Sermon Tone Analysis

Title

Tempus Fugit

Outline

One pun I like is that we all tend to be Egyptians - we live in de Nile

It is a bad pun, perhaps, but very much truth: people live in denial of their own evil (they rationalize it or deny that it exists or that it was really bad), of their own failures (we were victims of someone else’s evil), and especially of their own deaths.

We deny through various amusements or diversions - do not think about it - or sometimes with the believe that science will be able to fix it before we reach that point.

Padre Pio knew this, as does any decent confessor, and the psychologist knows this, if he or she will admit it.

Ecclesiastes tries to make us aware

Yes, enjoy life while you can, before faculties fail and pain prevents enjoyment

But temper one’s enjoyment with the knowledge that “God will bring you to judgment” (something we like to forget).

The solution is to “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come.”

Those are the days when the birds come home to roost, when the body no longer responds (worship becomes an exercise in avoiding pain), when the shadow of death looms - we start seeing, first our parents and mentors and then our friends and siblings enter that shadow one by one.

Perhaps you wish your students or your family members would get this while they are still young or at least in good health (remember that the average lifespan was about 40 when Ecclesiastes was written)

Jesus takes another tact: he transforms death

Right after a miracle he says, “Pay attention to what I am telling you.

The Son of Man is to be handed over to men.”

He had faced his death, he knew its purpose, he expected the resurrection.

He knew that his life-purpose would be fulfilled, not in healings, but in rejection, death, and resurrection.

Thus it is after his confession and especially after his transfiguration that he makes the soon-coming reality of his death clear to his disciples, not once but three times.

This scared them so they were in denial: “But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was hidden from them so that they should not understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.”

The Christian spiritual tradition, however, knows differently, for it welcomes sister Death whenever God declares it his timing.

Martyrs have greater honor.

A holy death is revered.

We have many stories of such deaths, as in that of the Venerable Bede.

The reason is that in death we are joined more closely to the death of Jesus (something priests often pray for and Padre Pio experienced in every mass - one priest, one victim) and with a sober joy expect to be led through the waters of death to union with the resurrected Jesus.

Sisters, you are in many places in life and are religious, steeped in the saints

For some of you the issue is how to make the realities we have meditated on real to those you teach, associate with, know, and love.

For some of you it may be dealing with your own anxieties about death and aging, either for yourselves or others you know.

Still others might be mourning family, friends, or others who have found their time of life has passed.

The first funeral I attended was that of our infant daughter, both Judy and I have lost both our parents and one younger sibling.

My revered mentors are mostly gone.

Whatever our situation in life, we need to impress upon ourselves and others the truth that tempus fugit.

And we need to in our meditation and in our guiding others keep our focus on memento mori, doing so with the calm joy that it brings reality to light and, if life has been lived in this light, brings us to that final union with the Lord whom we love.

Readings

FIRST READING

Ecclesiastes 11:9–12:8

9 Rejoice, O youth, while you are young

and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth.

Follow the ways of your heart,

the vision of your eyes;

Yet understand regarding all this

that God will bring you to judgment.

10 Banish misery from your heart

and remove pain from your body,

for youth and black hair are fleeting.

CHAPTER 12

1 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth,

before the evil days come

And the years approach of which you will say,

“I have no pleasure in them”;

2 Before the sun is darkened

and the light and the moon and the stars

and the clouds return after the rain;

3 When the guardians of the house tremble,

and the strong men are bent;

When the women who grind are idle because they are few,

and those who look through the windows grow blind;

4 When the doors to the street are shut,

and the sound of the mill is low;

When one rises at the call of a bird,

and all the daughters of song are quiet;

5 When one is afraid of heights,

and perils in the street;

When the almond tree blooms,

and the locust grows sluggish

and the caper berry is without effect,

Because mortals go to their lasting home,

and mourners go about the streets;

6 Before the silver cord is snapped

and the golden bowl is broken,

And the pitcher is shattered at the spring,

and the pulley is broken at the well,

7 And the dust returns to the earth as it once was,

and the life breath returns to God who gave it.

8 Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,

all things are vanity!

RESPONSE

Psalm 90:1

1 A prayer of Moses, the man of God.

Lord, you have been our refuge

through all generations.

PSALM

Psalm 90:3–6, 12–14, 17

3 You turn humanity back into dust,

saying, “Return, you children of Adam!”

4 A thousand years in your eyes

are merely a day gone by,

Before a watch passes in the night,

5 you wash them away;

They sleep,

and in the morning they sprout again like an herb.

6 In the morning it blooms only to pass away;

in the evening it is wilted and withered.

12 Teach us to count our days aright,

that we may gain wisdom of heart.

13 Relent, O LORD! How long?

Have pity on your servants!

14 Fill us at daybreak with your mercy,

that all our days we may sing for joy.

17 May the favor of the Lord our God be ours.