Homily - Sunday
Deacon David Lewis
Saint Charles Catholic Church, Imperial Beach / San Diego, CA
Today’s Gospel story reminded me of
the recent confirmation retreat we just went on. There were the thirty plus
confirmation students, about a dozen core team high school students, and a
handful of us adult chaperones, about fifty in all. Like James, John and Peter
we went “up the mountain” also to get away from the world to retreat and be
with Jesus, and even though there was a desire to be overcome by sleep like Gospel
mentioned, once we got there, sleep seemed less necessary. And also like James
Peter and John, for many of us on the retreat, how we saw Jesus in our lives went
through a transformation as well.
That transformation is what is most
magnificent about the retreat… that is - the kids go up to the retreat with
years of catechism behind them. They have been learning ABOUT Jesus for many
years. They had a picture of what Jesus was like, had learned about the many
miracles he performed, they know of Jesus’ love for them, and they were taught
of his sacrifice that He made on the cross, so that we may have forgiveness…
but with all that learning, with all they KNOW about Jesus, many have never had
an ENCOUNTER with Jesus, many did not have a relationship with Jesus... And I
imagine that is the way it is with a lot of us Catholics, we KNOW ABOUT Jesus, but
don’t have a relationship with him.
We wouldn’t do this with anything
else in our lives, we wouldn’t research a someone we found attractive, asking their
friends their favorite color, food, and tv show, we wouldn’t go finding out
what sports they like, what instrument they play, and what foreign languages they
speak… and then go around and call them a loved one, that first would be very
creepy… but we would need to be in a relationship with someone before we call
them a loved one… but yet we often do that with God… we go to Mass each Sunday,
we may pick up our Bible at home on occasion… we might even take a class about
our faith or attend a presentation now and then, but when it comes to visiting
the adoration chapel, or sitting alone praying in a quiet part of the world, or
even going on retreat, we often fail to do it as often as we should. And for
some of us when it comes to making sacrifices for God, we may fall short, we
continue to put other things in front of God that block us for experiencing him
fully.
I think Jesus was on to something
when he went up the mountain to pray, allowing Peter, James, John, and himself
to get away from the others, to pray, to rest perhaps, and to just be with Jesus,
to experience him more fully.
I encourage you to take a retreat.
Whether it is a weekend long or a week long.
It might be a retreat with a
retreat leader or even a team, or a retreat that you follow through meditations
in a book. Whether it is an active retreat with events and activities, or a
quiet contemplative, meditative retreat with lots of deep thought. They all can be effective ways of deepening
your relationship with God.
You might not be up for a long
retreat, I understand, maybe a day trip to the woods, or a hike along a trail
may be all you need to give you the solitude to remove the distractions of life
and be alone with Jesus. And you don’t necessarily need to be alone either, you
can do it with others: My wife and I went to a park and just sat under a shade
tree and read some reflections out of a book we purchased from a Catholic
bookstore. Just the two of us - and Jesus, Cel phones were left in the car– and
we just spent the time getting to know Jesus better, together.
Father Jim has made it super easy
too, there is a Lenten retreat coming up in two weeks on Saturday morning on
March 5th in the hall, you could take some time out for that.
Maybe you don’t even need to call
it a retreat. Maybe it only needs to be as simple as gathering the family,
turning off the hand-held gadgets, the TV, and the radio, and cleaning off the
table of all the old mail, putting out the plates, and silverware, and having a
proper dinner together, starting with grace, complete with face to face
real-live interaction with your family. A time to reconnect with them, and getting
to know them better.
Just this last Thursday I saw a
pretty profound video ( VIDEO HERE ) posted on Facebook. It showed couples, mothers and fathers
walking in and sitting down to be interviewed one couple at a time, they were asked:
“Who, living or dead, would you like to have dinner with?” Multiple couples
were asked. The answers were all over the place, one wife said Justin Bieber to
whom the husband balked and said no way is he coming into our house, others said
Marilyn Monroe and Jimmy Hendrix, others went deeper, thinking about people
that made a difference, one mentioning Nelson Mandela for example. Take a
moment and think who would you want to have dinner with?
Perhaps you would answer Jesus, you
could have your own little Last Supper, or perhaps a grandfather you never got
to know who could share some of the great stories about your family history
with you. It really would be quite an opportunity to sit with whomever you wished.
Or … you could follow the wisdom of
a child…
You see, the video then jumps to
some more interviews, this time the it’s children of the same couples. They too
were asked the same question: “If you could have dinner with anyone, living or
dead, who would it be.” This time the answers weren’t that varied, time and again,
the theme was the same: One group of siblings said “The whole family, you know
the extended family”, another child asked, “Does it have to be a celebrity? I
would like to have dinner with my Mom and Dad”, and yet another replied “Mom
and Dad, because they ask us how our day was, and they also tell us how their
day went.” Over and over the children just wanted to have dinner with family…
Lately I have been binge watching all
the past episodes of “Blue Bloods” with Tom Selleck. Its’ got a good foundation
in family values. One of the things that happens every episode is the family
gets together every Sunday for dinner, around the table, they start with grace,
and while they are eating, the conversations go on about the struggles they are
having at work, the moral questions they face on the job and at school, the
good deeds done, and those done to them.
You see gathering around a table to
break bread together is a great way to put the world aside for a moment, and
get to know those you love better. While dinner is a great way to get to know
your family better, a retreat is a great way to put the world aside and get to
know God better.
So using Jesus’ example of taking
those that were closest to Him up a mountain to pray: I encourage you to take
the time to get to know your loved ones better, not by knowing about them, but
by getting into a deeper relationship with them, experiencing them face to face
with no distractions.
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