On Saturday afternoon, it became readily apparent that the Archdiocese was unable to find a priest to celebrate Mass at the churches of St Scholastica and St John the Evangelist on Sunday morning. This meant that I was busy Saturday afternoon writing a homily for the Word/Communion services (technically, Sundays in the Absence of a Priest) for the two churches. While not as polished as I usually like, the gist of the homily is below.
When my kids were young, the one movie they loved to watch over and over again was the movie, “The Goonies.” It was about a group of kids living in a poor part of Astoria, Oregon called the Goon Docks. They were being evicted out of their homes because a wealthy group of investors wanted to expand the local Country Club where their homes were located. Facing eviction in a couple of days, the kids find in the attic of a home an old Spanish treasure map and a key that once belonged to a pirate known as One Eyed Willie. They decide to go and find One Eyed Willie’s buried treasure and so buy their homes back from the investors. They had a yearning to find the treasure, an urgency to find the treasure. The rest of the film is about their quest to find the treasure, not get killed by all the booby traps that One Eyed Willie had set to guard his treasure and not get killed by the Fratelli family, a family of thieves and murders, who were also interested in finding the treasure.
In the words of scripture today is expressed the great longing and yearning for the Messiah. We hear Matthew relate in the Gospel how strangers from the East, traveled long distances and expended great money in order to find this newborn baby who would be the anointed one of God. Though they were not Jewish, they knew instinctively that the baby they would find would alter world history. Upon finding him, they were overwhelmed by the wonder of what they beheld, knelt down and adored the child, offering him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The wonder they experienced was foreseen by the prophet Isaiah when he wrote, “Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you.” St Paul writing to the Christian community in Ephesus reminds them that the mystery and wonder of Jesus Christ is not isolated to the Jewish Christian community but is for all people throughout the world Jewish and non-Jewish.
There are many in the world who are searching for wonder and splendor but not that which Isaiah foretold. Abandoning their religious roots, they seek to find that wonder and splendor in careers, wealth, property, positions of power and consumerism. Pope Francis writes in his apostolic letter, “The Joy of the Gospel,” We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.” The reality is all the things that we buy, the careers we may pursue, the positions of power we seek will not give to us the wonder and splendor that Isaiah foretold, and that the Magi found in this baby born in poverty. In the end, the things of this world will only bring us heartache and disappointment.
We are drawn to this church on this cold morning just as the Magi were drawn to that stable in Bethlehem. Our quest is the same, to find Jesus and to present to Jesus the gift of ourselves. To seek the Messiah, we do not need to travel to far off places. When I worked at St Hubert back in the 80’s, there was a wonderful Franciscan friar, Fr Elstan Coghill, who was there temporarily as an associate pastor. A group of parishioners were heading off on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and I asked Fr Elstan whether we had every traveled to the Holy Places. He looked at me and smiled and then quietly replied, “I have never had the desire to go to Jerusalem. If I want to travel to find Jesus I just walk into the Eucharistic chapel and I behold him in the tabernacle.
The Church teaches that we encounter the presence of Jesus in 4 different ways at Mass. We experience the presence of Jesus first in this gathering of the all who are baptized. At our baptism we clothes ourselves in Christ Jesus, becoming his voice, his hands, his feet, his compassion to the world. Fr Joseph Gelinaneau once wrote that the greatest sign of Jesus in the world was the packed parking lot of a church on Sunday morning, for it shows to the world that the Body of Christ has gathered there. The second experience of Jesus’ real presence is when the words of sacred scripture are proclaimed. The lector, the deacon, or priest give voice to the living words of God to all present. The third experience of Jesus present is in the Eucharist, the consecrated Body and Blood of Jesus we receive in holy communion. The fourth experience of Christ is in the priest who acts in persona Christi, he acts in the person of Christ as he presides at Mass. He is Christ as sacrament. Today, with no priest present, that fourth experience of Christ is obviously absent. As a deacon I do not act in persona Christi in the same way as a priest. That is not my role as a deacon. I act in persona Chrisiti, in the person of Jesus as servant, when I am ministering to people who are in need, the poor, those who are sick, those who are grieving. We gather here and give thanks for the presence of God in us, with us, and through us. Like the Magi, we find him for whom we seek and adore him offering ourselves as gift to him.
At the end of the movie “The Goonies”, the kids do find the treasure of One Eyed Willie and the vast amount of wealth initially fills them with awe and wonder. The jewels they have save their homes from foreclosure. However, after being reunited with their very worried parents, the kids discovered that the greatest treasure was not the one that One Eyed Willie had hidden. The greatest treasure was found in the relationship they had with their families. Today, as a community of faith we find the greatest treasure of our world here in this place. The anointed one of God, the Messiah, Jesus Christ the Lord is found here, in this place, among us who are baptized, in the proclamation of the God’s Word in Holy Scripture, and in the real presence of Jesus’ Body and Blood in Holy Communion. Let us give thanks, and bow in adoration before him, offering to him ourselves as gift.
