November 4, 2012 - Our Lady of Sorrows

Go and Make Disciples . . .
Our Lady of Sorrows Church, Farmington
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Today it seems like everyone is into labels. I don’t mean shoes
and jeans, no, I’m thinking of personal labels. You know, the quick
judgments we make about others without really putting them into
words, just cutting thoughts and quick dismissals. Perhaps it’s the
overcharged political climate, and truly, that has a bearing on our
personal and communal labeling, but I think it goes a lot deeper.
While we bemoan negative politicking, we fail to hear ourselves
cutting down our neighbor’s kids or slicing up our in-laws. The
radical cry to clean up our public discourse applies first to us in our
relationship to our neighbor – and Jesus made it crystal clear that
our neighbor is everyone we encounter – at home, at work, at
Busch’s, at the gym, on the parking lot, and in church. That’s right!
In church.
When Jesus said, “You shall love your neighbor,” he meant it.
Love her when she dresses like you and when she doesn’t. Love
him when he drives a BMW and when he parks his car right in front
of your house, plastic taped windows and all. Love her when she
forgets an important detail that radically affects your project and love
him in all his ineptness. Love them because God does. Where
I grew up, racism and social profiling were never an issue because
we were all very comfortable white skinned people. Then one day
the walls around the garden came tumbling down and the reality of
diversity walked in. Now the gospel is so much more than a self
congratulating pat on the back message of, “Well, of course I love
my neighbor. She’s just like me.”
When the walls come down and our neighbor turns out to be
someone other than a reflection of ourselves, we are confronted with
the great question: “Now, what do I do? Let them in wearing
different clothes? Speaking a different dialect? Behaving like Mrs.
Turpin in a Flannery O’Connor novel? To love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart, and with all your mind, and all your strength, and
your neighbor as yourself is a tough job. But it’s the only chance you
have of gaining a place in the kingdom – of enjoying peace – true
peace. Some day every one of us will be confronted with this reality
because, one day every wall that divides people will come tumbling
down. And everyone of us has to decide whether we will love
someone whom we have labeled as less than us because of the way
they choose to live. And if there’s one thing that is absolutely true
about life and about the God that we profess as Christians – God is
present in every other person - really, truly present. That’s not
meant to scare us into better behavior. That’s meant to remind us of
the generosity of our God who sees only the soul and chooses to
reside there: your soul and your neighbor’s.
So, what do we do when the truth rises up to confront us? Well,
it’s fairly easy to deny it all and just go on being who we think we are:
good enough. Good enough may work for tonight’s dessert, but it
doesn’t work for that nagging commandment we heard in
today’s gospel. Confronted with the question, “Which is the first of all
the commandments?” Jesus replied: You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with
all your strength…and your neighbor as yourself.
Pat Ernst
NOTES . . . FROM THE PASTOR
Page 5
“Now I am going to tell you a mystery…all of us are to be
changed in an instant, in the twinkling of the eye, at the sound of the
last trumpet. The trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed. This corruptible body must
be clothed with incorruptibility, this mortal body with immortality.
When the corruptible frame takes on incorruptibility and the mortal
immortality, then will the saying of Scripture be fulfilled: Death is
swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death,
where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:51-55).
Our faith calls us to assemble as community for various reasons,
at various times. We usually gather at a cemetery for the burial of
family or friends and later visit the burial site. The gathering is often
a stressful time filled with grief and much pain. Usually the beloved
has recently died and the funeral liturgy just celebrated. It is a time
when faith is put to the test, when we are confronted with all the
implications of death. It is also the time when the pilgrim Church, the
faithful on earth, especially in the funeral liturgy, unites closely in
support of one another in their loss and gives witness to their
profession of faith in the mysteries of our redemption, resurrection
and the communion of saints.
Our gatherings at the cemetery after burial are frequently less
stressful, more peaceful, reflective, and prayerful times. As we
gather at the burial site, we are able to see around us the beautiful
setting for so many other faithful departed. We are in the presence
of the faithful who have gone before us.
We are reminded again of the great communion to which we
belong and because of Jesus Christ the bonds that hold us together
are stronger than death, “So it is that the union of the wayfarers with
the brethren who sleep in the peace of Christ is in no way interrupted
but on the contrary, according to the constant faith of the Church this
union is reinforced by an exchange of spiritual goods.” (Catechism of
the Catholic Church #995).
Everything in the cemetery should contribute to an experience
of the call to put our lives in order and seek a closer union with Jesus
Christ. For some the visit to a cemetery is the time for coming
to terms with the realities of life which of necessity include the
experience of death. In the serene setting of the cemetery life is put
into perspective.
An essential part of our faith is the understanding that we have
an obligation within the time given us on earth to share the vision of
our faith, to bring the good news that all things are gathered up in
Christ, that nothing is lost, nothing is wasted, “If the Spirit of him who
raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then he who raised Christ
from the dead will bring your mortal bodies to life also through his
Spirit dwelling in you.” (Romans 8:11). Our practice of the works of
mercy: burying the dead and comforting and consoling the sorrowful
are acts of charity to which we are called by our Baptism.
On Tuesday, November 13 th at 7:30 pm, all are invited to a
Taize Service in the main church building to pray for all the
faithful departed. The names of the dead who were buried from our
parish in the past year will be named and prayed for in the service.
Also, in each vestibule there is a pamphlet that contains the names
of those departed. Included within the pamphlet are prayers that will
assist you when you visit the grave of a loved one.
“The Church who, as Mother has borne the Christian sacramentally
in her womb during his earthly pilgrimage, accompanies his at this
journey’s end, in order to surrender him ‘into the Father’s hands.’
She offers to the Father, in Christ, the child of his grace, and she
commits to the earth, in hope, the seed of the body that will rise in
glory.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1683).
Peace,
Fr. Mark Brauer