I have two small reflections.
The first is my own failure, which I hope will push us all on to be more courageous. Today at mass, right after hearing that Gospel (and one would think, right after being thus encouraged), the priest celebrating our mass asked if there was anyone who would like to receive the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick*.
* The parish does this every Thurs. morning for those who have serious illnesses but are not in the hospital.. I'm not to judge the appropriateness of that.
Anyway, there were two men within my line of vision who raised their hands when the priest said this, before he continued with "please come to the front of the Church to receive it.. "
One of these two men goes to mass every day, but my suspicion is that he may not be Catholic because he does not really participate and he never receives Communion. However, he's older and clearly has a hard time walking, so he may just feel it is too much to go up.
Either way, once the priest said "come forward" he did not do so and so he did not receive the Anointing.
I was very torn because I wanted to motion to the priest to come down to us, in case the man simply couldn't walk up there, but we were sitting near the very back of the Church, which is where this man always sits. Then I thought of going up and mentioning to the priest that he should come down, but I didn't motivate myself enough and then they were done offering the Anointing and moving on with the rest of mass.
So I was at a crossroads of what was appropriate- did I assume too much either way? Did I do nothing out of fear (which is what I think)? Clearly it comes down to this- I was afraid to offend and do distract. The Sacrament is offered between the homily and the Liturgy of the Eucharist at this parish... therefore I did not want to cause any disruption to the mass itself. Yet, what if this man never discovers that he could sit in the front row and the priest could bless him there, or what if I simply was given the challenge today to reach out to Christ in the form of a stranger and I couldn't do it?
I'm not looking for sympathy or chastisement, I simply want to challenge us all to try not to let the normal social fears and restrictions keep us from acting out of love. I tried to go up to the man after mass just to try to assess the situation, but as I approached I lost all my courage and I left, mostly because he was talking with people and I felt it would be awkward.
Awkward? Maybe salvation was awkward- Jesus had to die mostly naked on a tree.
Anyway, try to learn from my mistake and not hesitate when it is LOVE and the Holy Spirit who is motivating your heart!
The second thing I wanted to share was from a homily I heard last night from my boss, Fr. Brian.
The Gospel yesterday spoke of the idea of judgement where Jesus explains via parable that "to those who much is given, much is expected."
Fr. Brian told a story of himself, as an eighth grade boy at school: (I will paraphrase this)
"I was in eighth grade and ended up in the bathroom with three guys in my class who were probably the most well known for being punks. They were just the 'bad kids,' like I was one of the 'good kids.' We were all standing there when out of nowhere they seemed to simultaneously agree to act out and vandalize. They didn't say anything but within 60 seconds they had emptied a trash container into a toilet and flushed, stuffed towels into the sinks and flooded them, and totally vandalized the bathroom. I didn't participate in it at all, but I also didn't stop them.
When they were done, we all just left and went to our respective classes.
A little while later all four of us were called down to the Principal's office. She gave all of us our punishments in front of each other. Mine was the worst. When she said it, you could see the faces of the other guys being confused and surprised, and I was certainly shocked. In fact, I went from being frightened (because I had never been in trouble before) to being somewhat angry.
The Principal said we could go and then asked me to wait and stay behind.
Once the others were gone she asked me, 'Brian, do you know why I gave you a harder punishment?'
I said that I didn't.
She said, 'Because I expect so much more from you. You know (here she said the name of one of the students) ____'s Father passed away last year and that his mother hasn't taken it well and that his home life is really bad right now. I'm not that surprised that he acted out. And you know (another one of the guys) _____ is just crazy. He is.
But you Brian, have no reason or excuse, and so I do expect much more from you.'
It was hard to hear, but I realized then that she was right. I had good parents who loved me and cared for me and no real problems in my life that would be responsible for my acting in a bad way."
Fr. Brian used this story to emphasize to all of the college students present at our Wednesday night 9 o'clock mass that they, too, had been given a lot and therefore had much to be responsible for.
I think we can all take that message to heart, along with the need for the world to be already blazing, and consider how we need to step out in faith, in courage, and in love, to see Christ's Kingdom built even now in our world.
Let us pray for one another and that the Holy Spirit will move us past fear and into great faith.
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