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| Photo by CP |
A friend worshiped this weekend at Holy Family in Concord where the people at Mass were reminded that this weekend marks the 21st anniversary of the first Mass celebrated by the combined communities of the former St. Bernard and Our Lady Help of Christians parishes. (More recently, Holy Family joined with St. Irene Parish in Carlisle to become the Concord-Carlisle Catholic Collaborative.)
Since I didn't have a preaching assignment for the present weekend, I thought I'd share again the homily I delivered on the tenth anniversary of Holy Family's beginning, back in 2014...
Audio for homily
Ten years ago this weekend while all of Boston was still celebrating the Red Sox winning the World Series for the first time in 86 years, the Catholic community of Concord was gathering in this church to celebrate its first Masses as Holy Family Parish.
The people of Our Lady Help of Christians Parish in West
Concord and the people St. Bernard Parish in Concord center came together to celebrate the Supper Jesus left us on the night before he died.
The first scripture reading that weekend was taken from
Ezekiel: a passage in which the Lord tells the prophet to take two
sticks and to write on one the name of Judah and all the Israelites of his tribe and on the other the name of Joseph and all those of his tribe. The Lord then instructed Ezekiel to hold the sticks together and told him, I will take
the stick of Joseph and join it to the stick of Judah and they
shall be one in my hand. They shall
live by my statutes, carefully observing my decrees, and I will
make a covenant of peace with them. My dwelling
place shall be with them: I will be
their God and they shall be my people.
So, during my homily that weekend, ten years ago, I took these two sticks and labeled them: one, for the tribe of Our
Lady Parish; the other for the tribe of St. Bernard Parish. And I tied them together and placed them over the baptismal
font, a reminder of the waters that welcomed each of us as members of the one
tribe of Jesus, of his Body, the Church.
And as the pastor of Holy Family Parish I called us, in the
Lord’s name, to become one people, one parish, in Christ.
Ten years later, the Lord drops by today, in the
scriptures, to see how his Concord tribe is doing on their anniversary.
He won’t be looking at our two sticks to see if they’re
still tied together but rather, as in the words from the Book of Exodus today, he'll inquire about how we have welcomed one another and how we’ve welcomed new comers over a decade and especially, how have we welcomed and reached out to
those in need.
He'll inquire about our generosity in giving to others and our compassion
for those in need. And we can report that our Special Events Committee and our Service and Justice Committee and St. Vincent de Paul Society have been very active in welcoming and serving others.
But the Lord looks closely and he will likely find that many
of us hold back and still have more than we need, that we hold on to our surplus even as others go without. The Lord hears the cry of the poor: do we?
But it’s in the gospel, the Lord asks the really tough
questions in our 10 year review. And again, the inquiry here isn’t about sticks or structures but rather, it’s about our hearts. In the gospel Jesus reminds us that it all comes down to two
things: loving God – with everything we have (heart, soul and mind) and loving our neighbor – as much as we love ourselves. Everything, he says, all laws depend on these two
commandments.
How watchful and wary we should be, then, of love’s enemies and not be misled into thinking that love’s greatest enemy
is hate. If only it were that simple: hate is so easy to spot. But the real enemies of love are less obvious and more subtle than hate. Love’s greatest enemies are realities in our daily lives. Realities like envy and jealousy, apathy and spite, prejudice and pride, stubbornness and contempt, suspicion and mistrust, anger stewing, and resentments closely held.
These enemies of love live in our hearts, in our
relationships, in our families, in our neighborhoods and in our tribe: our parish. And these enemies have no
legitimate place in the lives of us who belong to the tribe of Christ’s Body, the Church, in
Concord.
So the symbolic joining together of the two sticks, held in
one hand, is simply that: symbolic. • What counts is what lives in our hearts. • What counts is our outreach to those in need. • What counts is how we welcome all who come seeking Jesus and the gospel. •What counts is how we love God and how we love our
neighbor, remembering that everything else, all rules and regulations and structures, depend on these two commandments as given by Jesus and handed down to us through millennia of wise teaching.
So, there is very little room here this day for
self-congratulation. The symbol of the two sticks joined is only as strong as how generously our parish serves those in need. The joining of the two sticks is only as meaningful as the ways we invite one another and newcomers to share and join in the life we have. The holding of those two sticks in one hand, the Lord’s hand is what makes of us a tribe of Christ’s Body, his Church. And the beauty of the symbol of the two sticks joined is only as deep as the love we have for God and for one
another.
There’s another image here, in God’s dwelling place, this church - another image of two sticks joined - and that is the Cross. And what but the very Body of Christ brings unity to the two beams that make the Cross.
And so it is with us. In the love offered us in the suffering and death of Christ we find the life we seek in faith. From the wood of the Cross to the wood of this altar comes the life that is ours in Jesus.
So pray with me on this tenth anniversary of Holy Family
Parish. Pray that Christ hold the sticks of our lives in his hand and free us more and more every day to be his tribe, to be his people, and to grow in our love of God – and one another.
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