Look, Deer!

Giving our full attention to God and getting to heaven

12/03/2017

Mark 13:33-37 Jesus said to his disciples: "Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come. It is like a man traveling abroad. He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his own work, and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch. Watch, therefore; you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!'"

         Look, deer! Have you ever used that trick to distract your children when they are being quarrelsome? I’ve done that as a joke while driving my nieces to school and I point out the window and yell, “Look, deer!” They stop fighting and arguing because another novelty has grabbed their attention. How hard it is to truly get someone’s full attention today with all our daily distractions.

          Young people often have one “ear-bud” in their ear, while the other one hangs limp over their shoulder, meaning they’re giving you only half their attention (if that much!). Marketing experts say a customer has to hear your message at least seven times before they’ll remember it. Why? Well, because people are bombarded with advertisements and we’ve grown deaf to them. That’s why television commercials have louder volume than the television shows, because the commercials are yelling, “Look, deer!” to get us to look at their products instead of others. Our attention is a precious gift and we should give it fully to those whom we love, but everyone clamors for it.

          Let me share three ways to get people’s attention, spiritually-speaking, namely, by silence, solitude and suffering, and this is especially helpful during Advent. First, silence. When I say the words of consecration at Mass, I say them very slowly…and…deliberately. This…is…my…Body… The long, silent pauses peaks people’s attention better than yelling does. Second, solitude. Henry David Thoreau, the 19th century American philosopher, wrote: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived (Walden, 59). Thoreau sought solitude so he could give his full attention to nature and learn her lessons, and not be distracted. And third, suffering. C. S. Lewis, the 20th century Oxford professor, said, “Suffering is the megaphone God uses to rouse a deaf world” (The Problem of Pain, 91). Do you know some of the best times for a priest to talk to people about God? It’s when they are suffering, in the hospital, or in prison, because God has finally gotten their full and undivided attention. They’re lying in bed looking up to heaven.

          In the gospel today, Jesus is fighting the same battle to grab people’s attention, and awaken them to spiritual realities. We read: “Jesus said to his disciple, ‘Be watchful! Be alert!’ You do not know when the time will come.” And indeed, most of the people at the time of Christ did not know the Messiah was walking in their midst already, standing right next to them. Why did they miss him? Well, because they were distracted by the cares and concerns of daily life: waking and sleeping, buying and selling, marrying and divorcing, living and dying. But I would suggest to you that it was really their lack of silence, solitude and suffering kept them from giving their full attention to spiritual things. By the way, that’s precisely why St. John the Baptist hung out in the dessert: there in the dessert you find plenty of silence (no cell phone service), tons of solitude (except rattlesnakes), and untold suffering (it’s hot!). John’s whole life was designed to grab people’s attention and direct them to the Messiah, Jesus. John’s prophetic purpose, you might say, was to say to the world, “Look, deer!” But in this case, the deer was actually a Lamb, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. How hard it is to get people’s attention spiritually-speaking.

          I’m very grateful to Fr. Patrick Watikha for the chance to celebrate Masses here at Sacred Heart, and to share a little about Trinity Junior High, and ask your help in a second collection. If you want to know the toughest group of people’s attention to get, it’s 12, 13 and 14 year olds! I feel a lot like Jesus and John the Baptist and have to yell, “Look, deer!” a lot. And by the way, you guys have done a superb job here at Sacred Heart with your youth program: you’ve gotten their attention.

There are so many things I could say about the value of Trinity, but I think I can summarize it all in one sentence. The goal of Trinity Junior High is to prepare our students not only for Harvard but also for Heaven. In effect, we want to turn their attention not only to earthly success but to ultimate success by obtaining eternal life. We want to say, “Look, heaven!” We do this by helping them experience a little silence, solitude and suffering.

            This past week our students went on a retreat off campus, one class at a time. The retreat was conducted by Bryan and Karena Charlton, who have a long history of youth ministry. They inspired the students, they laughed with the students, they helped the students to sing and do skits. But they also brought them into the chapel and told them to spread out far from each other and to listen to the meditative music. In other words, they experienced a little of Henry David Thoreau’s solitude and silence, because they “front the essential facts of life” and they began to hear the voice of Jesus.

We also teach our students suffering every day because we make them wear dreaded uniforms instead of designer clothes, and they have strict rules about no cell phones, and haircuts, and clean language, and respect for teachers and adults, and they have homework, and they pray in Latin! This suffering is not going to kill them, but it is going to make their life harder. Maybe like Lewis predicted: “Suffering will be a megaphone and rouse a deaf teenager!” Our Evangelical friends like to remind us: “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” Through silence, solitude and suffering we prepare Trinity students for Harvard and for Heaven.

            Let me conclude with one of John Donne’s popular “Holy Sonnets,” a poem called “Batter my heart three person’d God.” Donne wrote: “Batter my heart, three person’d God, for you / As yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend; / That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend / Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.” In other words, Donne was distracted by the thing of earth, and needed God to use stronger and louder means to get his attention. He needed God to yell, “Look, dear!” – spelled “d-e-a-r.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!