Homily for the 31st Sunday C, Nov 4, 2013
Rev Joseph T. Nolan
You may have missed in the past week the scenes of the boy who hugged the pope. It’s
worth sharing. The pope was addressing many thousands at his weekly audience and the
boy who was about five years old slipped away from his father, and found the steps to the
platform and—what happened? Well, the pope, unlike Zaccheus in the gospel, is a tall
man. So he wrapped his arms around the papal leg, white vestments and all. The pope
patted him on the head and then continued his address to the crowd with the usual
gestures. The boy imitated him, the same gestures! At that point they were frantically
trying to get him to come down. No way—he went over and sat on the pope’s chair.
Frequently at daily Mass downstairs we have a little boy about two years old named
Daniel who absolutely wows people with his happiness, the joy of living. Just being
himself. When his mother brings him up for a blessing at the Communion, I feel that he
blesses me. She tells me that they are returning to Mexico for a month and she has to do
that often to prove that she is married and her husband can eventually come here. It’s all
part of that immigration problem that we need to solve. All I know is that we want Daniel
back—we need him!
The gospel has that great line, Jesus to Zaccheus, “Today salvation has come to this
house.” It comes also to this house —this church where we are gathered to hear the good
news, where we make Jesus welcome, and house in our own bodies the sacrament of his
presence.
This good news follows upon All Saints Day and All Souls Day, and we should think
about them. All Saints is usually swallowed up by Halloween, and every year I hope you
tell the children that ghosts and witches are not for real. They are made up. They are for
fun. Just think what the Harry Potter books did with them! What I askrd my graduate
assistant who is from China, “Did you read any novels in English when you were
learning the language,” she said,, “Harry Potter—of course!”
The first reading raised the question, who is real? We are. God is real, and we belong to
him. How nobly this is put in the passage from Wisdom: “Lord and lover of souls,
your imperishable spirit is in all things!” And still more: “You love all things that
exist and loathe nothing you have made.”
This sublime passage from the book of Wisdom is worth reading again. And again,
especially when doubts arise that we will live beyond death or have been forgotten in our
trials. We need to meditate on these words until, with the help of the Holy Spirit. we
believe them! Until truth dawns like a light and drives out doubt and dismay. We are
loved. And we don’t have to climb a tree to attract the attention of Jesus. Often you hear a
statement that death is not to be feared because it is the gateway to heaven. Not so. Jesus
said, “I am the gate. I am the way.” Yes. In him, through him, with him we come to the
glory
I know this isn’t always easy to believe. I will share an instance of my own doubting. A
some of you know, Kansas was part of my life as a parish priest ( you’ve heard of
Kansas—it’s out west somewhere, beyond Worcester!) It was there that I baptized Jane.
Her parents were just great parishioners and when they realized they could have no more
children they adopted three. One is my Godchild. They moved to California and so did I.
In those years I worked one semester with the Franciscans in Los Angeles and moved
back (in the dead of winter!) to teach the second semester at BC. Then tragedy struck,
Jane, their eldest, died—or died after four days-- from an automobile accident which was
not her fault. God had arranged for me to be there to have her funeral, to speak the words
of comfort and truth that I believe—and so do you. When did the doubt arise? The next
morning. The funeral had been an evening Mass, and when I drove with the family to the
cemetery for the burial we rounded a corner and you could see the coffin sitting on that
artificial grass. And her young brother shouted, “There she is!”
Everything in me wanted to shout, “No, she isn’t!” In heaven, yes. But mortality seemed
so terribly real at that moment. This part of our lives is lived through the body. It is our
form, the extension of mind and spirit, the way we think, speak, love. I know the right
answers to dying; I share them with you often. And the truths of faith finally reasserted
themselves. Jane’s parents had been staying at a motel near the hospital, and when the
doctor called late in the night to say, “She’s gone” they drove there. They told me that
when they entered the hospital the sun had just risen.
The So of God has risen, too, and the apostle calls him “the first born of the dead.”
I wrote a verse once for autumn but it really is for death and life:
Is there a leaf upon a tree
the Father does not see?
But leaves fall,
fall,
fall,
return to earth, to sod.
So do we all.
Peasants and kings
and all manner of things
fall,
fall,
fall
into the hands of the living God.