The Gift We receive and give

The Gift We Receive and Give

Introduction

Childish adults

After journeying through Galilee, Jesus and his disciples finally came to Capernaum, and when they got into the house he asked what they were quarreling about along the way? Scripture says, “They fell silent.” They were ashamed, and they didn’t want to tell him that they, full-grown men, were arguing among themselves about who was the greatest. Jesus scolded them for acting like kids, and he put them straight about true greatness: ”Who wishes to be first must put self last and be the servant of others” (Mk 9: 34-35). That flies like a lead balloon in a capitalist society. In the very next chapter of Mark, the apostles are still acting like kids. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, ask Jesus to grant them each a seat of honor when he comes into his kingdom. Again Jesus puts them straight repeating the same admonition, “Who wishes to be great must become the servant of the others” (Mk 10: 35-43).

Displays of childishness sprinkle the gospels. The Scribes and Pharisees, full-grown men, love to prance around with long flowing prayer-shawls. They grab the places of honor at a banquet and seats of importance in the synagogue (Mt 23:5-6; Lk 14:7-14). In the parable about the Pharisee and tax collector who went up to the temple to pray, the Pharisee is not praying but bragging, ”Oh Lord, thank God I’m not like the rest of men--greedy, dishonest and adulterous. I fast twice a week and pay my tithes” (Lk 18:11-12).

The note of self-esteem

Years ago a book broke into the media, entitled I’m OK; You’re OK. Written by Thomas Harris, a psychiatrist, it became a best-seller, and, if you were anyone, you read it or at least quoted it. It was about self-esteem, feeling good about yourself (“I’m OK”) and the lack of it, feeling bad about yourself (“I’m not OK”). That book, with three or four others, cast light along the long lap of my life.

If you listen carefully enough, you hear a note of self-esteem or lack of it being struck in the gospel today. When you feel good about yourself you don’t need to protest that you are bigger and better than the other guy. When you feel good about yourself, you don’t need to sit in a seat of importance at a banquet; you know that the seat of importance sits within you. When you feel good about yourself, you don’t need to lengthen the tassels on your prayer-shawls or drop your drawers till your rear-end is sticking out or do any other outlandish thing in order to draw attention to yourself. You know that what’s really attractive about you is within, or it isn’t at all.

Islam: I’m not OK

By a convoluted connection, this brings us to the present moment of world events. There was a time when Islam was the center of the universe. It eclipsed Europe in the fields of medicine, chemistry, mathematics, art, poetry, physics, and yes, even spirituality. During that golden era, Islam felt very good about itself, and was quite tolerant of us infidels. But for two centuries now Islam has been on the losing side of history because of all the secularization and modernization closing in on it. Islam loathes modern society with its music, wine, sex and godlessness. For two centuries now, Islam has been feeling an ever-increasing sense of insecurity and even of terror because its own culture is being overtaken by Western culture. With that has come an ever-increasing determination to terrorize the West in return. That determination knew no limits on 9/11 when it brought down two twin towers and 3000 innocent human beings.

The totally disproportionate response of massive Islamic mobs to Pope Benedict’s recent quote of a medieval Byzantine emperor (who said that Islam is violent) indicates, I believe, that there is a huge giant out there who doesn’t feel OK about itself. It might not feel OK about the Pope and his quote, but it feels even less OK about itself.

Primary and secondary recorders

Psychiatrists tell us that good self esteem is partly a gift bestowed on us by others. It is bestowed especially by the family into which we are born. Good parents first and foremost raise kids who feel OK about themselves.

Good self esteem is also partly a gift bestowed by birth itself and its capricious winds. Some are blessed with good self-esteem because they were born with great natural gifts or were born into abundant means. Others are wounded with poor self-esteem because they are born into needs of one kind or the other.

Psychiatrists also tell us that the gift of good self-esteem is bestowed or the wound of poor self-esteem is inflicted already at a very early age. By the age of three or four the matter is basically signed, sealed and delivered for us. By that time a primary recorder has been set into play within us. It basically says over and over again either, "I'm OK” or “I’m not OK.” If the recorder is saying “I’m OK,” we’ve been blessed; if it is saying “I’m not OK,” we’ve been wounded.

If that primary recorder says, “I’m OK,” there’s nothing we have to do but simply live life with a grateful heart. But if it says, “I’m not OK,” then there’s danger we will let the primary recorder immobilize us with self-pity. Or we can choose to turn down its volume and turn up the secondary recorder in our lives. That’s the recorder which plays the voices of people who love us and believe in us and affirm us and tell us we’re OK. We’ll never be able to completely turn off the primary recording insisting we’re not OK, but we can turn it down by turning up the secondary recordings of friendly voices telling us we are OK.

The voice of friends

The older you get, the easier it is to reveal yourself because you don’t have anything to lose. I’m at that stage in my life. I was born of poor Italian immigrants who came to this country at the start of the last century, and who didn’t fare very well in a foreign land. Our mother, who couldn’t speak English, was taken from us at an early age, leaving my sister and me without someone to cradle us as only a mother can. It left our father without a helpmate in a foreign land. It also robbed our house of a soul. That, of course, was bound to wound my sister and me and set a primary recording going in our lives, which said, “I’m not OK.”

Sometime ago a lady wrote, “We just couldn’t take the homily anymore. So we left. I really wanted to get up and shout, `That’s enough. Shut up!’ I actually felt for the first time in my life that a very malevolent person was actually celebrating Mass.” Her voice turned up the volume of my primary recorder which insists I’m not OK.

Last Saturday I received an email sent 11:34 P.M., just before midnight. The gentleman was working into the wee hours of the night and was feeling very strongly about what he wanted to say to me. Speaking of my help-out in his parish in Texas this past January he writes, “I even witnessed a young lady stand up and walk out of Mass during your homily. Another young lady told Fr. Leo that she was livid at the words of your homily and stated that she is not offended that she cannot be ordained.” It was a five page letter which never deviated once from its pervading tone. It ended with this bit of advice: “Perhaps you would better serve everyone if you just enjoyed retirement. May God richly bless you. Sincerely yours in Christ.” His words turned up the volume of my primary recorder which insists I’m not OK.

But sometime ago a friend wrote, “You have a tremendous mind and a warm heart, and you use your unique blessings to serve God. You are an inspiration to me, and I want to tell you I appreciate you very much.” Then at the beginning of September (2006) an email sent to the parish and forwarded to me reads, “I truly feel it was God’s will that we celebrated with you at Old Saint Mary’s. I so enjoyed the service. Father was absolutely fabulous, his sermon was out of this world, the choir [the Allegro Singers] was phenomenal, the lector was dynamic and the beauty of your church was just so stunning.” And then last Sunday as people were pealing out of Mass, one lady said to me. “You’re absolutely fascinating!” Honestly, she said “You’re absolutely fascinating!” Wow! I told her, “You’re absolutely fascinating yourself!” Those voices turn down my primary recorder and turn up my secondary recorder telling me I am OK.

The voice of Jesus

To the voice of friends who tell us we’re OK, we add the voice of Jesus. He assures us that we’re better than just OK. “Are not five sparrows sold for two measly pennies in the marketplace,” he asks, “and yet every one of those little specks of life is important in God’s eyes. God has the very hairs on your head numbered. So don’t be afraid,” Jesus assures us, “you are worth more than a whole flock of sparrows” (Lk 12:4-6). [i]

To the voices of friends and Jesus on my secondary recorder I add the voice of my dog, Simeon, a very smart fellah. Like Jesus, Simeon knows I’m worth more than a whole flock of sparrows or squirrels. This past Christmas a friend gave me a little pillow on which was written, “My goal in life is to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am.” Do you have problems with self-esteem? Get yourself a dog.

A critical gift

Self-esteem is a critical gift. The lack of it drives kids to commit suicide or to avenge themselves with school massacres or to just simply fix it all up with fast fixes. It’s scary to know that we have the power to confer such a critical gift or withhold it. Mothers and fathers, give your kids a nice home and a good education, give them the toys and trinkets of technology, but, for God’s sake, give them first and foremost the gift of self-esteem. Without it they have nothing, and with it they have everything. For God’s sake, let them know they are worth more than a whole flock of sparrows. Without that they will surely die one way or the other. With that, by hook or by crook, they will surely manage to live and even thrive, no matter what. If you don’t have time to let them know they are worth more than a whole flock of sparrows, then make time. That will save you tons of time and grief later on. What’s more, it will reap an abundant harvest for you.

Conferred with a kiss

We give the gift of self- esteem to others and especially to our kids not in the same way we give the toys and the trinkets of technology. This gift we hug and kiss into people. An old bumper-sticker used to ask, “Have you kissed your kids today?” Consenting Adults is an old movie about an upper-middle-class-white family. The son reveals his homosexuality to his parents. They weep and wail but they are weeping and wailing mostly for themselves and not for their son. They’re wondering what all the nice people in that nice neighborhood are going to think. The son really wants only one thing from them: to be hugged and kissed by his parents. The father dies without ever granting that wish. The mother, true to a mother’s heart, gives in, and at that moment the son knows he's worth more than a whole flock of sparrows. At that moment he is healed, as he will have to be healed over and over again in the years to come. From that moment on, the son, by hook or by crook, will manage to live no matter what.

Conclusion

T’was the lack of a kiss

A poem, whose name and author I forget, has a father walking with his son in hand across the sprawling campus of a mental institution in Boston, Massachusetts. In it are incarcerated hundreds and hundreds of poor crazy human beings. Without batting an eyelash in times past we used to call them crazy houses. As the two are walking along, the father is deep in thought. He’s thinking about the very strange dogma his son entertains in his little head: he actually believes that every ache and pain, every scratch and wound can be healed with a kiss! What a strange thought indeed! But then the father pauses, and here the poem rises up to its climax. The father ponders and says to himself,

"I wonder whether

t ’was the lack of a kiss,

that made the State of Massachusetts

need a house like this?"

Jesus says “While it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work” (Jn 9:4). Ite Missa est! Go, the Mass is ended. Go home and while it is day kiss one another, for the night is coming when you won’t be able to plant the kiss anymore.