2nd of Easter 2011
May 2011
To continue with the homily I gave last week - I spoke of the many symbols used by the Churches in their liturgy. This was very evident in our Holy week liturgies. Symbols are used because when we are dealing with God we are dealing with mystery. We are dealing with things we do not and will never understand.
This is all good and necessary and very helpful to many. But when all is said and done unless I can, in some way, encounter my God in the little things of my daily life it will all be meaningless.
You will remember the story of Meredith and her dog which I told you last week (cf. ‘homilies’ on website). When she got the letter back from God she doubtless believed it came directly from God and was much comforted. But after a few years she would have realize that it came from some kind person working in the postal service.
This unknown person working in the postal service is of course the hero of the story.
In the Gospels we read of Jesus being ‘moved with compassion’ when he encountered people who were in distress of one kind or another. In his parables he also describes a person as being ‘moved with compassion’ for someone in trouble.
These three words ‘moved with compassion’ are the cornerstone of all Jesus said and did. He came to demonstrate to us the compassion of God our Father for all his children, young and old, rich and poor, the sick and the healthy, sinners and the just.
It makes no matter to God who or what I am. God always treats me with compassion, love, forgiveness, acceptance, tolerance.
Just as the compassion of God was revealed to us, and lavished on us, by Jesus of Nazareth. So too the anonymous postal worker in the story was moved to compassion for Meredith and her mother and was enabled to lavish the compassion and love of God on them to heal their sorrow. They encountered the compassion of God through an unknown postal worker.
This is what I mean when I speak of encountering the mystery of God in the little things of my everyday life.
Without these encounters with my God; without mediating the compassion of God to others; without encountering the compassion of God mediated to me by others, I will find that the most splendid and perfectly performed liturgies will feel empty and hollow to me.
That is one reason why some find the Mass boring and unhelpful.
I must encounter the mystery of God in my daily life if I am to encounter the mystery of God in the liturgy.