Homily

As we heard in the Gospel on the feast of the Ascension, before He left the apostles Jesus told them, “Wait here in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Power from on high? What could that mean? Wait in the city? Wait for how long? Oh, the apostle’s heads must have been spinning as they waited, wondering what would happen next. It would take ten days and I can see them every day asking the question, “Will it be today?” But if it was me, after three or four days I think I would have started to get a little anxious, and after six or seven days start to wonder if anything really was going to happen.

Waiting. Some of us are better at it, and some of us have a more difficult time. But mostly people do not like to wait. Some common places we have to wait are in the grocery store checkout line, or at the bank waiting for a teller. I remember once when I was in line at the grocery store and the woman ahead of me waits until every item is scanned and bagged. Then she pulls up her purse and opens it. She pulls out her wallet and unsnaps it. Then she looks for her debit card and puts it into the card reader. The clerk tells her to enter her phone number. She has trouble. Slow as molasses in winter she finally gets through the paying process. I was getting just a little impatient because I had to wait for all of this. I was losing valuable time, maybe two minutes, or even three, of valuable time because she was, in effect, holding me hostage by her slow method of paying. (And do you mind if I tell you my personal favorite in line? It’s when cash is being used to pay. First comes the wallet out of the purse, and then the little coin purse, because the exact amount will be rendered. One coin, another coin, another coin, then “I’m sure I have a nickel in here somewhere” as we enter the treasure hunt phase of purchasing groceries.)

So, let’s get back to the two minutes of valuable time I had lost. First of all, the woman wasn’t holding me hostage in the grocery line of course. I was still, actually, a free man. Secondly, how would I have so expertly, efficiently and wonderfully used those two minutes somewhere else? Because, as you all must suspect, I never waste any time at all. But I have noticed things. After I left the store I had to wait thirty seconds for the man at the gas station to take my card. Then I had to wait at a number of traffic lights all the way home. I begin to think about how our lives are filled with things we have to wait for, including the end of this homily. (But don’t worry, it won’t be long now.) Wait for this thing, wait for that thing, waiting for seconds, waiting for months or years, waiting for things that have a definite time period and waiting for things we hope may happen, or we fear may happen but have no idea how long it will take. One of the reasons we get impatient with waiting sometimes is because we are not in control. We must pause, stop, hold back until the wait time comes to an end and we may not be happy that we have to wait until we can move forward. This is why God invented the yellow in the traffic lights, so that as we approach the intersection, we will not lose hope.

In a certain sense, our whole life is a life of waiting—waiting until we see the face of Christ. When we see that face, He will tell us “come” or He will tell us “GO.” But our lives are lives waiting to see Him, whether we know it or not, whether we remember it or not. So how do we spend this waiting time? Jesus gives us the grace we need to live in His divine life if we are not distracted by the other things we are waiting for. If we spend this waiting time well, we will see His face in joy. In today’s Gospel we heard Jesus say, “This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”

There is always the danger of seeing our Christian faith as a faith of doing. Doing good and not doing evil, that’s what it is all about. Indeed, if you see the way government and society often view the Christian faith it is often just as a way of worshipping or else as a way to help people in need. But in fact, our faith is first about relationship—love God with all your might and your neighbor as yourself. Those are relationships. Now relationships require us to do things, but they are greater than the doing of things. So, in this, my entire lifetime of waiting to see Christ, it is about living in Him now so that I might see Him later. Yes, it means doing good and avoiding evil. But it is within my relationship to Christ, which is joined to my relationship with my neighbor that will reveal Who I am truly waiting for—or not. Yes, we are called to do good, but more important than that, we are called to be good, living in grace, as our Lord Himself is all good. So, this waiting time is not about getting as much work done as possible, but rather about our relationship with Christ, and also with our neighbor. It’s about living in holiness and living in love.

Yesterday I posted on Facebook a part of the story of the Romanian Greek Catholic priest, Fr. Tertullian Langa. Arrested, as a layman, a professor of philosophy, who would not renounce his soon-to-be-illegal Catholic faith, he spent 16 years in a Romanian Communist gulag-prison system. Early on he was interrogated. Tied hand and foot, he was hung upside down. They beat the souls of his feet with an iron rod. The pain and the terror were so great he found that he couldn’t even cry out. The guards took this as a sign that he was a fanatic, so they applied their torture with greater force, day after day. I won’t tell you here about the rest of the tortures they applied to him over time, but he spent all those years in prison never once denying Christ or His Church. He was waiting. Not in peace and health like I am.

He writes: “Nothing in life happens by chance. Every moment the Lord gives us is fraught with Grace—the benevolent impatience of God—and with our will to respond to it or refuse it. It is up to each one of us not to reduce everything to a hard, fierce, unbelievable tale, but to understand that the acceptance of Grace does not hinder man, but carries him beyond his expectations and powers. I sincerely hope that my testimony will open a window into Heaven. Because it is greater, the Heaven above us, than the earth beneath our feet.”

So, we are waiting, like the apostles were. Like Fr. Langa was. But we’re not waiting for power from on high; we already have access to that power as this Romanian confessor shows us. We are waiting until we see Jesus face to face. Because at that time there will be no more waiting for all eternity, because we will have reached the fulfillment of everything we were ever born to be. We wait now for things to change—at that time there can be no change, for all will be perfect, all will be love, all will be glory.

While we have the waiting for eternity going on, we also have those smaller daily waitings, at stop lights, in stores, at the doctor’s office. And every little pause and wait is an opportunity to give praise to Christ our Lord. May we all live, so that we may all die, waiting to see His face.