Maureen Holy Card

HOMILY NOTES

FR. TERRY RYAN, CSP

MATTHEW 18: 15-20

AUGUST 10, 2017

            I am reading Ron Chernow’s, Hamilton.  Alexander Hamilton was killed in a pistol duel with Aaron Burr.  What I noticed from a duel, is that no one is changed for the better.  Hamilton is dead and Burr walks away the victor.  My big sister, Maureen, four years older than me, taught me a better way to encourage positive change when there is a disagreement.  When I was a little boy, my sister and I were each given a beautiful holy card picture of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Maureen kept hers on her night table.  I kept mine under my pillow.  As little boys tend to do, I lost my holy card.  What to do?  I took Maureen’s.  I figured that she was so mean and bossy, that Mary could do her no good.  So why waste a holy card on Maureen. 

            Maureen came to me and accused me of taking her holy card.  I said I did not.  She then got our little dipper sister, Elizabeth, and told her what I did.  Elizabeth said, “Terry, you bad!”  “Oh, go poop in your pants,” I retorted.  She promptly did.  End of conversation.  Maureen then brought the issue to the dinner table with the whole family.  I denied it.  Maureen had an ace up her sleeve.  She had put a very small mark on her card.  She told me to show the card to my parents.  It had the tell tale mark.  “Yikes,” I said.  “A miracle!  How did that card get under my pillow?  Maybe Mary did it because she loves me best.” 

           

            No one was buying miracle stories that night.  Maureen said, “You can keep the card, if you want, even though you stole it and lied.  You will burn.”  I was destined for the fires from an early age.  For punishment, I was to get no dessert for a week.  Each night while the family ate chocolate cream pie or banana cream pie or apple pie, I was to go sit in my room and think about the card.  That week Maureen acted very strange, for Maureen.  She did not give me the cold shoulder, but rather she was extra nice.  She made my bed one day, and picked up my clothes another.  I was very impressed by her kindness.  Something was loosed inside of me.  I felt a bit of a bond with her.  This miracle was followed by another miracle.  Near the end of the week, I quietly placed her card back on her night table.  Love, not punishment changed me. 

            Jesus did not ignore the gentiles and tax collectors.  He did not treat them as outsiders to be shunned.  He healed and ate with them.  Our church is not a sect, everyone the same.  We are a community of more or less sinners and saints, with various moral character and opinions.  God embraces us all. 

            The second point of this gospel is that when you accuse someone of “sinning against you” it might not be so much their sin as it is your personal opinion and judgment about their action.  Jesus says to go to the person one on one.  If there is no agreement then try to get two or three others who agree with you.  If you are in the wrong, Jesus’ hope is that you will not find enough others who agree with you.  This might then make you reconsider your opinion or sense of what you consider a wrong done to you.  Then you might even go and apologize.  This will bind you more to the other person and loosen the resentment within you.   Love might even follow!  A miracle.