Tap

HOMILY NOTES

FR. TERRY RYAN, CSP

LUKE 6: 39-45

MARCH 3, 2019

This weekend I took my first tap dance class.  Please don’t tell any church officials, as it is difficult for a priest to get work if he is tap dancing instead of getting holy.  Anyhow, I was dreadful, and it was a beginner class.  My brain, eye and feet were not working together.  But I am not giving up.  I have wanted to learn for a long time and time may be running out.  I even bought a DVD, though I have no DVD player, so I could watch the steps and try to practice them, over and over.  

Now what if someone asked me to show them how to tap dance, and I said, “Oh, sure, I will teach you.”  Would this not be a disaster, the blind leading the blind?  We would both be disasters together.  This is what the gospel is saying.  The blind cannot lead the blind.  I have to work on myself each day in dance before I can teach anyone anything in the distant future.  It is the same way with the spiritual life.  I have to be working on me each day, in prayer and behavior, so that I can become a better person to be a light for others.  I don’t want to fake it or be a hypocrite.  So I have to work on me before I can lead others.  

You can tell a rotten or good tree by looking at it and its fruit.  Nature does not fib.  But we humans can fib a lot, trying to show a good outside that hides a not so good, or ignored inside.  Our gossiping, judging, and complaining about others hides our own unattended faults and character defects.  If I am supposed to be teaching about contemplative prayer, then I had better be a daily practitioner.  

It would not be a good thing for me to become a good tap dancer, while giving up the time and energy for all those other things that could make me all God wants me to be.  I hope God is with me on this tap dancing thing.  I do know that I enjoy it so far, even if I am dreadful at it.  Break a leg?