Saturday, November 11, 2006

IN GOD WE TRUST


This homily was given the weekend of November 11, 2006 at St. Bernadette Church in St. Louis. The church building is the former movie theater for Jefferson Barracks, which was an active army base until just after WWII. Today JB is a National Guard/AF Reserve base. Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery adjoins the church property. The parish was founded in 1947, primarily to serve the returning veterans who settled in the area.

On November 11, 1918 an armistice went into effect between the Allied nations and Germany, ending what was then called the Great War, “the war to end all wars”. Today we know it as World War I.

One year later, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11 to be Armistice Day saying “the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory.”

In 1954, after World War II and the Korean conflict, Congress changed the name to Veterans’ Day, a day to honor American veterans of all wars. In 1968, as part of the Uniform Holidays Act, Congress made Veterans’ Day one of the “Monday holidays” but so many states continued to celebrate it on November 11 that in 1975 it was moved back and that’s why we celebrate it today (this weekend).

We’re very blessed in our parish to have daily reminders of the service that so many brave Americans have given through the years. Our church itself was once a military building. Thousands of men and women passed a few hours away from their training and took their minds off the task ahead of them by watching a movie in this building. Our rectory was once the induction center for thousands of troops entering the service.

In fact, I have to tell you a story. I’ve always been interested in tracing my family tree, even though I expect I’ll find more than a few “nuts”. One thing that’s kept me from doing it is that my dad ran away from home when I was fourteen, so I really don’t know much about his side of the family except for my grandparents’ names. One day I came across a web site where you can look up military records so I put in my dad’s name and got this report. He was inducted into the army on August 7, 1918 and sent to Kentucky, where it took him just three months to bring the war to an end.

Of course, we’re surrounded by reminders of the military with the National Cemetery to our south and the National Guard and Reserve base to our east. Every day we see young men and women in camouflage fatigues coming and going, either training, or coming home, or going to an assignment where they’re likely to be in harm’s way. They, along with all of our military personnel are volunteers. No one is making them serve. They're giving us their all.

Last, but definitely not least, so many of you have generously served our country and so many more of the veterans from our parish have gone on to be with God.

This is a dollar bill. It’s one of those things that we’re always asking you to put in the collection basket for any number of good causes. In today’s Gospel, Jesus talks about money. Of course they didn’t have paper money in Jesus’ day, so he talks about coins. He tells the Apostles that the poor widow, who gave her few coins was giving a greater gift than the rich who gave larger amounts because she was giving all that she had.

In the first reading, another widow uses the last of her flour and oil to feed the prophet Elijah. There was a great famine in the land and by using the last of her provisions the widow didn’t know when she and her son would have food again. Like the New Testament widow, she gave all that she had.

Which brings me back to the dollar bill; not the value it represents, but what it says on the back. IN GOD WE TRUST. In spite of some people’s efforts, our money still carries that motto. IN GOD WE TRUST.

Wasn’t that the motto of both widows? They gave all that they had, trusting God to take care of them. Every time we exchange one of these for something else, don’t we have to put our trust in God? We trust that what we get in return is worth at least as much as the value of the money. We trust that when we give our dollar to the Church, or to a charity, that it will be put to good use.

But, I don’t think God’s message for us today is about money. Isn’t the message really that we should give God our all in every aspect of our life? Doesn’t everything we have, our money, our time, our families, everything come to us as a gift from God? Isn’t anything we give back to God really His to begin with? So, if we give Him less than our all, less than our best, are we saying “IN GOD WE TRUST”? Or are we saying something else?

Both widows in our stories understood that. Every one of the millions of men and women who have served and are serving our country understood that, especially the 150,000 who are buried right next door. “Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends.” Of course, Jesus understood that. We’re reminded every time we see His outstretched arms on the Cross.

So, what’s the lesson for us today? Give more money to the Church? Become a missionary? Join a monastery? There’s no easy answer to the question because God asks different things from each one of us. The best answer I can come up with is that we have to listen to God and try to understand exactly what it is that He wants from US.

Some of are called to be priests, to serve His people. Some of us are called to be husbands and wives, to raise Christian families and keep the faith alive. Some of us are called to be deacons, to be clergy and husbands. Some are called to work within the Church as lay ministers. There are as many different calls as there are people being called.

On a daily basis, we may be asked to give food and clothing to the poor, or to volunteer for the St. Vincent De Paul Society, or to be a lector, or an usher, or just to say “hello” to a new person we see in church. The one thing we all have in common is that whatever God asks of us, He wants us to give of ourselves freely, without reservation. Like the widows, he wants us to give Him our all, trusting that He’ll provide for us in return.

I doubt that any of us will be asked to give up our lives for the Gospel, like many of our ancestors were. Even today, Christians are dying for their faith, but hopefully none of us will ever face that decision. Some of us are still young enough, and single enough, to be called to the priesthood or to religious life. How would you respond if you thought you were being called? How would you respond if your son or daughter, or grandson or granddaughter, were being called?

On a more basic level, how do you respond to the more mundane things that your Church asks of you? Do you give freely of your time, talent, and treasure, or do you hold back, not trusting in God to provide? Just this week we had an election. Did you vote for pro-life candidates? Did you vote for pro-life issues? Amendment 2 passed by the narrowest of margins, just over 45,000 votes or about 1% of the eligible voters in the state. Considering that the churches who asked their members to vote “no” represent more than half the population, it’s obvious that not all of us did.


I wasn’t raised Catholic, but I had Catholic friends. I knew very little about the faith except that my dad hated Catholics almost as much as he hated black people. But, even growing up in that environment, I knew that my Catholic friends had something that I didn’t have. Many a Friday night, we sat in a restaurant waiting for the clock to strike twelve so my Catholic friends could eat meat.

Why did they do that? I didn’t really know, but I sensed that there must be something very powerful working in their lives, especially since their parents would have never known if they had eaten meat at 11:30.

You and I have been given a great gift, the gift of our Catholic faith. Some of us were introduced into it by our parents, some of us came to it later in life. Either way, it's one of the greatest gifts that God could give us.

There's nothing wrong with other faiths. My mother was a Baptist her entire life and I've no doubt that her Baptist faith saved her. But, the Catholic Church is the fullness of Christian faith. We have all of the sacraments. We can receive the Body and Blood of Christ any time we want to, as long as we're not in a state of mortal sin. We have the rich, unbroken tradition of the original Christian Church, started by Christ himself. We have more than 2,000 years of brilliant men and women, inspired by God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, interpreting the Scriptures for us, to help us on our faith journey. It's all right here, just waiting for us to respond. Whether they realized it or not, that's why my friends waited until midnight to have their pepperoni pizza.

We don't have to abstain from meat on Fridays anymore, except during Lent. We don't have to go to confession as often as we used to. It's a lot easier to be a Catholic today than it was thirty years ago. But, there's a big difference between what we have to do and what we choose to do. If we only give God the minimum, can we really expect the maximum from Him? Doesn't he tell us in today's readings that He wants us to be like the poor widows who gave all that they had?

God doesn’t ask us for much, just everything we are and everything we have. But, it was all His to begin with. And, if we trust in Him, He’ll give us so much more in return. In exchange for our trust, in exchange for our faith, in exchange for our total commitment to Him and His Church, He'll give us eternity in paradise. That's our faith. That's what we believe. Like it says on the money, “IN GOD WE TRUST.”