The Best You

HOMILY NOTES

FR. TERRY RYAN, CSP

LUKE 3: 1-6

DECEMBER 9, 3018

John the Baptist was the son of a temple priest.  He was supposed to follow tradition and become like his father, Zechariah.  Instead, John went into the desert to live.  John felt that his calling, his becoming the John God created him to be, required him to go against custom and tradition.  Each of us is created by God to be a unique person.  When we discover our true self, the one God created, and live it out, then we become the light of Christ for others to see.  If we rather try to fit in, become what we think others want us to be, create our own self, then we stonewall the light of Christ. We do not become a beacon of God’s light and Good News.  Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, all tried to be what they thought others wanted them to be, for the sake of power, security, wealth, and comfort.  The light did not come through them.

In Philippians 1: 8-11 Paul hopes that love, knowledge, perception, and discernment of what is valuable will be in the followers of Christ.  This is the true self about which the recently deceased Thomas Keating spoke.  When you become all you are meant to be, you will be God’s light for others.  All others?  No, just the ones God wants you to encounter.  Not everyone went into the desert to see John.  But his personality, his sense of comfort in his own skin, drew some people to hear the Good News of God through him.  Not everyone liked Fr. Thomas Keating.  But if Thomas had not become all God meant him to be in this life, many people would not have heard the Good News, the wisdom of God that came forth through the teaching of Thomas Keating.

When I preach, I cannot try to be like someone else.  I have to be the best of me.  If I try to be someone I am not, then I am creating my false self, and God can only appear through God’s creation, the real.  A false self is a fiction.  I may not reach everyone with my preaching, but I will more likely reach the ones God meant me to reach if I am trying to be rid of false self, that is not me, and let loose God’s creation, my true self.

Abbot Joseph Boyle, who died recently, reached so many people by becoming, as a Trappist, the Joseph Boyle who was part of God’s plan for the Christ light to shine.  His personality, his treating everyone the same, the way he looked at you, not turning away, remembered so many names,  allowed him to bring the Good News of God’s unconditional love to the people he encountered.  There were over 300 people at his funeral inside and outside our small monastery chapel.  The rich, the poor, the rancher, the mountain resident, the seasonal people who had second homes here, those on retreat, visitors, all received equal attention and care.  And he had such joy that caught people. 

The challenge for each of us is to become who God meant us to be.  There is so much cultural and internal pressure to be what someone else wants us to be or who we think we should be, when we have insufficient spiritual fitness.  Become who God made you to be and you will be a straight path, a level road for people who are in search of a God who loves them.