Pastor Reverend Edward E. Erpelding
Father’s Recent Homilies
9:00 a.m. Mass on
Homily by Father Edward Erpelding
Readings Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23
Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14,17
Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11
Luke 12:13-21
Today
advertisers try to tell us we need more things than we really need. They try to communicate this so that we’re
uneasy with what we have in order to keep up with this or that. Ultimately, we think we are buying the things
and we possess them; actually, they possess us.
We begin to worry about debt; we take out insurance; we do this and
that. Who really owns whom? That's the question; and that's the question
that comes up today.
We
heard from that reading from Ecclesiastes: "Vanity of vanities." Material goods can either crush the soul or
liberate it, depending on how we use them.
They can crush the soul because we can become so concerned about those
material things that we are no longer free.
We become slaves to the things we possess. If something happens to
anything that we possess we allow it to take away our joy, our inner peace, and
our freedom. And so it is: who owns whom?
When
we are stewards of God's gifts, we begin to realize that even life itself is a
gift from God, and we begin to see it from a different vantage point. If we exclude God from how we value things,
life becomes quite empty. In fact, life
without God is an absurdity. It's rather interesting. In one of the latest studies, they came to
the conclusion that the peoples who believe in reward and punishment after life
(in other words, there is a Hell), are the nations that prosper. This was an economics study. HMMM … interesting isn't it?
Oh
yes, this passage from Ecclesiastes is a strong statement of what life would be
without God. Only if we connect our
lives to God directly in prayer and worship, and indirectly in meeting Him on a
regular basis, we walk with one another.
He calls us to walk with one another.
Whoever welcomes one of the little ones in my name, welcomes me. He calls us to be hospitable. He calls us to take a look at what are the
real values in life. You know it's sad
to see. I've been in many nursing
homes. It's sad to see people for whom
there was no place. They were married,
but they didn't have any children and there is no one to visit them. It's interesting to see those that had
families and they shared and nurtured love.
That love comes back to them and they are much more at peace when in a
nursing home. You see, when we live with
God we start seeing a value in different things.
St.
Paul reminds us that the only thing we can take with us is love. Love always provides when necessary for those
who love. Our relationship with God for
eternity begins even now. The whole
thing of spiritual liveliness can be summed up in this way. When you are born, you tend to demand
everything. If we don't get our way, we
tend to cry until somebody gives us attention, and if we cry enough and they
keep giving us attention we become spoiled brats. Spirituality is learning how to let go and
let God. It's learning how to serve others
and to use even the gift of life itself for the service of others. It's learning how to be selfless rather than
selfish. That's why St. Paul was
speaking about this as "You have taken on a new image in Christ."
If
you listen to all these motivation and success leaders out there, one of the
things they say is: if you really what to succeed, what you have to do is you have to get a mentor; you have to get a model. If you want to get there really fast, you get
one that's been there ahead of you. Well,
St. Paul tells
us in Galatians: "It's difficult for even a friend to lay down his life
for one that he loves." But Jesus
laid down his life for us while we were sinners. That's Paul’s model; that's his mentor. We cannot reflect long on the mystery of
Christ without it affecting the way we deal with one another. We deal with our material goods, with
hospitality, and everything else. Christ
is our model. We are more concerned with
what we do for the glorification of God.
We become an entirely new being when we surrender to Christ. And we also make the church come alive as we
look forward to seeing one another, looking for an opportunity to serve instead
of "Oh, that's a burden." It's
a different picture. And this is what
Our Lord is getting at. Sometimes we are
led astray by our own society and our own culture. We get so used to the spin (they use “spin”
as a nice euphemism for twisting the truth, or, to put it more bluntly, lying,
misrepresenting). So it seems that we
have to keep our focus. Sometimes we
focus on the wrong things. Sometimes we
focus on power; sometimes we focus on material possessions, and sometimes we
focus on image.
And
lo and behold, a senator died and went up to the Pearly Gates. You see, God always gives us choices all
through life. He permits many things to
happen. At any rate, he was at the
Pearly Gates and St. Peter said "Well, you know God gives you choice and
you can choose between Heaven and Hell.
"Well, you mean I can investigate these?" So he said, well why don't you go down to
Hell and see what it looks like and then come up to Heaven and see what choice
you want to finally make." Lo and
behold, he gets on the elevator and goes down, down, down, and down. Wow!
He sees all the political parties and everything else, and his old
cronies he worked with in the senate and everything else. They’re drinking cocktails and some of them
are having fun. There is a swimming pool
and they have all sorts of hors d’oeuvres.
It's a blast. He starts to
backslide and everything else with his old cronies. "Man this is Hell? It's a wonderful place. I think I want to stay." St. Peter said "No, you have to go back
up and make a choice." St. Peter
takes him back up and they look into Heaven.
Everybody is at peace. There's no
drinking. There's none of the other
stuff. Everybody looks very happy. And he says "Frankly, Peter, I would
rather go with my friends. I want to go
to Hell." He said "Ok, I'll
take you back down." And he gets
down there and he gets off the elevator and, lo and behold, the stench would
curl your nostrils. It's a waste
land. It looks terrible and everything
else. He said "I think I'll go
up." St. Peter said "You made
your choice." He said "Why did
it look so nice the other day?" St.
Peter said, "They were campaigning for more members."
I'm
afraid the advertiser's campaign hard for us to come on board and they want us
to put our trust and our hope in material possessions. They want us to take care of all wants. They teach us selfishness instead of
selflessness. They teach us "This
is what really makes life."
Oftentimes, we get all these things, the things that we spend so much
time preparing for, and, after a while, we start taking them for granted, or we
become obsessive. And so our Lord says,
"Let's not do that." All we
have to do is use Christ as our image and our model. So it is He reminds us of that.
Although
things are not perfect because of a trial of pain, continue in
thanksgiving. Do not begin to blame,
even when the times are hard. Imagine
life without God’s love. Joy would cease
to be. Keep thanking for all the things
love imparts to you. No weapon that is
known on earth can yield the power praise can do
alone. Quit looking at the future;
redeem the time at hand. Start every day
with worship and prayer. That is a
divine command. Until you see Him coming
victorious in the sky, you'll run your race with gratitude, exulting in God the
most high.
The
choice is still ours.