I will be inviting you kids up around the altar in just a bit; I want to show you something. But before that, I have some questions for the rest of you:
- Have you been feeling “blah” lately?
- Do you ever wonder what’s the purpose of your life?
- Do you have questions about whether God ever listens to you, or even if God exists?
- Or do you have questions about why things are happening as they are?
- This war?
- This climate?
- Death? Illnesses?
- Have you wondered if we have the right people leading us in government, or our jobs, or in the church?
- Or back here at the parish, is this new church ever going to become a reality?
Those are all valid concerns, but let’s lump them all together and call them our doubts. The gospel as you know is about “doubting Thomas.” Not all doubts are bad things, for they helped invent things, come up with new philosophies, push us to ask “why” questions.
But let’s assume those “doubts” you have are bad things. So we have “bad things” here [point to one side] and “good things” here [point to the other side]. Jesus makes a distinction of “bad things and good things in Matthew gospel. He is depicted sitting on a throne and he separates all those who have died into two groups . . . like a shepherd separates sheep or goats. The sheep go to heaven, the goats don’t. Sheep being good; goats being bad. But here’s the problem . . .
[I invite kids up. Baby goats are brought in]
Goats are so cute. Look at these. These little ones are a few weeks old. These are Nigerian Dwarf goats. They will grow to stand about 22 inches and could weigh around 50-60 pounds. But right now they are tiny. Did you know that there are 83 breeds of goats? And goats are a main source of food for most developing countries. In fact it is the #1 source of meat in the whole world. Goat meat is lean. The milk from goats is also highly prized.
So what do we do with these goats? And what do we do with our doubts? The answer comes from the gospel, the first words of Jesus, after the disciples doubted the women that he really was raised from the dead. And again, they saw him, but Thomas still didn’t, and they all stayed in fear a week later . .was “peace be with you.”
The American Sign Language for peace is a combination of two phrases [demonstrate signing “become” and “at ease”] That’s one of the many powerful messages of Easter . . . for you might have doubts about your life, and where you are headed, or about God and if God listens to you.
Of think of some of our saints:
- Peter doubted that he could continue to walk on water
- Therese of Lisieux once referred to herself as an abandoned toy of the child Jesus
- Mother Teresa endured long stretches of prayer with no sense of God’s presence.
With whatever heaviness you are holding. Or however much you feel more like a goat because of all the bad things you think about, or say or do . . . this is Divine Mercy Weekend. And God’s love for you, God’s promise to never abandon you, God’s consistency to be close to you . . . no matter what.
Well [do sign for peace] Become at ease. Peace be with you.