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October 2, 2022: Bearing Your Share of Hardship for the Gospel with the Strength that Comes from God
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Death is a sting. I remember the late, great boxer Muhammed Ali, who used to say about himself in his not-so-humble way, “Floats like a butterfly, and stings like a bee.” It was an accurate image about one of the great boxers of all time. He did float around the boxing ring like he was levitating at times. And he did sting like a bee when he connected with a right or left hook to the jaw of his opponent. However, as much as the hook may have stung his opponent, it could not begin to compare with our greatest opponent, death, and the sting that death causes in our hearts.
At a recent Funeral Mass, a granddaughter of the deceased gentleman gave a eulogy on the life of her grandfather. It was wonderfully done (she must be a writer). The eulogy was clean, respectful, loving, emotional, and a little too long. However, at one point in her eulogy she spoke of the death of her grandmother a few years back, which brought tears to her eyes before speaking of her grandmother’s death. And then she proceeded to tell of the time she was walking with her grandfather, a Korean war veteran, and how he cried when they together spoke of his wife and her grandmother after her death. She said it was the only time she’s seen her grandfather cry. This is what death does to us. Even those of us with faith beyond the stars, death causes an absence of loved ones that brings forth the deepest absence in our hearts. It’s a hole in the heart caused by love, and one that should never completely disappear until they meet again.
It’s interesting waking up each day, pulling up the front shade in the rectory, and seeing a cemetery as my first outdoor view. Once in a while, if I remember, I say hello to Fr. Bernie Gilgun. He’s just below my front window, probably keeping an eye on me, making sure I do this priest thing properly. I never could imagine ever living in a rectory when growing up on Paine Street in Worcester and having a cemetery for my first view each day. I guess it would be similar to living across the street from St. John’s Cemetery on Cambridge St. or living on Hope Ave. alongside Hope Cemetery. Or even my favorite cemetery in the world, Rural Cemetery on Grove Street in the city, and working or living across the street on any of its four sides. To wake up each morning, look out your window before eating some Wheaties or oatmeal, and stare at the many graves that are looking directly at you, is not the best visual for a morning stare-down for many folks. I’m sure most people would prefer to stare at the Atlantic Ocean or Mt. Wachusett.
Fortunately, one of the more fascinating places I enjoy visiting near or far is a cemetery. I find them to be places of peace (thank God), loaded with all sorts of history, and filled with names of people who have unique life stories that would and should interest any curious person. For example, a gravestone that says, “Francis Murphy, 1834-1902,” with a Celtic Cross standing 6 feet tall. This begs the question, did Mr. Murphy come over from Ireland during the potato famine, escaping the horrors of what that country dealt with in the mid-1800’s? If so, how much death did he witness in his own family, relatives, and friends? What Church did he attend after he arrived in this country? What was his profession? How many children did he and his wife Diane have? What were their thoughts on living in America during a Civil War that lasted 4 years? Did he sign up to serve for his new country during the war to collect $13.00 a month, potentially sacrificing his life for a cause he did not have much stake in? Or did he embrace his new country and the freedom it represents? Lots of unanswered questions from just one name with years of birth and death.
When assigned to Immaculate Conception in Worcester, at the end of a summer’s day I would enjoy driving to a spot in Rural Cemetery one minute away from the Church and do some religious or historical reading at a certain spot therein. Not every day presented this opportunity because of a busy schedule, but when it was there, it was taken advantage of. It’s my number one cemetery because of all the local history to be found there. From a former Secretary of the Navy in the 19th century, to a Civil War General who was killed at the Battle of Gettysburg, another General killed at Vicksburg, to Isaiah Thomas (minus his printing press), to another Civil War soldier (Willie Grout) who had a famous poem written about him, to the many Civil War soldiers who witnessed death on a scale that we never will, we pray, to my great-great grandparents (he serving in the Civil War), their son, my great-grandfather, and my great-great grandfather’s father, who is my great-great-great grandfather. Their graves are in the rear of this historic cemetery, located in a spot that remains pretty much peaceful and quiet. It was and is a good place to unwind, read, pray, reflect, and learn. Yes, in a cemetery.
But, despite being surrounded by all those who have come and gone, some who lived more famous lives than others, knowing that God plays no favorites (except his Mother), and that most cemeteries seem to be places of solitude and silence for the most part, death still stings. Very hard. Death will make a person cry longer and harder that the juiciest Georgia onion the state of Georgia ever produced. And, it will make a hardy veteran who never cried, cry at the loss of the wife he adored. Nothing reaches the pure center of our souls than the death of someone we love, knowing they will never again return to us in this short life. It will shake us to the core, for those who allow themselves to be affected. Even when death happens after a long, blessed life to someone we’ve known for decades, the sting does not lessen when the reality of their loss sets in. It’s no wonder why St. Paul calls death our greatest enemy. Our greatest enemy is not a person, or a group made up of people. It is a condition. A condition I’m reminded of each morning when looking out the front window of St. Anne’s rectory.
St. Paul, as usual, has some thoughtful advice on this matter of death. He was so close to death so many times during his Christian ministry of bringing the Gospel to the world, having been imprisoned, stoned, beat up, and whatever else he may have left out of his letters. He was as close to death in this world as one could be, while escaping it time and again. He looked death in the eye and said, “Not yet. I still have more work to do for Jesus.” And death walked away for a short time, always ready to return to finish the job.
The Apostle’s advice is in the body of the second reading this week in his epistle to his Christian brother Timothy. It refers to “bearing your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.” I guess the first question in this matter could be, “If the Gospel of Christ is Good News, then why must we bear hardship for something that is good?” A good question for sure. And not an easy one to answer. Unless a Cross is involved in the answer. Jesus knew the world is broken, We know the world we live in is broken, with the number one brokenness of all time being death. It breaks more loving relationships than all other possibilities put together. But our Lord Jesus also predicted and knew that our world and its people would reject some of his eternal message, if not all of it.
Bearing hardship for the Gospel can be manifested in a thousand ways. St. Paul knew a few of them. We know a few of them. Regarding hardship, the Apostle refers mainly to those who will be persecuted for accepting Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior. A belief that directly challenged the Caesar in Rome, who, in the world of paganhood, was considered to be divine. This is at the heart of his own “bearing hardship for the gospel.” Paul was persecuted for standing up and witnessing to the great works of Jesus, notably his resurrection which sealed the deal on everlasting life. Although the above verse to Timothy is centered in persecution for Christ, which, by the way, has not ceased in the 21st century, to take this thought to its end is to realize that death is the hardest hardship we endure for the sake of the gospel.
Religious persecution remains a present reality, even in this land of the free and the brave. To the person or group who has persecution thrust upon them, they will either learn how to live with said persecution while praying for their enemies, or they will die at the hands of it. This truth goes beyond religious persecution nowadays. There are those who have been politically persecuted also. In my observation, such is the case in our present government, where political persecution against opponents runs rampant. But my first concern touches on our faith and death, and how the sting of death is the hardest sting we will know in this life. And how our bearing hardship for the gospel is much more directed at death, which can and has shattered the faith of many folks who were going along just fine without it.
Bearing hardship for the Gospel points to our faith and hope. The faith we have that Jesus is raised from the grave, and the hope that one day all those graves in Rural Cemetery and all cemeteries, in the earth and throughout the earth, will one day be stingless. I like this word; stingless. Its’ God promise to us in the life to come. Where the sting of death is defeated, and where our portion of Jesus’s victory over death is forever realized.
HOLINESS
Pauline literature is filled with the language of the Spirit as life-giver. Called simply “the Spirit,” or “the Holy Spirit,” or “the Spirit of Christ,” this Spirit is seen by Paul as placing people in dynamic relationship to God. Paul's most dramatic formulation of that relationship is formulated in a series of contrasts that stud his writings. The law of the Spirit sets us free from the law of sin and death. In that same great chapter (Romans 8) it is the Spirit that assures us the right to be called children of God answer cry out ‘Abba.” The Spirit aids us in our weakness at prayer and intercedes with “inexpressible groanings.” That contrast between Spirit and non-spirit (i.e. between holiness and non-holiness) takes on moral pungency in Paul’s contrast between Spirit and flesh. The latter brings forth all kinds of sin, but the former brings forth the gifts of the spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
For Paul, it is the Spirit that gives coherence and meaning to the Christian assembly. It is only in the Spirit that one can confess “Jesus is Lord.” It is that same Spirit that unifies the diverse gifts available to the Church while ordering them to the common good. Finally, the assembly, though diverse in members, is one in Christ, “for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.” In another place Paul calls this unity a ” unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.” From The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality