HOMILY FOR THE 21ST SUNDAT IN ORDINARY TIME

HOMILY FOR THE 21^ST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

On one of my days off a year or so ago, my daughter, Meg, and my granddaughters, Alyssa and Sydney, walked into the family room with a DVD. Meg told me that Alyssa and Sydney wanted me to watch a movie. Of course, I agreed, thinking to myself, “here we go, another chick flick, hope it’s not another ‘Steel Magnolias’.” The movie they wanted me to watch was “Pitch Perfect.” It turned out to be a great movie about competing college a capella singing groups. There is one scene in the movie, where there is a school opening night mixer for all the competing a capella groups of the college, and, beer, was one of the beverages being served. One of the girls, Chloe, a redhead, goes up to Beca, the major character in the film, and says, “This ginger needs some jiggle juice!” As Chloe was leaving to get a beer, Beca shouts after her, “Make good choices!”

In the first reading today and in the gospel, we hear about groups of people making choices. In the first reading, the Israelites have reached the promised land and Joshua addresses the people and tells them it is time for them to make a decision. Will they choose to follow the gods of their former Egyptian slave masters, the gods of the Amorites, or the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses. Joshua announces that as for himself and his family, they will serve only the LORD, for it has been the LORD that freed them from their slave masters, and brought them safely to the land of Canaan.

In the gospel, Jesus has just given to the people his teaching on the Eucharist. He has performed the great miracle of the feeding of the 5000, and all these people who wanted him to be their king just a day earlier, leave him the following day because they could not follow his teaching. Jesus does not try to coerce them into believing. They freely choose to not believe and they leave.

And so, it is with you and with me. Not a one of us here is coerced into belief. We are freely given a choice by God to believe or to not believe. We are not asked to understand the teaching about the Eucharist, the how it can be so? The Eucharist is a mystery, and unlike mystery novels that resolve into an understanding at the end, the Eucharist defies understanding. Jesus just asks us to take him at his word and believe that what he says is true.

If we choose to take Jesus at his word and believe in his real presence in the Eucharist, the Eucharist will influence the other choices we make on a daily basis in life. In choosing to believe Jesus, we choose to alter how we see the world and how we act in the world. Through the grace of the Eucharist, you and I are empowered to be people of thanksgiving, and through this lens of thanksgiving begin to see all the events of our lives as gift, the good events and even the events that are not all that pleasant. Within all the unpleasant surprises of life, an inner grace lays hidden waiting to be revealed. When confronted with tough times in my life, the power of the Eucharist has given me the ability to ask the questions, “What am I to learn from this?” or “In what way am I able to grow from this?” Or, as Fr Steve Ulrick once asked me, “Where is the grace in this?” We take the grace we receive in the Eucharist into the world, and illuminated with this grace make choices in life that are consistent with our faith.

My dad grew in the mountains that surrounded the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He would tell the story of two mountain women, spinster sisters, Bible raised and considered themselves good, God-fearing Christians. They had one weakness. They were overly fond of chewing tobacco. One Sunday a visiting preacher came to their little church and begun to preach about the evils plaguing humankind. He first spoke strongly against the evils of alcohol. One sister turned to the other, “He really is giving it good to those drunken sinners, ain’t he.” Then, he began to preach strongly against dancing, “My,” said the other sister, “that’s telling them, preacher! HE is a really good preacher.” Then, the preacher began to preach about the evils of tobacco, particularly, chewing tobacco. The one sister turned to the other and said, “Well now he’s just meddling!” If we allow the grace of the Eucharist to flow freely in our lives, it will begin to “meddle” in our lives affecting the choices we will make. In the end, the Eucharist will bring us to our personal cross roads and we will be confronted with the same choices that the people in the gospel faced. Will we choose to follow Jesus, or not?

 Beca, in the movie “Pitch Perfect” shouts after Chloe, “Make good choices!” Joshua announces to the Israelites, “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” As Jesus did to his disciples in the gospel, he asks us as well today, “Do you also want to leave?” May we answer Jesus in the words of St. Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

FOR MY DAD ON HIS HUNDRETH BIRTHDAY

FOR MY DAD ON HIS ONE HUNDRETH BIRTHDAY

I feel you hovering around me,

your presence, your spirit,

a sense of  feeling, like

fingertips lightly grazing

across the skin. Ten years

have passed since you

shook off the coils of

this world.  Your presence

is not some ethereal spirit

condemned to haunt some

place of past transgression,

but more that of a father,

connected forever to the

ones that he loves.

I feel you the strongest

when complexities clutter

my life, my mind seeking

communion with yours,

calling out to you as a

frightened child cries out

for comfort in the predawn

hours following a nightmare.

Staring into the bathroom

mirror I search for your

face, in the creases on

my forehead and the

crows feet around my eyes.

I long to hear your voice

praying a blessing over me

before I go off to bed,

as you did for so many years.

Your DNA formed and shaped

me, yet, as each snowflake

is created distinctly different

and beautiful by God our Creator,

so I realize that I am like and so

unlike you, similar yet never

the quite the same. Gratitude,

born long before my birth,

I rejoice in having walked

alongside you for fifty-two years,

a man of great faith, dressed

to the “T’s in integrity and dignity.

Many look upon your image

and call you “iron man”, one

who has been tested in life

and proven worthy, one

who is able to bear life’s

great and heavy burdens.

As for me, you will simply

be, “my dad”, one devoted

to God and to his family. One

who loved me into existence.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

© 2015. The Book Of Ruth, Deacon Bob Wagner OFS. All rights reserved.

HOMILY FOR THE WEDDING OF BRADEN SCHRUPP AND ALLISTAIR MCCRADY

Allistair and Braden, as I said last evening at the rehearsal, you will probably not remember any of this homily. And, it is perfectly natural. I do not remember anything the priest said during the homily at my wedding. I was so caught up in the moment of being married to the woman of my dreams, that nothing could have ever distracted me from that state of emotion and mind. 

I have been at many weddings over the past 39 years of church ministry, either as a liturgical musician or officiating as a deacon as I am now. I remember one wedding so vividly. The bride was being processed down the aisle by her father. She was so stunningly beautiful, as you are today, Allistair. Breathtakingly beautiful was she in her white dress and veil, her long dark hair standing out in contrast to the white of her dress. She had such a captivating smile on her face. All the while she was being processed down the aisle by her father, he kept saying to her, “You can still get of this if you want to, I won’t be mad. You don’t have to get married.” She responded by smiling that beautiful smile at her dad and kept on processing. I remember that wedding so specifically because this happened at my own wedding to my wife, Ruth. This past December 27^th, Ruthie and I celebrated our 40^th wedding anniversary and her dad was there at the party our kids planned for us. I approached Ruthie’s dad and just said, “Well, Al, I think the marriage has worked.” 

I began chronicling my life with Ruth in poetry form in 2011 while I was on a medical leave from a long illness. For Christmas that year, I gave her a collection of 25 poems as a present, and I have kept adding poems to that collection ever since. I call the collection, “The Book Of Ruth.” On the occasion of our 40^th wedding anniversary I wrote Ruthie a poem, entitled, “Learning How To Walk.” Here is the last part of that poem.

To walk with you is                                                                         

to learn how to love,                                                                       

each measured step,                                                                     

a grace-filled journey                                                                    

to something greater,                                                                   

far beyond and far better                                                           

than the stumbling steps                                                             

that I could have                                                                             

made on my own.                                                                          

                                                                                                               

To  walk with you,                                                                          

is to see the                                                                                       

world with different                                                                       

eyes, colors bursting                                                                      

through the greys,

warmth on the 

coldest of days, your     

voice floating, playing

delightfully in the air      

alongside until the

sound settles gently,

gracefully in my ears.

We have walked many

steps together in life,

my gait now not as steady,

these days of uncertain

limbs, joints and cane.

In walking with you,

new discoveries never

end, new beginnings

abound, and that

with you, the first

and the finest of

all teachers, learning

to walk is never

fully learned.

Braden and Allistair, from this moment forward you will be joined physically, emotionally, and spiritually as one. And, as your relationship with one another continues to grow and deepen, you will find that your hearts will be joined together as one heart beating for both of you. You will be the best of teachers to one another, learning together how to walk as one throughout life.

You chose the same gospel that Ruthie and I chose 40 years ago at our wedding. Jesus harkens back to that passage early on in the Book of Genesis of marriage being the joining of two people into one body. This reflects what is told us in the story of creation that when God created man and woman, God created them in God’s own self-image. God is both male and female, and when a man and a woman are joined together in marriage, they find a completeness not found separately, together, they express the fullness of God in all of God’s entirety and reflect that full presence of God to all those around them.

The sacrament of marriage reveals to the world that God is the greatest of all lovers, making love to us every moment of every day. It is God’s breath that animates us. It is God’s heart that beats within us. God is always present to us, always listening, always loving, always consoling, ready to touch our lives in so many ways.

When we as married couples respond to the needs and care of each other from that deep desire to love and care for each other, we discover that it is God’s love that has transformed us and has made us whole. We find that those undesirable traits within us can be transformed because we want to be transformed. We discover that the relationship we share as a married couple is based on mutuality, reflecting the mutuality of God’s relationship with us, and not some absurd notion that because of a difference in gender one is greater than another or has power over the other. Transformed by God’s love within, we become a living sacrament, a living testament of God’s love for all the world to see.

I have found in my marriage to Ruth over these past 40 years that my greatest and most profound experience of God is my wife, Ruth. From her lips I hear God say to me, “I love you.” “I forgive you.” In her embrace, God embraces me. In her gentle touch, God comforts me. From her womb I have witnessed Creation at the birth of our children. She is the greatest teacher of unconditional love. She never preaches or lectures. She just puts love into action. I have told her that one of these days, when I grow up, I want to be just like her. I have known and admired many people throughout my life, but she is the only one I have wanted to emulate. All the changes I have willed in my life have been at wanting to be more like her.

By profession, Ruthie is a registered nurse, and for the past 30 years has worked full-time nights so that one of us could always be home with our kids. This has been a tremendous sacrifice on her part. I excused myself from the groom’s dinner last night, so that I could be at home to wake her up and to kiss her and wave goodbye to her as she left for work. I often find myself up in the wee hours of the morning, the time that I usually write these little poems. In closing, I wrote this poem to her last week. It is entitled, “Portraiture.”

Late at night

when you are off to work,

I love to pour through

my photographs of you,

slowly, carefully savoring

the intricate pattern of

shading, highlighting

your cheeks, your smile,

and most especially,

your eyes,

your dark brown eyes,

in whose mysterious depths

resides the beautiful

portraiture of God.

When I gave this poem to Ruth last week. She read it, and with a twinkle in her eye she said, “Well, at least this time you got the color of my eyes correct.”  (You know, you make one mistake 45 years ago and you never live it down.) Braden and Allistair, may you find as you peer into one another’s eyes every day, the image and the likeness of the God who created you. And may you as a couple reflect that love of God to all those you encounter.