Longing... Hoping... Sowing...

15th Sunday of the Year (A)
10 July 2011
St. Anthony, DSM

http://www.usccb.org/nab/071011.shtml

A number of years ago, I was helping with a Youth2000 or Iowa2000 retreat we had here in Des Moines. Father David Santoro preached a beautiful homily on the Eucharist and how special of a gift it is. By some act of Divine Providence, before Mass there was a mix up in the sacristy and only half as many hosts as were necessary were set out for Consecration. As the priests distributing communion were soon to discover, there were not enough hosts. They started fractioning the hosts, first in halves, then in quarters. Eventually, there were about 50 people waiting in the one communion line left with Father Santoro, and he had no hosts. Fortunately, the MC for the Mass knew of another tabernacle nearby and had gone out when he saw what was happening to retrieve everything from there, which proved to be just enough for what they needed.

As these last people in the communion line were waiting, standing there in front of the priest who had nothing more to give, the meaning of his homily came to take on an immediate meaning. How great of a gift the Eucharist is, and we sometimes take it for granted. All of a sudden, they thought this gift might not be there for them. They were longing to receive, and everyone around them was hoping they could receive this gift and become one with them in this sacrament, and the priest was holding in his hands an empty ciborium, wanting to give them what he at the moment didn’t have to give.

We live today in a world that tries to fulfill every desire immediately. Any sense of longing is often considered a sign that something isn’t right and needs to be corrected – and certainly the last story could be seen that way. However, longing, waiting, anticipating is a natural part of the human condition. It prepares us to receive with joy and gratitude. We long and wait for all sorts of things with great anticipation – entry into baseball and football games, a nice dinner in a restaurant, a friend coming to visit.

We anticipate and hope for things which are important to us. Consider our priorities. We are a people who will wait hours and hours in line – sometimes all night – for concert tickets, the latest technology coming on sale, or for rides at Disneyworld. Yet, we are the same people who are terribly impatient with one another, with ourselves when we mess up, and with God when we don’t immediately get what we want. Do we not place our own interest above those of others? Do we cut in line, run around other cars on the roadways, sometimes do something we know will annoy someone around us? Do we use our friends, family, and those most dear to us simply because they serve our wants, desires, or pleasure? Do they simply make us feel good? When they stop, do we just drop them? Or, do we really love one another – for their own good, simply because they are good in themselves, and loved by God.

The Gospel today reminds us of what our priorities should be. First, of course, we must be the good soil, receptive to the Gospel of Christ. There are too many people today who are obstinate that God could easily say, “Gross is the heart of this people,/ they will hardly hear with their ears,/ they have closed their eyes,/ lest they see with their eyes/ and hear with their ears/ and understand with their hearts/ and be converted.”

But, simply sitting by and listening to the Gospel is not enough. God doesn’t compare the faithful to books in a library, but seeds in the soil. By nature, we who have received the Gospel have been called to be fruitful and multiply, and to bear as much fruit as we can – 30, 60, or 100 fold! And, our priorities are so backwards that sometimes we come here for just our individual salvation, or maybe for our immediate family who we bring with us, but we aren’t spreading the seed of the Gospel wherever we go. The sower is generous, and sews seed everywhere, hoping for growth, and hoping that it will bear more seed and bring more life and hope to the world.

Dear brothers and sisters, blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. We have seen and heard, and now we too are called to be sowers, for we know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now, longing for, awaiting our witness to and sharing of the Gospel to bring light and joy to this world which seems to continue to get darker and darker at times as it falls further into sin. The world is hungry, even though many have forgotten their hunger. They try to hide it and fill the hunger of their souls with all sorts of things that don’t really fill. Instead, other things fail to satisfy, and people try more things and different things to satisfy. They continue to dig themselves into a hole, and they become enslaved to these things which were supposed to make them happy.

Rather, the world is hungry for this bread and thirsty for this drink, which once again is about to be received in our bodies. We must begin the transformation within our own hearts to be good soil. Then, we must bear the fruits of our life in Christ, enlivened by the Holy Spirit. We must love enough to boldly go out and bear witness to the truth of our faith. We must love others enough to show them their sin and call them to conversion. We must love God enough to be fruitful – spiritually and physically – so that the mission may continue; so that the longing and hope of all creation may be fulfilled. We must love ourselves enough, so that our deepest longings – freedom from sin, union with God, and life eternal – might be fulfilled. As for now, we await in hope. We anticipate this fulfillment, and we have a foretaste of it every time we come back to this altar.