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| Walter Jameson and Sam Kittridge |
(Easter 2024: This homily was given on March 31, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Easter 2024]
“Long Live Walter Jameson” was the title of an episode of “The Twilight Zone” which aired during the program’s very first season. If you’re old enough, you may remember it from its first showing; others may recall it from the reruns of the Twilight Zone that currently air on the Sci-fi channel. The story concerned an extremely popular history professor named Walter Jameson. Jameson was not your stereotypical, sleep-inducing history teacher; he had the uncanny ability to make ancient events “come alive” in the minds of his students. In fact, when he spoke about certain historical figures, he did it with such insight that it seemed as if he had known them personally.
Well, it turns out that he had known them personally! (This, remember, was the Twilight Zone!) One of his fellow professors, an elderly man named Sam Kittridge, happened to be reading a book on the Civil War one day, and in it he found a picture of Hugh Skelton, an officer in the Union Army. He noticed that Skelton looked exactly like Walter Jameson—down to the ring on his finger and the mole on his face. After initially denying it, Jameson finally admitted to his colleague that he was the man in the hundred-year-old photograph. It seems that two thousand years earlier, he had paid an alchemist a great deal of money for the gift of never growing old or getting sick. Here’s how Jameson explained it to Kittridge:
“I was like you, Sam, afraid of death, and when I thought of all the things there were to know and the miserable few years that a man had to know them, it seemed senseless. At night, every night, I dreamed as you dream of immortality. Only if a man lived forever, I thought, could there be any point in living at all. . . . [However, after I met the alchemist and he gave me this gift of never growing old], I saw my wife and my children aging, my friends dying. This was something I hadn’t considered, you see. . . . Think about it. I tell you that somehow I can stop you from aging. Where do you want to stop? At thirty? Then you watch everyone around you grow old. At seventy? Do you want to live forever the way you are now? Old, sick?”
His fellow professor responds, “It’s better than dying!” Jameson snaps back, “No. You’re wrong, Sam. I was wrong. It’s death that gives this world its point. We love a rose because we know it will soon be gone. Whoever loved a stone?”
A little later in the conversation, Kittridge says, “I thought if a man lived forever, he’d grow wiser. But that’s not true, is it?” “No,’ Jameson answers, ‘You just go on living, that’s all.”
The program ends when one of Jameson’s most recent former wives tracks him down and shoots him—not wanting him to marry the woman he’s currently engaged to. As Jameson lies dying, he speaks these final words to his friend Sam Kittridge: “Nothing lasts forever—thank God.”
Walter Jameson, after living for 2,000 years, came to the realization that nothing on this earth completely satisfied him. In spite of all the knowledge he had accumulated, in spite of all the friends he had made and the wonderful experiences he had lived through, there was within him a fundamental dissatisfaction with this life.
And it didn’t go away for 2,000 years!—in fact, if anything, this feeling of dissatisfaction got stronger and stronger as time went on. That explains his dying words to his friend Sam Kittridge: “Nothing lasts forever—thank God.”
Do you recognize this dissatisfaction within yourself? You should. I certainly recognize it in me. Even if we’re well-adjusted and happy there is still something within us that always longs for something more. Most of us know about the conversion of St. Augustine. His mother—St. Monica—prayed for him for many, many years while he lived the life of a hedonistic playboy. He would have fit in perfectly at “spring break” in Ft. Lauderdale. Finally Monica’s prayers were answered and her son changed his life. Later he became a bishop and one of the greatest theologians in the history of the Church. On her deathbed Monica said these words to Augustine: “Son, as far as I am concerned, nothing in this life now gives me any pleasure. I do not know why I am still here, since I have no further hopes in this world. I did have one reason for wanting to live a little longer: to see you become a Catholic Christian before I died. God has lavished his gifts on me in that respect, for I know that you have even renounced earthly happiness to be his servant. So what am I doing here?”
Even the great saints were not perfectly satisfied in this life. Why? That, I would say, is the crucial question. Why this dissatisfaction? Why is it that we’re never completely content on this earth?
Well, as I see it, here are the two most likely reasons:
Possibility number one: a defect of design. Mentally we just didn’t evolve properly. Something went wrong back in pre-historic times causing this internal weakness within us.
Which brings us to the second possible reason: We’re never perfectly satisfied here, because we weren’t made for here! Our true and ultimate destiny lies somewhere else! So of course the things of this world don’t bring us perfect happiness—of course we’re always longing for something more—of course we’re never perfectly satisfied. We’re only meant to live here for a time; we’re not meant to live here forever! As St. Augustine said after his conversion, “O Lord, you made us for yourself; and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” This is the Christian response to the “Walter Jameson” inside each of us!
And it points us directly to Easter! Easter means that at long last we can have what we were made for! We can have perfect happiness; we can have perfect joy and peace; we can know perfect love and have the fullness of life our hearts long for! We can have it, because Jesus Christ has obtained it for us by his passion, death and resurrection! That’s the reason for all the alleluias!
In his conversation with Sam Kittridge, Walter Jameson said something worth repeating. He said, “Only if a man lived forever, could there be any point in living at all.” Jameson, of course, was referring to an endless life here on earth. As he meant it, he was wrong; but on a deeper, Christian level, he was absolutely correct! If there’s no life after this one, then what’s the point of this life?—To accumulate more knowledge? (That’s what Jameson thought—until he started seeing his loved ones dying all around him.) What’s the point of this life?—To make more money? To have more toys than everyone else? To become a sports or media superstar? To have lots of sex? (The pornographers of this world seem to think so.) What’s the point of this life?—To get to the top rung of the corporate ladder? To party as much as possible? To have other people like you and think you’re important?
For more than 2,000 years, the Catholic Church has proclaimed to the
world the true answers to the crucial questions about the meaning and value of
human life: Why are you here?—You’re
here because God willed that you be here, and because he loves you. And this incredible, infinite love led him to
send his only-begotten Son into the world to die for the forgiveness of your
sins.
The point of your life is not to do your own thing (despite what the hedonists of our culture believe); the point of your life is to live for God—to live by faith in Jesus Christ and to follow the plan the Lord God has for you.
Thus the point of human existence—as the old Baltimore Catechism put it—is to know, love and serve the Lord here on earth, so that we will be happy with him forever in heaven—our true home—where the deepest longings of our hearts will finally be satisfied.
Do you believe this? Do you believe that’s why you’re here? Do you believe that’s the point of your life and the point of human existence?
· If you do, then you’ll certainly be at Mass next Sunday—and every Sunday and Holy Day!
If you believe this, then you’ll make your relationship with Jesus Christ your first priority in life. Nothing else will occupy that spot—not your work, not the casino, not sports, not anything else.
If you really believe this, you’ll examine your conscience frequently and confess your sins often.
If you believe this, you’ll make every effort to be more charitable, more forgiving and more virtuous at home, at school and at work.
And amazingly, if you believe this, you’ll actually start to enjoy THIS life a lot more—because you’ll have the right perspective on the fleeting pleasures of this world.
Sadly, however, if you don’t believe this, then no matter how much money you make and how much power and pleasure you experience, the Walter Jameson inside you will continue to cry out—and you’ll have no answer for him. In the deepest recesses of your mind and heart those nagging, troublesome questions will never, ever go away: “Why am I here? What’s the point of this life? And why won’t the pleasures of this earth bring me peace, even when I gorge myself on them?”
Because the only answer to the Walter Jameson within us is the answer of
Easter! May Almighty God give us the
grace today to accept it—and believe!