Do I need another chance?

Homily

3rd Sunday of Lent C2

20 March 20222

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Do I need another chance?

You better believe I do!  By God's great mercy, I get another day!  So do you.  I have a friend who knows I'm not as careful as I should be, so she always reminds me not to die too early.  So far this advice and prayer, and the work of my guardian angel have kept me alive.  I'm grateful, for I really do need another chance.

It's agonizing when the clock runs out on the Jayhawks during March Madness.  It's crushing. Maybe it won't this year, but it usually does.  The scriptures remind us that the clock always runs out, quite unfairly actually.  Deadlines are warnings, we are told. They are also godsends, for my life wouldn't have shape or urgency without them.  I don't know how fast my clock is ticking.  My grandpa Jake is 104 and couldn't die if he tried.  I turned 48 this week.  My mom was 49 when she died.  The scriptures today only remind me of what I already know. The clock is ticking.

I hope I have enough time left to become a better Father.  To date I've been focused on other things.  Bad things, like my sins and addictions, to be sure, but also good things like being a priest.  I've wanted to be conformed to Jesus and His saving graces and mysteries.  Yet there is more I'm being gifted with.  Even though I act in persona Christi capitis, nobody calls me Jesus.  You call me Fr. Mitchel, for I have been entrusted with a patrimony.  I feel like I've whiffed to date. I need another chance.

What's it for you?

The good news is not only that the clock is ticking, but also that your story matters.  God has chosen the future of the world to run through your story.  Not your story only, but your story as much as anyone's.  That's scary for sure, and speaking for myself, very poor planning on God's part.  Yet He is who He is.  He said as much to Moses.  I am who I am.  I am God, and this is how I do it.  I delight in the future of salvation running through your story.  I draw close to choose you.

This is the great theo-drama of played out in Moses' story.  Moses is called out of his ego-drama, his private investigation of the burning bush, and told to back up and back down so He can really notice what God is revealing.  If Moses allows his small, fragile human nature to be called and elevated by the Holy Spirit, he will be fully alive, on fire but not destroyed.

That's your destiny too, especially if you're a jayhawk.  You do know what will be on your KU diploma if you earn one, right?  It's not Allen Field House nor the Campanile.  It's the burning bush, encircled with the Latin phrase Videbo visionem hanc magnam quare non comburatur rubus.  I will see the vision of this bush that doesn't burn.  Now, KU is a secular university without theology, the science of understanding God's revelation, so Mt. Oread has no definitive interpretation of what happens on Mt. Horeb.  Yet you do have an interpretation. This vision is your destiny.

The future of the world will indeed run through your theo-drama, the mystery of your call to become fully on fire with the Holy Spirit yet without getting burned.

Do you need another chance to embrace this destiny?

I'm a Jayhawk too, and I sure do.