(Second Sunday of Lent (B): This
homily was given on March 4, 2012 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly
An elderly woman from the parish
went to see her orthopedic surgeon a couple of weeks ago on a Friday morning. She had been under his care—and homebound—for
a few months after falling in her home and hurting her shoulder. Well, happily, the doctor gave her a clean
bill of health during that office visit, and she was looking forward to getting
back to Sunday Mass and her normal routine.
But, unfortunately, shortly after
she returned home that Friday, she tripped on a rug and fell again, this time breaking
her pelvis and elbow! The surgeon’s
assistant later told me that when he received the call that this woman was in
the emergency room at Westerly Hospital, he didn’t believe it. He said to the nurse, “Oh no, that must be a
mistake. We just discharged her from our
care a few hours ago.”
But, of course, it was not a
mistake.
IT WAS LIFE!
For that elderly woman—and for
each and every one of us—life is a process: a process of ‘letting go.’ Sooner or later, for example, we all have to
‘let go’ of many things. We have to ‘let
go’ of our physical health because of a fall—or because of Parkinson’s Disease
or cancer or heart problems or something else.
And it’s not easy.
Just ask that elderly woman!
We all have to ‘let go’ of loved
ones when they die—which can be extremely hard if we’ve loved them deeply or
had them in our lives for a really long time.
We’ve had a few deaths in our parish recently of people who were in
their 90s. The children of those
parishioners were blessed to have their parents in their lives for 60 or 70
years.
But that makes it all the more
difficult for them to let go.
When people retire, they have to
‘let go’ of their work. As we move on in
life, we have to ‘let go’ of some of the recreational activities that brought
us enjoyment in our earlier years. We
have to ‘let go’ of the control we’ve had over our daily activities.
Ultimately, we have to let go of
what’s most precious to us on this earth.
Just like Abraham did.
In today’s first reading, we
heard the famous story of how God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his
son, Isaac.
But we need to be clear about it:
the test here was not, “Are you willing, Abraham, to kill your son for me?”—after
all, we know that God never intended for Abraham to take his son’s life.
The test was about Abraham’s
willingness to ‘let go’. The Lord said
to him, in effect, “Abraham, are you willing to let go of your son, Isaac? He’s
the child of the promise. You waited 100
years to have him. You love him deeply;
you treasure him and the special bond you have with him more than anything else
that you have in this life. So, are you
willing to let it all go? Are you
willing to let go of what’s most precious to you in this life and trust totally
in me?”
We call Abraham “our father in
faith” because he said yes—even though it had to have been the most difficult
‘yes’ he had ever said in his life.
In one way or another, we all
face this very same test, don’t we?
Usually it involves someone we
love.
But, unfortunately, not everyone
responds like Abraham did.
As I was preparing for this
homily, I thought of a scene from C.S. Lewis’ book, The Great Divorce—which, by the way, is not about marriage!
It’s a fictional book about an
imaginary bus ride from hell to heaven. All
the people on the bus have the opportunity to go to heaven, but only if they
‘let go’ at some point on the journey.
First and foremost, of course, they have to be willing to let go of their sins thru repentance. But they also have to be willing to let go of their attachments—their
unhealthy, selfish attachments—to people and things; and at the same time they have to be willing to grow
in their desire for God.
One person who has trouble doing
this is a woman named Pam—whose son Michael died when she was still living on
earth. Her brother, Reginald, who’s
already arrived in the kingdom, speaks to her at one point, and challenges her to
love God first, and to let go of the selfish, possessive, manipulative love she
had for her son when he was alive. Reginald
says to her, “[God] wanted you to love Michael as he understands love. [And] you cannot love a fellow-creature fully
till you love God.” But Pam will hear
none of it. She blames God for her son’s
death, and refuses to let go of that anger and the disordered love she had for
her child.
A sad ending. Thankfully other stories in The Great Divorce end much more happily!
There’s an old saying that most
of us have heard before—and there’s a great deal of truth in it: Let go, and let God!
Pam did neither of those
things. Abraham did both—and because he did both he was
rewarded beyond what he could possibly have imagined!
The Lord said to Abraham, “I
swear by myself, that because you acted as you did in not withholding from me
your beloved son, I will bless you abundantly and make your descendants as
countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore.”
That prophecy was fulfilled, as
we all know, on the natural level, in that Abraham became the father of the
nation of Israel.
I suppose he could have imagined that natural dimension of the blessing.
But, as we also know, by making
this promise God was telling Abraham that he would become the spiritual father of all the
redeemed! That’s yet another reason why
we call Abraham “our father in faith”! Spiritually
speaking, we all trace our “lineage” back to him.
Now there’s no way that Abraham
could possibly have understood that spiritual
dimension of the promise when he first heard it.
But it was there!
If we follow Abraham’s example, by
letting go AND by letting God take control and do his work in our lives, then we
will, like Abraham, experience many blessings—sometimes even greater than what we
can possibly imagine!
When I think of my great role
model for dealing with Parkinson’s Disease, Blessed John Paul II, I think of
what that illness forced him to let go of: his health, his skiing, his
mobility, etc. And yet, because he also
“let God”: because he let God work in him and through him when he was battling that
despicable disease, he did some of his most effective work in those later years
of his life.
That fact certainly gives me a
great deal of encouragement.
Some of you, like that fictional
woman Pam, have lost children. But, in
the process of dealing with their deaths, you’ve actually grown closer to God
and stronger in your faith. You were
forced to let go of someone who was very precious to you (you had no choice in
the matter), but you did have the ability to choose how you’d respond to the
tragedy. And, thankfully, you made the
choice to ‘let God’! You made the choice
to let God help you and console you and strengthen you and heal you and give
you hope. For that you have been greatly
blessed; and, if you persevere in that trusting faith, you will be blessed
beyond your wildest imaginings in eternity, where God will reunite you with
many of your deceased relatives and friends.
Life is a process of letting
go—and as such it provides us with many opportunities to ‘let God.’ May the Lord help us to take advantage of
those opportunities in imitation of Abraham, and Blessed John Paul II—and all
the other great saints of the past.
