Joy is the Infallible Sign of the Presence of God

Summary of a Fr. Gerry Creedon homily from November 19, 2006

"But the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever." Dan. 12:3

The apocalyptic scriptures describe a time of great distress; the sun darkened, the moon not giving its light, the stars falling, and the heavens shaken. We look to the 'end time' as the leaves come down around us in the Fall of the year. Liturgically, we hasten to the close of the church calendar and the feast of Christ the King. The end is also the purpose. Only the values of the Kingdom endure.

This Saturday I went directly from a wedding to a funeral, a church filled with 300 joy-filled celebrants to a church full of mourning for a bride of six months; her life brought to a sudden and tragic close.

I was reminded of a parish priest in Inchigeela, my home village. He had a wedding planned, but a parishioner needed to be buried the same day. The priest said one mass, with a funeral in one aisle and a wedding in the other. It was either a solemn wedding, "Till death do us part, " or a happy funeral. And yet there is death and loss in the midst of life. In the wedding rite the couple are urged, "Leave father, mother, brother, and sister, and cleave to your spouse." Apron strings are a recipe for disaster. To face a new world, we need to step out of the old.

The funeral for Melissa was in a Presbyterian church. The minister handed me my readings, concluding with a poem by William Butler Yeats, "The Fiddler of Dooney." He knew I was Irish, but he did not know that I attempted the fiddle, and that this was a favorite poem. Yet, I wondered at first about its appropriateness:

The Fiddler of Dooney
By William Butler Yeats

WHEN I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Moharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With 'Here is the fiddler of Dooney!'
And dance like a wave of the sea.

As I heard the remembrances it struck me that Melissa loved music, dance, art, song and theatre. She was someone who brought joy into the lives of many. And I recalled the expression, "Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God." The joyful are called first through the heavenly gates.

A wedding also proclaims another vital value for the Kingdom: love. St. Paul wrote, "There are three things that last: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love." The Spanish mystic, John of the Cross, asserts, "In the eventide of life, He will examine me on love."

Along with joy and love, today's readings proclaim another essential quality required by the Kingdom: "Those who lead the many to justice will shine like the stars in the firmament." I read these words at Bobby Kennedy's grave this weekend as we marked his 81st birthday. He found hunger and discrimination, and all the walls of exclusion, "Unacceptable."

Our parish does justice when we stuff turkeys for families who can ill afford one. We do justice when we empower the voiceless through the empowerment programs funded by our second collection, the Campaign for Human Development. We imitate Jesus who saw the contribution of the widow's mite. Justice allows for the participation of all, as architects of their own destiny. St. Charles parish does justice when we reach out to needy neighbors at Christmas, through our Giving Tree. Last week the government deleted the term 'hunger' by renaming it 'food insecurity'. We are called to end hunger by whatever name, through action for justice and compassion.

He is at the gate. We prepare for the end, the dawning of the Kingdom, when we live in joy and love and justice.