Dear Friends,
Our second reading this weekend is a brief portion of Chapter 11 from Hebrews. That chapter gives us a beautiful testimony as to how faith was lived out by the great ones of the Old Testament. It challenges us to have that same kind of faith.
The Jesuit scholar, Fr. John Kavanaugh, wrote about a personal encounter he had with Mother Teresa a number of years ago, “Long ago, when I spent a month working at the ‘house of the dying’ in Calcutta, I sought a sure answer to my future. On the first morning I met Mother Teresa after Mass at dawn. She asked, ‘And what can I do for you?’ I asked her to pray for me. ‘What do you want me to pray for?’ I voiced the request I had borne for thousands of miles: ‘Pray that I have clarity.’ She said no. That was that. When I asked why, she announced that clarity was the last thing I was clinging to and had to let go of. When I commented that she herself had always seemed to have the clarity I longed for, she laughed: ‘I have never had clarity; what I’ve always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust.’ Thus Mother Teresa became for me a member of that cloud of witnesses to which the Letter to the Hebrews refers: heroes of faith, who had conviction about things unseen.”
The litany of great faith in the book of Hebrews concludes with what I think is one of the most unique and challenging lines of scripture:
All these died in faith. They did not receive what had been promised but saw it and greeted it from afar
and acknowledged themselves to be strangers and aliens on earth, for those who speak thus show that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land from which they had come, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better homeland, a heavenly one.
Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Do we see ourselves as “strangers and aliens on earth”? Do we regularly feel discomfort in what the rest of the world sees as important? Are our eyes fixed on what is truly our home, heaven? Do we feel like we speak a foreign tongue when we are talking to neighbors and coworkers about what matters in life? If so, good! The response that God makes to this demonstration of faith is quite lovely, “God is not ashamed to be called their God.” Our willingness to see heaven as our home brings us close to God even here.
I have often wondered when Christians get super involved in political power and the accumulation of earthly wealth and goods, if God is up in heaven hiding his face because he is ashamed to be called their God. Perhaps when he hears preachers calling for hatred, division and condemnation, he puts up a sign saying “they are not talking about me.” And uses the same sign when preachers promise earthly success if we just prayed. Let us choose not to be like them.
May we choose with the grace of the Holy Spirit to put ever deeper trust in God as did the great ones of old. Knowing, as they did, that he has prepared a city for us.
Peace,
Fr. Damian
P.S. There has been a question raised about the Organ Fund. The Fund was started many years ago as a way to slowly accumulate the monies to renovate the pipe organ that came from the old St. Philomena’s Cathedral and is one of the oldest pipe organs west of the Missouri River. The pipes from that organ are still in the choir loft but the console is long gone. What you hear now at Mass is the electronic organ that came over from St. Patrick’s Church. It is a very good electronic organ. The last time we had an estimate given to restore the pipe organ was six years ago. The estimate to restore it was just shy of $400,000. Presently, the Organ Fund has $63,432 in it. So, we still have a long way to go. We appreciate those who keep contributing to make the dream of restoration come true.