August 31, 2014 Homily

By Father Mathew

A farmer went to town to buy a truck.  The salesman told him that the truck would cost $21,500.

So the farmer was about to write a check for $21,500, the salesman told him that it was the basic price and with options it would cost $25,500.

With reluctance, the farmer wrote a check for $25,500.

A few months later the salesman called the farmer and told him that he wanted to buy a cow.  The salesman came to the farm and the farmer said the price of the cow would be $500.  When the salesman was about to write a check for $500 for the cow, the farmer said, “Wait a minute, that was just the basic price of the cow.”

Then he gave the salesman a final bill which read like this: Basic Cow $ 500. Extra stomach, $75 Milk storage $100, Straw Cycle Compartment, $275, Automatic Rear Flyswatter$125, Natural Fertilizer Outlet$ 175; Total with all options $1,250

Whether you are to buy a car or a cow, you've got to get to what we call “the bottom line.”

What is the bottom line of following Christ?  In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer “When Jesus calls you to follow Him, He bids you to die.”

In 2003 the Church of Holy Cross was broken into twice.

The first time they stole some money boxes.  The second time they did something strange.  The Holy Cross Church has a huge cross.  The thieves unbolted the 4’, 200-lb. plaster Jesus from the crucifix, but left behind the wooden cross to which Jesus was attached.

They left the cross and took Jesus!  Perhaps we Christians, the followers of Christ, do the same.  We take Jesus and leave the cross behind.

Take up your cross and deny yourself and follow me.  That is the command He gave all his followers who want to walk in his footsteps.  It sounds a little hard, right?  The meaning of that verse is “expend your life.”

When I was a little young boy growing up among eight siblings, we didn't have any luxury as much as the kids have nowadays and my father used to buy ice cream bars once a year for us.  Since it was a very rare thing, one of my siblings wouldn't eat it, he wouldn't take a bite from it hoping that it would last forever.  Every now and then he would lick it.  Finally, it would melt on him, while we enjoyed our ice cream.

Recently I saw a video of a young girl of four years embracing her 1-year-old brother crying “You are so cute, I don’t want you to grow up.”

If you don’t use it, you will lose it.

In today’s second reading to the Romans, Paul says “you may discern what is the will of God.”  God has a plan for your life and my life.  Expend that life the way God wants of us.  If you don’t use it, you will lose it.  In other words, it means an open and honest relationship with God.  You are like a blank check – a blank paper – and God writes the value, God writes the numbers.  It is a daily quest to discover what God wishes of us.  I know it is not easy.

That is what happened to Jeremiah as we read in today’s first reading.  Jeremiah was open to God.  God said to him to become a prophet for him.  A prophet is the public conscience of people.  So he started talking about their real life which was against God’s will and so they didn’t like the prophet Jeremiah and they pushed him in a cistern and left him to die.  And Jeremiah laments “You duped me.”

What is it that God wishes you to do in your life as his follower? 

James Foley felt he was being called to become a journalist.  He wanted to tell stories about human misery.  As a journalist while he was in Libya he was detained for 44 days.  Later after his release from the detention in Libya in an interview he said “I began to pray the rosary.  It was what my mother and my grandmother would have prayed . . . my colleague and I prayed together out loud.  I felt energizing to speak our weaknesses and hopes together, as if in a conversation with God, rather than silently and alone.”  Later he was in Syria and he was kidnapped by the terrorists and he was beheaded.   That is how James Foley followed Jesus in his footsteps.  How do you feel being called by Jesus to walk in his footsteps?

Everything that blossoms dies.  We are in September, and summer is dying.  Summer will give way to autumn with its colorful trees.  Autumn will give way to winter.  During that time the whole place will be covered with snow.  Everything dies, even the germs die.  Winter will give way to spring with new life everywhere.  Everything that blossoms dies.  There will come a day when you and I will die.  We believe in more that death.  We believe in dying and rising.  That is why we place everything on the altar at the time of the offertory – our whole life we give to God.  By giving our whole life to God, we believe that we are born into the life that never, never dies.