Homily

“If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” When I was a boy I tried it. More than once. We read the Gospel passage in Catholic school and I wanted to see if I could get up enough faith to see this happen. We didn’t have mountains where I lived in Ohio, but that was okay. I understood the basic principle involved. Gathering up all the faith I had, I focused all the spiritual energy I could muster and I willed that Sister Florence and her desk would move from the classroom to the playground outside. I mean that certainly would be easier than moving a whole mountain. Surely, I had enough faith for that. I tried and I tried and I tried, but nothing happened. There I sat, there she sat, absolutely unmoved. (But there was a moment when I thought I saw her desk vibrate.)

I also remember a time, 9 years ago. Bishop Benedict had only been in Chicago for two months and I was still helping him learn about our eparchy. So, it was a Sunday afternoon when Tony Escobar kindly drove me to the airport for my flight to Chicago. Once inside I began to get ready for security and, horror of horrors, I realized that I had left my phone at home. Thank God there was still plenty of time left to go home and come back and still make my flight. I’ll call Tony to turn around and get me. But there was a flaw in my plan. Not only did l not have a phone, his number was in my phone. And so it went. The plane for Chicago left an hour and a half late, and by the time I got off the train from the airport in Chicago, the buses for Western Avenue had stopped running for the night. But it was only two miles to the Chancery office so I picked up my bag and walked. It’s rather quiet at 3:00 a.m. on Western Avenue and I prayed it stayed that way.

Later that day I told the bishop about my phone deficit and he said “Maybe it is God’s will you not have phone. Can you live without phone?” And, I kid you not, only a minute later he pulled his phone out of his pocket and began to answer a text message. He did not see the irony.

Not having my phone to use, and not having the information it contained made the next four days rather difficult in a number of ways, including problems that came up on my trip home. For those of you who use your smart phones for many purposes you can understand what a serious challenge it can be when you are not able to use your phone. It put a dent in the way I was able to conduct business in Chicago, and it turned me into an electronic orphan at the airports. It shook up my daily routine.

We tend to operate on the assumption that our lives are fairly predictable from day to day. The sun will come up, I’ll go off to work, the kids will get fed, the lights will come on when I flip the switch and garbage day is Thursday.

But sometimes our expectations of a regular routine are shaken up. It can be a smaller thing, like not having your phone for five days, or something much more serious—losing your job, becoming sick, a birth, a death, an accident, a medical diagnosis. Those upsets of our daily expected routines, whether good or bad, should cause us to stop and think about the nature of the reality of our lives in this world.

Where is God? We find it so convenient to live according to our plans and expectations in this limited, physical world. We try to manage it, fix it, run it, plan it, and find happiness in it, but so often we are tempted to do so without a genuine reference to God. We can become so stuck in the reality of our life in this physical world that we forget that He Who made all of this, He Who made me, is more real, more substantial, more significant and important and relevant than anything or anyone I will encounter today. He is the ground of all being, and yet He is above and beyond all that is. This same God is more real, more true, more loving, and more personal than it is possible for me to even imagine, and my awareness of Him, my devotion to Him, my connection to Him is not even closely enough intertwined into the fabric of my life that I can say to the mountain, “Move” and it will move. My faith is not as big as a mustard seed. But I want it to be. I need to keep working and praying that it will become so, more and more. Because otherwise, for better and for worse, all I have is this.

I don’t think it’s wise to sit down and decide which teachings of Christ I’m going to accept and which ones I’m going to reject because I am so extraordinarily wise and knowledgeable. Some people are more powerful than the pope. He can only teach the Faith, but they can make it up as they go along. What I need time for is to keep praying and working, and living and believing as a Son of God Who truly holds me in the palm of His hand. Not to pretend I can have two lives, one life where the Lord is generally absent, and another life where I allow Him in from time to time. One life where I think I can make it all work, and another life where I trust God. I need to strive to live one life, the life God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit has given to me in baptism. I need, we need, to live in God’s own life.

Walking down Western Avenue in Chicago at 3:00 a.m. on a Monday morning, in a neighborhood where there have been several deaths by gunfire in the past year can provide the opportunity to think about your life a little bit. You actually see a few other people walking down the street and you wonder if they are up to no good because why are they out on the street at this time of night. Okay, there is some irony there as well. But it is a very good thing if, at least at that moment, you can trust yourself to the will of God, His care and protection, as you are walking down that street. Now, thinking rationally, it was very, very unlikely I’d be robbed or injured or killed, but in trusting yourself to the Lord you stop thinking or worrying about it, and that frees you up to spend a little time praying while you walk. (Plus, there is also the small comfort of knowing that even if I was mugged, at least they wouldn’t get my phone.)

I believe the words of Jesus. So do you. Let us ask Him for a faith that can move mountains—and let it start by allowing Him to first move our hearts closer to Him, here, today, this morning.