Tag: Forgiveness

What was the father thinking?

Homily for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C).

Here’s another homily from my year as a deacon, this one given at St. Bridget’s and St. Charles Parishes on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, places from which I have many warm memories.

I have looked forward to this morning for a very long time.  As many of you know, last weekend I was ordained a deacon in Boston.  I learned to be a minister of the Gospel here on Rosebud and all of you were my teachers, so I wanted my first weekend as a deacon to be here with you.  And God has answered that prayer.  As you can imagine, Paul’s letter to Timothy speaks to me.  Paul is writing to his friend and assistant Timothy and he’s marveling that God has trusted him to be a minister of the Gospel even though he himself was a sinner.  And after all his years of experience, Paul expresses the Gospel message with a single powerful sentence:  “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.”  

Lakota crucifix, Sioux Spiritual Center, Howes, SD

So if there’s anyone here who’s not a sinner, I’m sorry, you’re in the wrong place.  Go have brunch.  I don’t have anything to offer you.  The Catholic Church is like a big AA meeting for recovering sinners.  We even begin each Mass by acknowledging that we are sinners: “I confess to Almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned…”  As in AA, we’re here because we know we can’t overcome sin on our own; we need a higher power.  

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The Eagle

I’m back in Rome after a happy stay at St. Isaac Jogues in Rapid City, grateful for my time in America and all that I continue to learn at my adopted parish in particular.

One anecdote came back to me this morning, reading the Gospel about the call of Peter, an important passage for me in accepting my own call. Peter recognizes his own unworthiness–“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man”–but Jesus is undaunted and calls him anyway. And, of course, Peter’s subsequent story is filled with missteps, too, with the Lord again reaching out to save him and get him back on the right track. Yeah, I can identify.

At a confirmation in Rapid City a few years ago, one of my Lakota friends gave a talk that has stuck with me ever since about the eagle. Few objects are considered more sacred among Native Americans than eagle feathers, and few sights, I have to say, are more impressive than an eagle or a hawk soaring over the land.

But the point of this story was how the eagle teaches her young to fly–by carrying the little ones up into the winds and letting them go. At first they plunge, flailing and failing–until, from below, the eagle swoops down to catch them, save them, carry them aloft to try again. And that’s Jesus, my friend said, to a hushed congregation, with a conviction that could only come from knowing what it’s like to plunge and to soar.