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I hope you were listening attentively to today’s first reading from the book of the prophet, Nehemiah, because it reports the story of a congregation of people who really enjoyed attending church that particular day. For those who may have missed it, here’s a brief recapitulation of what transpired. The people—the men, the women, and those children old enough to understand—assembled at sunrise. Ezra the scribe opened the Word of God and held it up for all to behold. The people in the assembly stood, just like we do for the reading of the gospel. Ezra then praised God and the people raised their hands high shouting, “Amen! Amen!” So far, this sounds like a Southern Baptist Sunday service, no? The people then bowed down and prostrated themselves on the ground. Amazingly, Ezra read the Word of God until noon, interpreting it so that all could understand. That’s a full six hours! Are you thinking, “Oh, my God!” Interestingly, what Ezra read from the Word of God made the people cry. Seeing this, Ezra proclaimed: “Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength.” The image of a congregation whose members are so eager to hear the word of God and to understand what it means to the point that they were moved to tears, I daresay, is not something most of us experience each week at Sunday Mass. Yes, many of us are willing to sacrifice forty-five or perhaps sixty minutes depending upon which priest is presiding, and some of us less so because we come late to Mass or leave Mass early. But, most of us, and I include myself in this group, are not very much inclined to sacrifice six hours to attend Mass each Sunday. Perhaps we may privately consider those Orthodox and Baptists whose Sunday services last three hours “crazy” and thank God that our parents had us baptized Catholics! Over the years, we’ve had newly-ordained permanent deacons serve in our parish. After a couple of months following their arrival, I have asked each what he’s noticed now that he was “on the other side of the altar rail.” The perspective is a little different on this side of the altar rail because the people serving on this side see your faces and body language. All you see is the back of the head of the person (or persons) seated in front of you. To a man, each has responded in his own way about “how disengaged” many of the people in the congregation are and how “unhappy” many of them they look. The deacons confirmed what I’ve also observed over the years...people burdened and weighed down by the vicissitudes of their daily lives. Sure, that’s a generalization and it’s not the case with every person seated in the pews or with the congregation at the 7:30 a.m. Mass who seem to be more “into it” than are the members of the congregations at the other masses. It is a wholly accurate depiction to note that some, if not many people come to Sunday Mass solely out of a sense of obligation. Other people—many teenagers are to be counted among them—come solely because their parents have forced them to be present and their body language communicates this attitude unambiguously and unashamedly so. To wit: I’ve observed young people text messaging during Mass! A large number of people come bearing weighty burdens—parents who are raising “testy” children, spouses who are experiencing difficulties in their marital relationships, young people who don’t understand why God created them as He did and upset with God for having created them the way he did—all expecting to hear something that will alleviate all that burdens and weighs them down. Worse yet, when the people experiencing these feelings don’t hear what they want to hear, that just adds further credence to their believe that church is boring, and yes, irrelevant to their daily lives. The challenge which the reading from the prophet Nehemiah places squarely before all of those people who experience these and other such feelings is not to consider themselves blessed because Mass doesn’t last six hours on any particular Sunday. No, the challenge is to figure out what we are going to do if we are to leave our sadness behind and in this place, the Sunday Mass, rejoice in the Lord who, Ezra says, “is our strength.” To this end—experiencing in Sunday Mass the freedom to rejoice in the Lord who is our strength—one of the things I think it would be helpful for us to do is to identify the sources of our sadness which, I might warn you, is likely to make us more sad or even, to cry, just as the people in Ezra’s congregation cried. Why? Because it is not easy to confront and deal with God’s truth, especially when we discover that rather than blaming God for all that burdens and weighs us down, we should blame ourselves for not turning away from that which contributes to our sadness and for not embarking upon adopting those behaviors that will make it possible for us to rejoice in the Lord as our strength. Taking a retrospective glance back over the past five decades, one thing is clear: the way we experience and what we expect of our families, our neighborhoods, our parishes, and our schools has changed dramatically. In place of those strong interpersonal relationships which are the breeding ground of authentic feelings of belongingness, of self-esteem, and of self-actualization, as the psychologist Abraham Maslow described these experiences, the way we experience and what we’ve come to expect of our families, our neighborhoods, our parishes, and our schools is greater personal isolation and loneliness. Think about it this way. Family dinners each evening are longer normative, as the personal schedules of family members trump what it takes to build strong families. Warmed up leftovers, micro-waved dinners, and fast food are normative today. Membership in clubs, unions, and parent-teacher associations has declined, as the time required for personal involvement in these organizations comes into conflict with other, competing self-interests. The simple fact is that bowling leagues, card parties, and board game evenings are almost extinct species like dinosaurs. Parents and teachers, feeling helpless and inadequate for their tasks, ending up blaming each other rather than developing the kinds of relationships that would benefit the young people they claim to be worried about. Fewer and fewer people—the “Teabaggers” being a notable exception—attend civic meetings or participate actively in charitable endeavors. Then, too, forget about Sunday Mass for a second, parish groups and parish festivals seem so unattractive today, as family members would rather lounge on their beds watching video on-demand alone and by themselves because they aren’t much inclined to watch the movies that other family members are interested in watching. There is a pattern here that we should be note. Surveying all of this and recognizing how different it is from what our parents and grandparents experienced and expected of their relationships, what all of us need to realize about the rampant, rugged individualism characterizing our culture and lives today is that, while we may be busy (and perhaps all too many of us are all too very busy), much of all of what we are doing is not helping us to develop what is most important in life: the kind of strong interpersonal relationships that promote better marriages, families, and communities…those gifts of God that make it possible for us to rejoice in the Lord as our strength. Whether rich or poor it matters not, what generates greater feelings of joy that a great marriage with loving family members, friends, and yes, even strangers gathered around the dinner table after playing games, chatting and even arguing about religion and politics, pushing and shoving to get at the hors d’oeuvres and canapés, laughing and lamenting about what’s right and wrong with the world, the Church, the nation, and the family, as well as all of the gossip and catching up on “What’s going on in your life?” That used to be Sunday afternoon...every week! How could anyone not rejoice in the Lord our strength surrounded by all of that? Despite all of this “busy-ness,” many adults today report feeling “socially marooned.” Worse yet, many of their children report feel lonely and depressed. When both spouses are pursuing their individual careers and self-interests, how is it possible for them to make their marriage a priority? When parents are too busy to engage themselves directly in the lives of their children, is it any surprise that so many young people are over-medicated or hooked on ever-stronger addictive drugs and alcohol? How can any of us be generous with others if we have no personal connection to their needs? No wonder so many people don’t find in their relationships anything to rejoice about? No, they are being propped up by too many crutches! No matter what the reasons for all of this, the emotional and spiritual deprivation that inundates our culture—so much so that we believe the polluted air we are breathing is pure, fresh, springtime air—impacts all of our relationships. Without the support and challenge that are uniquely found in strong interpersonal relationships, it is difficult for anything substantial to speak our hearts, weighed down and burdened as they are because we feel so isolated and lonely. No wonder so many of us are oblivious to the needs of others as well as to the mystery of a loving and caring God who wants us to rejoice in Him as our sole source of strength. In this culture, why should it be surprising that so many people come to Sunday Mass looking disengaged, weighed down, and unhappy? Look first to the place where they are coming from! Lost, confused, and lonely, the blueprint for living upon which many of us today are constructing our lives does not address the deepest longing within our souls. With very little or no interdependence in our lives, there can be no relationships. And, absent relationships, we become “rugged individuals” who seek happiness in things which always will end up making us lonely. In studies of people who have good interpersonal relationships, the evidence is that they live longer and are happier than those who don’t have good interpersonal relationships. They are more content and pleased with their lives and whatever they have in life. They are more focused upon and attentive to fulfilling their purpose in life. Lastly, they are more clear about their purpose in life because they listen to the Word of God and actively connect it to the reality of their daily lives. Perhaps this explains why people who regularly practice their faith are far less prone to depression and far more likely to make positive life changes, like quitting smoking or drinking or even just sticking to a regular exercise program. What we are to do, as Ezra the scribe said, if we are not to be sad today but to rejoice in the Lord our strength? Today’s gospel provide an answer. God sent His only begotten Son, as we heard “to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free.” What each of us needs to do, if we are to experience this scripture passage being fulfilled in our hearing is to get the meaning it has for us by deciding to leave the source of our sadness behind and to rejoice in the Lord as our strength. The place where we begin doing this is here, in this assembly of God’s people, where the Word of God helps us to recognize the sin that breeds our desire to be those rugged individuals who don’t need to build and grow in our relationships not only with other people but also with God. Perhaps this is the place, which many view as boring or irrelevant, where the Word of God empowers us to leave behind the sadness caused by the isolation and loneliness permeating our culture and evidencing itself in our spiritual poverty, in our spiritual captivity, and in our spiritual blindness. Perhaps this is place, which many view as boring or irrelevant, where we can learn to build those interpersonal relationships that will make it possible for us not to be saddened today but to rejoice in the Lord as our strength. This is not the stuff of rocket science. To overcome sadness, Ezra the scribe reminds us that rejoicing in the Lord must be our strength. We do this as we more consciously spend more time with our spouse, family members, and friends. We do this as we more consciously do our part to build small, loving communities in our homes. We do this as we more consciously reach out with more intensity to others…even in such simple yet powerful ways as connecting with a long-lost friend or alienated in-law. And, we do this when we discover our deepest longings fulfilled in this place, the assembly of God’s people, as we pray together and work together to allow the Word of God to unveil for us a new awareness of what our purpose is and really matters in life. Perhaps this is the place where we become the body of Christ, as St. Paul reminded the Corinthians in today’s epistle: “As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also in Christ....You are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it.” “Do this,” as Jesus taught his disciples, “in memory of me.” Just perhaps this is the place were we become the Eucharist—the “Word of God” and the “Bread of Life”—that makes it possible for each of us—individually and collectively— to rejoice in the Lord our strength.
A brief
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HOMILY
