Homily: Trust & Spiritual Maturity

[00:00:01] Good morning. Welcome to our guest at St. Mike's today. It's good to have you. Thank you, Jesus, for air conditioning, right? Wow, thank you, Lord. It may be good perspective to remember that not only seven months ago we had layers of sleet and ice around all of our front yards, so it's good to just kind of keep that in mind, I think. So thank you, God.

[00:00:27] So did you know that only a few weeks from now, some from our parish, we will be going to Guatemala on a mission trip. And so please pray for our team from our parish. Super excited about this.

[00:00:44] And truth be told, it's less of a work trip and more of a trip where we just spend time with people visiting their homes and the schools and playing soccer with the kiddos and stuff and just kind of spending time with them. It's really beautiful. And I was thinking about that this trip this week and I was recalling some of my time when I was living there years ago.

[00:01:09] And many years ago, I got to know a woman, her name was Camilla. And Camilla used to sell flowers on the street corner in this town called Antigua, Guatemala. And Camilla was a single mom with three little ones. And that's how she supported her kids. She sold flowers. So if you see people selling flowers on Summer Avenue, that's what she did in Guatemala.

[00:01:34] And she was a wonderful woman. She would smile often. And when she smiled, it was kind of funny because she had one tooth here and one tooth here. And so beautiful that often in Central America, people can never afford to go to a dentist and had a big, beautiful smile. No teeth, big, beautiful smile.

[00:01:57] So one day, Camilla, I'm talking to her and every time I would practice my Spanish with her, she would correct me. And she'd say, no, no, no, no, no. Mm-mm. And I'd say, yes, ma'am. No problem. One day I'm talking to her and this man, as we're talking, comes up, this younger man, kind of a big guy.

[00:02:17] And he just kind of knocks her out of the way. Says, I'm taking the street corner. Get out of here. And just started cussing at her, right? And it took everything I had to not tackle this man. I was so mad. So this woman, she lost her only source of income to raise these three little ones.

[00:02:40] So I pulled her aside and I said, I was just so mad. And she was really calming me down. And I said, what are you going to do? And she said to me very simply, I have no idea. I have no idea. But I trust in God. He always works it out. So she got her kids and she got her flowers and she goes four blocks down the road and starts selling on another street corner.

[00:03:10] And as luck would have it, the Lord has a beautiful sense of humor because that same week, the city was doing construction and they closed off the street where she was at and diverted all the traffic to where she now was. So that man lost all of his income and she like tripled her income. And I know, you know, as Christians, we're not supposed to take delight in another person's downfall, but I took fiendish delight in this man's downfall.

[00:03:37] Made me so happy to see him going down Charlie Brown. And so, wonderful woman. You know this woman, Camilla, she has a third grade education. And yet, I get the strong sense this is a woman who knew far, far more about spirituality and theology than a guy with eight years of it. Eight years of theology being taught by this woman.

[00:04:06] She's on to something, I think, right, for all of us. What does it mean to trust God's providence? I mean, this is easy to do, right, when everything is peachy and butterflies and unicorns. But really, the proof is in the pudding, isn't it? When things are real and raw. Real and raw. Because that's when Jesus is like, okay, let me get this straight. So you say that you have faith, but now the time has come to have it.

[00:04:37] Do you have it? Because you say you have it. Because that's when things get real and raw. And we say that. And we're all going to be faced with that sooner or later in our life. Where you got nothing but to trust. I have no idea how I'm going to raise these three little ones. What do I got? I got nothing but trust. Hmm.

[00:05:04] You know, Jesus talks about this in Matthew chapter 10. He has this beautiful image. He said, you know, you don't see the birds of the air freaking out and worrying. He says, you are worth more than many sparrows. I love that. If you want to put anything on Father Ben's tombstone, put more than many sparrows. Either that or it was better with butter. Okay, one of the two. All right, please.

[00:05:33] Four words to remember from all the Gospels. More than many sparrows. St. Paul says it. It says the same thing. He says, look, for those who trust in God, it will always work out. We don't always understand it. It's not always the end we want. And sometimes tragic things do happen. And we won't see why they happen until the next life. But I can promise you it's going to work out. Think about it. When has God dropped the ball?

[00:06:02] He's got a pretty good track record. It's not going to stop now. It's not like he's winding a clock and sitting back and saying, good luck, buddy. It didn't work like that. He's active. God is always washing the dishes of our life. He's in there scrubbing. May 13, 1981. Some of you are old enough to remember the day that Pope John Paul II was shot. I remember that very well.

[00:06:31] Ms. Ricasa led us into St. Louis to pray for the Pope. And right there after Ronald Reagan when he was shot. And that was on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima that year. And exactly one year to the day, John Paul II went to Fatima. And he took the bullet that entered his body. And he put it in the crown of Our Lady of Fatima where it is to this day.

[00:07:01] And he kneels down and he says with all thousands of people watching, quote, In the designs of providence, there are no mere coincidences. In the designs of providence, nothing happens by chance. This is all providential. We don't always understand it. But absolutely there's a plan. Question, do we trust in that providence?

[00:07:30] I mean, we either do or we don't. I got nothing else. So I trust in you, Jesus. You're always going to work it out. This is what we call spiritual maturity, brothers and sisters. Spiritual maturity. Yeah? And that's when things get real and raw. You know, I tell people all the time, I love being celibate. It's kind of hard for our country to understand that. I love celibacy. I love being celibate.

[00:07:57] But I got to be honest, if Julia Child ever showed up at my house, that would be debatable. I don't know. Just saying. Love that woman. For our younger people, if you've never heard of Julia Child, she died in 2004. She was married to her husband, Paul, who died 10 years earlier, 1994, of Alzheimer's. So Paul and Julia were madly, madly in love, the two of them. Madly in love, the two of them.

[00:08:25] And those of us that are old enough, you remember PBS? It's going back a bit. So she had the first cooking show on television, on PBS. And if you ever watched this old episode, she made mistakes all the time. I mean, all the time. And they said, we can edit that out. She said, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. Leave it. Leave the mistakes. People will appreciate it. She got thousands and thousands and thousands of letters saying, I am so happy. I'm not the only one that does that.

[00:08:55] Right? It's one of the reasons people loved Julia. Towards the end of her life, she gave millions and millions and millions of dollars to people to get an education. Wonderful woman, Julia Child. But I share this with you because even though she was not Catholic, one of the things that we see with her is that she didn't run from her mistakes. She leaned into her mistakes. Yep. I'm a hot mess.

[00:09:25] Right? You ever feel that way? That's what you got, Lord. St. Paul's 2 Corinthians 12. In our weakness, there is strength. So when I'm weak, that's when I'm strong. That's what Paul is saying. Yes, I'm doing my best. That's what you got to work with. Right? And that's spiritual maturity. What does it mean to be spiritually mature? Maybe just some characteristics. Number one, when somebody is spiritually mature, they can control their actions.

[00:09:55] Right? We call that virtue. They control their words. We call that temperance of the tongue or charity. They're quick to forgive. They're not brooding over things that happened 30 years ago. And finally, they surrender. They surrender. Some of you may have done this surrender novena. Surrender. Camilla in Guatemala. Great theologian.

[00:10:25] What are some of the signs of spiritual immaturity? We talk about maturity. What is immaturity? I'll tell you this. When somebody is spiritually immature, they have the following characteristics. Number one, they lack empathy. They have no empathy. Why? Because I should be the center of attention. Do you know who I am? I should be the center of attention. They suck all the air out of the room. Number two, they're always blaming other people for their own mistakes.

[00:10:55] I wouldn't have to do blank if you didn't do blank. They don't own their mistakes. They're highly impulsive. They don't think about how their decisions have ripple effects on those in their life. I want, I get, period. Number four, they're emotionally and spiritually stunted. Emotionally and spiritually stunted. What does that mean?

[00:11:20] It means a man or a woman can have the body of a 40 or 50-year-old person, but have the emotional intelligence of a toddler. And you see that come out from time to time. And finally, and some of you have heard me talk about this before, but truly spiritually immature people, they're always part of cliques. Cliques in grade school, at work, and in parishes.

[00:11:51] They gravitate to cliques, right? There's a difference. Having friends are a good thing. Being a part of a clique is a bad thing. This is one of the reasons why we are so adamantly against parish cliques in this parish. We often see that in some parishes. You have to rub shoulders with the right people and play golf with the right person to be somebody important. We don't do that here.

[00:12:16] And by the way, side note, what I want to tell people that do this, if there is one thing that is absolutely repulsive to young people, it's when their parents and grandparents are part of parish cliques. They don't care who we're playing golf with and rubbing shoulders with. You want to keep your kids and your grandkids in the faith? Avoid all that drama.

[00:12:43] What we're looking for, what those kids are looking for, can be summed up in one word. Authenticity. Being a genuine human being. That's what they want. And trust me when I say teenagers have an acute nose for hypocrisy. Yes. Say one thing, do something else. Call you out on it. So I'll close with this.

[00:13:12] Same time I was born, 1972, the novelist J.R.R. Tolkien was on his deathbed in Oxford, England. He died there. He was buried with his wife, Edith. They were married for 55 years. Both very devout Catholics. He's buried right near his friend C.S. Lewis in Oxford. And so Tolkien, some of you may know, was in World War I.

[00:13:38] And he came back and he spent about 17 years writing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. And he wrote a lot of them based around his experience in war. So he dedicates all this time writing The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. And then he finishes this amazing, just incredible drama. And you know what? Nobody would publish it. He went to one publisher and like, what? What are you talking about?

[00:14:09] Dwarves and Hobbit and Hobbit and no, we don't want that. He go to another, no thanks, no thanks, no thanks. By the way, the same thing happened to Julia Child in her cookbook too, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Nobody wanted it. No thanks. So towards the end of his life, Tolkien was talking about this. And he said, you know, I put 17 years of my life in this story and nobody wanted it.

[00:14:38] Do you know that book, The Lord of the Rings, has been translated in over 50 languages, has sold over 150 million copies, and nobody would touch it. And he said he had to confront his own discouragement. He said, but you know what it taught me? Surrender. I said, Lord, if you want it, it'll happen, and if you don't, it won't. Jesus, I trust in you.

[00:15:06] For every one of us, at some point in our life, we are going to get real and raw with faith. Nobody can make that decision for you but you. But God will take it if we give it.