Sunday, August 19, 2012

Homily for my appeal for the extraordinary form Mass, Holy Rosary, Indy--The Good Samaritan


A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.  They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half dead.



A decade ago I found myself at the funeral of my friend’s 13 year old brother who had died a tragic death.  I walked up to view the body in the casket.   He laid there looking so young and innocent.  I touched his hand.  The cold, damp and lifeless skin was a painful reminder of the reality of his death; a reminder of death in general.



I walked outside of the funeral home to get some fresh air.  Here I encountered another friend who came to express his sympathy.  I had not seen this guy in a few years and heard that he had come on tough times: alcohol, drugs, wondering and floundering.  He didn’t look well.  I reached out to give him a hug.  When my arms embraced him I experienced something more frightening than the body of a lifeless 13 year old lying in a casket.  My friend’s body, though still clearly alive, was lifeless, cold, empty and seemingly without spirit.  This exchange reminded me that day of something significant: there is more than one way the human person can die.



Most of us live our lives somewhat fearful and conscious of physical death.  Once we pass the teenage years where we think we are invincible to almost everything, we come to see the fragility of life.  Either we lose someone close to us, or we ourselves experience sickness that brings us uncomfortably close to death. But perhaps it is not physical death that we should be the most worried about.  Perhaps there is something more that should be our concern.  A spiritual death, much like I experienced with my friend at the funeral.  Much like what seems to be indicated in today’s Gospel. 



A quick read of today’s Gospel may seem to indicate that Jesus wants us to act like the Samaritan, helping those in need.  But it we look closer, I think there is something more: We are like the ones in the ditch.  We are the one’s traveling down the road in today’s Gospel, the roads of Indianapolis, the highways of Indiana, and the Interstates of America.  We have found ourselves falling victims to robbers: cultural bandits and philosophical thieves.  They have left us lying in the road, stripped, beaten and half-dead: spiritually dead.  Who can argue that our present circumstance is not one of spiritual death?  From the disintegration of the family, to the loss of innocence in our young people, to the attacks on life and religious freedom, to the hateful political rhetoric that fills our televisions.  There is a spiritual death that seems to pervade our culture that leaves each of us clinging for life, hoping for a Samaritan man to walk by. 



It was my senior year of college.  I was doing my student teaching in a public high school.  In my class there was a young girl named Kayla. All through my lecture Kayla wasn’t paying attention.  Of course, I got used to students not paying attention to me.  But she was different.  She kept writing in what looked to be a journal.  After class I asked her to stay behind.  I mentioned to her that I noticed she had been writing in a notebook the entire class.  She opened it up and showed me the contents:  page after page of poetry indicating how sad she was, how lonely she felt, how awful her family life was, and that she didn’t see any reason to live.  As a public school teacher, sadly, there was not much I could do for her.  I set up an appointment for her with the counselor. I notified the right people. But I knew deep inside what it was that Kayla was experiencing: it was a spiritual death.  She was the one lying in the ditch waiting for someone to come by and save her.  At that moment I knew the only thing that could save her.  The only thing that can save us all.



The spiritual death we experience in our present age is not like a disease to which there is no cure.  God gave us a cure.  He chose to come down from Heaven to be with us.  To walk with us.  To live for us.  To die for us.  To be our Samaritan. And ultimately to give himself to us vulnerably and exposed in his body and blood.  To be the cure.  And the cure is right here with us.  But sometimes, before we can receive the help of the Samaritan, we all have to come to realize that we are the ones lying in the ditch.  We are the ones experiencing the spiritual death.  We are the ones who need to be saved.  We are the ones who need the Samaritan.  Only then, can we receive the life that awaits:



We can have oil poured over the sins of our past

We can have wine of salvation flowing through our bodies

We can have the bandages of mercy covering our wounds

We can have the bed at the Heavenly Inn that has been prepared for us



The spiritual death of our age is prevalent.  But we can trust that the Good Samaritan will never walk us by.



I belong to a religious missionary community called the Glenmary Home Missioners.  Back in the 1930s, our founder looked upon the state of the Catholic Church throughout the world.  He saw that countless missionaries were being sent to places like China, Japan, and the continent of Africa.  Yet he looked upon our own country and saw that vast areas here in the United States were experiencing a spiritual death.  In places in the South, the Southeast and in Appalachia, hundreds of thousands of people were without the gifts of the Catholic Church. People in countless counties had no access to the sacraments, to the Mass, and the Eucharist. Today, as then, hundreds of counties existed in which the Catholic population was less than ½ of 1 percent.  Imagine; 99.5 percent of all the people living in these areas have never consumed the Eucharist.  Many have never heard of the Good Samaritan, Jesus, the one who can save them from their spiritual death.  Therefore, it has been the work of Glenmary for the past 75 years to bring the gifts of the Catholic Church to these neglected, forgotten, impoverished and struggling areas.  To show them to the Good Samaritan. 



Some people claim that the missionary spirit of the Church has left her.  Well I will be one to stand in front of you all today and disagree with them.  In just two weeks I am going to start my first assignment in Eastern Tennessee.  This is Glenmary’s newest mission area.  And imagine, in just 8 short months, this mission area has gone from a Glenmary priest celebrating mass with a handful of Catholic in one of their homes, because they do not have a church, to hundreds of Catholics receiving the bread of life, the Eucharist, every single weekend as this growing Catholic population gathers in a store front.  There is now talk that soon this once small community will have to build a church.  And hopefully one day Glenmary will be able to hand this community over to the care of the diocese, and move on to yet another area where the people are longing for Jesus, the Good Samaritan.



We all struggle to escape the spiritual death of our age.  Yet we are privileged to have heard of the Good Samaritan who will never pass us by. And for this we can receive life: fullness of the life here on Earth and the chance for life eternal.  So I humbly ask you to please help support the mission of Glenmary to bring the news of the Good Samaritan to the mission areas here in the United States.  Please pray for us.  Consider a vocation to serve in the home missions.  And if you are able, please consider helping us financially.



Thank you.  Peace.

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