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Get into the ring! How this works...

This is easy! Each week on Thursday I post my homily idea...my main focus for preaching this coming Sunday. What I am hoping for is a reaction from people in the pews. Does my "focus" connect with your daily life, faith, and experience? Or not? Either affirm the direction I am going in (by giving me an example from your life) or challenge me, ask for clarification! Questions are the best! Reaction rather than reflection is what I'm looking for here. Don't be afraid, get in the ring. Ole!



Friday, October 5, 2012

Oct 7 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org >>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Saturday

Are You Disappointed in Love? Of Course!

The troubling and heartbreaking mystery buried in the text of this Sunday's respect life scriptures is that God has planted deep within us an unquenchable thirst for communion. In our broken human condition, there is no quenching that thirst. We are called to "settle".

The problem in the blindness of our broken human condition is that we have never accepted the inability of human fulfillment of love on this side of heaven. Therefore we romantically seek and don't find satisfaction in the relationships of this world. Whether it is in marriage, in the family, in the church! We go seeking that which is not promised to us. Only God can fulfill the hunger he has placed with us for communion.

Too many of us in the world spend our entire lives disappointed in the lack of fulfillment in love. We never accept in faith the limitation of our human condition and the fulfillment of our desires in God alone.

This is a tremendous waste of time, effort, and energy. Let us take a new look at the hunger of our hearts and accept the limited satisfaction that our human loving can accomplish and turn our desire to God alone.

Make sense? We don't have to be happy about it!

4 comments:

JoyFuralle said...

Wow, this is incredible, and it's never anything I've heard at Church. In fact, it sounds like something you would hear from bitter men or women as regards the opposite sex, "oh, they're all the same, you can't trust them" kind of thing. So you're saying "yes", true!

Reminds me of St. Augustine's lament, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." Yes, true.

It seems that the fairy tales of youth have penetrated us permanently and we think all of life has to be, "and they lived happily ever after" NOT TRUE, but we want to keep thinking this is true. Hmmm, makes me wonder why as a culture we continue to try living a lie.

I think of how often in my life I have felt disappointed or insecure or hurt by someone's words or actions (or someone by mine) and have never stopped to realize that these are simply symptoms of our broken human condition and that no amount of words or actions can ultimately fix it because it's not mine to fix as much as accept and turn to the Lord more firmly.

This homily will be a tough sell. Ultimately, this is the best way to live, but our cultural ways (even business etiquette & the like) are opposite.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful words Father.

All of the longing we feel in our hearts is really our desire for God. He keeps us longing, unfulfilled, desirous as every longing opens; expands our hearts even deeper and wider to be able to love Him more and more.

anon 1 said...

This message is one of wisdom that breaks through the false teaching of a worldly culture. I think in the earlier part of my life I would have had trouble "getting it" - but in later years it has brought me peace. This is a message that can help us understand that what we really desire is something only God provides. It can motivate us to a genuine enhancement in our relationships of this world by understanding our ultimate desire for the One who made us and loving God through, with, and in those around us.

lr said...

This Prep speaks to me like nothing else has! I am so in love with God that nothing this side of Heaven will ever satisfy me, marital love included. Once we experience the merest fraction of the joy and love that awaits us in Heaven, NOTHING on this earth will ever satisfy us until we feel the same again. The pursuit of that kind of love, and falling far short, has been the source of much heartache for me. Thank you Father for enlightening me to the fact that I WILL never find what I am searching for until I am in communion with God. I love the quote "We never accept in faith the limitation of our human condition and the fulfillment of our desires in God alone." Thank you. LR