← Petersboat
Petersboat
Life in Between is Beautiful | The Monday After
00:18:50
It's never easy to be "in between," but it is possible with the Church.
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:05]
A
Hello again, everyone. You know, the. The pain of the teenage years can be described as the discomfort that comes from being in between childhood and adulthood. Right? We call them tweenagers sometimes these days. And what do teenagers do but distract themselves from this. This fear of being in between. So they're not back there anymore, but they're. But they're also not there yet. They're told all the time they're not children anymore, they need to shape up. But then also when they ask for the keys to get out of the house, they're told, well, you're not an adult yet either. So they feel stuck. And then what do we do when we're teenagers? We try to distract ourselves from that uneasiness. Someone called it vertiginous once at a retreat. You know, the feeling of vertigo. You know, I'm not there yet, but I'm not back where I was either. So I'm in this in between stage, meaning I was thinking about. Even as adults, it's not easy for us to be in between things. I was laughing with the 5 o' clock mass on Saturday. We had all these first communions this weekend. And after the third one, I had an hour between that last first communion and the 5 o' clock mass. If I sat down or prayed the rosary, I might fall asleep. But I didn't want to just start scrolling on the phone either, because then I'd be like a zombie by the time the five o' clock Mass starts. So I just had to kind of ride it out. I was walking around a little bit, and I was all amped up by the time the five came. We laughed a little bit. I'm like, I'm sorry. I just had a hard time with like, the in between. In between the last First Communion Mass and this five o' clock Mass, you know, in between is hard. It's just not easy. But the very stuff of life, if you will, is the experience of being in between. You know, we were born, but we're not in heaven yet. So we're in between. And even as Christians, you know, we're not back there in the darkness of ignorance. We met Christ, we ate and drank with him, but we're also not in glory yet with Him. So here's where all this in between language comes from. The Church right now, liturgically, is in between the Feast of the Ascension and Pentecost. So last Thursday, the Feast of the Ascension, Christ returns to the right hand of the Father, Praise God, victorious to having conquered sin and death on the cross. And then He Promised that he would send an advocate. So we're waiting for the Feast of Pentecost, which is the descent of the Holy Spirit, who is the advocate that was promised to us by Christ. Not easy. He ascends to the Father. And immediately there's that anxiety, like, what do we do now? He spoke about sending us an advocate, but what do we do? So what do the disciples do? They get the apostles together and they gather in the upper room, where Jesus celebrated the Last Supper 40 days earlier. And they asked the Blessed Mother to be with them. Stay with us. So there's the model of the Church, Jerusalem, staying before the suffering, living in reality, where Jesus celebrated the Last Supper, remembering the grace of the sacraments, especially the Most Blessed Sacrament, the Eucharist with the apostles, the teaching authority entrusted them by Christ himself and the Blessed Mother, her comfort, her nourishment, her nurturing love, her understanding love, not in competition with her Son, but there and by her presence, like helping us to do whatever he tells us, as she said to us at the wedding feast of Cana. So in between. This is the first novena in the Church's history. There's nine days between the Feast of the Ascension and the Feast of Pentecost. This is where the tradition of praying for something for nine days comes from, as we anticipate the fulfillment of the desire of our hearts. But it's just not easy. I wanted to acknowledge that that's why Christ gave us the Church. It's not easy. So he's gone before us into glory, and he calls us to follow after. Like the saints who have followed him have arrived. We have not yet. So we are still in between. You know the psalm this weekend? I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living. I believe that I will see it when my time comes to see it. In the meantime, I am in between. The fourth verse that comes after these three that we had this Sunday, which was not included in the lectionary. This Sunday it prays and enjoins us. Wait for the Lord with courage. Be stout hearted and wait for the Lord. We pray this psalm a lot at wakes a lot of times. Two people or four people who are waiting to see their loved ones again. And I love to on behalf of the loved one. Oftentimes a grandparent or parent say to the children or the grandchildren, wait for the Lord with courage. Be stout hearted and wait for the Lord. Meaning wait with the Church, Wait with the apostles, the Pope, the bishops, the priests given to us by Christ. To lead us and guide us, led by the Holy Spirit, they lead us into all truth and wait with the Blessed Mother and wait with the sacraments, you know, so that's the message this weekend is like, to acknowledge that it's tough to be in between. Teenagers are a perfect example of that and that Christ gave us the church to help us with this and specifically to help us from feeling like that. We have to distract ourselves from reality in order to be happy. Because life itself is the experience of, of longing for and waiting for the Lord and being able to see him face to face one day in heaven. And I'm thinking about how it's true, not only when we were teenagers, it was easy to distract ourselves, but even now because of the phones and short form video in particular, it's easy to distract ourselves. I mean, all sorts of different forms of software, social media, make it easy for us to excuse ourselves as soon as we feel the discomfort of having to wait for something. But short form video in particular is disappointing and unfulfilling because I don't know if it's the beginning of a story or the middle of a story or the end, but it's not all three. And there's something about it that only frustrates me, leaves me feeling dead. There's something unnatural about short form video. I don't like it. Elon Musk was asked recently if he thinks we've invented anything that has ultimately not served humanity all that well. And he immediately responded short form video with his sort of awkward way. He jokingly said it's made us stupid, made us dumber. Yeah, maybe that's true, but there are many things that do that. But it certainly distracts us from, you know, the in between experiences of life. Right? I mean, you know, the phones come out before you've been called to the kitchen, but dinner's not ready yet. So the phone comes out, you're at, I don't know, this is weird, but like the bus stop, you know, but the bus isn't there yet. So the phones come out, you're on the train next to somebody going to work, the phones come out, you're in between home and work. Anytime we're in between something, we take the phone out because we want to distract ourselves from the discomfort of being in between. Not always easy to stay in prayer, but we can give ourselves to a story. Perhaps a long form podcast like this or these aren't even that long. Many people like to listen to a podcast that's an hour and a half long or to watch a film or to read a book anyway. Something that has some sense of a beginning, a middle and an end. I like this moment in the Church's liturgical year, this time between the Ascension and Pentecost. It reminds me of like Holy Saturday. That's the day after Jesus dies on the cross. But before Easter Sunday, you're in between. What do we do now? Even those disciples that are going away from Jerusalem after Jesus dies on the cross and they're walking to Emmaus, remember, they're going away, they're disappointed and they're full of sadness along with the fear and the anxiety of what's next. But they're disappointed. And then Christ Himself draws near to them and comforts them and walks with them in this difficult in between experience for them, like what's next? And in between Jerusalem and their house in Emmaus, seven miles away, as he walks with them, he teaches them, there's like the apostles authority, right? And he's trying to comfort them too, the way the Blessed Mother comforts us. And then he's invited in by these men as they get to the place they're going to. And while he's at table with them, he takes the bread, says the blessing, gives thanks and gives it to them. And they recognize it's Jesus with them. They go back to Jerusalem and they proclaim that he's been raised. But see, when he drew near to them was in that in between. In between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, in the in between of Jerusalem and their house to which they were going. And the way that he appears to them, makes Himself known to them, is with the teaching. Remember, he opens up the Scriptures relating how everything in the Old Testament points to the fact that the Christ must suffer so as to enter into his glory. That the Cross is what leads to the glory, the victory is the Cross. And then he also tries to comfort them. And their hearts are burning with them when them as he speaks, he's speaking with love, as he speaks the truth. So it's that whole upper room experience, the authority of the Church, the teaching Christ, and also the comforting Christ, the Blessed Mother's love. Anyway, when they invite him in, he celebrates the Eucharist with them as he did in the upper room the night before he died. So it's the same thing we see as the Church is waiting in between the Ascension and Pentecost. It's the apostles authority, the Blessed Mother's comfort and the Eucharist I mentioned that the cross really is the victory. And if you think about it, what's he doing from the cross? Well, he's hanging, by the way, between earth and heaven. Hanging there in that tension between. It's the in between the man in between heaven and earth. And he's caring for his friend John, his disciples. He's caring for his blessed mother, speaking words of comfort and consolation to the criminal hanging next to him. And he's asking God to forgive the men who are putting him to death. He is suffering fools gladly. This is the life of the church, hanging in between, if you will, and living in the tension between earth and heaven. And taking care of one another, providing for one another and forgiving one another, and praying for one another, consoling one another. Everything Christ is doing from the cross. I mentioned also that I recently rewatched the film Life Is Beautiful by Roberto Bernini. The 1997 film. What a terrific, terrific movie. You know, the first part of it is him falling in love with this woman. And they marry and then they have this child. And then he and his son are taken by train to concentration camp because they're Jewish, she's Gentile. But she makes her way to the train yard and she says to the guards, I want to get on that train with my husband and my son. They said, no, you don't. She says, let me on that train. Remember that the reason she wants to get on that train is because she wants to be with her husband and her son. It is love. So this image of following after Christ into glory, we know it leads to the cross. We know this way, this train, this church, leads to the cross. That's how we enter into glory. So why would we ever want to belong to the church? Well, it's the same reason that the mother would get on the train is for the son, or the wife would get on the train is for the husband. And we said this last week, it's like, there it is again, the marriage and the relationship between the child and the mother. She got on the train because the two great first communions are still the great communions by which he redeems the world. Marriage and the relationship between the child and the mother. But getting on the train and following them to the concentration camps, to me is an image of like what it looks like when we live our faith after Christ, trying to follow where the head of the church has gone before. That we, his members, would follow into glory, but through the cross. The cross of living with one another, the cross of reconciling with one another, the cross of serving with one another, listening to one another. I mean, it's not meant to be torture, but it's. It's love. It's. I'm just saying it's tough, but it's better than being distracted, taken away from life. Life is beautiful, you know, Life is beautiful. Beginning, middle and end. So it's not just part of life is. All of life is, and only when we receive, if you will, all of it. Listen to the Gospel again. Just thinking about it now as I'm talking to you, he says, everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine. The Father, Right? Everything. But this image of like you have given me everything, Father. Life is beautiful, not just part of it. Father, thank you for those first 30 years of my life before I had to start my public ministry. No, thank you for all of it. All 33 years of it. And that's what's amazing about this victory of the Cross is even then in his suffering, he is saying, life is beautiful. That's why it is striking. In the second reading, St. Peter says to us, oh, please. He's like, I would have none of you suffer for being a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or an intriguer. It's like, oh, did they have social media back then too? He says, rather, suffer as a Christian. Rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ. How are the sufferings of Christ different from the sufferings? Well, again, think of it this way. When Christ is dying on the cross, some people go with him all the way to the cross, those disciples who stayed with John and Our Lady. So Mary, Magdala Mary, wife of Clopas. Then there are some other disciples who were hiding from the cross and ran away, went to the upper room and they were miserable. They were both suffering. But the suffering of running away from the cross was worse because it was hopeless. It didn't go anywhere. It was merely removing themselves from reality. But it wasn't waiting with hope. It wasn't wrestling with the in between. It was. It was fleeing from it. But then, you know, as painful as it was to be under the cross, there was hope there that this might lead somewhere yet. And that's where our Mother, Our lady of Hope, the Blessed Mother, under the cross, we look to her like, what do we make of this? And you could see her with her eyes just saying, wait for the Lord with courage, be stout hearted and wait for the Lord. What does that mean? Wait for what is next. Wait for what is next. What is next? I don't know, but wait for what is next. You know, and there's hope in that. And so, because there's hope in that, it's still suffering, but it has that sweetness, the promise of glory. Anyway, that's why St. Peter saying, look, if you're going to suffer, don't suffer for being a murderer. Suffer for being someone who heals and restores life. If you're going to suffer, don't suffer being a thief. Suffering, suffer for being someone who gives unto the point of even going without for the sake of a neighbor. If you're going to suffer, don't suffer for being an evildoer, suffer for being someone who does good, even if you might get mocked for it or it costs you something. Or don't suffer, he says, for being an intriguer, a gossip, or suspicious of people. Suffer for being trusting, suffer for being a risk taker, suffer for being generous or a listener. You know, after the eight o' clock mass, one of the altar service, he asked me in the vestibule, he said, father, where do you get the words you say? And I said right away, I'm like, well, I get up in the morning, I pray and I read in silence. In the silence, I let him speak to me. And I can hear his. I can hear his voice, you know, I would hope that all of us would allow some silence into our day. And that doesn't necessarily mean the absence of sound. Sound silence does, though mean the absence of noise. So I love film and I love music and I enjoy a good YouTube video and I enjoy listening to a podcast. So silence is not just the absence of sound, but it is the absence of noise. Short form video content, for example, it's just. It's just noise. And that news cycle endlessly playing in the background, it's noise, you know, and you say, well, what's the difference? Well, one distracts us from life, the other emboldens us to embrace it. You know, why would I ever want to embrace life? Why would I ever want to get on that train? For love, like we said last week, right? Isn't this how we ended the podcast last week? Didn't I say something at the end of the last podcast saying, love the bond between us and God and the bond between us and one another. It's the bond between people. So to the young people who find it difficult to be in between childhood and adulthood, we would say, look, it's never been easy to be in between anything. We all wrestle with that, all struggle with that, but it is possible.