Revised/reviewed February 13, 2002
Fr. Gerry Creedon's homily delivered at the 9AM Mass at St. Charles on February 3, 2002
"Let anyone who should boast, boast in the Lord." This is a season in the country when we are told to stand tall, strength in unity, no time for weakness, especially today, Super Bowl Sunday. America loves a winner. The losers won't be asked to advertise the next SUVs, I'll guarantee you. We like to be number one; it's in all of us (I think of myself). It comes out in sports. I have some pretensions when it comes to golf and Gaelic football and hurling. I was good enough to play in the championships in New York. But in basketball, I have no pretensions; I am not a good basketball player, never learned the game, but every so often I play with the Earthen Vessels, the clergy basketball team which was in action last Friday against the stars of O'Connell High School. The Old Crocks One of our Monsignors of happy memory, Msgr. McClun, used to call us not the Earthen Vessels but the Old Crocks. I, particularly, as a senior member of the team, deserved that title last Friday. I saw the young whizzes of O'Connell putting baskets in from all angles and flying around the court and I said, "I hope I just stay on the bench today." But I was trotted in for a few minutes at the end of the first quarter and passed the ball as quickly as I could and got out of the way and got back on the bench. The game was very tight, about 45 to 45. The clergy had kind of edged back into a position of some competition. Guess what? They put me back into the middle of it. I found myself with the ball about 20 yards out and I couldn't find anyone to pass it to. So I just threw it in the direction of the basket and guess what, it went in. It was a miracle. I take absolutely no credit. I boast in the Lord. It was pure grace. Of course, someone after 5PM Mass yesterday, when I told the story, came up to me and asked, "Who won?" The whole point is that it doesn't matter, right? Win or lose? Of course, modesty did not allow me to answer the question. Fr Bob, our captain, likes to win and he had three ringers, collegiate players. At one stage there were three of them and two clergy. He said they had vocations. . .perhaps to be professional basketballers. So, the clergy claimed victory. The Earthen Vessels indeed! Blessed are the Poor? The Gospel today is all about being an earthen vessel. It's a strange Gospel. "Blessed are the poor." Actually, Matthew says "poor in spirit." Luke says "poor" and just leaves it at that. Blessed are the poor? It's an amazing thing to say. On the wall, we have a banner from Haiti. If you were to go visit Port au Prince, you would say, "Do these people believe that God is good?" Poverty is wretched. But it is a strange phenomenon that sometimes you find in the midst of great poverty great faith. It's a marvelous paradox. Invulnerability. When you are stripped of your money, stripped of your power, stripped of your security as the whole country seemed to be last September, in those moments there is a wonderful grace, paradoxically. John Updike: Fever as a Gift? There's a poet-writer, John Updike, who classifies himself as an agnostic or struggles with faith. He shares in a poem what happened to him when he had a fever of 102. I'm sure many of you here could boast of a fever of 103 or 104, but when you have a fever of 102 or 103 or 104, you are not standing tall, you are lying flat on your back with feet up. Can there be a gift at a time like that? "Fever" I have brought a good message from the land of 102. God exists. I seriously doubted it before but the bedposts spoke of it with utmost confidence. The threads of my blanket took it for granted. The tree outside the window dismissed all complaints. And I have not slept so justly for years. It's hard now to convey how emblematically appearances sat upon the membranes Of my consciousness, but it is a truth long known that Some secrets are hidden from health. A priest I heard share that poem had a gloss in it: Some secrets are hidden from health, Some secrets are hidden from wealth and security and power, Some secrets, the most important secrets, are only revealed to those who need God - tax collectors, prostitutes. They are entering the kingdom of God, why, because they know the secret. Embrace Your Vulnerability The hungry and the weeping, the poor, the sick, the children are entering the Kingdom of God. Why? Because they know the secret, the secret of the great truth of our need for God. And in time of insecurity, it's good to just stay with some of that vulnerability. Let's not close up the chink in our armor right away. Will a $400 million defense budget make us all feel secure? I'm not so sure. In the very vulnerability, in the chink in our armor, in that time of sickness, hurt, grief, in those moments when you can somehow identify with the poor and the powerless of the earth, we know that ultimately we are God's creatures, God's children. He is ultimately our only salvation. Whether we win or lose, let us stand in our Faith. * * *
Revised/reviewed February 13, 2002