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Sts. Joseph & Paul Catholic Church |
Homily Archives | |
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21 Sunday
in Ordinary Time – B
No. 12 Giving birth to a child is always an awesome and terrifying, exhilarating and traumatic experience. But the birth of a giraffe is something altogether different; it is like nothing you have ever seen before.
When the mother of a giraffe
is about to give birth, she does not lie down; she stands up to bring her
new calf into the world. The amazing thing is that her hindquarters are
nearly ten feet above the ground. So a newborn giraffe comes into the
world with quite a thump.
But that is not the end of this birthing experience. After the newborn giraffe lands, the mother does the most surprising thing: she moves behind her newborn, swings her long leg out, rears back, and kicks the calf, sending it head over hooves back to the ground. It the baby giraffe doesn’t respond, Mom kicks the calf again, and again, if necessary, until the calf gets up. Finally, the little giraffe stands up on its wobbly legs, and the mother giraffe kicks it off its feet again. Within minutes of its birth, the poor baby has been dropped, kicked and knocked over. All this is done because the mother giraffe wants her calf to remember how to get up. In the wild, baby giraffes must be able to get up as quickly as possible in order to stay with the herd. Young giraffes stumble and trip and are easy prey for lions, hyenas and leopards. So a mother giraffe’s harsh behavior with her calf is really a tough act of love for the newborn. There are difficult experiences in our lives that knock us off our feet as well -- experiences that we would rather not go through…Getting pulled over by a police officer for speeding and hearing that you are fined $80 bucks…The call from a boyfriend or a girlfriend, who tells you that you’re a really sweet person, but he/she just wants to be friends and breaks up with you…Knowing that you studied hard for a particular test, you know you did well, but when the grade comes, you didn’t do as well as you thought you did…The phone call informing you that a family member has been in a very serious accident and is being rushed to the hospital…The news from the doctor that you have cancer and treatment will be necessary. Such hard news can knock us off our feet. Even the words of Jesus in the Gospel can be hard for us to take. Hard words like, “When your enemy strikes you on one cheek, offer them the other as well.” Or, “Let those among you without sin be the first to cast the stone.” Or, “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.” Or, “Love your neighbor, as much as you love yourself.” The word Gospel, means “Good News.” But, in life, before you hear the good news, you will first hear the difficult news. The Gospel brings us comfort, but it also helps us confront the difficult and unpleasant truths about ourselves. The faith that Christ came to preach was not meant to be warm and fuzzy, or even a protective coating that keeps sin and evil from sticking to us. Christ came to be a light, to lead us through the darkness and the challenges that we face. Christ is a lens; when we look through him, we see that we have been given a faith that can and will help us through the hard moments. Even though we may feel that God has “kicked” us, this is not God’s desire. God simply gives us his Son, who shows us how to love and, when we put our faith in him, will give us the strength to stand up; this repeated falling and standing will strengthen us and help us to love even more.
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