How much do I care?

Homily

4th Sunday of Easter C2

WDPV and Good Shepherd Sunday

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

How much do I care?

I can't imagine a more pivotal question for me or for you at this point in history.  It's the perfect question for Mother's Day, Good Shepherd Sunday, and the World Day of Prayer for Vocations.  This is a super busy weekend, and we are cramming as much meaning as possible into today's liturgy.  

How much do I care?  I hope this question holds all the pieces together.

My short answer is, not enough!  I don't care enough.  I don't care enough to fulfill the meaning and purpose of my life, my vocation.  I want to care more than I do.

Why don't I care enough?  To mine the answer to that question is to plunge into the mystery of sin, which I'm not gonna do here.  Suffice it to say that I don't care enough because I'm scared.  I'm scared that nobody cares for me, that I need to grab whatever I can for myself.  This fear affects my care for others.

We're in the fourth week now of the Risen Christ telling us not to be afraid. Today on Good Shepherd Sunday we always hear from the 10th Chapter of John's Gospel.  Jesus desperately wants to reveal to me how much He cares for me.  I am yours.  You are mine.  Nobody can take you away from me.

The problem is that I don't trust this care.  It's too much, too good to be true.  Mary, our Mother in faith did, and so was fearless.  I really stink at it.  Maybe you do too.  It can be the scariest thing, to entrust one's self to the care of another.  I'm good instead of hating to need other people, at my obsession with self-sufficiency.  I'm good all by myself.  I got this.

Again, I don't care enough in life because I'm afraid to let someone care for me, least of all God.  Yet I'm not going to try to fix this problem today either.

Let's just answer the question at its face value.  How much do I care?

No matter how afraid I am, my life still comes with this inherent capacity and responsibility to care for others.  So let's talk vocation.  I have a calling.  It's the same calling given by Jesus to Mary from the cross.  Care for my sheep.  It's the calling given at the end by Jesus to Peter.  Feed my lambs.

It's a calling shared by Jesus to you, if you dare accept it.  Once again, the future of the world runs through not just through my answer to the question, but just as much so yours.  How much do I care?

Can we all agree that we're tired of fighting over who's right and who's in control?  It's been fifty years of Roe v. Wade and legalized abortion in this country, and we're still at war as much as ever.  I'm sick of it.  We're still at war with each other.  We're still at ware with our children. We're still at war with the nature of our own bodies.  We're still at war over what it means to live and what it means to be free.

Why are we still at war?  It's because I don't care enough. I'm afraid to.  I didn't learn this from my mom.  She showed her care through countless sacrifices.  Perhaps my favorite is that my mom made some damn good pies!  My mom could save the world with her pies!  The problem is that me her son is obsessed instead with getting my slice of the pie, and I'll kill anyone who threatens to take my slice.

Yet I'm tired of fighting.  Wouldn't it be better if I was like my mom, and just baked some more damn pies?

The only way that life wins is if there is more care in the world that fear.

How much do I care?