God is not boring, we are.

Homily
15th Sunday of Ordinary Time A
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
10 July 2011
Daily Readings

God is not boring, we are. And I'm afraid that I'm getting more boring, as I have access to more distractions and more entertainment. The rosary is not boring, I am boring. The rosary is repetitive, but in a way that serves meditation on a few words and concentration. The rosary is not boring. I am boring. A boring person is one who constantly needs to be entertained, who freaks out when a silent space of meditation presents itself. A boring person is one who thrives on distraction, rather than looking for opportunities to look deeply into himself and into the mysteries of things. None of us should be surprised that distractions, while entertaining. lead to a certain superficiality and an increasing unrest. More gadgets promise more than they can deliver, and they threaten to make us less happy.

St. Paul talks about this futility with which we are familiar. The punishment for sin that God inflicted on the world is death, but the more we think about it, the more we realize this is a just punishment, that this death is better than the alternative, living forever in this world without ever being able to realize our deepest desires. Living in the world forever would be like playing a basketball game with no clock, no ending. Eventually we would tire of keeping score, and tire of even trying, since there would be no way to achieve the reason for playing the game - no way to win. This is the futility we would experience were death not the just punishment for sin. The death that is due as a punishment for sin gives shape to our lives, and creates an urgency to meditate on the mysteries of the kingdom that lies on the other side of death. It is meditation on these mysteries that make us long for death, can help us to choose a detachment from the world and a death to self, which frees us to live in this world in an even more free and beautiful way, while setting our hope on something that can really satisfy, the vision of God, a vision so beautiful that once we see it, we will never be able to look away from it. If we do not come to desire death to this world, we becoming the most boring of people, for we settle for whatever entertainment we can find, without ever finding a desire to die now for something worth dying for. That is why Jesus insists on meditation on the mysteries of the kingdom, so that we do not place our trust in idols, so that we are not duped into putting our hope vainly in an endless series of distractions, so that we become those who truly desire death as the pathway to new life, those who are ready for death.

These mysteries of the kingdom are not for boring people, people who need to be entertained. They are for those who are willing to meditate. The Apostles here at St. Lawrence insist in teaching young people how to pray on 20 minutes a day of mental prayer, of silent meditation on the word of God. The seminarians of the Archdiocese are receiving now greater discipline and formation in true prayer of the heart, speaking heart to heart with God, and we have seen a great resurgence among young people in the practices of Eucharistic adoration and the rosary. Sometimes the world sees such meditation as brainwashing, as an unhealthy addiction to God, but when compared to the world addiction to distraction, I'll take silent prayer anyday.

In listening to the parable of the sower, we should see that in our current situation, building a habit of prayer, and creating a monastery of the heart where the mysteries of the kingdom can take root is an almost impossible challenge. But with God all things are possible. He is waiting to speak heart to heart to us. He is always ready to speak, always ready to have us listen in on the conversation of love being had at this moment between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are invited by God to contemplate not in a superficial way, but with true adoration the love that makes all things possible, and a love that is more unique and real and redeeming than any other love available, the love that flows from the sacred heart of Jesus. Let us not be afraid of this love, nor be afraid to encounter it through a renewed commitment to silence and prayer in our lives. For God is never boring. But without prayer, we are boring.