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SPIRITUALITY

March 6 , 2018 | The Valley Catholic

By Father Brendan McGuire

Pastor of Holy Spirit Parish , San Jose , and Vicar General for Special Projects , Diocese of San Jose . Email him at bmcguire @ dsj . org .

March 11 , 2018 – Trance of Familiarity

We often hear ‘ familiarity breeds contempt .’ And it is true in so many ways . It saps our ability to be able to see the beauty of life . It allows our hearts to be lazy . It stops us from loving one another . Familiarity is insidious that is how familiarity works . The person right next to us as we read this is familiar . We often forget the boundless joy that person has put into our life . We often forget what a treasure they are to us . And when did we last say that to them ? Yes , familiarity breeds contempt .

When we look at what we have as gifts to us ; the beautiful blue sky surrounded by mountains ; the sun shining warm upon our face ; fresh water that comes from the tap . The list is endless . It ends almost always with the person who loves us in our life and this fundamentally ends up with God who loves us , sustains us and completes us .

Today ’ s gospel message is probably one of the most popular Christian passages of the bible , John 3:16 . We often see it on billboards , even without the words . Just John 3:16 . “ God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten son .” Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . I ’ ve heard it before . So what ? The problem is we have lost the profundity of the words . God tries to do whatever to wake us up out of that dulling , familiarity .

It is not just our generation , it is every generation ! We heard in the Old Testament over and over : God gave his gifts to his people ; God ’ s people rejected God and his gifts ; God sent prophets to remind them ; they rejected the prophets ; God punished the people ; The people ask forgiveness ; God forgives them and showers them with gifts . Then the cycle repeats itself over and over and over again . In New Testament times , we hear that God sent his Son so we will know that God truly , truly loves us . And yet , here we are 2,000 years later and the cycle has appeared again because we forget even that profound message .

Yet there is nothing that we could ever do or say that can separate us from God . Is God happy when we do stupid things and hurt other people ? No , he is not happy about it . But he does not stop loving us and calling us back to himself . We need to hear that message so often . We have to find a way to not just hear it but to internalize that message and somehow have our entire lives formed by that message .

How do we snap out of our familiarity trance ? We have to renew that every day in prayer . The forces against us are in our society . They are no longer aligned with a life of prayer . Therefore , we must find ourselves and pull back every day to remind ourselves of the glorious moment we live in ; that God has blessed us and we must find a way to share it every day .

We need to snap out of the trance of familiarity . Maybe we can even start with the person who is sitting right next to us ; tell them that we love them .

I love to hike especially on trails that are less busy than others . This week I took one that was definitely less traveled ! But I soon found out why it was less traveled . It was very difficult . It seemed to be uphill all the way , even on the way back !! It reminded of that poem by Robert Frost 1 ‘ The Road Not Taken .”

Jesus most certainly took the road less traveled , to always obey his Father ’ s will . We know for ourselves that doing the God ’ s will is not always easy . We know that it is the road less traveled ! In today ’ s Gospel , we hear Jesus say , “ unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies , it remains just a grain of wheat . But if it dies , it produces much fruit .” We are called to die to our own selfish needs and live instead for others . It means letting go of our old selves , old routines and habits and being open to new ways and new risks of being Christian .

This “ dying ” is what we call “ conversion ”, a continual changing of our lives . When we choose to let go of our old ways and say yes to new ways then we are choosing one path for another . Yes , we are called to choose the road less traveled , the Christian road .

In the same way I set out on that trail used less by others and realized that it is more difficult , when we choose the

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood , And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler , long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth ; Then took the other , as just as fair , And having perhaps the better claim , Because it was grassy and wanted wear ; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same , And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black . Oh , I kept the first for another day ! Yet knowing how way leads on to way , I doubted if I should ever come back . I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence : Two roads diverged in a wood , and I – I took the one less traveled by , And that has made all the difference . 2

Christian road we realize it is not an easy one . When we say yes to one thing then we say no to another . When we choose to use words of kindness and patience and not words of judgment and prejudice , we choose the right path . When we choose to use words of forgiveness or tolerance instead of words of unforgiveness or hatred , we choose the right path . We proclaim , by our actions , the choice of the road we travel . When we choose the road less traveled , it will make all the difference ! ( Endnotes ) 1 Patricia Datchuck Sanchez , “ Celebration : An Ecumenical Worship Resource ,”

( Kansas City , Montana : National Catholic Reporter Company , Inc ., April , 2003 ). 2 Robert Frost , “ The Road Not Taken ,” from William Harmon , Ed ., The Top 500

Poems ( New York : Columbia University Press , 1992 ).

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