Homily: A Life of Joy

[00:00:00] Unfortunately, as we come together this morning, I have an announcement to make. I don't know quite how to say this, so I'm just going to say it.

[00:00:14] We have exactly 90 days till Christmas. Exactly 90 days. As you know, over the next 90 days, we will be bludgeoned to death with pumpkin spice everything. Pumpkin spice latte, pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls. I can assure you we will not be having a pumpkin spice king cake. It's not going to happen.

[00:00:42] Have you noticed that things often creep up on us in life? Our anniversaries, our children's graduations, birthdays. And one of the other things that tends to creep up on us is, believe it or not, age. Have you noticed this? Age. Sometimes we're aware of it when we get out of bed in the morning, right? But age can kind of creep up on us if we're not careful for most of us. I know for me.

[00:01:13] And it's true, I think, that sometimes as we get older, we forget some of the basic lessons that we learned years ago that maybe we need to go back to. Maybe we need to kind of revisit some of this stuff, right? Things come full circle. In the early 1800s, a man named Johann Goethe, who wrote this book called Faust, if you've ever read that.

[00:01:37] This is what he said, Goethe. He said, the hardest things to learn in life are the least complicated. In other words, his point is simply to say the things that are right under our nose are usually the hardest things to learn. Well, if that's true, maybe we need to ask, if the hardest things to learn in life are the least complicated, then what are the least complicated things that are so hard to learn?

[00:02:08] Hmm. My opinion? Joy. Joy. Being joy-filled, not drama-filled. You know what I mean when I say drama-filled. We've all known that person that tends to have drama just surround them all the time. They're kind of stirring the pot constantly. They attract other drama-prone people. Right? There's like this Velcro effect that happens with drama-prone people.

[00:02:36] Now, contrast that with joyful people. And this is one of the reasons I'm saying this today is this is one of the great, awesome lessons that we learn from our friends with special needs. Joy. Joy. I mean, can we all agree? We could use a little more of that in the world.

[00:02:59] I mean, call me crazy. I think we could all agree. We need that joy. How do I get that? Well, this is one of the reasons why at St. Mike's we have said again and again and again, as we get older, you can get bitter or you can get better. You decide. You decide. You can get bitter or you can get better. It's how we get better. It's how we get better in this thing we call life.

[00:03:28] You know, in 1766, there was an unknown Italian nun. Most Catholics haven't even heard of her. Her name was Sister Maria Cecilia Beige. She died just north of Rome. And she was a visionary. She had visions and what they call locutions. And she actually had a vision of the death of St. Joseph, the foster father of Jesus.

[00:03:57] And you know, we don't hear anything in the Gospels really about not one word that Joseph said. We don't hear anything about how Joseph died. And she had this vision of Joseph's death. And so, in her vision, St. Maria Cecilia Beige, she said Joseph was 48 years old and Jesus was 19 years old when his dad died.

[00:04:22] And when Joseph was dying, he was in the arms of Jesus. And Mary was kneeling right next to him. And you know what Mary was doing? She was singing the Psalms, like Sylvia sings for us between the first and second reading every Sunday. She was singing the Psalms to her husband as he was dying. And Jesus leans over to his dad and he says, Thank you.

[00:04:50] Thank you for the lessons that you taught me. Thank you for the faith that you taught me. What were those lessons? Well, if I had to guess, respect for your mom, work ethic, keeping up your prayer life. There's no question in my mind, no question that as Jesus got older, he went back to Joseph's words and advice.

[00:05:19] The hardest things to learn in life are the least complicated. Right in front of us. You know, it's, have you noticed that sometimes it's hard to figure out God's plan for our life? I often say trying to figure out God's plan is like trying to fold a fitted sheet. Right? As soon as you think you got it, you don't. Right? It's hard to know what God is calling us to. But here's the good news.

[00:05:46] God can use our weakness, our brokenness, our insecurities. He can totally use that. This is why Mother Teresa was so fond of saying, God loves to use nothingness to show what he can do. He doesn't need people that are like spiritual Navy SEALs. Got this. He didn't need those. He needs the weak and the broken. And that I can work with.

[00:06:15] And that's, I think, safe to save most of us. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. I assume probably everyone here has seen The Sound of Music. If you've never seen The Sound of Music, we have Confessions Saturday at 3 o'clock right here. Okay? All right? So, you remember in The Sound of Music, there's a scene when Maria Von Trapp wants to make play clothes for the children.

[00:06:41] And so she goes to Captain Von Trapp and she says, I need some material to make the play clothes for the children. And Captain Von Trapp is like, the Von Trapp children do not play. Right? Storms out of the room. She's like, well, okay. So she looks around the room. What does she end up making play clothes with? The curtains. Brilliant. Brilliant.

[00:07:08] This is, I never in a million years would have thought of this. Right? Pardon the analogy, that's exactly what God does with us. He says, okay, what do we have here? Okay, that one. I know they're broken. Maybe they got some wounds, some resentments. But you know what? We can work with that. That I can work with. And he does great things with it. If we let him. If we let him. So, we go back to our question.

[00:07:39] If the hardest things to learn in life are the least complicated, then what are the least complicated things so hard to learn? Well, number one. Just a few humble lessons for all of us. Before we learn new things in life, we often have to unlearn old things in life. What are some of the old things we have to unlearn? Stubbornness. Resentment.

[00:08:10] The need to be in control. The need to be right. The need to get the last word in an argument. We have to unlearn that thinking before God can come in. Number two. You can't change and you can't control other people. Have you noticed? My adult children, my spouse, my difficult boss, my coworkers. As a priest, I can't change you and you can't change me. So, why do we try? Number three. This may come as a surprise.

[00:08:39] It's an important lesson for all of us. We are not going to be liked by everybody. If we put our peace in what other people think of us, it's a recipe for disaster. Some people are just not going to like us for any number of reasons because we're bald. Any number of reasons. They're just not going to like us, right? That's okay. That's all right. And we say, but Father, I'm a good person. They should like me.

[00:09:10] And my response to that is, welcome to life. Okay? Don't put your peace in what other people and their opinion of you. Some people like you, some people won't. Number four. We got to let go of jealousy, resentment, brooding, all of that. It's got to go. You can't get into heaven with that, by the way. I'm assuming you want to get into heaven. You can't go into heaven with that. You got to get rid of it. And trust me, it's easier now.

[00:09:39] And finally, last point. Consistency and persistency win the race. Day in and day out. Every day. Attack. I once asked my spiritual director, I said, how do I know if I'm making progress in the spiritual life? I mean, how do I actually know if I'm getting somewhere? You know what he said? Ben, get out of bed.

[00:10:09] Get out of bed. Attack. Another day. You got to make progress. It works. Day in and day out. The hardest things to learn in life are often the least complicated. People are often looking for a silver bullet to grow spiritually and emotionally. You know what it is? It's usually just rolling up your sleeves and getting at it every day. It's not glamorous, but that's what wins the race. So I'll close with this.

[00:10:40] As many of you know, recently we had a group from our parish that went on a mission trip to Guatemala. It was amazing. It was incredible. And during the course of our trip, this one day we went up into kind of the rural area of Guatemala. And we were going up there, seeing some of these homes.

[00:11:02] And most of these people had no running water, no functioning toilets, and no electricity. Now, I just want to ask you, can you imagine spending your life never having had access to a toilet, a sink, or a shower, or electricity?

[00:11:33] Very humbling. So we all go back, we get in the van, and it's like dead silence. You can hear a pin drop. And so I was talking to one of the men that was with us. And I just said, how you doing, man? How you doing? He said, well, Father, I have a mixed bag of emotions happening in me right now. And I said, well, what's up?

[00:12:01] He said, well, on the one hand, I feel sorry for these people. On the other hand, I feel grateful for what I got back home. And then he was struggling with the third thing. And I said, just tell me. Just throw it out there, man. He said, you know what I feel? Jealousy. I'm jealous of these people. I said, well, really? I said, why would you be jealous?

[00:12:27] He said, because they're joy-filled. They have so much joy coming out of them. You want to be around them. Talk about a Velcro effect. They have so much joy. And he said, Father, how do I get that? It's a good question.

[00:12:54] The same joy that our friends with special needs have, the same joy that these families in Guatemala have, you and I have access to. We can get better or we can get better. We can get better or we can get better.