Homily, 9am Sunday Mass, February 27, 2022

father bob bedard the founder of the companions of the cross he loved to tell stories about his parents and he particularly spoke about his mom who had a great sense of humor i think he got her sense of humor and she was a real live wire she had the gift of the gab and so there's this one story where she would love to talk on the phone right long before we had cell phones so somewhere in the kitchen this phone that's attached to the wall with one of those twirly wires right you know what i'm talking about or some of you know what i'm talking about anyways uh should be yaburn away maybe on for hours on end and father bob's dad who is more of the strong silent type you know a bit more of an introvert he'd walk into the kitchen and he'd see this whole thing on display and he'd proceed to reach into the dark recesses of the fridge and pull out the stinkiest cheese he could find and then he'd sit down and slowly unwrap it and start to slice off a few pieces of cheese and father bob's mom it turns out she had this highly developed sense of smell and so she'd be mid-sentence talking away and she'd she'd get a whiff her nose her nose would wrinkle up and she'd say listen mabel why don't i just come over and we can continue the conversation in person and so she'd hang up the phone grab her purse and head out and father bob's dad would pull out the newspaper you know open it up at the table and he'd be reading away and a few minutes would go by and then he'd look over at uh at young bobby and say it's awfully quiet around here isn't it i love i don't do that story justice but but i love it when father bob used to tell it and it just introduces this whole idea of conversations because conversations are really at the heart of every relationship they're at the heart of life we can't avoid them now in my brief survey of the human species i haven't met anybody who is born with the gift of conversations now i know all kinds of people who are born with the gift of the gab but that's a bit different there's a nuance between being able to talk and being able to engage in a beautiful way in this art of conversation right maybe you've met people who over time have developed this skill being able to listen intently and know how to say just the right thing or ask just the perfect question to draw out the other person is beautiful to behold well i think for many of us we tend towards different extremes and i'll use father bob's parents you know kind of as a caricature to draw out the point some of us are a bit like his mom who like to talk away we're good at talking but so we we're not always aware of the other person and sometimes we can dominate the conversation a little bit tell me if this has ever happened to you you know some you're talking to somebody and they ask you a question and then they wait one nanosecond and then proceed to answer the question themselves does that ever happen yeah well i remember this one time being in on a car ride with somebody and it was two hours in the car with this friend and uh they were externally processing the whole time i it was hard for me to get in a word edgewise and i'm not usually short on words but there it was listening and and sometimes that happens you know they might have spent 90 percent of the the time talking and i i got in about 10 percent well sometimes you just need to let people vent that's that's okay oftentimes when we're driving home after a long day in the car father alex you know he'll be venting and it's just like you know what just go ahead let it all out it's okay just just let it all out i'm here for you right but if that's the only way that we engage in conversation that's not very healthy is it and so we we that kind of might reveal there's a pride a selfishness a lack of awareness of the other person now on the flip side we can avoid conversation and be positive aggressive a little bit like father bob's dad with this whole stinky cheese technique right there's he could have simply said hey do you mind taking a break for a while but instead avoiding the conversation what happens then when we don't speak we allow things to fester in our hearts judgments anger resentments bitterness and and that comes out sideways in unhealthy ways also and so we can tend towards these extremes right we either talk at people or we avoid conversations that we really should have and i think the call is for all of us to grow to get better at having good healthy conversations and even for those who are masters at this you know for the last two years we haven't really been able to engage in these normal healthy face-to-face conversations so i think we're all a little bit out of practice and i would suggest that we're being called into conversation this is our series the calling we're in our last week and and as father alex said at the beginning different scriptures talking about how god is calling us to to take a risk to trust to to heroic charity well today i want to suggest we're being called into healthy conversations with one another because conversations are at the heart of relationships i want to look through our first reading from the book of sirach it's part of what's called wisdom literature so we have other books like the book of psalms proverbs job well sirac is part of that wisdom literature so not so much focused on telling the history of the people of god as helping us to live a good life giving us practical wisdom about how to live a holy life with good relationships and so this this book of sirach today 27 highlights three different images so the sieve that catches the refuse or this clay pot that's being tested in the fire or this tree that's bearing fruits so listen to this passage its fruit discloses the cultivation of a tree so a person's speech discloses the cultivation of the mind do not praise someone before they speak for this is the way people are tested now i'm in meetings all the time which meetings are just conversations really and i find more and more that i realized i'm surrounded by really smart people now father alex notwithstanding but no i'm just kidding i'm just kidding father alex he can be a real smart alex sometimes so but i'm in these meetings and there's all these smart people and so oftentimes if i don't have anything intelligent to add i try to keep my mouth shut it doesn't always work but i but i try my best you know i live by that philosophy it's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt right i love this i heard about this sign that a mechanic put up in his garage be sure brain is engaged before putting mouth in gear good advice because what scripture is saying is as soon as we speak it's going to reveal what's inside what's in our hearts what's in our minds what's been growing there and i wonder what has been growing you know when we speak is it does our conversation reveal that there's presumptions and judgment does the conversation reveal gossip and slander does it reveal anger and bitterness when we speak does it reveal that we like to dominate the conversation or we like to avoid having the real conversations you see as even our gospel said for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks and we will be judged on how healthy our conversations are now as i said it's not an option because these are at the very heart of relationships and god is calling us into conversation now last weekend i referred to something going on in the foyer you may or may not remember that i made this veiled reference to this little construction and the team has actually been working behind the scenes for months and months and i just realized god's timing is so perfect you you might have heard earlier this week that the province just announced that by march 21st all the restrictions will be lifted and i'm just so excited that we'll be free to to really enter in to community to to worship god freely as a parish and i also want to name the fact that for for some people because you have vulnerabilities where you know people who are very vulnerable you're going to take a more cautious approach and and that's okay but as i reflect on on this whole project here in the foyer i actually think back to five years ago to the spring of 2017 i wasn't yet pastor father james actually challenged me to to cast vision about the future of saint benedict and so i prayed about it and eventually i shared a few things that were stirring in my heart these are a few slides from five years ago i said there's going to be lives transformed for jesus a disciple a day people are going to take next steps in different groups serving in ministry our our sunday experience is going to be even more amazing we're going to move online more and use more technology to reach people and everything is going to be undergirded in prayer we're going to have adoration and and on i went but anyways as i reflect back many of these things praise god have been coming to fruition but i think most people forgot everything i said anyways save one thing five years ago i said we're gonna build a coffee shop and they're like yeah let's do that well that day is fast approaching and i'm pleased to announce that we will soon be opening what we're referring to as the next steps center and yes there's going to be coffee served after mass in our foyer are you excited for that praise god but it's so much more than just about being highly caffeinated even though i do think that that's the value in itself in the fall we talked about our game plan 2.0 and we revealed this whole road map for the journey of a disciple how does one follow in pursuit of jesus because everything we do here at saint benedict is about jesus we don't just want to have attendees or members or church goers we want to make disciples we want people to come to know jesus to begin and continue a relationship with jesus that's at the heart of everything that we're doing and part of moving step by step in this relationship is for us to ask this question right at the middle middle of our game plan what's next it's not something see we want to impose on you but rather for you to reflect and ask what is next what's next for me on my journey with jesus and we hope that the next step center is going to be a great place where we can help you answer that question now it's all about conversation by the way last weekend somebody asked deacon ronan uh if we're going to be serving guinness in the foyer you may not know he's from ireland and i think we're just going to start with coffee and tea and hot chocolate i was actually pushing for stinky cheese being served after mass but i got overruled so we'll start with a few beverages and as i say if all restrictions are lifted by march 21st my hope is by that following weekend march 26 27th our foyer is going to be flowing with coffee and conversations and in the meantime we're going to have to build up team we're going to need people to respond and say hey yeah i want to serve in this brand new ministry you don't have to be a barista but you just have to have a heart to serve and uh i want to engage people maybe in a little conversation and kindness so you can go after mass to the next step center and talk to noreen and she'll be there happy to answer any questions you have about how to get involved now i want to talk about this fourier as a larger part of something much larger i'm going to call it foyer 2.0 because we wanted to come out of this pandemic stronger than when we went in and there's three elements to foyer 2.0 the first as i said or sorry the first i should say is the welcome center now we've had this for many years and the welcome center is it's kind of become a catch shawl for all kinds of things but we want to go back to its original intent the welcome center was about welcoming new people i want to say if you're here today and you're new or if you're watching online and you're new know this you are the most important person to us here at st benedict i'm going to say that again if you're new you're the most important person to us and if you've been here for a long time and you've invested and you've given and you've served well i want to say this to you thank you we love you so much and we wouldn't have been able to build a next step center without your without your help and i'm going to ask you to join us on mission which is this mission of not just being a church closed in on itself we're called to exist for the sake of others we're called to actually reach those people who don't yet know how much jesus loves them so i'm asking you to join me in prioritizing those who are new so that's the welcome center and if you meet somebody new you might direct them over there to the welcome center the second thing is the next step center as i say this place where people can go to ask about how do i take a step on the journey one step at a time maybe what is this alpha thing or can i get signed up for a life group or i'd like to learn more about ministries all of those conversations can happen at the next steps center and thirdly is that we're going to be serving high quality coffee i'm not talking about church coffee you know that dirty dish water that most parishes serve i'm talking about high quality coffee and maybe you've heard about this local coffee roaster just us we've actually been in conversation with them and they're going to be producing a blend just for us which is pretty cool and i'm excited for that we it's it's it's going to come at a cost to us and so we'll ask for a donation but any any funds raised over and above cost is going to go towards our outreach and we know that we've made serious steps uh over this last year to give to those in need and we're going to continue to do so part of our social justice efforts so imagine you know just after mass you turn to your prayer partner and say could i get you a cup of coffee and you head into the foyer and you you have a beverage and then you engage in conversation you stop long enough to to engage with one another this this whole thing it's all about conversations and we're going to be judged as a parish as scripture says by how healthy our conversations are i want to end with noreen's story noreen was baptized catholic but for many years she worshipped in other christian churches and then one day back in 2016 a friend of hers said you gotta check out st benedict's parish and so she drove over here one sunday morning and she got to the parking lot she started laughing because it was full she never imagined a catholic church with no parking and she finally she walked into our foyer and it was full of lights and it was full of people who were full of joy and somebody engaged her in conversation right away welcomed her and she just had this profound sense that the spirit of god is presence here and she was moved to tears right there in the foyer long before mass had started and she continued she took alpha and and really felt i've come home and then she joined rcia and and started preparing to receive the sacrament of confirmation and a few years later in the fall of 2019 she joined our staff team and she's been a great blessing to our parish ever since well as it turns out it's come full circle because noreen is the one who is kind of overseeing this project with a foyer 2.0 and she is the one who's helping us create this space for welcome for for next steps for for coffee for conversation so that we can continue to grow our community and i dream of a day when hundreds of people like noreen walk through those doors and they they encounter people who are full of joy and hospitality and welcome and this presence of god that they too they're moved to tears by what god is doing in their midst this is the church that we want to be and it's going to happen one conversation at a time

Channel: Saint Benedict Parish

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Length: 20min 25sec (1225 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 27 2022