Funeral Parlor Fans – 22nd Sunday OTA

We are having mass today, without electricity because of Hurricane Laura's visit to the State of Louisiana this week. We pray for our brother and sisters in Calcasieu Parish, Lake Charles and all the communities in the Hurricane’s. Even over 230 miles from where it came ashore, our community felt the storm.

Without electricity, it was hot at mass. Everybody was fanning themselves with the order of mass cards. It made remember funeral parlor fans. 

I grew up in a small country Church with no air conditioning. On Sundays in the summer, everyone used funeral parlor fans. It was just a piece of cardboard on a stick advertisement for the funeral home. The hotter it was, the faster the funeral parlor fans fluttered. If the sermon was too close to home, the faster the funeral parlor fans fluttered.

No matter how hot, the men wore suits and ties and the women had on their best. They came prepared to meet God and fought the heat with funeral parlor fans.

Now days, people look for reasons not to come to church. It’s too hot. The homilies are too long or boring. They have something else to do. They feel it's not really necessary to go to Mass or Church or Sunday Meetings because God knows my heart. (God does and is often disappointed). God wants us to be happy.

The problem is where people find happiness.

Be happy,but, find it in the right place; because one day, God is going to call us to account. People will ask themselves -Where were you at; When do you pray; When did you love God? 

When called to account for a life lived without God, many will blame God. They don’t find happiness in the things of this world, they blame God. Think about it, many blame God for everything.

They will be lamenting “You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped…” I didn’t know that you wanted so much of me.

If people just knew and listened to the word of God, the words of Jesus.

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny self, take up his cross, and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

God is good and loving and wants us to be happy. Denying yourself seems the very opposite of happiness, and the cross is an instrument of torture.

The route to the happiness God does want for us goes through the cross of Christ. Christ is The Way for us and we meet him at the cross for our true happiness in love and holiness in him.

Find our happiness in Christ and one day maybe, we won’t need funeral parlor fans anymore.

Be good, be happy, and preach the gospel by the way you life your life and love one another. Amen.

Upon this Rock - Homily Reflection 21st Sunday OTA

Watching the news over the past couple of weeks, I notice that the world seems to be going through the terrible twos.  

My youngest grandson is going through the terrible twos; and, he is good at it. I came home from a funeral yesterday to find him running down the street, hands in the air, and yelling screaming as two years old will do; and my poor wife running after him with a loving but frustrated look.

Most people never leave the terrible twos even those who try to live a Christian life. We strive to be Holy despite our shortcomings. Most of us have weaknesses and sins that tempt and plague us. It can be insecurity or disobedience or as my roommate in college called it “a wild hair.”

Despite this, those who live in the love of Christ know God is in us. We see the face of Christ in others. Each of us and all of us are the Church.

These are the truth of the Gospel today. The truth taught is the ecclesiology of the church and Christology of the Christ.

The truth of the Church comes what Peter said about Jesus. This truth is found in Jesus words to Peter:

“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.”

The Church is because of who Jesus is.

Everything the Church has to say begins and ends with its God-given knowledge of Christ Jesus. It is the inexhaustible treasure of truth, which it holds in trust for the world.

The world doesn’t necessarily like the truth that Church reveals. The work of the great deceiver is that the Church is irrelevant. It falsely puts forward Jesus is a myth.

Because of sin, people will believe evil. They fight against the reality of the truth the Church presents to the world.

The reason people don’t like what the Church has to say is because they don’t understand who Jesus is. They don’t understand the Christology.

Jesus asked the disciples “Who do the people say that I am?”

The people who saw all the great things Jesus did tried to identify him with the realities they knew. The disciples told Jesus the people said John the Baptist, Elijah, or even Jeremiah.”

The Christology, the reality of Jesus requires a much greater leap in imagination and faith. Like that leap that Peter took, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

The reality of Christ requires great faith.

Believing the truth of the Church that comes from God, requires great faith

Jesus told Peter “upon this rock I will build my church”

Friends, we all know the story of Peter. Jesus did not call him a rock because of his steadfastness or reliability. The Passion exposed his tendency to falter. He ran away. He denied Jesus. He hid.

“Upon this rock” was the insight of faith God had communicated to Peter.

“Upon this rock” the Church will survive all attempts to destroy it.

“Upon this rock” the Church survived Judas. It survived all the shortcomings of Peter. It survived the doubts of Thomas. It survived the persecution of Paul. It survived the persecution of the Roman Empire. It has survived in all the places ancient and modern that has persecuted it, ban it, and martyr true people of faith.

The church is built “upon this rock” of faith; “upon this rock” in each of us.

It was founded “upon this rock” Jesus found in Peter. It was the same Peter who love and sinned but held on to the Lord anyway.

Jesus told us that the gates of Hell cannot prevail against this kind of love.

I looked and before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. (Rev 7:9)

The Church is each one of us striving to be Holy despite our shortcomings. That is a deeply comforting thought.

Be good, be holy, and preach the gospel by the way you live your life and love one another. Amen.