Happy Are You

A year ago, on the Saturday before Palm Sunday, my dad passed from this life to the next.  A few days later, it was my privilege to preach at the celebration of his funeral Mass.  In memory of my dad, the following is the homily I used.

As a young boy, I thought it would be great to be a lawyer when I grew up.  There was no deep thinking behind this hope.  It first entered my mind early as one of Dad’s favorite television shows was Perry Mason.  Now, Perry Mason came on at 9:00 so I rarely got see the show.  You see, the rule in our house – Dad’s rule – was that 9:00 was bedtime.  And, as you might imagine, we considered Dad’s commandments to rank only slightly below the Ten Commandments themselves.  Thus, no Perry Mason for me.

However, during summer, the rules must have been relaxed a bit, for occasionally I was allowed to watch and I was fascinated.  Perry was a hero.  Through his ingenuity, he triumphed over evil and justice prevailed, week after week.

My desire to become a lawyer was heightened on our many trips back to Pittsburgh, when we typically stayed with the only real-life lawyer I ever knew as a young boy, my Uncle Ivan.  Once – I must have been eight or ten – he took a few or us kids to work with him at his office downtown.  He treated us to lunch.  But it wasn’t just lunch at McDonald's or some sidewalk hot dog stand.  We went to a real restaurant – linen tablecloths, well-dressed waiters, fancy menus, the whole bit.  Wow, if this is how lawyers ate lunch every day, what could I think but that this was a life of true happiness – indeed, heaven could hardly be better.  Perry Mason and Uncle Ivan, here I come.

It never happened.  My joy, nerd that I am, was numbers.  I majored in math at college, not pre-law.  That worked until I figured out that the real world of numbers was finance and business, and I pursued that vocation as my path to happiness and joy.  I joined IBM – just like Dad – and this seemed to be right.

But I wasn't so much like Dad after all.  If I had paid any attention to Scripture back then, I might have been a bit mystified by today’s Gospel.  I’m pretty sure Dad was not so puzzled.

For Jesus tells us that the one who is truly happy – for the word we typically translate as “blessed” in the beatitudes can also be translated as “happy” – is poor, meek, mournful, even persecuted.  It seems oxymoronic – makes no sense at all.  How is it that this happiness that marks Jesus’ disciples, this joy that is characteristic of all Christians, is consistent with being poor, powerless, sad, and afflicted?  It’s a particularly important question for us at times like this, when we rightly mourn the seemingly permanent loss of a loved one’s presence with us.  Where is the joy in this?

St. Paul gives us a clue.  We heard him tell the Romans, “…while we were still sinners, he died for us.”  God did not wait for us to show any signs of desire for our salvation, to demonstrate our worthiness by our good works, to do anything at all that showed we deserved what he was willing to offer.  While we were still sinners, he died for us.  And, at least as some indication of how far we were from deserving this salvation, Jesus dies in a particularly inhuman way, tortured pitilessly, stripped naked, and nailed to a cross to slowly suffocate in a literally excruciating death.

Yet, while we were still sinners – and great sinners at that – he died for us.  Paul is describing the unconditional love of God.  It is unconditional since we have done and can do nothing to deserve it.  It is unconditional as God loves us whether or not we recognize, accept, or completely ignore it.  It is the perfection of the love that we, as parents, strive, as best we can in our limited, human ways, to give to our own children.

It perfects our finite, human love because it comes from the one who is perfect; who has no physical limits; who is beyond even time itself.  In just a few short days, we will celebrate the reality of this infinite God, the one who loves us not only unconditionally, but by his nature, infinitely, as we joyfully proclaim Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus’ triumph over death.  The death we may, in our weakness, see a final end is actually a transition, for even death is not a condition which can end the unconditional love of God.

And when we accept the reality of this unconditional, infinite love, our lives are transformed.  Released from the need to struggle for earthly love and recognition, knowing that God’s infinite love for us will provide us all that we need, we look past the finite limitations of this world, we are freed to share God’s love and bounty with those around us, for giving of that love does not cost us as we are simply giving from an endless, infinite supply.  We are freed from fear and anxiety and filled with peace, for our hope is in the Lord, who created the heavens and the earth, and who loves all of his creation. While the world may see us as poor, we cannot be richer.  While the world may see us as meek and powerless, we have the greatest power supporting us.  While the world may see us as persecuted, we know that the one that is above all these travails will continue to love us.  And even as we rightly mourn the losses in our lives, we recognize that beyond that mourning, the comfort and peace of our ever-loving God is present to us.

I am confident that Dad got this reality long before I did.  Gruff and growling though he may have seemed at times – at IBM, he was known as “Big Bear” – beneath all this was a life of joy, a life of love, a life of true care and concern for the welfare of the children placed in his charge.  This became apparent to me as his life became more limited.  His body – as all our finite bodies will inevitably do – began to limit what he could do.  But if he couldn’t see the ball well enough to play golf, as his lungs and heart would no longer allow him to walk as far as the mailbox without stopping for breath, he found joy in simply sitting out in his chair, enjoying a cup of coffee and a Klondike which I’m sure he could no longer taste, greeting and conversing with whoever came by.

For the past two months, it seemed as if the world had closed completely in around him.  On his best days, he needed the help of at least two people to simply move from a bed to a chair.  Yet he rarely complained or bemoaned his fate.  He found joy in the “sparkling conversation” provided by his many visitors.  He found joy in hearing how well my Kumon center was going, or how Mary liked her new class of kindergartners  or how Ellen and Robert’s move to their new house was going, or in the news and accomplishments of his grandchildren.

For the past few weeks, deprived of even the ability to speak, Dad knew, better that many of us, that his time here on earth was near an end.  When we insisted that he was on the road to recovery, he would shake his head.  The doctors and nurses would try to lift his spirits, but they didn’t realize the needlessness of their efforts.  Dad’s joy was profound despite his deteriorated physical condition.  His joy then, as I am certain beyond certain is true to this very moment and for all moments to come, was in the unconditional and everlasting love of his God, the God of his fathers, the God of each of us.

Happy are you, Norman Roos, child of God, the kingdom of heaven is yours.