what is hard rn?

Homily

5th Sunday of Lent BI

21 March 2021

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG +mj

What is hard for you right now?

Originally, I was asked to comment on what stinks right now.  I think we ought to go deeper that just improving our hygiene or taking out the trash.  So how is this question instead?  What is hard right now?

Life doesn't have to be easy!  It's often better when it's not.  Heroes defeat evil by facing the enemy with courage.  When the hour of Jesus' crucifixion arrives, He is troubled. This is hard.  Yet what should He do?  Should He run from this moment?  No, for He is made for this moment, to be lifted up for all to see.

A sound rarely heard in the Gospel, the Father in His own voice, booms at this critical moment.  The Father announces Jesus' identity at His baptism, and echoes it at His Transfiguration.  Now the Father announces Jesus' mission clearly, not for His sake by for mine.  Jesus is to be raised up so all can see the Father's glory!  What glory is this?  It is the glory of loving to the end, holding nothing back, until all is emptied and accomplished.

What's hard for me right now is to be and do what the Father says.  Who am I?  I'm God's beloved Son.  What is my mission?  It is to love to the end.  So is yours. Where is the equality in this chapel tonight?  It's that we are all equal in dignity and vocation.  We are God's children.  We are chosen to empty ourselves.  For whoever seeks to save His life will lose it.  Wherever I am my servant will also be.  Unless a grain of wheat dies, it produces no fruit.

That's hard for me.  I wonder what's hard for you?  Whatever it is, I know Jesus thinks you can face it.  I know that when you face what you least want and understand, you help defeat evil at its root, where it scares us deep down inside.  I know that when you face it, you will be truly free, and people will see the glory of God in you.

Naming it is the beginning of facing it. What is hard for you right now?