tvc.dsj.org | August 22, 2017
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].
SPIRITUALITY
9
Sunday Homilies
Keys to Our Hearts Fire in the Belly
On August 17, 2011, the escrow closed on the newest parish in our diocese
named Our Lady of Refuge. The late Bob Serventi, CFO, and I had worked with a
team of people to make this a reality. I was presented with a box-load of keys for
all the different buildings and told, “Now, here are all the keys; you decide who
gets a key and please keep track of them. You are responsible for these now.”
I will remember that moment forever: “Wow. This is really happening now.”
Keys are a symbol of final closure when we receive the authority and respon-
sibility. Those keys were left with Monsignor Rios and me, as co-pastors, to help
establish this new parish. It was an exciting moment for Holy Spirit Parish as
we helped form the new community and staff. It was also an immense respon-
sibility; we had been entrusted with the responsibility of establishing this new
parish, to get it up and going.
In today’s Gospel, the keys of the kingdom of heaven are symbolically given
to Peter as the head of the church here on earth; to him have been given both
the power and the responsibility to do what needs to be done. What comes with
that is an immense responsibility. Jesus directs Peter in how to exercise this new
power, not lording himself over people, but serving them as their leader.
Most of us have in our purses or in our pockets a set of keys giving us physi-
cal access to our car, office, or home. Each of those keys represents for us both
power and responsibility; it is the power to use the car and the responsibility
to not abuse the privilege of driving a car. All keys represent power or access
to something, but they also represent responsibility, whether it be to a house,
a car or an office.
But there is a virtual key that we are given by God, and that is the key to our
own heart. We are given that key for ourselves. It is up to us to open our heart
and to give access to our heart to God and to others who will love us. With that
key comes responsibility and power: the power to open our heart to God and
others or to shut them out. When we open our heart to God fully and allow
ourselves to be loved by God, we can open up our heart to others more fully.
No one else can decide for us to open our heart to the Lord.
Our lives are chaotic. It is then all the more reason we must stop and open
up our heart to the Lord, to hear his wisdom in our lives. Today, we receive the
keys to the kingdom of our own heart, and we receive the power and responsi-
bility of the keys to our loved ones’ hearts. We promise to use them in the ways
of the Lord. The Prophet Jeremiah, in the first reading, says, “Oh Lord, you duped me; you
tricked me into taking this. And now I am suffering because of it.” And he says,
“Even though I am suffering because of this, I can’t help but proclaim the truth
as I know it.” Jeremiah says his faith is like a fire burning in his heart or belly.
That is what we need, to really have a hold of the truth in our hearts. Most
of the time we know what we need to say or do but lack the conviction to do so.
That is our call to discipleship, that fire in the belly. Jeremiah is so worked up
about it that he can only operate from the truth. We are called to have fire in the
belly. It is not enough just to come and worship on Sunday morning; we must
go out and live it, find a way to express it. We must work hard at it and hold to
that higher standard.
I recently read a great question from St. Augustine. “If you could have every-
thing and anything in this world, what would it be? Anything you want in this
world, and nothing is limited; you can have whatever you want, for as long you
want, but there is only one condition: you will never see the face of God. You
can have everything but God.”
Did you feel that cringe or sinking feeling when you read, “You will never see
the face of God?” That is what Augustine calls the love of God. The mere thought
of never seeing God face to face gives me pause. If I could have everything but
not see God, then I don’t want everything. This is fundamentally the Christian
journey. I will do without something and maybe even everything, so that I can
see the face of God. That is what we are called to operate under; that is the fire
in the belly we are called to have.
How do we get there? We get there by making all those little choices, by mak-
ing those difficult choices for our family that set a higher standard. We are the
ones making those choices. Maybe we speak out at work when someone is being
treated the wrong way, whether it be an assistant or an executive. Or we speak
out when somebody at school is not being treated right by our fellow classmates.
That is how simple it is. It is about changing our lives. It is only when we do those
little things that they all start adding up. And suddenly, we find ourselves, as
Paul says, “transformed by the Gospel and not confirmed by the world.” But we
first must have that fire in the belly; we must want to see the face of God and
be willing to make the hard choices in this week ahead. Today, we are called to
take action for the Lord and to live the Gospel.
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