Make Sure that You’re Planning FAR ENOUGH Ahead

(Eighteenth Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on July 31, 2022 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23; Psalm 90:3-17; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Eighteenth Sunday 2022]

We’re often told that we should “Plan ahead.”

“You should plan ahead for your child’s education.”

“You should plan ahead for your medical care.”

“You should plan ahead for emergencies.”

“You should plan ahead for a hurricane.”

“You should plan ahead for your retirement.”

Planning ahead is normally a good thing—a very good thing.  It’s something we’re commended for.  It’s a sign of the fact that we’re taking personal responsibility for our lives.  It’s also an act (or a series of actions) through which we exercise a very important virtue: the virtue of prudence.  Given the uncertainties of life on planet earth, it’s prudent for a person to plan ahead.  Planning ahead can even be a moral mandate in certain circumstances.  Children, for example, need parents who will plan ahead for them in a responsible manner—especially when they’re very young.  That’s why many parents set up college funds for their children right after birth!  Given the ridiculous costs associated with getting a college education these days (and it’s probably only going to get worse), good parents know they need to plan ahead for their children NOW—not 18 years down the road. 

So I ask you, if planning ahead is such a good thing, why was Jesus so critical of the man in today’s gospel parable—this wealthy man who had an abundant harvest?  Shouldn’t the guy have been commended for working so hard?  Shouldn’t Jesus have praised him for being so industrious, and for doing such a great job of planning ahead? 

After all, it sounds like he was set for life!  He didn’t even need an IRA or 401(k)—or to buy any gold from Lear Capital!

So, what was the problem?

Well, believe it or not, I don’t think the issue for Jesus was that the man had planned ahead—I don’t think that was the problem at all.  I believe the problem that Jesus had with this man was that the guy hadn’t planned far enough ahead!  He was planning ahead for the next 40 or 50 years—or for however long he expected to live in this world, but his existence was not going to come to an end with his physical death.  After his death—which came a lot sooner than he expected—he was going to have to face Almighty God in judgment, and after being judged by the Lord he was going to face eternity.  And from what Jesus says here it doesn’t sound like this man was ready for those experiences, since his life was ruled by greed and not by charity.  He was rich in worldly treasure but not rich in what matters to God.

The lesson here for us is simple.  The Lord is saying to each of us today, “Yes, make sure that you plan ahead in all the ways that you need to plan ahead in your earthly life, but in the process always make sure that you are planning far enough ahead.”

In other words, we need to make sure that we’re always planning ahead for God’s merciful judgment—so that, whenever it comes (today or many years from now) we will be ready.

And how, exactly, do we do that?  How do we plan ahead for judgment?

We plan ahead, first of all, by striving to grow in our relationship with the Lord every day—not just for one hour a week on a Saturday night or a Sunday morning.  We plan ahead by taking our Catholic Faith seriously and by applying it to every aspect of our lives—including our conduct at home and at work, and including our political views.  We plan ahead by loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, by practicing forgiveness, and by being concerned for those less fortunate than we are (something the rich man in this parable was not).  Here at St. Pius you can demonstrate your concern for those less fortunate by volunteering to help with our monthly community dinner—which, interestingly enough, is happening this afternoon at 1pm.

And we plan ahead by repenting when we fail in these areas—which we all do at times.  Several years ago in a homily I gave I shared with you what I called my “Mercy Equation.”

Recognition + Repentance = Reception.

That equation has an application in this context. 

If we recognize our sins (and the fact that Jesus died for them), and then sincerely repent of those sins we will receive mercy from the Lord.

Recognition of our sins + Repentance of those sins = Reception of God’s mercy.

And receiving God’s mercy is an absolute necessity if we want to plan ahead properly for God’s judgment—that is to say, if we want to go to heaven.

I’ve often said, if we want to live life successfully forwards (which I think we all do), then we need to think backwards.  In other words, we have to begin by thinking about the goal we want to attain, and then reflect back on the steps we need to take to get to that goal from wherever we’re at right now.

Which is the principle that should guide every decision we make in this life—including the decision to repent of our sins.  We should ask ourselves, “Is this decision going to bring me one step closer to my goal (which is heaven, of course), or will it take me down another road to another place—a place where I definitely don’t want to go?

The rich man in this parable didn’t think of that question when he made the decision to greedily store up his harvest for himself and forget about everyone else.

That night, when he took his final breath and met the Lord face-to-face, I’m sure he wished he had done otherwise.

He planned ahead for a lot of things.  Unfortunately, however, he failed to plan ahead for the most important thing of all, the judgment of God.

He planned ahead, but he didn’t plan far enough ahead.

 My prayer at this Mass is that each and every one of us in this church this morning will learn from this rich man’s mistake.

 

Capitalizing on the Conditional

 

(Seventeenth Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on July 24, 2022 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Genesis 18:20-32; Psalm 138:1-8; Colossians 2:12-14; Luke 11:1-13.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Seventeenth Sunday 2022]

In one English translation of the Bible, the word “if” appears 1,595 times.  (I know that because I checked in a concordance, not because I counted them out myself.)

In today’s first reading, for example, “if” appears no less than 10 times: God says it 3 times, and Abraham says it 7 times as he intercedes for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

The fact that this word is so prevalent in the Bible indicates that God has made certain things in life conditional.  That is to say, they will only happen if we do what needs to be done to make them happen.  “You will live and grow numerous, and the Lord, your God will bless you,’ Moses said to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 31, ‘IF you obey [his] commandments and [walk] in his ways. . . “

Jesus said, “Your heavenly Father will forgive you your sins—IF you forgive the faults of others.”

Those are just two of the 1,500+ possible examples that I could share with you today.

But actually the number is much higher than that, because there are many verses in the Bible where the word “if” is not explicitly stated, but is clearly implied.  We see this phenomenon in today’s Gospel text from Luke 11.  In that passage, Jesus says, “Ask and you shall receive; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.”  The word “if” does not explicitly appear anywhere in that verse, but it is implied 3 times!  The message of Jesus is: “You will receive, but only IF you ask (and keep asking); you will find only IF you seek; and it will be opened to you only IF you knock.”

And finally we have the “implicit ifs” which stand behind the “explicit ifs” and can be added to the explicit Biblical ifs and the implied Biblical ifs that I just mentioned.  (I trust you could follow that line of reasoning!)

What do I mean?  Well, take a look—once more—at today’s first reading.  As I said a few moments ago, the word “if” appears there explicitly 10 times.  But behind all those explicit ifs is a very big implied if, and it comes from the mouth of God himself: “If you, Abraham, intercede for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, I will honor your prayer and bestow an extra measure of my mercy upon them.”  Abraham understood that “if” very well, which is why he kept the conversation with God going until he got the Lord down to 10.

Fr. Ray, what’s the point of this “iffy” information?

Well, it’s really rather simple: So often we wonder why more good things don’t happen in this world.  And, in the process, we can be very quick to point the finger at God, as if it’s his fault!—“God, why don’t you do something about all this?!” 

But the truth is: in many cases, the fault is clearly our own!  We have failed to ask (and we have failed to ask persistently).  We have failed to seek; we have failed to knock; we have failed to reach out to those in need; we have failed to elect enough pro-life people to office; we have failed to share our faith with others to help lead them to conversion; we have failed to forgive; we have failed in 1,001 other ways. 

In 1 Corinthians 3:9, St. Paul calls us “God’s co-workers.”  This means that certain good things will not happen to us or to our world, unless we cooperate with God’s grace and do what needs to be done to make them happen!  In other words, we must capitalize on the conditional.  Since life is full of so many “ifs,” we must resolve to take advantage of as many of them as we can.

One person who took advantage of a crucial “if” in her life was Joyce Smith—a woman I spoke about in my homily this past Mother’s Day.  Her story was the subject of the 2019 movie, Breakthrough.  Joyce is the mother of John Smith, who, on January 19, 2015, fell through the ice on a frozen lake near his home in St. Charles, Missouri.  (He was 14-years-old when this happened.)  By the time the first responders located John and pulled him out of the icy water, he wasn’t breathing, had no pulse, and had been without oxygen for a full 15 minutes.  They immediately started CPR and took him to the local hospital, where doctors and medical personnel continued to work on him feverishly for 43 more minutes—with no response.  The medical team finally gave up, and called in Joyce, John’s adoptive mother, so that she could pay her final respects to her son before they officially declared him dead. 

But Joyce Smith was not ready to give up hope for her son’s recovery!  And so she began to pray over his lifeless body—in a loud voice that could be heard throughout the emergency room of the hospital.  She doesn’t remember her entire prayer that day, but she does recall saying these words to God: “Please send your Holy Spirit to save my son!”

She asked—and she kept asking!

Suddenly, without any further medical intervention, the boy’s heart monitor began to register a pulse—which put him on the road to what has become a full and complete recovery.

The first doctor who treated John that day in the emergency room said it perfectly in his medical report.  He wrote: “Patient dead.  Mother prayed.  Patient came back to life.” 

“Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  If Joyce Smith did not ask; if she did not seek; if she did not knock—and if she did not do these things perseveringly—in all likelihood she would have lost her son.

In this terribly dark and tragic situation, she capitalized on the conditional—and she received a great blessing in the process.  May the Lord help us to do the very same thing in our lives.

Abortion and the Mission of the '72 in 2022'

 

(Fourteenth Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on July 3, 2022 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., and Watch Hill Chapel, by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 66:10-14c; Galatians 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Fourteenth Sunday 2022]

We are the “72”.  We’re the 72 in 2022.  In this gospel story from Luke 10, Jesus sends out 72 of his followers to minister to people in his name in the towns that he intends to visit.  They’re to proclaim the kingdom to these men and women, and to bring them God’s healing.

Well, by our Baptism we are called to do something similar today, in 2022—which is why I say that we are the 72 in the world of 2022.  And this is a call that we need to take very seriously as Christians—especially, I would say, in light of the recent Supreme Court decision that struck down Roe v. Wade—which is the issue I want to focus on briefly in this homily.  That, of course, was a great victory for the pro-life movement: a great triumph for all those who believe in the dignity of the human person, and the sanctity of human life from natural conception to natural death.  But, unfortunately, all the Supreme Court did was hand the issue back to the individual states. So, instead of 1 big fight, we’ll have 50 smaller fights in the future—which might be necessary for a time in the present social and political climate.  But our ultimate goal here should be to build a culture of life where there is no fighting about this issue anymore, and where every child is loved and accepted and welcomed into the world.

But that will only happen if more of us “72” get involved in helping to change MINDS and HEARTS—the minds and the hearts of the many people out there who currently support abortion.  Yes, it’s good to change bad Supreme Court decisions and unjust civil laws—that’s very important.  But, unless minds and hearts change on this issue, babies will still die, and women will still be harmed.

And make no mistake about it, my brothers and sisters, women are the ones most harmed by abortion.  If you had my ministry as a priest, you’d know that.  Usually, I see these women long after Planned Parenthood has forgotten about them and cashed their checks.  I see these women when they’re broken, and depressed—and sometimes full of self-hate.  The pain they carry when they realize what they’ve done in having an abortion is often overwhelming.  And you can’t take it away, as much as you might want to!  As a priest, you can allow God to take the sin away in confession, but much of the woman’s pain is still there.  And to some extent it always will be—unless she kills her conscience (which, unfortunately, some do). 

But whenever I have a post-abortive woman in confession, I always try to give her hope.  And there is hope to be found. I say to her, “You know, you can’t bring back the child that was lost, but, if you choose to, you can allow God to bring good out of this evil.  Ask the Lord every day to put a woman in your path—a pregnant woman—a pregnant woman who’s thinking about having an abortion—a pregnant woman whom you can counsel and point in the right direction—a woman to whom you can say, ‘Been there; done that. Don’t do it!  Don’t make the same mistake I made.’  That distressed woman will listen to you more than she would listen to me or to anyone else who hasn’t had an abortion.  So no, you can’t bring back the life that was taken, but the good news is that, because of what you’ve been through, you can actually help to save a life—maybe many lives; and that will make you (and it will make God) very happy.”

The big lie out there, of course, is that if you want to be pro-women you need to be pro-abortion.  We hear that lie all the time in the mainstream media—and it needs to be exposed.  And besides, how can it be pro-women to kill women?  That’s something that I’ve never understood—and never will.  Statistically, roughly half of the 60 million babies who’ve been aborted in the United States since 1973 have been female.  That’s roughly 30 million women who never made it out of the womb.  What kind of service is that to women?

Pretty rotten service, if you ask me.

These are some of the messages that we, the “72 in 2022,” need to share with more women out there—because I believe that women will ultimately do the most to change hearts and minds on this issue.  And it’s already happening in many places.  Our pro-life committee here at St. Pius, for example, is made up mostly of women.  There may be 1 or 2 “token guys” in there, but the vast majority are women—as are those who staff the pro-life women’s pregnancy center on Franklin St. here in Westerly.

Women—and families—are the keys to ending the scourge of abortion for good.  When a young woman finds herself in a difficult or unplanned pregnancy, she needs the love and support of her family, not their condemnation.  Nor does she need a ride from them to the local Planned Parenthood Clinic.

She needs to experience what a young girl from St. Pius experienced from her parents back in 1995, when she got pregnant out of wedlock.  Her parents, who are both good Catholics, were there for her throughout her pregnancy, which ended when she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, whom she named Eric.  She then made the difficult decision to give him up for adoption.  She did it with the stipulation that, if the adoptive parents agreed, she and Eric could have some contact through the adoption agency.  And they did that through letters and pictures for many years.

Well, when he was 18, Eric decided that he wanted meet his biological mother personally.  So he tracked her down via Facebook (yes, Facebook does have some good uses)—and a beautiful relationship has developed between them ever since.  Let me read to you now a few lines from the letter Eric wrote to his mom on the Mother’s Day just before they physically met.  He said,

Though I have never met you, I know that you love me more than anything in the world.  I just wanted to let you know that I love you too.  I am grateful for your decision 18 years ago when you became a mommy.  And you gave me up so that our lives would be fulfilling.  Look at where we are now and what we have done.  Separate paths slowly becoming one.  Happy Mother’s Day, mommy!!!

If we fulfill our call as one of the “72 in 2022” and spread the pro-life message to others with a sincere and genuine love, then the good news is that many more mothers in the world will receive letters like that from their children in the future. 

And I don’t know of a single woman on planet earth right now who wouldn’t be happy about that.