February 7, 2021

Homily for the FIFTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

FEBRUARY 7, 2021

AMDG

(Please read: Deuteronomy Mark 1:29-39)

“Through the words of the Gospel, may our sins be wiped away.”

When I was sick, my whole life centered around polycystic kidney disease. There were blood pressure issues, and I had to be very careful with eating sodium. My kidneys were beginning to fail. I knew that I had to get a transplant. But, it can take up to five years to get a kidney transplant in the Midwest from a deceased donor. Yet, on the east coast, it can take up to 10 years for the same donation because there are more people in need of transplants.

That was my world at that time. At least, that was my world until the doctor told me that I had a brain aneurism. Then, everything depended on whether or not the aneurism could be surgically corrected.

If the neurosurgeon could not perform surgery and permanently correct the blood vessel, then I would not be able to receive a kidney transplant.

If the doctor could not perform the traditional surgery on my brain, I would have to go on dialysis. But, I could never come off of dialysis. And a person on dialysis can only live about 10 years.

Needless to say, at that moment, my whole life changed. My kidneys were not the BIG problem. Instead, my brain was the issue that my entire life was counting on.

Could life get any worse? Well, yes – it could. And, in a sense – it did.

You see, I could not get an appointment with my neurologist. So, there was no way to find out if the surgery could even be done on my brain.

Finally, I did get to see the neurologist who would conduct the surgery. Thanks be to God, the aneurism was located in a way that he could do the surgery. But, he never scheduled an appointment to do the surgery.

At the same time, I could not schedule anything with my failing kidneys because nothing could be done with them until the aneurism was corrected.

There I sat, not knowing if or when I could be helped in any way.

I kept calling the neurology department at my hospital. But, no one would return my calls.

I had called everyone that I could think of. Then I remembered that I had one card that someone at the hospital had given to me. I did not know who she was. She did not have a card of her own, so she grabbed another card and wrote her name and phone number on the back. She gave it to me, and told me that if I had any problems to call her.

But, as far as I knew, she could have been the janitor. But, I needed help. So, I called her number. She was not there when I called, but her answering machine took my call. It turns out that this unknown lady happened to be the person in charge of the neurology department.

Needless to say, finally someone returned my call. And, on that day, my aneurism surgery was scheduled.

That was great news. But who would ever have imagined that the aneurism surgery would have led to a coma? And who would have imagined that the coma left part of my body unable to move for a time? I was partially paralyzed for a while.

Who would have imagined that after the surgery, I would not be able to read until I basically taught myself how to read once again?

Who would have thought that I would forget so many things, and would have to go through weeks of therapy to regain my physical abilities and parts of my memory?

How could anyone imagine that I would become so physically exhausted?

And all of this was really just “phase 1” of my health issues. The kidney transplant would come about 8 months later.

But the aneurism would also return about a year and a half later, as well. So would the two seizures that kept me from being able to drive for 6 months each time. And then there was the BK virus that threatened to kill the transplant…

Well, the bottom line is that when I hear Job in our first reading saying, “remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again” – I can understand what he is talking about.

Yet, another thing that I learned during that time in my life is that there are many other people in our world who have things much worse than I do. There is always someone who needs my prayers, too.

So, while all of us can experience the harshness of life that Job writes about in today’s first reading, we all must stop and take a deep breath every now and then.

We have to remember that, in Job’s time, there is someone who is not there. There is someone who gives meaning and purpose to our sufferings who is not known at that time.

And that someone - is Jesus Christ.

Without Jesus, who bore the totality of human suffering as he died on the cross, we can so easily fail to see that there is a meaning and a purpose for our struggles.

As hard as life can get for us in this world, Jesus can take us away from that notion that Job writes about when he asks, “is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?”

Well, sometimes our life DOES seem like a drudgery. But, as Christians, we must move beyond that thought.

Without Jesus, I can understand why people fall into hopeless situations of drug abuse, alcoholism, and even suicide.

When there is no Jesus – there is no hope.

But I can honestly say that, without Jesus and the hope that he gives to us, I would not be here right now.

Jesus has an answer. Jesus wants me here for a reason. Jesus wants YOU here for a reason, too.

And the one thing that you and I must NEVER do is to turn away from Christ.

Suffering is hard work. I honor Jesus with my sufferings, and so do you. Sickness changes the way that we live our lives.

I am not the “normal” priest that you might like to have. But, then again, can you actually NAME a “normal” priest? We are all different. We are all just the person that God wants us to be – at this moment, and at this time in history.

That is what it means to suffer. When I come to realize that I am not who I WANT TO BE, but I am who GOD has made me to be – right here and right now; when I realize that, then my life has meaning and purpose.

Somehow, everything in the past and everything that will be coming to me in the future – in heaven…it is all real. What I can and cannot do right now does not limit me. No…I have been somewhere, and I am heading somewhere far better! And, right now, I am on that path leading me hopefully to heaven.

In today’s Gospel, when Jesus went to Simon Peter’s house and found Simon’s mother-in-law ill with a fever, he went to her and he “grasped her hand.”

When we are sick or in any other bad place in life, that is all that we need. We need to remember that Jesus is always by our side. We need Jesus to “grasp our hand.”

With the hand of Jesus grasping my hand, I do not need to lie there in pain. Like Simon’s mother-in-law, I can get up and, in some way, I can serve the needs of others.

And, if I can do this, then so many others will come to find Jesus, too. That is what happened in today’s Gospel. That can happen to you and to me, too.

Like St. Paul, we can say, “to the weak I became weak, to win over the weak…All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.”

PRAY EVERY DAY!