My Favorite Pentecost Homily
A divine-sense-of-humor story. Back when I lived in a horrible parish in a notoriously (I later discovered) awful diocese, our deacon gave a particularly lame homily for Pentecost. It was on the theme of "God is not in the mighty wind, but in the soft breeze blowing in our hearts"--as predictable and emasculating as the Loaves-and-Fishes Sunday homily on The Importance of Sharing, or the Sell-All-Your-Possessions-and-Give-to-the-Poor Sunday homily on Why We Can Still Keep Our 501(K)s. The deacon made it very clear that God's voice is to be found in the soft breeze telling us what we like to hear and not, not, not to be found in the oppressive gale winds of Church doctrine and Vatican pronouncements. Because God just doesn't speak in loud ways that overpower our own inner sense of what's right.
That afternoon, May 31, 1998, the windstorm of the century struck. A supercell moved into the Hudson Valley. Massive wind shear. Widespread destruction; $38 million dollars in damage before it was all over. Right by the church, a massive old oak tree was torn up by the roots and crushed a car.
A divine-sense-of-humor story. Back when I lived in a horrible parish in a notoriously (I later discovered) awful diocese, our deacon gave a particularly lame homily for Pentecost. It was on the theme of "God is not in the mighty wind, but in the soft breeze blowing in our hearts"--as predictable and emasculating as the Loaves-and-Fishes Sunday homily on The Importance of Sharing, or the Sell-All-Your-Possessions-and-Give-to-the-Poor Sunday homily on Why We Can Still Keep Our 501(K)s. The deacon made it very clear that God's voice is to be found in the soft breeze telling us what we like to hear and not, not, not to be found in the oppressive gale winds of Church doctrine and Vatican pronouncements. Because God just doesn't speak in loud ways that overpower our own inner sense of what's right.
That afternoon, May 31, 1998, the windstorm of the century struck. A supercell moved into the Hudson Valley. Massive wind shear. Widespread destruction; $38 million dollars in damage before it was all over. Right by the church, a massive old oak tree was torn up by the roots and crushed a car.
posted by The Opinionated Homeschooler at 8:56 AM
1 Comments:
Ho! Ho! This post is a perfect example of why I read the Opinionated Homeschooler's blog. Hilarious.
Yes, I remember reading in Barclay years ago about the loaves and fishes miracle being about the "larger miracle" of people sharing with one another. I almost hurled.
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