Friday, April 6, 2012

This is how you kiss

Homily
Celebration of the Lord's Passion
6 April 2012
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

On February 20th, I reposted a story to my facebook timeline from the Kansas City Star.  That paper hasn't always put the Church in a good light, but I was excited that they honored the extraordinary life of a junior at one our Catholic high schools, a kid that I knew a little bit from saying daily Mass at the school.  The headline of the story was "St. James' Connor McCullough loses battle with cancer."  I reposted the story with the comment  'rip Connor McCullough' hoping people would take the time to read the story.  Less than a year before learning he had terminal brain cancer, this young man was at least a four-star basketball recruit.  Connor was on Bill Self's radar, perhaps the best player in a line of family basketball players, including a few McCulloughs I knew when I was chaplain of St. Thomas Aquinas.  He was a stud on the court, and for many, including those who are frenetic about KU basketball, who could only dream yet never achieve the opportunity to play at KU, this made his tragic death all the more newsworthy.

So I reposted the story, after hearing that dozens of his Catholic school peers flooded adoration chapels all over the city after learning of his death, and thousands of young people, including the best basketball players all over the city, attended his wake and funeral.  So devout was Connor and his family, that as people waited hours to view the body and greet the family, tv's were set up with the EWTN nuns praying the Divine Mercy chaplet, and basketball players who had never been in a Catholic church found themselves following along on the pamphlet handed to them, praying for the conversion of sinners and for the salvation of the world through a devotion most Catholics have never used.  You can imagine the scene.

So I felt pretty good reposting the story about Connor.  Little did I know that the headline that I reposted - St. James' Connor McCullough loses battle with cancer - would be so offensive.  The headline was offensive to the teammates and friends of Connor who had been going to daily Mass with him and for him for many months, those who had prayed with complete faith for a miracle, but in the end, that God's will be done.  Here is one of the comments made in response to my post - More like St. James' Connor McCullough OWNS battle with cancer.  Connor won.  Last time I checked, cancer didn't make it to heaven.

That's the comment I should have posted.  Instead, an 18 year old had to remind me that the headline was wrong.  Dead wrong.  This made we wonder why I wasn't more offended by the headline - St. James' Connor McCullough loses battle with cancer.  It was so clear to the kids who knew him and  loved him most and prayed for him most.  Cancer was Connor's cross.  The cross is the tree of victory, the tree of life.  Connor won.  The headline was wrong.  Dead wrong.  End of story.

It is so important for us who dare to kiss the cross of Jesus tonight to celebrate that the wood of the cross is the axis of the recreation of the world.  And the second creation is better than the first.  On the cross Jesus hands over the power to create everything out of nothing, a power given by the Father in the first creation, so that he can create everything out of nothing.  That sounds dumb, until you see the difference between what was created in the beginning and what is created from the axis of the cross.

In the first creation of everything from nothing, a light was shared that could one day be touched by darkness  A goodness was shared that could one day be touched by evil.  Happiness was shared but could one day be touched by sorrow and pain.  The breath of life was shared that could one day be conquered by death.

This cannot be said of the new creation.  The one who knew he had the power to lay down his life and take it up again accepted the mission from the Father to recreate the world beginning from the wood of the cross.  For it is at this location, the location we dare to kiss with our lips, that a new reality and everlasting life is created.  And this creation is better, because it is born not merely by God's decision to share himself, but by God's decision to take up a human nature so that he could share all of himself.

When God creates, he bring something out of nothing.  That's what makes his creation different than ours.  And on the cross from the nothing of evil he creates everlasting goodness.  From the nothing of darkness he creates unquenchable light.  From the nothing of pain he creates irreducible joy.  From the nothing of death, he creates eternal life.

The commenter on my facebook got it right.  It is at the cross, and nowhere else, that the only victory that matters is won.   It is at the cross that the Passover from the old reality to the new happens.  That is why it makes sense for us to kiss the greatest instrument of hatred and torture the world has ever seen with the most passionate kiss of our entire lives.

It's strange when a facebook comment from a 18 year old becomes something that pricks my conscience all the way to Good Friday.   Those who prayed for a friend who was given a heavy cross were not disillusioned that his life was too short; no, they concluded that the rest of us are living too long, if we are living a life apart from the life that comes only from the cross.   If I am willing to repost a headline article saying that cancer defeated the life of a promising young man who was a disciple of Jesus, how can I say that I really know what the cross of our Lord means?  For the cross for us is not where life ends.  It is where life begins.


1 comment:

Liesel said...

Great Homily. It is something that we are working on teaching Dominic. Eric has started reading him the Narnia series which I think will also help him see that death at the end of a good life centered in God is a victory and a coming home.