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Petersboat
The 18 Holes of Life
00:10:48
Many people promise us an escape from failures, mistakes and losses. But what if there were something for us to be gained from those as well by offering them to God too?
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Okay, so I'm just coming in from a conversation with a couple of guys, some friends from the parish, and it's something I think I want to share with you here because it really is a continuation of what we just said this weekend. So we say to the kids a lot of times, for example, even if you make a mistake, that does not mean you are a mistake. Even if you fail, which you will, sometimes, it does not mean you are a failure. Or if you lose sometimes, it does not mean you are a loser. And you can see in their. In their eyes that they want to believe that, but they need some reason to believe that. And the guys I was just with right now, like, one of his children struggles a little bit. And one of the children, the other guy is a professional baseball player, but he also experiences ups and downs, you know, even injuries sometimes, and the uncertainties of the profession. So they too, when you talk about Christ, these fathers, they look at you with these eyes of. Is it possible that there is some way to incorporate into life the experience of failure or loss? And this is, I think, what Christ is offering us by incorporating us into his story and seeing that in his own life there was the experience of rejection at times. I wouldn't say failure because of human error or sin, but nonetheless, rejection. People walked away from him. Failure in that sense. And of course, the ultimate rejection of the crucifixion, the experience of suffering has been incorporated into the very heart of God. So now everything can be offered to God so we can offer him the whole of life. I think this is the freedom that Christ is offering us. Freedom from thinking that only the things that go well in my life are acceptable to God and worthy of Him. Only those things count, or only the things that are successful, only the things that lead to my prosperity will be worthy of Him. But in reality, he's inviting us to offer everything to him. And how does this save us? Well, it saves us from despair, from the temptation to. To give up when we make a mistake or when we fail. And we just talked about also today, some. Some of our friends who've given up, committed suicide just came up in conversation. And we've all experienced this. Right. I'm sure if you're listening to me, you know someone who has given up and, you know, why would someone give up? Well, you can get to the point where you think, there's no way to redeem this. There's no way to save, you know, what I've lost. There's no way to call life good now because of how bad it's gotten. But you think about those words we hear at weddings when couples marry in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad. I will love you and honor you like all the days of my life. This, I think, is what Jesus wants for us. And this is what I need, too, as your priest. You know, these guys are guys that I play golf with. And when you play golf, you play 18 holes, but you don't play them all well. You make a lot of mistakes. You know, there are times when you make a mistake and you're tempted to say it's because I'm terrible, you know, or you execute something poorly. You fail to execute the way you want to, and you say it's because I a failure, you know, or you lose sometimes if you're playing a match, I'm a loser, you know that we're tempted to let failure have the last word. It's like, why should I pray if things sometimes go poorly? Why should I pray if I don't get the job? Why should I pray if she breaks up with me anyway? Why should I pray if the diagnosis is bad? How many people do we know who prayed for their loved one not to die at the wake or the funeral? Question why they should pray ever again. If you, Lord Jesus, are raised from the dead and are inviting us to share in your resurrection, why do you still let us die? You know, when Jesus was raised from the dead, I imagine one of the first questions his disciples asked him was, does this mean we're not going to have to die? Does this mean we're not going to have to die? And then you can picture Jesus saying to them, you still will suffer and die, but death will not have the last word, and your life will not be defined by that death any more than any of the deaths you've experienced. Will any of the mistakes or failures or losses you've experienced will I have redeemed it all. Redeemed it all. So I zoom out and I see that Jesus is this one who is like a golden thread running through all the events of our life, or who, as Lord of history, is the one uniting all the events that are taking place in his own sacred heart. When I am lifted up on the cross, I will draw all men to myself. Everything being offered to the Father through that cross means that God himself, taking upon himself the experience of failure and loss, even unto death, has incorporated it into the story so that now everything can be offered to God. You know, one of the men I was just with today, he was Saying that he tells his family, I want to go to church with you because I want us to be together. I just want us to be together. If we're all together and I'm happy, and that makes me happy. So let's go to the church we can open. He talks about the church as a place where he can be with his family. And again, you might hear that and say, well, that's not what the church is about. The church is about worshiping God, and it's about, you know, standing for the truth and, you know, defending life. But this is how he does it, you know, with his family. Because what is his family? It's his story. It's his story. He knows he's not perfect. There will be days when he makes mistakes. But he has this family always reminding him that, don't define yourself by your mistake, Daddy. You're not a mistake. The family reminds you of your life as story. Because what is family? These people that we spend more than one day with, people that we grow with, people that we live with. That's what I meant in the last podcast when I spoke about the church as, like, a life that we live together. Anyway, the reason this all came up, I think today in conversation with these guys, is because we're talking about young people coming around the church and what they might be looking for. And I really do think that there is something to this, what we've called now the Charlie Kirk effect. But, you know, young adults who are looking at the church asking whether there may be something here for them that can help them to live without becoming bitter or resentful. I think they're looking at the leaders of the world who are holding out ideals like, you know, freedom and dignity and rights, but also have become themselves have become, like, bitter and angry and vengeful and spiteful. I think they're looking for the young people, something that would enable us, like people in a marriage, to say, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, love and honor. All the days of our life. All the days. Something to incorporate reality and its suffering with its failures and its losses and its mistakes. And I know one thing, when you're making your way around a golf course, if you can't forgive yourself for what happened on the previous hole, you're very likely to play the one you're on poorly as well. And we talked about some players who have the reputation, guys on the tour of having very bad tempers, you know, poor disposition on the golf course, and it's to their own detriment they are their own worst enemy. All the other guys are playing the same course. They're facing the same conditions, the winds, whatever the rain may be. The only thing that can really derail the golfer is the golfer, if he thinks that he's going to be able to hit every shot perfectly, he's not really playing golf. You know, he's not living reality. Even. Ben Hogan, one of the greatest golfers in history, when he was asked how many shots he hits purely or perfectly, he said, like in a round of golf, he said maybe five or six. Ben Hogan, five or six shots in a round. Usually about, say, 70 or so shots, where he would say, oh, there it is. That was a good one. All the others, little mistakes, slight faults, and failure to execute as he had hoped. Yeah, yeah. You know, there are some priests, perhaps, who think that I should merely tell you more about the church's teachings or about the sins we should avoid and things like that, and just speak about the saints. But I think the saints only become interesting to us when we first believe that we can become like them. You know, when the saints do become interesting and we look at them, we find that they were just like us, but that they learned. Everything could be offered to God, you know, everything could be offered to him because they made mistakes, they failed sometimes, and they lost sometimes. What makes them saints? They offered it all to God.