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A couple of years back, the founder of CNN, Ted Turner, and his
wife, actress Jane Fonda, got divorced. So, what’s noteworthy about
that, especially considering how the grounds cited for granting the
decree of divorce were “irreconcilable differences”?
Well, what made this divorce noteworthy was that the
“irreconcilable difference” cited by Ted Turner was that his wife
had become a born-again Christian. For decades, Ted Turner has made
statements excoriating religion and Christianity, in general, and
Catholicism, in particular. But, for a man to divorce his wife
because she’s become a Christian and now seeks to pattern her life
according to her new-found belief? That is noteworthy and
certainly unusual!
As with most noteworthy matters that seem somewhat odd at first
glance, scratching a bit beneath the surface oftentimes unearths
something that gives reason to pause, to consider what’s really
going on, to reflect on it, and then apply it to our lives.
As it turns out, Ted Turner’s sister died several years ago from a
particularly excruciating and painful disease. According to the
founder of CNN, his sister was the most kind, gentle, sweet, and
good person he had ever known. But, as Ted Turner watched his
sister suffer and, then, die, a gaping hole opened in his heart and
soul. That hole was so wide and deep that if forced Ted Turner to
come to terms with some of the most mysterious and perplexing
questions that will eventually confront all of us as human beings.
Ted Turner found himself wondering:
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What is the purpose of life?
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Is there a God?
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If so, how can it be a “good” God who allows evil to destroy good
people?
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If God is “good,” then there must be a reason. What is it? Is
the real reason that God is a masochist who delights in seeing his
creatures suffer?
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Or is the truth really that there is no God, that God is just a myth
created by someone to control others or to provide an opiate that
anesthetizes people from their fear of having to be responsible for
their fate and the seeming meaninglessness of life?
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And, if this is true, then pain and suffering is nothing more than a
random, chance occurrence, completely independent of God or one’s
being good or bad, nothing more than a sad, perverted joke or cruel
ironic twist that people would rather not face?
These are extremely difficult questions to answer, particularly when
the reason is that people need answers because tragedy has visited
them and is weighing them down. Perhaps we’ve lost a beloved
spouse, child, sibling, or friend. Perhaps we’ve done our best to
raise our children in the correct way only to have a child reject
those lessons. Perhaps a once healthy and beautiful child now has a
dread and perhaps terminal disease or has been struck down by a car
and is now paralyzed. Or perhaps, we’re like the late-Tim
Russert, former NBC Washington Bureau Chief and host of Meet the
Press, who made a deal with God when his wife was going through
a difficult labor and delivery with their son. Russert promised God
that if his wife and child survived the ordeal, he would go to Mass
every weekend. Both survived and Tim Russert now would have a tough
delivery (pardon the pun, I couldn’t
help myself).
It really is too bad that the first time many people oftentimes will
begin to grapple with these questions is when they are experiencing
distress because the grief, anguish, and pain force them to look for
logic, facts, reason, and scientific evidence rather than to trust
in their intuitions and hopes. Absent the facts, good reasons, and
evidence, many people—like Ted Turner—tend to give up on hope and to
go on living the remainder of their lives with a gaping wound in
their hearts and souls having rejected the God who is pretty easy to
believe in and be faithful to when everything in life is going along
pretty well.
Part of this response to tragic events has to do with the elusive
nature of belief and that many of us do not really take the time to
think about what belief is and what faithfulness requires. Then,
when what we believe in and are faithful to is tested by some pretty
harsh realities, it’s pretty easy to give up believing and remaining
faithful.
Unlike Tim Russert’s “deal” with God, belief is characterized by
trust, even if the evidence isn’t there, and coalesces in
faithfulness as belief makes it possible to understand something
about our lives that would otherwise be difficult if not impossible
to grasp, like God’s
presence in the midst of tragedy.
So, for a brief moment today, let’s
consider the idea of “true love.”
Many of us believe in the existence of true love and only this
belief makes it possible for us to commit ourselves to the learning
that is required if we are ever to know what true loves is, what
true love requires, and then to experience true love. True love is
not what we feel when we fall in love for the first time as sixth
graders. Nor is true love what we feel when we’re dating are
newlyweds. No, true love is the consequence of many years of
experience where our belief in true love is tested, purified, and
ultimately is brought to its fulfillment in the object of our
belief: true love. Without belief in true love, all of the
adjustments, compromises, and forgiveness that true love requires
would make absolutely no sense whatsoever. Just ask any
spouse.
More importantly, when belief is understood this way, our belief in
true love makes faithfulness possible and, although we may never see
the object of that belief, we live in confident expectation of that
which we hope for, even though it remains as of yet unseen. It’s
pretty easy to believe in and to have faith in true love when
everything in a marriage is going along pretty well, isn’t
it?
Yet, as every person who is or has been married knows, there are a
host of facts, logical reasons, and scientific evidence associated
with practically every marriage that make belief in true love appear
to be utter folly. And when those facts, reasons, and evidence
overwhelm our belief in true love and cause us to despair, we become
unfaithful, looking for false imitations everywhere else.
If anyone looked foolish for his belief and faithfulness, it was
Jesus of Nazareth. For preaching the coming of God’s kingdom, Jesus
was labeled a criminal and put to death. For one of Jesus’
disciples, Thomas, this made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Like
Ted Turner contemplating the illness and death of his sister, Thomas
asked himself: Why would God allow someone like Jesus to be put to
death for his strong belief and faithfulness? Why didn’t
God come to the aid of Jesus?
Wrestling with this question and grieving over the death of his
friend and mentor, along came Jesus’ mother and some of his friends
who tell Thomas a bizarre tale of Jesus’ rising from the dead.
“Prove it to me”—doesn’t Thomas sound just like us?—“I won’t believe
it until I have physical proof.”
Belief makes faithfulness possible and although we may never see or
experience the object of our belief, we can live in confident
expectation of what we hope for, but yet remains unseen. Blessed
are you who believe,” Jesus says, “but do not see.” As disciples,
we must rely not solely on logic, facts, and reason, but believe in
our intuitions and hopes about what is possible. Mary taught us
this in her times of crisis. “Let it be done to me as you say,” she
said to the angel. Jesus also taught us this in his time of
crisis. Hanging on the cross and awaiting death, Jesus looked at
the people, seeing not the facts of what they had done to him, but
instead seeing the power of evil strangling their hearts and
contorting their minds. “Father, forgive them for they know not
what they do,” Jesus prayed.
The challenge today’s scripture places before us is this: not to
rely solely on logic, facts, and reason but to believe what our
intuitions and hopes say is possible. Belief makes faithfulness
possible and although we may never see the object of our belief, it
is possible to live in confident expectation of what we hope for,
but remains unseen. Don’t believe me? Just ask anyone who choose
to remain married.
How your family
might celebrate the Easter Season:
Easter is so important that it cannot be celebrated in just one,
single day. To celebrate Easter appropriately, the Church
takes fifty days (forty days leading to the Ascension and ten days
leading to Pentecost Sunday, fifty days that culminate on what used
to be called "Quinquagesimea Sunday"). These are the days that
constitute the entire "Easter Season."
Here are four
simple ways you might celebrate the entire Easter Season with your
family:
1. Place a white pillar candle in the center of your
kitchen table. Each night before dinner, assign a member of
your family to light the candle and to recall
what a person said or did that day to reveal the Risen Lord.
As part of the blessing prayer, give thanks to the Lord for the gift
of that person.
2.
Take a daily walk around the neighborhood. Identify one sign
of new life each day. After completing the walk, sit down
together as a family in the living room or family room and relate
each sign to the new life that God has given all of us in the
resurrection of His only begotten Son.
3. Invite an estranged family member, relative, or
friend (or a family member, relative, or friend who hasn't been to
visit for a while) to dinner each of the Sundays of the Easter
season. Before the prayer of blessing over the food, read a
resurrection appearance where Jesus says to his disciples, "Peace be
with you." Following the blessing of the food, offer one
another the sign of peace before partaking of the meal.
4. In preparation for the Solemnity of Pentecost, have
each member of the family on Easter Sunday write down on a piece of
paper a gift of the Holy Spirit that he or she needs in order to
become a more faithful disciple. Fold and place these pieces
of paper in a bowl in the center of the kitchen table. At
dinner each evening, pray the "Prayer of the Holy Spirit" to send
for these gifts upon the members of the family so that your family
will become a light to the world. Then, before the prayer of
blessing over the dinner on Pentecost Sunday, burn the pieces of
paper to call to mind that the gifts have already been given in the
Sacrament of Confirmation. The challenge is now to live out
those gifts in the ordinary time of our daily lives.
Easter is an event that
happens each and every day. During the fifty days of the
Easter season, in particular, you and your family can prepare to
make Easter happen each and every day of your lives by "practicing"
these simple exercises which connect Jesus' risen life to yours as
well.
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HOMILY
