Homily - Sunday
October 15, 2017
Tattoo of our soul
Matthew 22:1-14 (Readings) Parable of the King's Wedding Feast
Deacon David Lewis
Saint Charles Catholic Church, Imperial Beach / San Diego, CA
I felt God was trying to tell me something when a couple
of times this week the theme of tattoos kept coming into my life. The first,
was a post on one of the navy Facebook pages I follow, It was a picture of an
old faded slightly blurry tattoo on the arm of what I could only imagine was old
sailor, it was of a pretty young lady wearing a sailor cap, the young man that
posted it was wondering if any one might know where to find the original
artwork to match this World War II era tattoo. He wanted to honor his
grandfather by getting the identical tattoo on his own arm.
Then later in the week, while listening to “The
Catholic Guy” show on Sirius satellite Radio’s Catholic Channel, the host, Lino
Rulli, “The Catholic Guy” shared that the tattoo he had gotten while on
pilgrimage recently to the Holy Land as a sign of his faith was going to take a
lot more care, and was causing him more discomfort than he expected. He thought
it would just be a quick get the tattoo, cover it for a few hours, put on some
ointment and maybe a bandage for a few days and he’d be all healed up.
As it turns out, and little did I know, (as I had somehow
made it into and out of the navy without a tattoo), that tattoos require more
care than both Lino and I would have guessed… but when he went to the internet
seeking advice for the treatment of his new tattoo, there was a lot of
contradictory information… do you use a lotion, or no lotion, if a lotion, what
lotion… antibacterial? Do you apply it with or without a wash cloth… pick the
scab, don’t pick the scab, peel the skin do peel the skin, all these questions
had no definitive, uniform answer, but a bunch of disagreeing, contradictory
answers.
The next day I was receiving a delivery at work and
my tattooed co-worker and the delivery driver struck up a conversation about
his tattoos, and it turns out the driver’s co-worker just had a big tattoo done
to the tune of $450 bucks. I thought to myself I would rather have a new big
screen or a new iPad than a tattoo.
There was more about tattoos, as I
came back into my office, I came across a story of “Why are woman getting
tattoos of a semi colon?”. The reason turns out to be pretty profound. You see
the semi-colon, that punctuation that looks like a dot over a comma, indicates
that the sentence goes on. The author could have stopped the sentence there
with a period, but choose to place a semi-colon instead and continue the sentence.
Much in the same way as many of the people choosing semi-colon tattoos, this punctuation
mark indicates that at some point in their life, instead of ending… they
continued, that instead of giving up, or letting something get the better of them,
they kept going. Perhaps they beat depression, beat an addiction, or have healed
from a bad relationship, THEY are now living the rest of their life, the part
after the semi colon.
I began to realize how important and
related these stories of tattoos were; that each of these tattoos was
meaningful to the person getting them. Each was a permanent sign of heritage,
character, belief, or unity. That each was a sacrifice, whether financial or
physical.
But I also realized that each
person’s tattoo is personal, meaningful to them in a way that we may not
understand. That if we were to see a young man with a sailor tattoo, we would
presume he was in the navy, but we would likely not realize the underlining,
deeper meaning linking that tattoo to his grandfather, and the influence his
grandfather’s service played in him choosing the Navy for a career. We may have
seen a semi-colon tattoo and thought to ourselves, “Well that sure is odd, I
wonder if she is an author?” Never
knowing the underlining story of heartbreak, healing, and courage that prompted
that semi-colon.
Today’s Gospel message is about God inviting
us to heaven as illustrated by Jesus’ parable of a king inviting guests to a
wedding feast.
Our first step in accepting that
invitation is Baptism. Our baptism is the beginning of our life as Christians,
as followers of Christ, as Catholics. Baptism is often described as leaving an indelible
mark on our soul, a tattoo if you will, that forever, and permanently marks us
as Christians.
In many ways we get to choose what our tattoo
ultimately looks like by the many choices we make in our lives. Each action
more ink on the canvas that is our soul.
Like that first sailor’s tattoo, we may
choose to follow in the footsteps of others and mimic what they did, following
in line with our ancestors, or if they are not worthy of molding ourselves
after, we might choose to follow the Saints as examples.
Like that second tattoo of Lino’s, our
Christian lives will require great sacrifice and care. To truly live our lives
as Christians, to live like Christ lived, means that we will need do more for
others than we expect, to spend more time building a relationship with God than
we expected, but also like Lino I encourage you to use caution when going to
the internet looking for answers for how to care for your faith, it is full of
mis-information and contradictory information.
And like the third tattoo that cost $450, our faith
can be expensive. No this is not a pep talk about the capital campaign, I am
talking about personal sacrifice… it
will cost us more in personal sacrifice the bigger we live our Christian lives,
it may cost us friends, it may costs us our job, it may put us on the outside
of groups we desired to be a part of, it may even lead to Martyrdom -- dying
for our faith.
But the ultimate message of our faith is like that
of the semi-colon tattoo. That at the moment we don’t feel we can go on, at
that moment that we feel we have reached the end of what we can handle, God gives
us the strength, and the hope to insert a semi-colon. That even death holds no
strength on us as Christians, that our lives end with a semi-colon, that we
have the invitation to join God at the wedding banquet in heaven.
Unlike most tattoos, our faith offers us the ability
to make changes to that tattoo, so that when we make choices that blemishes the
beauty of the artwork on our soul, we need only confess our sins, and wipe away
those blemishes, so that the tattoo we bring to heaven on our soul is worthy of
being our wedding garment.
I encourage you to invite others to enjoy the heavenly
wedding feast, whether through baptism, or if already baptized encourage them
to bring beauty to their tattoo, whether in your family, or among your friends
or coworkers, invite them to come to enjoy an earthly life that ends with a
semi-colon, so that they too may join with God for all eternity, in a joyful
celebration of their unblemished soul brought to heaven.
