"TODAY YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE."

To my great joy, my former parish of St. Alban Roe has invited me, and other former Pastors, to return in Lent to preach on Jesus' Seven Last Words from the Cross. Here is my homily, which I shall peach at the evening Mass of March 5th.

“TODAY YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE.”

          What a joy to be invited back, some 30 years later, to the parish where I spent two happy years! I left for lighter duties, when my cancerous prostate was removed. Through the wonderful goodness of God, I am still here, as you see. I praise and thank Him for all his goodness to me. And I thank your fine Pastor for his wonderful and totally unexpected invitation.   

          Over a half-century ago it was common on Good Friday to celebrate a three hours long preaching liturgy, called by cynics the “Three Hours Agony,” with sermons on Jesus’ Seven Last Words from the Cross. Attendance for all three hours, noon to three, was not expected, save for the especially devout. After each sermon or homily there was a hymn and a prayer, giving people an opportunity to come and go as they wished. I preached those sermons myself over sixty years ago, spending the whole of Lent preparing the homilies. I found it time well spent, I assure you. At the conclusion of the seventh homily, punctually at three in the afternoon, the church bell rang, slowly and reverently, 33 times, for the years of Jesus’ earthly life. I always found that deeply moving.

          I have been invited to speak to you this evening about Jesus’ second word. Let me read it to you. “One of the criminals hanging in crucifixion blasphemed him, saying: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Then save yourself and us.’ But the other rebuked him. ‘Have you no fear of God, seeing you are under the same sentence? We are only paying the price for what we’ve done, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ He then said: ‘Remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus replied, ‘I assure you: this day you will be with me in paradise.’”

          What clearer example could we have of a central truth about our Lord and Savior: that he is the man of total love. Friends, that is the heart of the gospel: that Jesus does not wait to love us for some proof that we deserve his love. Do parents wait to see how their children turn out before loving them? Of course not! Dear friends of mine, a couple from China and not even baptized, but very good people, told me, when they were expecting their first child: “We talk to the baby.”

“What do you tell the little one?” I asked. “Oh,” they said, “We tell her everything we did that day. We also play beautiful music for her,” they said: “Mozart and piano music by Chopin.” I was with them an hour after that child’s birth. The atmosphere of overflowing love moved me deeply. That girl is in high school now. Sometime in the next 10 to 15 years a young man is going to ask her to marry him. He’ll discover that he’s found a truly wonderful wife and mother, because of the love and beauty with which she has been surrounded, starting even before her birth.

The good news of the gospel is this: our lives are not an uphill struggle to earn God’s love, or prove that we deserve his love. No. God loves us already, even before we are born, because we are His. All our efforts to measure up, to show that we are worthy of the Lord’s love for us, are attempts to thank God for the gift of his love.

Jesus’ words to the criminal hanging beside him, assuring him that his salvation is assured, are yet another proof that Jesus is before all else a Giver. What about yourself? Are you a Giver; or are you a Taker? If you’re a Taker, I promise you one thing. You will always be frustrated, disappointed and bitter. Because you’ll never get enough. It is only the Givers in life who are happy. “Give, and it shall be given to you,” Jesus says in Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount. “Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will they pour into the fold of your garment. For the measure you measure with will be measured back to you.” (Lk 6:38) And we find the same thing in the only saying of Jesus reported outside the four gospels: “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving.”  (Acts 20:35).

I started with a story: Jesus’ encounter with the man hanging next to him on the cross. Let me close with another story.

          A cardinal was visiting a community of Carmelite nuns in Italy.  After celebrating Mass for them, he asked the Mother Superior if he could see how they lived. Carmelite nuns are enclosed. They don’t leave the cloister. And visitors talk to them through a grille. The cardinal’s request violated their rule. But when a cardinal asks, you don’t say No. So, the Prioress asked one of the nuns to show him round.

          They visited the refectory, where the nuns sit on wooden benches without backs to eat their simple meals off bare wooden tables. The cardinal saw one of the cells where they sleep: a small room furnished with a narrow bed, a table to serve as a desk, and a hard-wooden chair; a single light bulb overhead and a gooseneck lamp on the table. Instead of a basin with running water there was a large washbowl on a stand, and on the floor next to it a large crockery jug. The nun explained that water was brought from the bathroom down the hall.

          At the end of the short tour the nun, led the cardinal up a narrow stairway to the flat terraced roof above, furnished with benches and a railing all round.  “On feast days like Easter and Pentecost,” she explained, “we can come up here, if the weather is fine, for our recreation period.” The view was beautiful. Across a valley they could see a magnificent villa surrounded by formal gardens and several fountains. It was summer. A gardener was cutting one of the hedges. Children were frolicking in the swimming pool. A couple were playing tennis on one of the two courts. 

          The cardinal turned to the nun who was showing him round. “How long have you been here in Carmel, Sister?” he asked her.

          “I entered twenty years ago next Easter,” she responded.

          “Sister,” he said, “if the young man of that house had asked you twenty-one years ago to come and live there with him there as his wife, do you think you would be here today?”
          “Your Eminence,” she replied. “That was my house. That’s where I grew up.”

          Why? Why would a young woman give up all that luxury and all that beauty? I think if we could have asked her, or hundreds like her clear round the world, she would have said something like this: “I wanted to be with Jesus.”

          Somewhere in this church right now there is a young woman whom God is calling to be a religious Sister. Somewhere there is a young man whom God wants to be a priest. Let me speak very personally to you.

          Jesus is offering you something he offers to only a few, something precious beyond words. He is offering you a life that will sometimes be hard, but which will be filled with meaning and filled above all with joy. How do I know that? Because eighty years ago Jesus made that offer to me. He called me when I was just twelve years old by placing in my heart and mind the desire to be a priest. Since then I have never wanted anything else.

         Thirteen years later I fulfilled that desire. That was almost sixty-six years ago. And I’ve never regretted it, not one single day. 

          And, I say to you, whoever you may be, whatever your age, whatever your circumstances: When Jesus calls you, go for it! And one day you too will be able to say what I say to you right now: What a wonderful life! There have been difficult times, of course, as in every life, marriage included. But I have never regretted my decision for priesthood: not one single day.

              Is God’s call just for religious professionals, priests and nuns? Don’t you believe b    it! While you were still in your mother’s womb, God already had a plan for your life. H    He calls each one of us, as he called the man hanging next to Jesus on a cross. He 
       calls us to walk with him, to be so full of his love that others will see the joy on our
       faces and want what we have. Christianity, it has been said, cannot be taught. It must
       be caught.

                “I could never do that,” you’re thinking? You’re wrong! Here is a list of some of the
         great people in the Bible. Every one of them had a reason for thinking God could not
         use them. So, the next time you feel like God can’t use you, remember: 

Noah was a drunk. Abraham was too old. Isaac was a daydreamer.  Jacob was a liar. Leah was ugly. Joseph was abused by his brothers. Moses had a stuttering problem. Gideon was afraid. Sampson had long hair and was a womanizer. Rahab was a prostitute. Jeremiah and Timothy thought they were too young. David had an affair and was a murderer. Elijah was suicidal. Isaiah thought himself unworthy. Jonah ran away from God’s call. Naomi was a widow. Job went bankrupt. Martha was a perpetual worrier. The Samaritan woman who spoke with Jesus at the well was five times divorced. Zacchaeus was too small. Peter denied Christ. The disciples fell asleep while praying.  At Jesus’ arrest, they all forsook him and fled. Paul was too religious. Timothy had an ulcer. And Lazarus was dead! 

          So, what’s your excuse? Whatever it may be, God can still use you to your full potential. Besides, you aren’t the message. You’re only the messenger.

          When you were born, you were crying, and everyone around you was smiling. Start today (if you haven’t started already) living your life so that when you die, you’re the only one smiling, and everyone around you is crying.