GIVEN AT ST. JOSEPH HOME FOR THE ELDERLY IN LOUISVILLE
October 30, 202
Sister Michael Anthony of Mary l.s.p.
"The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,
which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
Matthew 13:44-52
Today, Jesus compares discovering the kingdom of God to stumbling onto a buried treasure. When I was 33 years old, six years ordained a priest, I had an experience of stumbling onto such a buried treasure - not money, gold nuggets or jewels, but a new understanding of what God is really like! I had an experience that opened my mind to a new way of understanding the Scriptures. Until then, I had listened to Scripture readings in school and every Sunday at church throughout my childhood. In seminary, I had heard Scripture being read many times a day, had listened to hundreds of homilies and had taken several Scripture classes. After seminary, I had been preaching for seven years as a deacon and priest at the time I had my mind-blowing spiritual experience. Until then, I thought I was beginning to understand the scriptures pretty well. I knew I had learned some things about Jesus, but the day of the experience that I want to share with you, I came to realize that I had learned a lot of facts about Jesus, but I really did not know Jesus all that well!
My mind was opened to understanding the scriptures in a new way during a vivid life-changing dream forty-seven years ago – a dream that I have mentioned several times in my preaching. In that dream I was on top of a small mountain. It had no trees or bushes or rocks. It had only very short green grass - very much like a golf green. I was sitting in a folding lawn chair and God was sitting in another one next to me. We were sitting side-by-side, in silence, facing the setting sun. Oddly enough. we were both smoking cheap King Edward cigars! I knew it was God, but I was afraid to look over. We just silently puffed on our cigars and watched the sun go down on the horizon. Finally, God leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Ron, isn’t this wonderful!”
I woke from the dream at that point with my world looking forever different to me. After that dream, the spiritual and psychological chains that had been holding me back melted away. I began to feel a lightness in my heart that I had never felt before. I realized the truth of that old saying, “you always find what you look for!” In Scripture, you can find justification for both compassion and cruelty, judgement and mercy! It depends on what you look for! After that dream, for the first time, I began to feel that it was OK to be me - just as I was! I began to fully understand what it meant to be “created in the image and likeness of God.” After that dream, instead of always obsessing about all those “sin" messages in the Bible, I started noticing all the “unconditional love" messages. I started to feel that I was that lost sheep that Jesus embraced and carried on his shoulders and that I was that prodigal son who made it home to an unexpected warm welcome. For the first time in my life, I started feeling that I was good enough for God just the way I was! From that day forward, I quit beating myself up spiritually for not being better than I am!
That experience was also the beginning of a new way of preaching. I began to preach about the “unconditional love” that God has for every one of us! Instead of always looking for sins to condemn in myself and others, I started looking for goodness to affirm in myself and others. I believe that the years following that dream prepared me to offer a clear message of “God’s unconditional love” that appealed to so many alienated Catholics which led to the rapid and consistent growth of the Cathedral parish when I was its pastor during the 1980s and 90s’s. That’s why my old column in The Record and my present blog have both been called “An Encouraging Word.”
Today we celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Perpetual Vows of Sister Grace and Sister Michael. I don’t know their whole vocation stories, but I did find out that that each one of them had their own “moments of grace” that led them to answering God’s call to become a Little Sister of the Poor. Sister Michael told me that she felt called to religious life as a nurse, but knew she was not called to a community of school teachers! She discovered her “pearl of great price” simply by being introduced to the Little Sisters of the Poor. Sister Grace told me she was a volunteer at a Little Sisters of the Poor Home in grade school and continued into High School where she felt a call to religious life, but also did not feel called to the teaching orders of her grade school and high school teachers. She too felt a call to nursing, but instead entered the Little Sisters of the Poor where she has helped manage the food service in several LSP Homes in France and the US.
Sister Michael and Sister Grace both experienced their own “moments of grace” when “God broke through” by being exposed to other Little Sisters and their mission. All three of us found our “buried treasures” and “pearls of great price,” our vocations, when we were young. They found theirs by being exposed to other Little Sisters. I found mine by trying on a Roman Collar, while waiting to get a haircut, when I was six years old. God’s ways are certainly mysterious!
I am sure they both have had many other “moments of grace” over the last 50 years when they have found “buried treasures” and “pearls of great price” in religious life. 50 years ago, 4 years into priesthood, I found another major “buried treasure,” a new awareness of the gospels that started with a dream about me and God smoking cheap cigars, sitting in folding lawn chairs, on a mountaintop, watching the sun set!
Sister Grace and Sister Michael, congratulations on your fidelity to your calls. Thank you for your many years of loving service. Prayers for your good health and peaceful happiness going forward! I hope that both of you will stay in Louisville for a while. I am just getting to know you!
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