Homily
for October 22, 2006
Liturgical Year B - Cycle II
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. John Carney Topic:
Serving Others
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Gospel
Mk 10:35-45
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said to him,
"Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." He replied,
"What do you wish me to do for you?" They answered him, "Grant that in
your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left."
Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink
the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am
baptized?" They said to him, "We can." Jesus said to them, "The cup
that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am
baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right or at my left is
not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared." When
the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John. Jesus
summoned them and said to them, "You know that those who are recognized
as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones
make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the
Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life
as a ransom for many."
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Usually
on Sunday night, I try to look at the readings for the following
weekend and
see what the general theme is and then kind of have that in my head so
I can
cogitate about it throughout the week.Last Sunday, I looked at the readings for this Sunday, the 29th
Sunday
in Ordinary Time.The theme was service
or suffering service, or sacrificial service and I said to myself,
“Didn’t we
just do that?”Sure enough, I looked
back at the last several weeks and indeed, four of the seven, past
seven weeks
the theme was service.“’Whoever will be
first must be last.Whoever will be
first must be the slave of all.”Etc.I have to admit that I said, ‘You know, I
wish the editor or the redactor of the lectionary had spread it around
a little
bit more.’”It’s hard to speak on the
same subject, especially when you have limited imagination. Then
I realized that the lectionary is true to Mark’s Gospel; that Mark
keeps
talking about service and service and service.So, I asked God’s forgiveness and I said, “Well, I’ll get on
with this
week’s preparation.”Of course, the
purpose of the Gospel is to teach us how to live and how to get to
heaven.What Mark is saying and what Jesus
is saying
in Mark, and what God is telling us is that if you want to get to
heaven, you
have to be a servant.If you want to
live the Christian life, you have to serve others.It is not an extra.This notion
that all you have to do is
proclaim Jesus is Lord and Savior and you’re saved is nonsense.That is the first step but service follows
that commitment to Christ.“If you love
me, keep my commandments.If you love
me, serve others." We
see that discipleship and servanthood are not only connected, they are
intimately
connected.If you look at the lives of
the saints, you will see that.There’s a
thread connecting them and that is the thread of service.They gave their lives in service to others. Yesterday,
I was able to sneak a little bit of the Notre Dame game. I
have the four o’clock Mass and the game is
always
on and I’m grouchy at that Mass but I’m there. I think that
Notre Dame is the only team with their own television station.They don’t even try to be impartial, you
know, you will root for Notre Dame if you watch that game.I think it’s an excellent thing, personally. Before
the game, Vonage always shows a picture
of the Grotto at Notre Dame.Have some
of you been to Notre Dame and seen the Grotto?It’s the Grotto of Our Lady or Lourdes.In
fact, that Grotto was one of the reasons
the American people have such a great love of Our Lady under the title
of Our
Lady of Lourdes.In the grotto, there is
a statue of Tom Dooley, who gave his life in service for others.I don’t mean, (singing) “Hang down your head
Tom Dooley.”It’s not that Tom Dooley
but the other Tom Dooley. He went
to Notre Dame and he served in the U.S. Navy as a medical doctor.Shortly after the fall of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam, when the communists took
over Vietnam, Tom Dooley was actually
part of the Navy’s effort in Hai Phong, which is in the north part of
the
country. They would take refugees out and try to get them to safety.He fell in love with the people of Southeast
Asia
and when he left the Navy
he returned there and worked mostly in Laos, in Cambodia and in Vietnam for a number of years in
setting up clinics and helping people.As a matter of fact, when he finished his work, and it was only
a few
years, he died at the age of 34, in 1961.When he finished his work over 610,000 people had medical
services that
they didn’t have before Dooley got to Southeast
Asia.Dooley gave his life in service for
others.Before he died, he wrote the
president of Notre Dame, Father Ted Hesburgh a letter.He said, “No matter where I go, I know God is
present.I have experienced the presence
of God greatly in Southeast Asia.I
love
these people.But I experienced God’s
presence greatest at the Grotto in Notre Dame and I long to be there
and I hope
to visit again before the snow melts.”He didn’t get his wish.He died
of cancer before that. I
visited Notre Dame two years ago and was at the Grotto before the game
with a
friend of mine.He’s a dentist in Albuquerque.Jim
Fanning, his name is.Maybe some of you
know the Fannings.Jim’s a big tough guy.As we were standing there in the Grotto,
looking at that plaque with Dooley’s letter, I looked over at Jim and
he was
crying just like a baby.He said crying,
“I’m sorry Father but every time I come here…” He was so inspired that
he
cried. I was thinking, “My goodness, God is still using Tom Dooley to
touch
people’s hearts.”Later that day I cried
when Purdue shellacked the Irish. You
know, you can have your cake and eat it too.The psychiatrist, Karl Menninger said, “Generous people are
generally
mentally healthy and conversely stinginess is a sign of neurosis.”Serve others and you will be fulfilled.Be generous and you will be blessed.Sacrifice for others and you will be richly
blessed.You know, it all begins in the
family.I read a letter recently about
peace in the world and we’ll never be successful in bringing about
peace out
there until we bring it about in our families and in our workplace. It
starts
in the family.That’s true for peace and
that’s true for service, especially, sacrificial service.In Isaiah and with this prediction or
prophecy of the suffering service Isaiah said, “Through his suffering,
my
servant shall justify many and their guilt he shall bear.”Jesus, of course, fulfilled that
prophesy.As he says in Mark’s Gospel,
“The son of man did not come to be served but to serve.To give his life as a ransom for many.” One
little story written by or told by a writer named J. Allan Peterson is
a true
story, a simple little story, and it’s about a family.The teenage son was often late from school,
sometimes very late, sometimes well after dark. The parents worried
about
him.They tried every imaginable
technique to get him to obey and to keep the rules but he just
consistently was
late, as teenage boys can do.Finally,
the father says, “The next time you’re late and you sit down to dinner,
in
front of you will be bread and water.Maybe
that will teach you a lesson.”It wasn’t
long after that, of course, he was late and he came to the dinner table.To make things worse, he was starving to
death.In front of him was a plate with
one piece of white bread and a glass of water.His parents had plates of meat and potatoes. They
said Grace and then his father got up and
switched his plate for his son.He sat
there,
ate the bread, and drank the water. When
that boy grew up, he said, “I will never forget what my father did for
me that
day. In a little way, he taught me what
God is like.” I will guarantee you that
boy was never late again. Isn’t
it true, we do the right thing out of love more than out of fear of
punishment;
a little story that begins in the family.You know I mentioned the redundancy of this theme of service but
really,
every time we gather to celebrate the Holy Mass, that is the theme:
sacrificial
service.Look at the crucifix and look
at the altar.What we do here Sunday
after Sunday or even day after day, is to participate in Jesus’ perfect
act of
sacrifice. We offer the gifts.We offer
our own lives up and God accepts those gifts as he accepted the
sacrifice of
his son and it changes us into him, into the body and blood of Christ
in some
small way. If
you want to be a disciple, you have to
serve.You have to serve
sacrificially.Serve your family, your
community, and others.