Good
morning. I want to thank Fr. Brian for
the introduction which he gave me. We
will be taking a little bit about the Co-Redemptorists this morning but first I
think the scriptures really need us to take a look at the message that they
have for us as well. It’s always an
important message that the scriptures are speaking to us. And I think this morning we have an unusual
glimpse at the daily routine of Jesus.
From early morning before the sun rises, when He takes the quiet time to
speak with His Father to a very busy and long day in which He is preaching and
teaching and healing people into the evening when He has His meal and then
follows it with more people coming to the door for Him to tend to. A long busy routine.
But Jesus is careful to distinguish His daily routine from His life. His life has a purpose. The purpose of His life is to enter these
people to a loving God so that they will be drawn to love that God and to love
those whom God loves. In
other words to expand the reign of God, the rule of God in our lives. Jesus makes the distinction between His daily
routine and how it serves the purpose of His life.
Now we also have a daily
routine and it would be wise for us to see that it must serve the purpose of
our lives, and in fact our life’s purpose is exactly the same as that of
Jesus. As baptized Christians we accept
the love of God for us. We respond to
that love by loving God in return and loving those whom God loves. That’s the purpose of our life, which should
shape our daily routine.
When we confuse those we
live a life of drudgery such as Job complained about. When we understand how our life fashions our
routine, our purpose is the center of our life, then
we live a life which is full of joy and gratitude to God.
It reminds me of the story
of the traveler in medieval times. He
was coming towards a small village. And
as he was approaching the village a man came out of the village pushing a
wheelbarrow. And in the wheelbarrow
there was a pile of stones. And the
traveler said to the man with the wheelbarrow, “What are you doing?” And the man with the wheelbarrow said
angrily, “Any fool can see that I’m pushing a wheelbarrow full of stones. Get out of my way.” And he went on. And then the traveler came to another man who
was pushing another wheelbarrow full of stones.
And the traveler said to him, “What are you doing?” And the second man said, “Well, I’m a construction
worker and I’m trying to earn a living for my family. It’s hard work but
at least I get a wage.” And wearily he
pushed on. And then the traveler came
upon a third person pushing a wheelbarrow full of stones. And the traveler said to him, “What are you
doing?” And this third man’s eyes lit up
and full of joy he said, “I’m building a cathedral.” When we recognize the purpose of our life
every activity and every even in our daily life is seen as a gift. We can accept it joyfully from God and when
we come together for Eucharist we give our thanks to God for our life.
I think that message is an
important one for us to hear from today’s readings.
We also have our little
business to do so I’m going to give that short commercial about the
Co-Redemptorists. And as Fr. Brian said
the Co-Redemptorists is an association of our people in our parishes who help
the Redemptorists in the training of our seminarians, the brotherhood and the
priesthood. They do it by making a
pledge to offer a certain monetary amount each month, $5.00, $10.00, something
like that which goes to the support of the seminarians’ education. They also pledge to pray for the seminarian
and we hope also to pray for vocation to the Redemptorist congregation.
Now I think most of you are already Co-Redemptorists so I would take the
opportunity to thank you for all of the support that you’ve been giving to our
seminarians and to the Redemptorists over the years. Those who are not Co-Redemptorists, I would
invite to become Co-Redemptorists and you can do that by finding these white
envelopes that are in all of the pews.
There is a place to fill out your name and address and what you will
want to pledge, etc. You can put this
into the basket this morning. You can
give it to Fr. Grile on the way out of church. You can take it home and bring it back next
week and put it in the basket. Or you
can also send it in the mail because it has our address on the front. That way you would become a Cop-Redemptorist.
And that’s really not much
off message from what we were talking about in the scriptures about the purpose
of our life. Because all of those
things, like Co-Redemptorists and the other things that you do in your parish
life, all the things that you do in the life of the church are ways in which we
express that love of neighbor which God calls us to do. They are ways of living out our vocation that
God gives us.
I remember a saying of Jesus
in which He said, “If you give a cup of cold water to a prophet because he is a
prophet you earn a prophet’s reward.” Is
it stretching it too much to say, “If you help someone who God calls to be a
preacher to become a preacher you earn a preacher’s reward.”
In any case I want to thank
you for what you do for the Redemptorists, for the Co-Redemptorists and I can
tell you that we Redemptorists remember you in our prayers every day, all of
those who help us with our work in any way.