A SERMON FOR SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY
Most of us, at some time or
another, have a life-changing experience.
It may be a good one, like realizing we’ve won millions of dollars in
the lottery. I’ve never had that experience,
probably because I don’t buy lottery tickets.
You can imagine, though, checking off the numbers one by one, each of
them giving more hope, until in a few breathless seconds all the numbers come
in and you realize you’re a millionaire and your whole life from now on will be
totally, utterly different. Truly a
life-altering moment.
Some moments though are less
pleasant, though just as life-altering. That
phone call in the middle of the night you’ve been dreading, or that visit to
the doctor’s office when he’s not smiling for once and tells you to sit
down. Let’s close our eyes for a moment,
and imagine another one that many have had, though probably not us. Imagine yourself back in time, the year
before the outbreak of the First World War.
You’re back in the old country over in Europe, living in poverty with your
family and having a very hard life. You
decide to emigrate to the United States.
You pack up all you can carry, book your passage, and with your mind
filled with hope for the future you herd your wife and children on board the
ship that will take you to the New World.
And as you sail across the Atlantic, suddenly in the middle of the night
you hear a slight bump and a long scraping noise. It doesn’t bother you at first: after all, you were told not even God could
sink this ship… Still, you can’t help
wondering what it was, especially when you hear the cabin boys pounding on
doors for people to wake up. So you reluctantly
shake yourself out of sleep and jump out of your bunk. That’s when you find yourself up to your
ankles in water. Now there’s truly a
life-altering moment, and not one that any of us would like to have.
It’s not a nice thought, but let’s
stay with it for a moment. All those pleasant
dreams filled with hope you’ve been having about a new life of freedom and
prosperity for you and your family—they suddenly explode into nothing. All your little minor worries about getting
through Ellis Island, finding a job, somewhere to live, all these evaporate as
though you’re waking from a dream.
Suddenly you have only one thought on your mind and that thought is
survival. How are you going to prevent
yourself, your wife and your children from drowning? And then pow! another of those life-altering moments
hits you like a kick in the stomach when they tell you there’s room on the
lifeboats for only your wife and children.
You’re going down with the ship, and there’s no way around it. How’s that for life-altering!
Why is this thought relevant to
us, here today in this cozy little chapel?
We shudder for a moment at the idea of this poor man realizing that he
has but a few hours at most left before he will have to suffer death in the
cold waters of the Atlantic. We think
back to that cold night over a hundred years ago, and we are saddened and
horrified by the depth of this man’s anguish and the startling abruptness with
which it happened. It’s a terrible
thought, isn’t it, but after all it’s his life that was changed when he
felt that water lapping round his feet—not ours.
Well guess what! You actually are on that ship right now. We are all on the Titanic and it’s already
hit the iceberg. We’re in the Titanic of
our mortal body, and that body is slowly sinking. And if you’re sleeping in your cabin,
blissfully indifferent to the fact that you’re going to die and meet your Maker,
well, I’m the cabin boy pounding on your door this morning. Wake up, folks! You’re all going to die!
Don’t blame me. I’m not banging on your door to frighten
you. Just to let you know that maybe
it’s time to do something… It probably
won’t happen today (although I can’t be sure).
Perhaps, hopefully, you might say, not for a long time yet. But we’re all on the Titanic that is our own
mortal body. One of these days it’s
going to sink and we’re going down. And let’s
never think that “not even God can sink us”.
No matter how hard and long we pray, he will not deliver our body
from the death that ultimately awaits us.
Death is an indispensable element of his plan for us. It’s the gateway, not to a cold and icy grave
mind you, but to our real destination.
It’s the last step of our real voyage, where instead of a glimpse of the
Statue of Libery in New York Harbor, we will come face to face with God himself
in heaven, hopefully to enjoy that beatific vision for eternity. My problem, as your cabin boy, is in waking
you up and getting you to realize that
we are all in peril on the sea. You’re
going to die, that much is for certain, but what lies beyond that death is entirely within our
control once we call upon God for the help of his grace.
So before you stand up and head
for the bar, let’s look on the bright side of these dismal thoughts of death. Once we realize it’s nothing more than the
gate of heaven, we should even look forward to it. However, we continue to dream our little dreams. The hopes and fears that our emigrant was
feeling as he embarked on the Titanic are our hopes and fears today. But really, what are they worth? Let’s face it, dreams of prosperity, earthly
happiness, pleasure—these are nothing, airy nothings, fleeting sentiments that
will vanish with our rebirth into eternity.
Death, like life itself, is, as Shakespeare once said, “a tale told by
an idiot, full of sound and fury.
Signfiying nothing.” Death is but an illusion, that, like all dreams,
will evaporate into a lost memory the moment we wake up and realize the importance
of saving our souls. That’s why it’s so important to have that
epiphany this Shrovetide season, that life-changing moment that makes all our
actions, thoughts and motivations centered from now on, on pleasing God and
doing his will.
Look around the world. The ship we’re on is filled with passengers
who blithely go about their daily business, focusing entirely on what they can
get out of it for themselves. Whether it
be more money, more pleasure, more power, so many, alas, are completely
oblivious to the water lapping around their ankles, water that is rising and
will forever rise until they sink beneath the waves, never to rise again. Pray for these poor souls, join me in
pounding on their doors if you think they’ll listen, wake them up to the realization
that they’re sinking into the abyss.
Like I said, I’m only the cabin
boy. The captain of the ship? He went down with the ship. He went down in glory, in a heroic effort to
save as many passengers and crew as possible.
He went down on that first Good Friday many years ago. And he saved some, but not all. He died for you and for many, but not all,
alas. Even his horrible Passion and Death
were not enough to impress the majority of our neighbors. Most of them are blithely indifferent to his
heroism, his dedication to his creatures, his love for them. They are not being helped by the ship’s crew
either. Since Vatican II our Captain has
been betrayed by officers who refuse to follow his orders, his commandments. First Lieutenants like John XXIII and Paul
VI, what did they decide to do? What was
their bright idea as the Titanic sinks?
Let’s open up all the portholes.
Let’s let the world in. And so
they did, and the waves of heresy entered our ship of Peter, and now we’re
sinking faster than ever. It’s not just
ourselves as individuals who are dying, but the very Ship of Peter, the
Mystical Body of Christ comprised of us all as individuals. As goes the Church, so goes the world. They both seem to be sinking beneath the
waves, as we watch with horror from our lifeboat here.
And just one, last, interesting
little bit of information… on this Sexagesima Sunday the readings at Matins are
the story of Noah’s Ark. Now there’s a
ship that knew how to stay afloat! Maybe
because it was designed by God himself?
And when the Great Deluge came, it didn’t sink. Its passengers were saved from drowning. Stay with God’s ship, even if that ship is
only a little lifeboat. St. Margaret
Mary’s here may not be a luxurious ocean liner—but it’s our lifeboat! And right now, it’s all we have. We hit an iceberg back in the 1960s. We can’t stay on the ship we were on. So cling to the lifeboat now and we’ll all
row together to our safe harbor.
Remember, it was the Titanic that
was the first ship ever to send out the morse code signal SOS—Save Our
Souls. God may not have prevented most
of the passengers from drowning, but how many of those poor souls that night
did save their souls, calling out to God for mercy as they sank beneath the
waves. That’s what we must do today,
that’s what really counts, saving our souls, not our mortal bodies. It’s the second Sunday in Shrovetide. Sexagesima.
Lent starts a week on Wednesday, so let’s start getting ready now. Carnival?
Mardi gras? Please! Don’t even bother. Prepare your souls for the annual conversion,
the “turning back” to God that comes with the Lenten season. Listen to your cabin boy, this morning, “Wake
up! Don’t go down with the ship!” I’m
pounding on your door. Wake up! Wake up!
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