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If
you’ve followed Gary Trudeau’s comic strip, “Doonesbury,” you’re
likely familiar with Zeke, a rather appalling character who makes
his appearance in the comic strip from time to time.
In
one strip, Zeke was thinking aloud to his current paramour—who just
so happens to be Doonesbury’s former wife—about “What might have
been if”…instead of meeting his current paramour, Zeke had first met
the charming and enchanting, yet deceptive woman Doonesbury has just
married.
Now, any guy with one-half of a brain knows that’s exactly the wrong
question to ask if his intention is to build a long-term
relationship with the woman he’s currently seeing.
Yet, the simple truth is that most of us are exactly like Zeke and
find ourselves tempted to speculate in precisely the same way. We
may ask: “What if I had gone to X school rather than the one I
attended?” “What if I had married X rather than my current
spouse?” “What if I had taken that job instead of the one I did
take so many years ago?” Or, we may express the wish “If only I
had…” saved more for retirement…worked a little harder in high
school or college…not experimented with drugs and alcohol…or made a
different choice about a career.
Consider this “What if…?”: What if Judas hadn’t betrayed Jesus?
And this “If only…”: If only Judas hadn’t betrayed Jesus.
Had Judas not betrayed Jesus, who knows what the outcome would have
been? And, furthermore, what difference would it make because
that’s the stuff of a fruitful imagination and not the stuff that
constitutes reality.
As
Christians, the challenge we must contend with is not “What if…?” or
“Only if…” but what each of us intends to do today. All of those
“What if’s” and “Only if’s” are an invitation to fantasize about
things that have no existence, except as alluring and attractive
ideas which make it possible for us to flee the current reality
confronting us. Then, like Zeke in the comic strip Doonesbury,
contemplating those ideas only gets us into trouble, as what we are
fantasizing about makes our current “what is” look even less
desirable. That is, unless like Zeke’s current lover, someone
nearby slaps us silly and knocks some sense into us.
More importantly, however, are those “What if’s” and “Only if’s” in
our past, especially those for which we are unwilling to forgive
ourselves. “What if…I hadn’t lied…treated my parents with contempt
and disdain…allowed myself to put my work ahead of my marriage and
family…stolen that money...asked for forgiveness?” Then too: “If
only I had spent more time with my spouse who died
unexpectedly…visited my grandparents when they were in assisted
living…didn’t have to be “right” all of the time…gone to my kids’
school plays and baseball, hockey, volleyball, football, or soccer
games...hadn’t gotten this disease.”
I
think you get the point. All those “What if’s” serve only to make
the present “what is” look pretty grim, filling our hearts with
sadness and grief. Then, too, all of those “Only if’s” serve only
to make us lament those bad choices we’ve made, filling our hearts
with guilt and remorse.
All of those “What if’s” and “Only if’s” also allow us to write a
rather grand narrative—the story of our
lives—in
which we portray ourselves as unwitting victims of what those who
speak Persian call “kismet,” the inexorable machinery of Fate
that’s bound to unfold, as if we are the playthings of Lady Fortune
spinning her wheel. Around and around the wheel spins, until we
land in some foreordained good or bad place.
As
Christians, when the narrative we write is shaped by “What if’s” and
“If only’s,” we avoid confronting the central reality of what it
means to be Christian, at least as that was taught in today’s
epistle. St. John said, “God is love and whoever remains in love
remains in God.”
All of those “What if’s” and “If only’s” matter not. What does
matter is that we decide today to do what love requires. It’s not a
matter of how different my life might have been if, instead of this,
I had chosen that...or, done this, rather than done that. No,
it’s a matter of whether today—no matter what was or may have been—I
am going to reveal to others the love of God that’s
alive in me—no matter how much or how little that is—rather than
wallowing in fanciful imagings of what was or might have been.
The challenge is for each of us to begin writing a different
narrative, for example, by not allowing a thoughtless spouse, child,
or friend today to cause us to regret not having a relationship with
that person tomorrow. It may mean not allowing an elderly parent
who is being unreasonable to keep us from doing what the fourth
commandment requires of every child. As parents, it may me being
challenged to be patient with a child’s unruly behavior. And all of
us may have to defend our moral values to those in our community who
are united against us.
“If we love one another,” St. John writes, “God’s love is brought to
perfection in us.” There are no “What if’s” or “If only’s.” No,
there’s only the decision we can make today to do what love
requires.
“[W]hoever remains in love remains in God and God in him,” is how
St. John evaluates the situation. Nothing in the past matters, when
God remains in us. But, when we decide to live in the past with all
of its “What if’s” and “If only’s,” it’s pretty difficult to imagine
how God could possibly remain in us.
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
