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, May 24, 2013
Homily Prep May 26 - Trinity
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 on Saturday, 9:30 and 6:00pm on Sunday
I am thinking about my friend whose husband just died today. They were married twenty-some years - and had some significantly rough, rocky times in those years. But they weathered through them - and in these last years of his life they really savored their time together. When she reflects about their married life, she talks about how much of her "self" she gave up because of him. In one moment of the conversation she sounds a little irritated by it - and then in the next moment she sounds grateful for realizing that because of her life with him she has become a better person. While she never uses the word 'sacrifice', it really is what she is describing. In the last years of his life, as he struggled with disease, she devoted all of her time to his care - her only time to herself was when she would join a few of us for breakfast every couple of weeks. She would tell us lots of stories about his condition, about her sadness for his failing health - but she really never complained. Today, after he died and we were talking, she would suddenly start to weep and try to describe how she could feel his presence in her.
So, as I read the Matador's comments, I am imagining who God is, and how God is, in this love of my friends. God is in 'them' - in their loving, self-sacrificing relationship - and in the way the two of them became one over the years.
Self-sacrificing, mutual love, Who God is and how God is. Those things caught my heart. I am understanding why some relationships never grow and die off and why some flourish. Love that is just about sentimentality or some romantic made-up notion or affection will never have the DNA of God.
To Joy F: Can you explain a little bit further why do you think that sentimental or romantic love even affection "will never have the DNA of God.?.....
4 comments:
I am thinking about my friend whose husband just died today. They were married twenty-some years - and had some significantly rough, rocky times in those years. But they weathered through them - and in these last years of his life they really savored their time together. When she reflects about their married life, she talks about how much of her "self" she gave up because of him. In one moment of the conversation she sounds a little irritated by it - and then in the next moment she sounds grateful for realizing that because of her life with him she has become a better person. While she never uses the word 'sacrifice', it really is what she is describing. In the last years of his life, as he struggled with disease, she devoted all of her time to his care - her only time to herself was when she would join a few of us for breakfast every couple of weeks. She would tell us lots of stories about his condition, about her sadness for his failing health - but she really never complained. Today, after he died and we were talking, she would suddenly start to weep and try to describe how she could feel his presence in her.
So, as I read the Matador's comments, I am imagining who God is, and how God is, in this love of my friends. God is in 'them' - in their loving, self-sacrificing relationship - and in the way the two of them became one over the years.
Self-sacrificing, mutual love, Who God is and how God is. Those things caught my heart. I am understanding why some relationships never grow and die off and why some flourish. Love that is just about sentimentality or some romantic made-up notion or affection will never have the DNA of God.
Did something happen to my comment?
To Joy F:
Can you explain a little bit further why do you think that sentimental or romantic love even affection "will never have the DNA of God.?.....
Post a Comment