6 Nov 2016
32nd Sunday in Ordinary
Time, Year C
Julius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Joan of Arc, Ma Barker and her
Gang, Abraham Lincoln, Adolf Hitler, Mother Teresa—they all had something in
common: they all had a strong human will.
For that matter, most people have a strong will. We have a drive to do what we think is good
for us; a drive to succeed; a drive to live and to thrive. And, you know, life would be so much simpler
if everybody would “just think as I do.”
Of course, that’s not reality.
The reality is that for every human soul created by God,
there’s yet another will put into the mix—to cooperate or to clash with
others. If you’re a parent, at some
point I’m sure you realized that, “Oh my, this child of mine has a will of its
own!” That’s when life at home gets
really interesting. What is the struggle
sometimes between parents and teenagers but a struggle with the human will?
Of course, there are examples of really fruitful
cooperation. I think of Marquette and
Joliet, who were of one mind in their explorations of the new world. Or Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, who
cooperated on a number of innovations, many of which are everyday items today. We could talk about those first citizens of
the United States in 1776 who, even though argued a lot, were nonetheless
united in their drive for freedom and a new life.
The human will is an amazing gift from our Creator. No other known creature has a will quite like
ours; the will, the drive to become something. The Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar
(?) said rightly that the human person is most human when he is striving to become. In other words, we’re most human when we’re
pushing the limits to see what we can do, and what and who we can become. That’s when we’re most human, because we’re
exercising our will.
Ironically, it’s when we’re exercising our will that we can
also be the least human. In our reading
from Maccabees, we have an example of human will gone awry. Some Jews were arrested, “and tortured with
whips and scourges by the king, to force them to eat pork in violation of God’s
law.” One by one they were
killed—because their captors willed it to happen.
The debate between the Sadducees and Jesus is another
example. The Sadducees were convinced of
their own rightness, and their will—their desire—was to be right and to defend
what they believed to be true. Every
confrontation between Jesus and the Sadducees or Pharisees was a contest of
wills.
There’s a lot of good that can from us exercising our human
will. There’s also a lot of struggle and
pain that can come with it. Just think
about death. Every human who ever lived,
is living, or will live will go through death.
It’s just part of our human life.
But, you know very well that we’ll do everything we can to avoid
it! And that’s what makes death even
more painful when it comes—it’s not only the death of a loved one, it’s also
the death of the illusion that I am the master of my world.
When I consider the life of the parish—any parish, really—when
things are going well, it’s because people are of the same mind and heart; they
have the same desire or will. Someone
said to me just recently, “Father, you know, there’s a sense of peace in the
parish today which hasn’t ever been here before.” And I acknowledged the comment. But I wondered, you know, are people just
tapping into some common desire? Maybe
people are just willing, and wanting, to live in peace. Maybe; I don’t know.
When eight of our young adults were inspired to start a youth
group, there’s another example of people moving forward with a single
purpose. They’re each unique
individuals, but they each bring something to the group and to their common,
shared desire for a youth group. But,
you know, the youth group also meshes with the larger will or desire of the
parish; it blends beautifully with the mind of the Church. And that’s the “litmus test:” does our human
will blend with the larger will of humanity and, most importantly, with the
will of God?
Of course, oftentimes in the parish—any parish—when there’s a
rough patch, it’s because people’s wills are at odds. It would be a gross understatement to say
that the merger of St. Paul, St. Mary, and St. Patrick has been rough. I mean, talk about a contest of wills! I wish I could bottle up all your human drive
and will—we’d never have an energy problem!
And sometimes that’s good.
Sometimes things need to be hashed out; they need to be taken to the
woodshed, with respect and charity.
But sometimes that contest of wills does more harm than
good. And that’s where Jesus has to step
in and say, “Hold on there, my little sheep.
What are you arguing about?” We
see him do that quite often in Scripture.
And that’s when the will of God really has to be listened to: when we
find ourselves arguing—without charity, without humility, without mercy or
forgiveness. That’s when we need to let
our wills and desires “cool down” a bit.
And I think that’s what the past five months have allowed us
to do here. I came on board back in July,
and that very first weekend I said pretty plainly: “I’m not here as an ally to
anyone; I’m here as a friend to everyone.”
And I think you’ve taken that to heart.
I haven’t been asked to get on anybody’s side on issues, and I’ve heard
pretty charitable and complimentary things from you about each other. I see this time in our parish life as
fragile—in a good way. It’s like a
little plant that’s starting to sprout after eight years—and you don’t want it
to get blown over or washed away in the rain.
Our parish life is fragile and tender right now—in a good way.
However that contest of wills is beginning to grow again—not
in a big way, but it’s there. Of course,
it centers around the review of our new Mass schedule that was put into place
six months ago. When we still had five
Masses, our attendance was at an average of 778 people per weekend. When we went to three Masses, the number
dropped to an average of 548. In other
words, we lost 230 people.
Now, they didn’t simply disappear; they’re just going to
other parishes right now for Mass.
They’re over in Brillion and Denmark, De Pere, Freedom, and
Kaukauna. And I receive messages from
them, through people who are still here at the parish, that “we want to have
our Mass time back.” The human will is a
powerful thing, second only to the Will of God.
And it shows its tenacity and resolve in that request: We want to have
our Mass time back.
But who are the contenders in this contest of wills? Well, one is the group of those who “want to
have our Mass time back.” Another
contender is the wider parish—that little plant which is starting to sprout a
new life. But there are other
contenders, too, in this contest of wills—probably too many to be aware of, but
I’ll mention just two of the big ones.
The first is the Will of God.
Now, God isn’t so particular about our Mass schedule; he’s not going to
carve into stone tablets what our Mass times are supposed to be. He’s not that concerned about it. But he is the one who, we trust, is generally
steering the ship. Where’s the parish
going, and how much of it is God’s will, and how much of it isn’t? It’s God’s will that “none of what he has
given to the Son will be lost; that all will come to the fullness of life.”
God’s will is a contender in this contest of wills in that
he’s constantly reminding us to be: charitable and just, self-sacrificing and
thankful for our blessings. Just think
about it: When people are unhappy—generally speaking—what do we do? We gossip.
We become prideful and convinced of our own rightness. We become wrathful and filled with hate. We become hard of heart. And so, our wills can be in contention not
only with other people and other ideas, but with the will of God himself. After all, there’s nothing life-giving about
gossip, or pride, or hatred, or a hardened heart. They’re all in direct opposition to the will
of God.
And a last big contender in this contest of wills we find
ourselves in today is death; specifically, the death of an idea, the death of a
way of life. As I mentioned earlier,
each of us knows very well that we’ll do anything to avoid death. And so, what happens when life changes and we
can’t accept it? Well, the change—the death—becomes
even more painful, and we might fight it even more vigorously.
I remember, as a seminarian, there was what seemed like a
constant battle between me and God; between my will and God’s. But after awhile I realized the battle
wasn’t with God, it was with death—specifically, the death of a way of life
that I didn’t want to let go of, but which I knew I needed to let go of if I
was ever going to follow Christ as a disciple.
Life didn’t pick up again until after I had stopped fighting with
death. God had plans for my life, but
they couldn’t happen until I let my own plans take second place to God’s.
When I think about these church buildings we have, and the
people who built them, I’m reminded that none of these are the original
buildings of the congregations. The
people built, torn down, built again, and some even built yet again. Our ancestors—your ancestors—knew how to die
and rise, how to let go so they could survive and thrive. And that’s an important lesson we can learn
from them.
In this month of November, Catholics have traditionally spent
time remembering loved ones who have passed away. But especially with parishes that are the
result of a merger, it’s a time to remember the parishes that were, but are no
longer. “Unless a grain falls to the
ground and dies, it remains just a single grain, without fruit.” Saint Clare Parish has begun to move forward;
a little plant has begun to sprout . . . because we’ve begun to accept (even if
it is with sadness and regret) we’ve begun to accept the passing away of the
former parishes.
St. Paul’s, St. Patrick’s, and St. Mary’s were testaments to
the faith and willingness of the people to follow God. And, like most of creation, they each had
their lifecycle: they were born, they grew up, they thrived, and they began to
shrink and diminish. And their lifecycle
is bound up with the lifecycle of the Church: Mass attendance continues to
dwindle across the board; new vocations to the priesthood are not replenishing
those priests who are dying or retiring; cultural values are shifting in some
pretty monumental ways. We are contending
with death in a big way: the death of a way of life; the death of how we used
to understand what it meant to be a parish.
Some of us have begun to accept the passing away of the
former parishes of St. Paul, St. Patrick, and St. Mary—not in a spirit of
defeat, but with a willingness and desire to build upon what has been given to
us. Some of us, however, do not accept
the passing away of the former parishes.
And so, there’s a pretty strong contest of wills between their own and
death.
Our parish life is fragile and tender right now; there are a
lot of good things happening, thanks be to God.
However that contest of wills is beginning to grow. The question is: What to do with this
six-month review of our Mass schedule.
Well, after a lot of consultation with councils, parishioners, and other
pastors, and after a lot of prayer and deliberation, a two-pronged answer was arrived at.
First, what is going well and growing is going to be kept and
nurtured. And so, our current Mass
schedule will be maintained as it is. Of
course, that’s not going to make everybody happy, but that’s not what I’m here
for, and that’s not what I gave up my life for.
By God’s hand we are hopefully being led into the ways of death—so that
new life can sprout, specifically a new life known as Saint Clare Catholic
Parish.
And so, first, our current Mass schedule will be maintained
as it is, as we continue down the road of death to old ways and birth to new
ways. Secondly, however, our brothers
and sisters who go to other parishes, those who “want to have their Mass time
back,” have to know that we want them to be a part of Saint Clare. There’s a good thing going here, and we don’t
want them to miss out on it.
And they have to know that in this contest of wills over Mass
times (and other aspects of parish life) preference will always be given to the
will of God, to whatever is life-giving and fruitful, and to the ways of
self-sacrificing charity. That’s the spirit
we want to foster. And we welcome them
to be a part of that spirit at Saint Clare.
But their participation—and our participation—in that spirit won’t be
because somebody else changed; it’ll
be because we changed, because we died a little so that something new
and good could come into being.
Now, if you know some of our lost flock who go to other
parishes, I challenge you to bring this message from Saint Clare to them. This is a real honest-to-goodness opportunity
to practice evangelization. I invite you
take copies of this homily to them (and there are copies in the back of
church). I invite you to share with them
the results of the review of our Mass schedule.
It doesn’t sound like they’re going to come here . . . so we’ll have to
go to them.
And when you see them, let them know we’re praying for them
and that we wish them all goodness and peace.
In the meantime, however, Saint Clare Parish will continue to move
forward following the Will of God.
If there’s a message to take from our Scripture readings and
from this whole question of Mass times, it would be: Don’t be afraid to die for
what you believe in; just make sure what you’re dying for is the Will of God,
who brings us through death and into new life; always into something new.
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