes in love.
Sometimes we tend to forget how important togetherness is. We take one another for
granted and bicker about little things. Life is precious, so is your marriage
Communication is one of the most important keys to success. Before marriage, couples often find themselves talking a lot—but this soon diminishes after the wedding day. Communication must continue throughout the marriage. The couple must continue to learn from one another, taking time to share their thoughts and feelings.
Most marriages fail because of a lack of or wrong communication. Seemingly the only type of dialog in many marriages is arguing and fighting. This is not communication! Nothing productive ever comes from this, and it should be avoided at all costs. If the discussion escalates, both must make a point to apologize immediately.
A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment.
The next week the man realized that he would need his wife to wake him at 5.00 am for an early flight to Sydney. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence, he finally wrote on a piece of paper, "Please wake me at 5:00 am".
The next morning the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 am, and that he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn't woken him when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed..it said... "It is 5:00 am, wake up!"
To such marriages it is said – after marriage husband and wife become 2 sides of a coin, they just can’t face each other, but still they live together.
"When you fall, in any way, Don't see the place where you fell, Instead see the place from where you slipped. Life is about correcting mistakes."
I don’t want to take you any further from here. I think they had enough to know how important a step they are going to take now. Let’s pray that the Lord may grant them the grace to build their home on rocky foundation with the solid rocks of gospel values and not on shaky foundation of present day unhealthy cultural trends. Wish you both a happy married life.
BEATITUDES OF MARRIAGE
Blessed are the husband and wife who continue to be affectionate,
considerate, and loving after the wedding bells have ceased ringing.
Blessed are the husband and wife who are as polite and courteous to
one another as they are to their friends.
Blessed are they who love their mates more than any other person in
the world, and who joyfully fulfill their marriage vow of a lifetime
of fidelity and mutual helpfulness to one another.
Blessed are they who attain parenthood, for children are a heritage of
the Lord.
Blessed are they who remember to thank God for their food before they
partake of it, and who set apart some time each day for the reading of
the Bible and for prayer.
Blessed are those mates who never speak loudly to one another, and who
make their home a place "where seldom is heard a discouraging word."
Blessed are the husband and wife who faithfully attend the worship
service of the church, and who work together in the church for the
advancement of Christ's kingdom.
Blessed are the husband and wife who can work out the problems of
adjustment without interference from relatives.
Blessed is the couple which has complete understanding about financial
matters, and have worked out a perfect partnership, with all money
under the control of both.
Blessed are the husband and wife who humbly dedicate their lives and
their homes to Christ, and who practice the teachings of Christ in the
home by being unselfish, loyal and loving.
We are witnessing a great moment in the lives of Emily and Anthony . So far they had been part of two different families but a few moments from now they will be forming a new family of their own. They are going to promise to God and each other and those here present that no matter how frail , ill or weak they would get in their life, they would always be there for each other. So far they were brought up in different families with different backgrounds. Like two creeks join together and become one river they become one. So far they have had different river banks and different waves and ripples and rapids in their lives, but now on they merge together and have only one flow and rapids , one rhythm of waves and share one shore in their life. They unite their minds and hearts together to live together as one.
Marriage is formed when the couples exchange promises to give themselves mutually and freely to each other in a definitive way. I stress the words mutually, freely and definitive way. They are indispensible element of marriage. Free consent to permanent union and the openness to having children are integral part of this sacrament. If these elements are absent, it cannot become a valid marriage. If they say no to any of these essential elements I cannot declare them to be married on behalf of the church.
Remember that there are not two but three parties in this marriage. The couples and God. God joins them. That is why marriage is called indissoluble. Actually they decided to marry not just today, but may be months ago. But that decision did not get an indissoluble nature as it was not confirmed with God’s will. They could give up their decision, even to this point. But now once they are uniting their decision to give each other permanently, permanently, in the will of God – God’s will which is immutable, their marriage becomes indissoluble. Our mind or our decisions change, but not God’s. God has only one decision and he doesn’t keep changing his decisions and plans.
Emily and Anthony, As God unites you today, for happiness and permanence of your marriage you need to pray together every day to God for the success of your marriage. I believe 100 percent success for marriages of those couples who pray every night kneeling together at the edge of their bed and ask God for success of their married life.
Marriage is a sacrament of love and commitment. Jesus said “ No man has greater love than this than laying down one’s life for others. There is no greater bond in this world , in human relationship than the marital bond. Book of Genesis says and man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife. Our bonds with our parents and our children are not intended for permanency. Those bonds become weak in our life, and they leave us at some point in life. But the bond of husband and wife is meant to last till death. The wedding vows take a life time to live out.
After living with his wife for two years a business man husband could not adjust with his wife and so he send his wife home with a note “ your product is not satisfactory. So it is returned”. The girl’s father was also a business man and he sends her back with a note “ Warranty expired , manufacturer is not responsible for it”.
Marriage involves a life time commitment. This commitment involves fidelity. You promise each other “ I promise to be true to you…. This involves you promise to avoid any mister or mistress in your life. This mister or mistress can be -work, a hobby, the children, even volunteer activities that can cut into romance time and the attention a couple needs to devote to each other. You need to spend Time Together. Life becomes busy: Bills need to be paid; the home must be maintained; children require attention. But all of life's demands should not be at the expense of spending quality time together.
You promise unconditional love: Love is a decision and not just a feeling. Love involves putting your partner’s needs before your own. You say in your promise- in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. To love unconditionally is a promise for the future. It has more to do with your decision to love than merely the feeling of love. Can you love him/her when his/her body has lost its vigor and beauty ? Can you love him/her through annoying habits and when he/she hurt you ? Not knowing what changes the future will bring, can you love each other when you become old, ugly, fat or senile ? That’s a lot to say a blind yes to.
You make a covenant with each other. You say: I will love you and honor you… A covenant is a promise that goes deeper than a contract. Contracts are legal documents that spell out rights and duties. Contracts can be broken if one party doesn’t hold up their end. A covenant on the other hand, goes beyond a 50/50 agreement. Sometimes one spouse will need to bend 75% while the other only gives 25%. It is not always fair, but it’s a promise that doesn’t count the cost. The first step in a successful marriage is for both husband and wife to put all their effort into the relationship—each giving 100%!
The three most important things to keep a marriage healthy are commitment, commitment and commitment. With divorce rate hovering around 50%, it may seem that commitment is out of style. It is not that human nature has changed much. But the culture we live in has changed. No longer is there a strong cultural support for a lifelong marriage. We live in a throw away society; if something breaks, our first impulse is to get a new one rather than fix the old. This cultural change contributes to making commitment harder than it used to be. So it is a challenge. It is a call to live in the grace of Jesus. Jesus said: You can do nothing with out me. So it is a life fully trusting the Lord. You may be called to adapt to many factors that are beyond your control. It takes a long time to create a good relationship. A good marriage teaches us that failure is human and forgiveness comes in love.
Sometimes we tend to forget how important togetherness is. We take one another for
granted and bicker about little things. Life is precious, so is your marriage
Communication is one of the most important keys to success. Before marriage, couples often find themselves talking a lot—but this soon diminishes after the wedding day. Communication must continue throughout the marriage. The couple must continue to learn from one another, taking time to share their thoughts and feelings.
Most marriages fail because of a lack of or wrong communication. Seemingly the only type of dialog in many marriages is arguing and fighting. This is not communication! Nothing productive ever comes from this, and it should be avoided at all costs. If the discussion escalates, both must make a point to apologize immediately.
A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment.
The next week the man realized that he would need his wife to wake him at 5.00 am for an early flight to Sydney. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence, he finally wrote on a piece of paper, "Please wake me at 5:00 am".
The next morning the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 am, and that he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn't woken him when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed..it said... "It is 5:00 am, wake up!"
To such marriages it is said – after marriage husband and wife become 2 sides of a coin, they just can’t face each other, but still they live together.
"When you fall, in any way, Don't see the place where you fell, Instead see the place from where you slipped. Life is about correcting mistakes."
I don’t want to take you any further from here. I think they had enough to know how important a step they are going to take now. Let’s pray that the Lord may grant them the grace to build their home on rocky foundation with the solid rocks of gospel values and not on shaky foundation of present day unhealthy cultural trends. Wish you both a happy married life.
BEATITUDES OF MARRIAGE
Blessed are the husband and wife who continue to be affectionate,
considerate, and loving after the wedding bells have ceased ringing.
Blessed are the husband and wife who are as polite and courteous to
one another as they are to their friends.
Blessed are they who love their mates more than any other person in
the world, and who joyfully fulfill their marriage vow of a lifetime
of fidelity and mutual helpfulness to one another.
Blessed are they who attain parenthood, for children are a heritage of
the Lord.
Blessed are they who remember to thank God for their food before they
partake of it, and who set apart some time each day for the reading of
the Bible and for prayer.
Blessed are those mates who never speak loudly to one another, and who
make their home a place "where seldom is heard a discouraging word."
Blessed are the husband and wife who faithfully attend the worship
service of the church, and who work together in the church for the
advancement of Christ's kingdom.
Blessed are the husband and wife who can work out the problems of
adjustment without interference from relatives.
Blessed is the couple which has complete understanding about financial
matters, and have worked out a perfect partnership, with all money
under the control of both.
Blessed are the husband and wife who humbly dedicate their lives and
their homes to Christ, and who practice the teachings of Christ in the
home by being unselfish, loyal and loving.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
FUNERAL HOMILY
FUNERAL HOMILY- HERBERT A.HASSE
2.Mac.12:43-46; Rom.8:31-39; Mathew 11:25-30
Come to me all you labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Every one in this world labors .. for what ? We all labour for love. To love and be loved. I dress up well so that people may appreciate me and I get loved, noticed. Everyone in this world strive for this. All our life is engaged for this. And only at death we get rest from this constant labor. Only Jesus can free us from this because he is Love. We don’t have to work hard to earn his love. He says take my yoke upon you. My yoke is easy. To get being loved by Jesus is easy. It is easy to please the Lord. Just obey him. You can never please anybody perfectly in this world. Even if you give all you have, others’ love for us is not guaranteed and it would wane at some point in time. But not the Lord’s. So Jesus calls us – come to me. The Lord called Herbert to him and provides him rest. And Herb is happy about it. But we miss him. Why do we miss him ? Because he was loved by us. We don’t miss anybody who has been wicked or evil to us. So the feeling of being missed is a good feeling in one sense.
When we look at a ship standing at the seashore looks large and big. As the ship goes further out in the sea, the size of it grows less and less in our sight. And finally when it goes quite far into the sea it might look very small and we know it is very vulnerable, means it has the danger of being sunk. Our life is something like this. When the ship is close the shore it is our young age. But when it goes further out it is like being in old age. Just like the ship goes further and further and goes out of sight – we grow old and finally we know at a point in time we will die/disappear from the sight. The ship’s going out of sight doesn’t mean it is no more. The ship exists in the same way it was before but at a different location.
Human life is like this. Herb’s death is not the end of him. He continues to live. The Preface of the Mass states "Lord, for your faithful people, life is changed, not ended". We can be close to Herb by praying for him and he will be close to us by praying for us. The church is in three states really, the saints in heaven, the souls in purgatory being purified before entering heaven, and we, the living here on earth. We believe that we are all united, we the living, the souls in purgatory and the saints in heaven, all united around Jesus’ cross and resurrection. This is the communion of saints that we profess our faith in the Apostles creed.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the body and life ever lasting.
Even though you don’t find any reference to purgatory in the Bible, the church believes that it gives a testimony of God’s love. Bible says nothing unclean enters heaven. And the bible says at another place that every one, even the just, commits sins at least 7 times a day. So if everyone commits sin how can anyone enter heaven. There should be a state where we can get the impurities cleaned – and so the church believes that it is the state of purgatory. This belief of the church is based on the Old testament belief which we heard in the first reading from 2 Maccabees. They offered sacrifice for their dead ones. We have gathered here not so much to talk about Herb, but to pray for him. We believe that our prayer here can help Herb where he is now.
Paul says that Jesus stands at God’s right hand and pleads for us. Yes there is a judgment and our sins are the evidence against us but Jesus is representing our cause. We can imagine Jesus saying something like this to the Father, “Father, this is Herbert. I died for him. Yes, like every human he did sin, but I am pleading for him now. I am asking you to disregard those sins because I died for him. Instead of looking on his sins I am asking you Father to look on me, your Son, dying on the cross for Herb and for everyone. I have paid the price that had to be paid for his sins.” We could have no better lawyer to represent us before God our Father than his Son Jesus who died for us. The second reading gives a list of things that will not come between us and the love of God and it says neither life nor death will come between us and the love of God.
In the program card it is written “ Herbert born on …. And born to eternal life on… death is our birthday. In the early church the day on which one died was regarded as one’s birthday, because on that day one is born into eternal life with God. This lingers on in our church because we celebrate a saint’s feast day not on the day of his/her birth but on the day he/she died. Our life here is short and it is represented by a dash. Born in 1919 – 2009. So our life is a short one in comparison to the eternal life.
When we consider that we are chosen by God and precious to God, then death is a going home to our loving Father. John in his first letter writes, “In love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love.” (1 John 4:18) When we know that death is our loving Father calling us, who has chosen us from all eternity, therefore there is no room for fear, fear is driven out. (Imagine your tensions and anxiety when you are told to move to another Nursing home /independent living. If you love the life here, if you are loved by everyone here, you wouldn’t want to move to another place. Even if the management of the other Nursing home tells you that it will be very good. A child in the womb is so comfortable there and once is born it misses the pleasant condition it enjoyed there. That is why a child cries as soon as it is born. This is the feeling all the dying people have at the time of death. Denying the life after death is like a child in the womb there is no life outside its mother’s womb.
For those of us living we do not know how much time is remaining for us here on earth. There is a gap between this life and the next. A caterpillar could never tell how beautiful it would become as a butterfly with beautiful wings. The unborn baby could never understand what a gap there is between life in the womb and life in the world. So are we . We don’t know how much time is there for us remaining to be born to eternal life.
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus we hear Abraham telling the rich man that no one can go from heaven to hell and hell to heaven , nor any one is permitted to go back to warn the living. This condition of the soul can be illustrated by a simile. Imagine a pond. At the bottom of the pond little grubs were crawling around. They wonder what happens to their members who climb up the stem of the lily and never come back. “I wonder what its like up there.” They agree among themselves that the next one who is called to the surface will come back. The next little grub that finds itself drawn to the surface by nature crawls up the stem and out on the surface on the lily leaf. It was really bright up there. It had been so dark and murky down below. They won’t believe this. Suddenly something begins to happen. The grub begins to open out. The grub spreads out two huge beautiful colored wings and becomes a beautiful dragonfly. It never imagines that this could have happened. It thought it would remain a grub forever. It flew back and forth across the pond. It could see the other grubs in the pond below but they couldn’t see it. It realized there was no way it could get back and that they could not recognize such a beautiful creature as ever having been one of them.
Our human condition is also something like this grub and dragonfly. Though they both were one, but two different stages of the one and the same being. We see a lot of other similar examples in this world. Like how a seed becomes a plant. One has to die to be the other. This same phenomenon happens in our life too. Herb doesn’t need to know all these things now, because he already knows. But we do need to know because we need to prepare ourselves and get ourselves ready for this transformation that is due in our life. Though this memorial is for Herb, it is primarily for us who had seen him and shared our life with him. He wants us to remember that the stage he is in now we also will be one day. The memory of Herb is fond for us. His kind nature, his simplicity, cheerfulness, and his soft spoken nature, everything speaks to us that he had been a happy man, ready for his encounter with the Lord at this ripe age. Our tribute to him is well paid and his memory is well made when we pray for him at the Eucharist. Lets pray that his gentle soul be received into God’s eternal peace.
2.Mac.12:43-46; Rom.8:31-39; Mathew 11:25-30
Come to me all you labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Every one in this world labors .. for what ? We all labour for love. To love and be loved. I dress up well so that people may appreciate me and I get loved, noticed. Everyone in this world strive for this. All our life is engaged for this. And only at death we get rest from this constant labor. Only Jesus can free us from this because he is Love. We don’t have to work hard to earn his love. He says take my yoke upon you. My yoke is easy. To get being loved by Jesus is easy. It is easy to please the Lord. Just obey him. You can never please anybody perfectly in this world. Even if you give all you have, others’ love for us is not guaranteed and it would wane at some point in time. But not the Lord’s. So Jesus calls us – come to me. The Lord called Herbert to him and provides him rest. And Herb is happy about it. But we miss him. Why do we miss him ? Because he was loved by us. We don’t miss anybody who has been wicked or evil to us. So the feeling of being missed is a good feeling in one sense.
When we look at a ship standing at the seashore looks large and big. As the ship goes further out in the sea, the size of it grows less and less in our sight. And finally when it goes quite far into the sea it might look very small and we know it is very vulnerable, means it has the danger of being sunk. Our life is something like this. When the ship is close the shore it is our young age. But when it goes further out it is like being in old age. Just like the ship goes further and further and goes out of sight – we grow old and finally we know at a point in time we will die/disappear from the sight. The ship’s going out of sight doesn’t mean it is no more. The ship exists in the same way it was before but at a different location.
Human life is like this. Herb’s death is not the end of him. He continues to live. The Preface of the Mass states "Lord, for your faithful people, life is changed, not ended". We can be close to Herb by praying for him and he will be close to us by praying for us. The church is in three states really, the saints in heaven, the souls in purgatory being purified before entering heaven, and we, the living here on earth. We believe that we are all united, we the living, the souls in purgatory and the saints in heaven, all united around Jesus’ cross and resurrection. This is the communion of saints that we profess our faith in the Apostles creed.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the body and life ever lasting.
Even though you don’t find any reference to purgatory in the Bible, the church believes that it gives a testimony of God’s love. Bible says nothing unclean enters heaven. And the bible says at another place that every one, even the just, commits sins at least 7 times a day. So if everyone commits sin how can anyone enter heaven. There should be a state where we can get the impurities cleaned – and so the church believes that it is the state of purgatory. This belief of the church is based on the Old testament belief which we heard in the first reading from 2 Maccabees. They offered sacrifice for their dead ones. We have gathered here not so much to talk about Herb, but to pray for him. We believe that our prayer here can help Herb where he is now.
Paul says that Jesus stands at God’s right hand and pleads for us. Yes there is a judgment and our sins are the evidence against us but Jesus is representing our cause. We can imagine Jesus saying something like this to the Father, “Father, this is Herbert. I died for him. Yes, like every human he did sin, but I am pleading for him now. I am asking you to disregard those sins because I died for him. Instead of looking on his sins I am asking you Father to look on me, your Son, dying on the cross for Herb and for everyone. I have paid the price that had to be paid for his sins.” We could have no better lawyer to represent us before God our Father than his Son Jesus who died for us. The second reading gives a list of things that will not come between us and the love of God and it says neither life nor death will come between us and the love of God.
In the program card it is written “ Herbert born on …. And born to eternal life on… death is our birthday. In the early church the day on which one died was regarded as one’s birthday, because on that day one is born into eternal life with God. This lingers on in our church because we celebrate a saint’s feast day not on the day of his/her birth but on the day he/she died. Our life here is short and it is represented by a dash. Born in 1919 – 2009. So our life is a short one in comparison to the eternal life.
When we consider that we are chosen by God and precious to God, then death is a going home to our loving Father. John in his first letter writes, “In love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love.” (1 John 4:18) When we know that death is our loving Father calling us, who has chosen us from all eternity, therefore there is no room for fear, fear is driven out. (Imagine your tensions and anxiety when you are told to move to another Nursing home /independent living. If you love the life here, if you are loved by everyone here, you wouldn’t want to move to another place. Even if the management of the other Nursing home tells you that it will be very good. A child in the womb is so comfortable there and once is born it misses the pleasant condition it enjoyed there. That is why a child cries as soon as it is born. This is the feeling all the dying people have at the time of death. Denying the life after death is like a child in the womb there is no life outside its mother’s womb.
For those of us living we do not know how much time is remaining for us here on earth. There is a gap between this life and the next. A caterpillar could never tell how beautiful it would become as a butterfly with beautiful wings. The unborn baby could never understand what a gap there is between life in the womb and life in the world. So are we . We don’t know how much time is there for us remaining to be born to eternal life.
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus we hear Abraham telling the rich man that no one can go from heaven to hell and hell to heaven , nor any one is permitted to go back to warn the living. This condition of the soul can be illustrated by a simile. Imagine a pond. At the bottom of the pond little grubs were crawling around. They wonder what happens to their members who climb up the stem of the lily and never come back. “I wonder what its like up there.” They agree among themselves that the next one who is called to the surface will come back. The next little grub that finds itself drawn to the surface by nature crawls up the stem and out on the surface on the lily leaf. It was really bright up there. It had been so dark and murky down below. They won’t believe this. Suddenly something begins to happen. The grub begins to open out. The grub spreads out two huge beautiful colored wings and becomes a beautiful dragonfly. It never imagines that this could have happened. It thought it would remain a grub forever. It flew back and forth across the pond. It could see the other grubs in the pond below but they couldn’t see it. It realized there was no way it could get back and that they could not recognize such a beautiful creature as ever having been one of them.
Our human condition is also something like this grub and dragonfly. Though they both were one, but two different stages of the one and the same being. We see a lot of other similar examples in this world. Like how a seed becomes a plant. One has to die to be the other. This same phenomenon happens in our life too. Herb doesn’t need to know all these things now, because he already knows. But we do need to know because we need to prepare ourselves and get ourselves ready for this transformation that is due in our life. Though this memorial is for Herb, it is primarily for us who had seen him and shared our life with him. He wants us to remember that the stage he is in now we also will be one day. The memory of Herb is fond for us. His kind nature, his simplicity, cheerfulness, and his soft spoken nature, everything speaks to us that he had been a happy man, ready for his encounter with the Lord at this ripe age. Our tribute to him is well paid and his memory is well made when we pray for him at the Eucharist. Lets pray that his gentle soul be received into God’s eternal peace.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Saturday,14th November.
Saturday, LUKE 18:1-8
Scripture and life have taught us that God listens to perseverant people, to those who wholeheartedly and persistently pray, to those whose actions are aligned with and in support of their prayers. Jesus sets this parable before us as a model of how we are to pursue the life of prayer. St Augustine says that The Lord taught us not to pray with much speaking, as if we were more likely to be heard by the more words we used. He said, ‘The Father knows what you need before you ask him.’ It may seem strange, then, that though he cautions us against much speaking, and the Father knows what we need before we ask for it, Jesus still urges us to pray: “to pray always and not lose heart.”
Augustine was quite clear that the unjust judge in the story was not an image of God. “By no means does that unjust judge furnish an allegorical representation of God.” Jesus is not comparing them, but contrasting them. If an unjust judge can respond to persistent requests, how much more will the good God? “The Lord wishes us to infer how much care God bestows on those who beseech him, for God is both just and good.”
It is for our own sakes that we have to be persistent, and not because God is reluctant to give us what we need. It is ourselves we have to convince. Much of the time we hardly know what we want, let alone what we need. By concentrating our prayer we are making ourselves ready to receive what God is going to give – or to be without what God is going to withhold. We are co-operating with God's work in us.
Furthermore, Jesus tells us that God will be quick in His replies. Nonetheless, most of us are deficient in our prayer life. Few of us follow a solid and demanding prayer schedule. Perhaps we pray now and then. Or we pray when we feel a particular need for extra help, but especially when we are in trouble, in fear, in danger, or when we are worried and anxious. Sometimes we even use prayers to give God marching orders — along the lines of "my will be done" rather than "your will be done", the original version taught by Jesus. When God does not seem to comply with our wishes; that becomes the moment to test our purity of intention.
Unlike the persistent widow, we have all had responses other than what we expected from God. How we accept them reveals a lot about how much we want God's will and how much we are attached to our own will. We might think that the injunction to "pray always" is exaggerated, along the lines of "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." But Jesus is the Truth, and he is not given to cheap words and slogans.
When Jesus says something, he means it: Be perfect, pray always. These
are more than suggestions. Ask the Lord for the grace to be constant in our prayer.
Scripture and life have taught us that God listens to perseverant people, to those who wholeheartedly and persistently pray, to those whose actions are aligned with and in support of their prayers. Jesus sets this parable before us as a model of how we are to pursue the life of prayer. St Augustine says that The Lord taught us not to pray with much speaking, as if we were more likely to be heard by the more words we used. He said, ‘The Father knows what you need before you ask him.’ It may seem strange, then, that though he cautions us against much speaking, and the Father knows what we need before we ask for it, Jesus still urges us to pray: “to pray always and not lose heart.”
Augustine was quite clear that the unjust judge in the story was not an image of God. “By no means does that unjust judge furnish an allegorical representation of God.” Jesus is not comparing them, but contrasting them. If an unjust judge can respond to persistent requests, how much more will the good God? “The Lord wishes us to infer how much care God bestows on those who beseech him, for God is both just and good.”
It is for our own sakes that we have to be persistent, and not because God is reluctant to give us what we need. It is ourselves we have to convince. Much of the time we hardly know what we want, let alone what we need. By concentrating our prayer we are making ourselves ready to receive what God is going to give – or to be without what God is going to withhold. We are co-operating with God's work in us.
Furthermore, Jesus tells us that God will be quick in His replies. Nonetheless, most of us are deficient in our prayer life. Few of us follow a solid and demanding prayer schedule. Perhaps we pray now and then. Or we pray when we feel a particular need for extra help, but especially when we are in trouble, in fear, in danger, or when we are worried and anxious. Sometimes we even use prayers to give God marching orders — along the lines of "my will be done" rather than "your will be done", the original version taught by Jesus. When God does not seem to comply with our wishes; that becomes the moment to test our purity of intention.
Unlike the persistent widow, we have all had responses other than what we expected from God. How we accept them reveals a lot about how much we want God's will and how much we are attached to our own will. We might think that the injunction to "pray always" is exaggerated, along the lines of "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." But Jesus is the Truth, and he is not given to cheap words and slogans.
When Jesus says something, he means it: Be perfect, pray always. These
are more than suggestions. Ask the Lord for the grace to be constant in our prayer.
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