(Putting cigarette in mouth and about to light it) What? Can’t an essential worker take a smoking break? I know, I know, smoking kills, but let me tell you about something even more deadly and common than smoking. A recent study showed that those who self-report as being lonely, it has a negative impact on their health equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. This feeling of being alone, this loss of connectedness, the feeling of being abandoned, or using the word Jesus used in today’s Gospel, the feeling becoming “orphans” is more common today than smoking.
The Coronavirus crisis might have many of us feeling this way today. Maybe it’s from the loss of being close to friends and family members during the Stay at Home Order. Or it could be from not experiencing Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist. Still others of us are feeling like orphans due to being children who have lost parents or another loved one who we’ve built our lives around.
This is the same feeling of abandonment the disciples felt creeping in their hearts at the last supper as Jesus prepares them for his departure from them. This was the man who they built their lives around, having left their homes, their family, and their jobs to follow him, and now, he was leaving them. Jesus looks at each of his disciples then and now and speaks these words to us: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”
While the disciples were in the midst of the crisis of Jesus leaving them, it must have been hard for them to see and understand how this truth spoken by Jesus was going to play out in their lives. Similarly, with the crisis we are in the midst of today, it may be hard for us to see how Jesus is going to deliver on his promise of coming to us and not leave us feeling abandoned like orphans. It may be hard for us to see it in the middle of the crisis we are in today, but it is when we look back on the crisis of another day that we can more clearly see God’s faithfulness to this promise of coming to us even in the chaos of the crisis, even when it feels like our world as we knew it is falling down all around us.
September 11, 2001, in New York City was a day such as this. In the midst of the chaos created by terrorists crashing two planes into the Twin Towers, God made his presence known to his people as they felt fearful, alone, and abandoned. This is the story of a man and a woman in the dust of the day; a man who was the first and a woman who was the last.
The first: He was one of the first to arrive at the World Trade Center and is believed to be the only priest who entered the Twin Towers that day. After he arrived on the scene, he saw an office worker laying alone near death, undoubtedly feeling abandoned as everyone else was running in the opposite direction to get away from the burning building. But as Christ’s representative, he came to this office worker to provide the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. Likewise, he went and anointed a nearby firefighter who was near death. Then, the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed killing New York Fire Department Chaplin Fr. Mychal Judge, making him the first official fatality following the attack.
Some might be tempted to look at his decision to go into harm’s way that day and say “What might have been if Fr. Mychal wouldn’t have gone to the Twin Towers that day?” I challenge you to reframe that question to, “What might have been if Fr. Mychal hadn’t made God’s presence known to his people so they did not die feeling alone and abandoned.” In his homily the day before, he said, “’You do what God has called you to do. You show up. You put one foot in front of another. You get on the rig and you go out and you do the job, which is a mystery and a surprise. You have no idea when you get on the rig, no matter how big the call, no matter how small. You have no idea what God is calling you to, but He needs you, He needs me, He needs all of us.”
The last: Genelle Guzman said, “I’ve been in onerous situations before, but never one that was 100% hopeless. That was the worst part about it, the hopeless feeling. No matter which direction I turned, I couldn’t avoid it. We had come so
“Now, wrapped in complete solitude I could see my life more clearly than ever. I thought about my mortality. What if this was it for me? What if I died here? That distinct possibility triggered thoughts of my faith or lack of it. I was born and raised Catholic and went to church for about the first 28 years of my life. Besides being baptized in the Catholic faith, I also received the Sacraments of First Reconciliation, Holy Communion, and Confirmation. Once I got to New York, I didn’t go to Church at all. I had mentally drifted from God as I focused more on me and the material side of life. I believed in God, but not enough to acknowledge his everyday impact on my life.
If I didn’t make it out of the tower, what was in store for my soul? My life was nearing its end, and I felt no connection to God. I had to look at this makeshift grave I was in as a confessional and I had to believe that he was listening and that he cared. (In that) there was hope, and it was there because I came to the understanding that I wasn’t going to get out on my own. I finally realized that it would begin with me but would ultimately end with him.”
“God, it’s Genelle, I’m in a difficult situation right now, and I need your help.’ I felt like I had just taken a huge step in the right direction by admitting it. Next, I started praying the Our Father. I continued with the Hail Mary, the Glory Be,
“Someone grabbed my hand. He called me by my name and said, ‘I’ve got you, Genelle.’” (Later,) I heard them say, ‘You’ve been buried for 27 hours. Do you know that you are the last survivor that they pulled out?’ I was praying for 27 hours. I felt totally different. When I came out of that rubble, I felt a total conviction. From there, I knew that the Holy Spirit was working in me and changed my life. Since that day, I‘ve been serving the Lord.”
Brothers and sisters, even in the most hopeless of situations, God wants us to be his representatives to come to make his presence known to his people in need. Even when we are buried alive in a pile of rubble and no one is around to help make God’s presence known in our darkest hours; even then, God still makes his presence known to his people in need through the gift of the Advocate, which Jesus promised his disciples at the last supper. The Holy Spirit, which we first received in baptism and received more fully in Confirmation is making God’s presence known to each of us even when we can’t experience Jesus’ presence physically.
It was God who created the first human life by breathing his spirit into the first man whom he formed out of the dust. Through the power of his Holy Spirit, God is still bringing new beautiful life from the dust even during our lifetime. Our God is a God who is faithful to his promise. He does not leave us orphans. He gave us the amazing gift of the Holy Spirit to animate our lives, to move us to make his presence known to our brothers and sisters in need.
Even when Christ is not making his presence known to us physically, the Holy Spirit is making God’s presence known to us. God is asking each of us to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit in our lives to make God’s presence known to others in a way only we can; to enter into their lives and suffering to make God’s presence, love, and compassion known to them when they need it most.
When each of us first received the Holy Spirit at our baptism, we became members of the mystical body of Christ. We, believers, make up the Body of Christ. Whether it be through a phone call or a socially distanced visit we make or by the prayer we say for the Holy Spirit to make God’s presence known to those who are in darkness, we’ve all got God’s work to do. So, this is no time for us to take a smoking break (breaks cigarette in half), because when it comes to doing Christ’s work today, we are all essential workers.
6th Sunday of Easter Cycle A – May 17, 2020
Mass Readings:
Reading 1: Acts 8:5-8, 14-17
Psalm: Ps 66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20
Reading 2: 1 Pt 3:15-18
Gospel: Jn 14:15-21