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April 16, 2019 | The Valley Catholic
SPIRITUALITY
Sunday Homily
By Father Brendan McGuire
Pastor of Holy Spirit Parish, San Jose, and Vicar General for
Special Projects, Diocese of San Jose. Email him at [email protected].
Holy Thursday, April 18, 2019
Only Service Entrance in Heaven
Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019
Lamp Lighter
When I was 18 years old and came to America for the first time, I arrived in
Dallas to work as a waiter for the summer. One of my waitering jobs was at Loews
Hotel downtown for weekend lunches. I always remember it with great affection.
Once you work in a hotel, you realize how hard the waiters and all the staff work.
There was one rule at this hotel. As an employee, if you come through the front
door you are immediately terminated. No questions asked. You are only allowed
to come through the service entrance. The service entrance is always at the back of
the hotel. It is a grubby entrance; there are certainly no potted plants and beautiful
valet drivers at the back.
When I was a kid, I always thought of heaven as a big hotel where you have first
class service. You check in and it’s luxury service from then on; you get served
from the moment you arrive. Right? I know it is a childish image but this image
came from catechism class!
The older I get the more I realize that is not quite the entrance into heaven.
There is only one entrance into heaven and that is through the service entrance.
It is the only way to get into heaven. I am more convinced every day that there is
no front door in heaven at all. That is just a façade. The only way to get into heaven
is through this service entrance.
In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus actually lay out the case: “Do you know what
I have done for you?” If there is ever any doubt that we hope to get into heaven
through the front entrance this Gospel dispels it very quickly. The only way for
us to assure entrance is to serve one another.
The people who washed feet in Jesus’ time were the lowest in the household.
It was the lowest of all the servants who washed the feet. And if there were no
servants then it was the women of the house; and if there were no women in the
house, each person would actually wash their own feet. They would never allow
the host to wash their feet.
Jesus obliterates this understanding. He takes off his outer garment, he puts on
a towel and starts to wash the feet of his disciples. What does it mean to serve for
each of us? It is different for all of us. For some of us, we are doing it constantly
day after day after day; we are pouring our life out for our children. To ask those
to serve more would be absurd because they have already poured their life into
their children. There is nothing more to give. For those, the challenge is to allow
others to serve them.
Now for the rest of us, we have to step up our game and really serve others. May
we do for one another as Christ has done for us. Remember, there is no entrance
to heaven except the service entrance.
There is a story told of a 19 th century municipal worker, who worked in the
city at night as a lamp-lighter. In those days, lamp-lighters would go from light
to light on the street turning on the gas and igniting the flames in each of the
lamps. At the end of the night, it was also their job to extinguish the gaslights.
Once this particular municipal worker was asked by a reporter, “Don’t you
find your job difficult that in the middle of the dark of the night you have to go
out when it is cold and damp?” The old man said, “No. There is always a light
in front of me that I must go to extinguish.” The reporter replied back, tersely
saying “What about the last light? When you put out the last light then what?”
The old man smiled and said, “Ahh, but then the dawn appears.”
Tonight, we gather in the dark to celebrate once more the coming of Christ
the Dawn of Salvation. The prophets foretold of him and each one of them was
a light along the way that lit the way for humanity through the darkness. Some-
times in the darkest of our times but eventually the dawn arrived, and a new
day came. A new life came in Christ Jesus that each of us is born to new life in
the Resurrection. We are born into newness of life.
As we gather outside and light our candles on Easter night from that fire
that symbolizes the light of Christ. We are each given a light, each and every
single one of us. We are called to keep that light of Christ burning brightly for
the whole world. We are called to be that light of Christ for the whole world to
see that the new dawn, Christ has arrived.
Christ conquers the darkness. No matter how deep the darkest night becomes,
it is always overcome by the dawning of a new day. We celebrate tonight because
now they become members of this Body of Christ. Now it becomes our journey
to pass that light, that light of Christ, out to others. Again, we might ask how
does that work?
Jesus tells us that it is how we love one another. That is the simplest way. It
is that gentle touch; it is that kind word; it is the encouraging word that helps
the person, who is firmly planted in the dark of night and we hand them the
candle of love, the candle of light that says continue to believe. I am with you;
I believe in you.
Tonight, we celebrate that we are called to point the way to the new dawn,
Christ Jesus. It is a new day. And it is a new life in the Resurrection of Christ
himself.
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