Palm Sunday | April 5, 2020

See today’s readings here. This homily was preached online due to Covid-19. The archive of all of Fr. Brian’s homilies can be found here: Salesian Sermons

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Ok, so I admit it.

Wednesday, I kinda had a freak out moment.

I don’t know why, but everything began to hit me.

I can’t do this, not for another month.  

I miss people, desperately.  I’m going stir-crazy.

I need to be back at work.  I need to be back at Church.  

And then, I began to start zooming down the road of worst case scenarios.  I began panicking.

What if people I love start dying?

What if we don’t have enough money to pay the bills?

What about Nativity? What about our seniors?  

What if I get it?  

It was a tough night.

But I then looked up and saw the framed piece of art from Bro. Mickey McGrath  that I received the day I was ordained.  A picture of Francis de Sales, gently placing his arms on the shoulders of a young priest.

A promise and a commission.

A promise that I would never be alone.

And a commission to go forth and be the priest I was called to be.

I found my center once again in that moment, in the God who both provides the promise and who sends me forth.

Maybe it is fitting that I had my own  Gethsemane moment as we approach this holiest of weeks.

A moment in which like Jesus we reach out to God, voicing our fears, our pain, our anxieties.

A moment in which we too question whether we will be able to follow the path that we find ourselves on.

A moment in which we don’t feel like enough.  When we don’t have the answers.  When we feel alone.

A moment in which we grapple with and find our God amidst the barren wilderness.

For I am convinced that it is these moments that reveal to us exactly what true faith looks like.

The choice to say yes, without any guarantees of the outcome.

The choice to say yes, without understanding the why

The choice to say yes, even to a cup that seems so difficult to drink.

Knowing that this yes is echoed by the one who surrendered all for our sake.  The one who promises to be with us always, unto the end of the ages.

So in the words of Francis de Sales.  Let the waves roar.  Let the wind blow.  Let the world turn upside down.  Let everything be in darkness, in smoke, in uproar.  Nothing can hurt you.  God is near.

May God be Praised.