And God said play ball!
It was a typical night at the ballpark. As he as done many times Steve Montforto took his family to the ballpark to watch his beloved Philadelphia Phillies. And on this special night he would do what he never had done before; he caught a foul ball; a major league souvenir. The crowd erupted with applause, he was so excited, his family so excited but no one was more excited than 3 year old Emily, his oldest child.
Dad saw Emily's joy and excitement so he handed the ball to her. And Emily promptly tossed the ball to the unsuspecting fans in the lower deck. An audible gasp was heard from the crowd as dad looked on in disbelief and Emily smiled with pleasure. The gasp turned into a moan as all realized, dad included that the souvenir baseball was lost forever. Emily is now momentarily bewildered; after all daddy has taught me to pitch and catch.
By now the stadium camera is trained on Steve and his young family. Will they see him scold the child, act disappointed. No, what they saw was unconditional love as he embraced his daughter Emily as only a dad can embrace his little girl. It was magic, it was sweet and it was caught on tape. It has been the most popular video on the internet all week and on all the morning talk shows. For me, preparing a homily for today's Mass, this video has been a gift from Heaven above. The video, like our Gospel, tells the story of a Father's unconditional love, no matter what, for His child.
We have all witnessed wonderful carefree childlike moments. From Christmas morning, to birthday celebrations, to watching them watch us as we read to them at bed or listen to their prayers.
As people of faith do we approach the Father with childlike love and receive Him as a child.
Today's Gospel from St. Mark gives us Jesus teaching his disciples about his suffering, death and resurrection. This is the second time he does as we may recall last week's Gospel. Remember Peter rebuking Jesus for saying hhe would die? Jesus' response: get behind me Satan. Now this week, the reaction is even more curious. The disciples began to argue about who aming them will be the greatest. What? Time again for some teaching by Jesus.
He takes a seat, which is the teaching position of the rabbi teaching in the synagogue and takes a little child and places him among them. Taking the child in his arms he tells them: "whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives not me but the One who sent me. Why a little child? Much like today, in the time this event took place children had little if no status. They were a symbol of dependence, innocence and vulnerability. They were regarded as no more than servants. No coincedence then that this passage follows Jesus' teaching about being first and being a servant. Interestingly, the Greek word used by St. Mark would be interchangeable for child or servant.
Jesus calls his followers to embrace His total message of suffering, death and resurrection as a child. He wants us to have childlike trust in His Father's plan not childish human reaction. That trust is best explained when we realize that just as a child can't survive without help from parents, teachers and others, all of us can't survive without faith in Jesus and trust in the Father. Jesus calls us to self-empty; rid ourselves of self importance, ego and pride and learn to depend on Him and trust in His mercy and love. When we realize that He never fails us and He never let's us down, then we will be free; we will have true peace.
And let's not forget Jesus also calls us as servants to serve our brothers and sisters. Again, service requires us to self-empty, to rid ourselves of self importance, ego and pride as we meet the needs of others. We are called to love and to serve without ever counting the cost.
How can we take this teaching this week and apply it to our lives? Be like a child. Pick someone this week and bring them joy. Make them laugh, help tem smile, dry their tears, hand them a baseball to toss as they toss aware a care or a concern that you help them with. And one more thing we can do concerns our celebration today of Catechetical Sunday. We celebrate our parish school of religion and all our generous volunteers who teach them. We are called to be teachers too. We can cooperate with this ministry by praying for our students and their teachers, particularly on Sundays and Mondays when our students are in class. Thisis something all of us can do.
Just like little Emily tossed that baseball and turned immediately to her daddy, we too can toss our cares, our concerns and even our sins over the barriers that this world presents to us and then turn immediately to our daddy, God the Father who always embraces us with his love and mercy. It's love without end Amen.
And God said, play ball!!
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