Homily, Feb 11 & 12, Cycle B, 6th Sun Ord Time
Today is World Marriage Day! We celebrate the sacrament that is marriage. It is sponsored by World Wide Marriage Encounter & began in Baton Rouge in 1981. This is the sacrament where two people pledge their love to one another for a lifetime.
Fifty years later, after children, grandchildren, & great grandchildren, they look into one another’s tired eyes and say, “What were we thinking?”
With the First Reading and the Gospel telling us all about Leprosy, you might ask Marriage Encounter the very same thing, “What were you thinking to choose this weekend?”
Even though Marriage seems to be under assault today and the world does not offer husbands & wives much support anymore, Marriage itself offers spouses many positives. Studies have shown over & over the positive effects brought about by Marriage, ie, long life & quality.
Someone once said that Marriage provides an environment of sharing where we double our joy & feel one-half our pain.
When we live with another up close, in Marriage, we come face to face with joy and pain as we live our own lives and live vicariously through the other – double exposure. Offering simple presence to one another when we are hurting, when we are confused & uncertain, can bring both of us, deep joy.
It brings the quiet joy of being there for another, and living in deep solidarity with them in the human family. It reminds us that Jesus is there with us as well.
True joy is often hidden. It can be fragile. True joy is being with another as a friend, a fellow traveler, on our journey through life.
Again, when we live with another up close, in Marriage, we are called to daily forgiveness. Forgiving does not mean forgetting. When we forgive another, the memory of the wound might stay with us for a long time. But, forgiveness changes the way we remember.
It can convert the curse into a blessing. When we, as children, forgive our parents for some slight, when we as aging parents forgive our children for their lack of attention toward us, or forgive our friends for their failure to support us as we were going through a crisis, we no longer have to experience ourselves as victims of events over which we had no control. But, it is a choice, we are the “Nation of the Offended” & at times enjoy holding on.
Forgiveness allows us to claim our own power, & not let those events destroy us. It enables them to become opportunities to deepen the wisdom of our hearts. Forgiveness, indeed, heals memories, & puts a smile on God’s face as well.
Again, when we live with another up close, in Marriage, we come to understand more fully, the gift of friendship.
Friendship is one of the greatest gifts a human being can receive. It is a bond beyond common goals, common interests, or even common histories. Sometimes, friends have almost nothing in common, yet enjoy being together.
It is one of life’s strongest bonds & when it is lived out in life’s closest human environment, that of Marriage, it is deeper than a shared fate and more intimate than any other bond.
Friendship is being with the other in a unity of souls that gives nobility and sincerity to love. Friendship makes all of life shine brightly, and it makes a Marriage shine with a brightness for all to see.
As I said in the beginning, Marriage offers many positive qualities and benefits to the two people involved.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of all is that it softens our loneliness and alleviates our isolation.
This brings us to our Readings today on Leprosy.
The OT Law dealing with Leprosy prescribed separation from the village. Some of the diseases of the skin were not, in fact, leprosy(Hansen’s Disease), but until the priests could be sure, the person was treated “as if” & isolated.
People declared unclean because of Leprosy had to live apart from their families, usually outside of town. Some lived on the hillsides overlooking their own homes and could see family members going about their normal lives.
That must have been especially cruel, yet, what else could society do since it had no real cure.
Leprosy is a slow developing disease of the nerve endings, with lesions & skin sluffing that can lead to death over time.
During the time of Jesus, the more immediate fear was not so much death, but the required isolation. That pain of loneliness was the stronger motivator for lepers to approach Jesus asking & begging to be cured.
When He healed them of their physical illness, He was also healing them of their isolation from their families to which they so desperately wanted to return. They longed to return to those benefits of Married life we talked about earlier.
In light of our readings, the symbolic question for us to consider today is: What is our equivalent of leprosy? What causes our isolation and aloneness?
Certainly, there are lifestyles that promote, even demand, aloneness such as widowhood, religious life, empty nests, divorce, and major illnesses, to mention a few.
Perhaps the saddest form of loneliness is that which we bring on ourselves by our behavior. Unlike the lifestyle induced loneliness, behavior caused loneliness sometimes goes on below our own radar. We are not aware that we cause it.
Most of the time it’s simple stuff, like for example, in conversation:
- Being a know it all, (sweetest people can be that way)
- Talking only about ourselves, incessantly, not allowing others to get a word in
- Being negative or complaining, we all prefer happy people
- My personal favorite, being a left-brained, hard headed German who even tics people off trying to be funny
Small things; we’re not axe-murderers, but we can be very lonely due to our own small behavior paterns.
If our problem is a lack of awareness; if we don’t know why people back away from us, then I have a great prayer for you, honed by many years of use by me.
It’s called the personal responsibility prayer: “What is there in me, Oh Lord, that evokes that kind of response in them toward me?” And, it’s corollary, “Please send someone into my life that I trust who will speak the truth I need to hear about me”. Two Powerful prayers…
It’s World Marriage Day, let’s resolve to do a little Spring-Cleaning. Lent is right around the corner, 10 days until Ash Wednesday. Lent gives us a great opportunity to examine how we treat our spouses & friends & others.
Maybe during Lent this year, we can re-double our efforts to be more Kind to those close to us, Building them up, Encouraging them, & Treating them as if they were the most valuable person in our world.
Who knows, maybe they’ll live up to how we treat them, and even return the favor!
