Homily

Change is a funny thing. We can enjoy wearing new clothes, visiting places we have never been before, trying out different types of food, or buying an iPhone 36. These are changes we like. At the same time, we do not think that all change is good just because it is different. Politicians we don't like may be elected to office, today's weather may not be pleasant, your favorite TV program gets cancelled. You may find that you are ten pounds heavier, 200 hairs lighter, needing a new prescription for your eyeglasses which will only help you to see all the more clearly the new wrinkles that have made a home on your face. Just as we can love things that are new and fresh and different, we can also dislike and even fear things that are new and different.

Last week my sister told us siblings that our childhood home was up for sale and we should go online and check out some of the changes the last owner made to the house. This was the only house all of us had ever lived in, the house my parents built in 1954. My mother suffered from severe, crippling arthritis for many, many years but the time finally came when it was no longer possible for her to remain at home in safety and comfort, so she went into a nursing home. That was in 2012. A few months later I went back to my hometown to visit her and the family, and during that visit I stayed in our house, which now sat vacant, except for me.

My dad had died seven years earlier, and now, sitting in that house, I realized my mother would never set foot in it again after 58 years of calling it home. She would never again see this furniture or the view outside these windows, or use this stove to cook a meal, or welcome her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren into her home. This was the tiny house that she and my dad built those many years ago and now, in different ways, they had both been forced to leave it behind. A big change for them, and a big change for me as well.

All the old neighbors on the street from the days of my childhood are gone, all the many relatives who lived on streets nearby, they too were all gone, all those houses now occupied by other people, other families. And of course, even in my hometown in general, many, many things have changed over the years and they will continue to change as time goes on.

That time, going home meant something very different than it ever had before. I was struck with a new awareness of how dramatically, how radically things can change, how they do change, and how they will change—and it made a big impression on me at that time, I guess because I saw life from a different perspective as I moved around, all by myself, in that childhood home where five kids were raised. All things change. All things change. And many things change in ways we do not like.

I never thought in any way, shape, or form that I would ever be preaching to a bunch of men and women wearing masks, but here we are. Think of all the changes that have come into our lives just in the past year. Some changes, no doubt, have been great. Other changes have been difficult, or even painful. We don’t mind the good changes, but we struggle with the hard ones, and sometimes we fear that change will only bring troubles and sadness.

Nothing lasts. Not even us. So what can you count on, what can you tie yourself to, how can we face up to the fact that change means even many of our loved ones will die and that we ourselves will follow them to the grave? What can you count on in this whirling storm of change that we often like to think we can control but that is usually very much beyond our power?

Only Jesus Christ—He alone is our anchor, our source of stability, our place of refuge, our only lasting hope, and the provider of our true and eternal life. As scripture says, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That is why St. Paul says today that he is crucified to the world. He is not dead to the world, but he is dead to the idea of trying to find his life within the every-changing ups and downs of worldly existence. Christ alone is his boast. Christ alone is his life. All things may change, all time moves on, even daylight savings time, and the face of the world is in constant motion between life and death, good and evil, hope and despair, love, and hatred. We can try to sail on those waves of change by ourselves or we can get in the boat with Jesus and do our best to live as He has taught us, putting our trust and our hope in Him alone. What we cannot do, He can do, if we let Him; to make the one change we truly need—that His life becomes our life.