Feb. 9, 2014: 5th Week in Ordinary Time A
We had several funerals in our parish this week, and there was one name that kept popping up in conversations among family and friends of the deceased. The person’s name is very familiar to you if you went to Ascension Catholic School here in Donaldsonville. That person’s name is Sister Marie. She passed in 1981. Our parishioners remember her for her strict disciplinarian style when they were taught by her. A few of her students, now grown men, remember vividly that Sister Marie sent them behind the now-famous piano to cool off for a period of time for their not-so-good behavior in class. They also remember her for her great compassion for the poor. They say that Sr. Marie knew all of the poor in town by name. She would ask local merchants and parishioners to donate food and clothing for them.
Let me ask you this question. Yes or no? Can your child ever do anything wrong? Can your child
ever lie about anything, even to you? Can your child hide some details from you when something bad happens? If your answer was ‘no’ to all of the above, what would Sister Marie say to you? In Sr. Marie’s time, if you got in trouble in school, you got in double trouble at home from your parents. It seems to me, however, that that’s not the case anymore. Has our human nature advanced to a degree, that our children don’t sin anymore? Obedience and discipline habituates a child to forget immediate desires for the sake of higher duties. Without discipline, a child becomes a slave to his own caprices. Affection and tenderness, which are essential, lose their happy effect if they degenerate into lack of discipline. Aren't we now living in an era where the children are awarded or even placated when they do something wrong, perhaps because we fear that we are going to damage them psychologically? When these children grow up to be adults, will they expect everyone to obey them, expecting everyone to satisfy what they want? Can you imagine having a husband or wife like that? Can you imagine a priest like that? How about civil leaders, business professionals, or even teachers? Pope Francis recently used an interesting term for these persons--“little monsters.”
Our Lord in the Gospel uses the image of salt losing it’s taste. He said, “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Have you ever tasted salt which lost its taste? I haven’t, but it’s a powerful image to describe a person who has ceased to be an instrument of God, a person who no longer serves God but is self-serving. It describes a person who has received the great gift of life from God, but who does not appreciate this gift. The person does not return to God the love which God has given him. In short, the person has lost the purpose and meaning of who he or she is.
Everyone is searching for his or her identity, but the real you only emerges when you are united to God. We need His grace, and without it we are stumbling in darkness. We can only understand who we are by knowing God, because He has a very special plan for each of us. Does the fourth Commandment say, “Father and mother, obey thy children?” No! Without obeying God in humility, we are like a child expecting our parents to obey us. Without sincerely asking God, “Heavenly Father, I desire to do what You will for me,” we can easily fall into the temptation of pursuing only personal success and comfort to the exclusion of a relationship with God. Will our personal success so enrapt us that we will forget the Master? Shall the glitter and the glamor of lights and attention, block Him out? Will we forget our sinner condition and think only of praise?
Those of you who are converts to Catholicism may remember the part of the Rite of Christian
Initiation of Adults (RCIA) where your sponsor makes the sign of the cross over your senses. The priest pronounces the following words: Receive the sign of the cross on your ears, that you may hear the voice of the Lord (while the ears are signed). / Receive the sign of the cross on your eyes, that you may see the glory of God. / Receive the sign of the cross on your lips, that you may respond to the word of God. / Receive the sign of the cross over your heart, that Christ may dwell there by faith (while the chest is signed). / Receive the sign of the cross on your shoulders, that you may bear the gentle yoke of Christ (while the shoulders are signed). / Receive the sign of the cross on your hands, that Christ may be known in the work which you do (while the hands are signed). / Receive the sign of the cross on your feet, that you may walk in the way of Christ (while the feet are signed). What a powerful reminder it is to us that all of our body parts are to serve the Lord.
What was Sr. Marie trying to instill in her students? She was trying to impress upon them the most important life lesson--that they must love as Jesus loved them. She also wanted them to know that to love means to sacrifice, not living for themselves but to sacrifice their self-will and to live for others.
Let us ponder this week what we are doing with the great gift of Life that God has given us. Do we trust God’s will for our lives? Are we like the salt that still has the flavor, infusing our daily lives with the inspirations of the Holy Spirit?
