Tag: Vocation

The hunger and the harvest are abundant: homily for the eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

A couple of weeks ago I visited the Art Gallery of Western Australia, not very far from here, and I was moved by an exhibition of works by young artists, Year 12 Visual Arts graduates, from here in WA.  In addition to the talent of these young people, I was moved—even disturbed—by the pain that I saw expressed in their work.  Not youthful idealism, but pain.

Western Australia Pulse 2023 Exhibition, Perth

The pain that I saw expressed so honestly in art was not from material deprivation.  These young artists enjoyed all the advantages and opportunities of a state-of-the-art education system.  No generation has ever had the material advantages we enjoy today in the West.  Yet as I have traveled in America, in Australia, in Europe I have felt what I think many people today perceive, an ache, an emptiness—sometimes a sense of rootlessness, sometimes a vague, unspecified guilt, often a lack of purpose and meaning.  We claim to be free, yet fear of giving offense suffocates us.  We are hyperconnected through media and gadgets, yet no generation has ever been so lonely.  We boast of the diversity of our societies, yet we barely speak to those with whom we disagree.  Something is wrong, something is missing—something at the root of the hurt expressed in those young artists’ work.

In the popular culture of the West, the spiritual void is inescapable.  We have uncountable comforts.  In fact, I don’t think that our most characteristic compulsion is to acquire more stuff.  Instead, today, we are addicted to being entertained.  But our entertainment does not lift the soul—it is not like the art of Michelangelo.  It just keeps us occupied and keeps us paying.  How could we, beings created in the image of God, find this satisfying?  

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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.