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By Rev.
Robert T. Kennedy '50
The
following homily was preached at the Golden Jubilee Mass
of the Class of
1950, reunion weekend, June 11, 2000.
One hundred and thirty-five years ago, when this College
was in its early twenties, the war between the Northern and
Southern States ended. Soldiers of the Southern armies began
their sad journey homeward, their spirits broken, their hopes
crushed, their cause lost. The proud strains of their anthem "Dixie" would
not be heard again. They waited in fear to learn what spoils
the victor would demand.
In Washington, huge crowds gathered outside the White House
serenaded by the United States Marine Band as they cheered
the Northern victory. President Lincoln was there, acknowledging
the cheers. After a while, the leader of the Marine Band
approached the President to ask if there was any particular
song the president would like played. After a lengthy pause,
Lincoln said, "Ask the band to play 'Dixie.'"
When the music began, a startled hush came over the crowd.
Some began to laugh thinking the President was mocking the
defeated South. But his sad, solemn expression quickly told
them his intention was not to mock but to honor those who
had fought valiantly and lost. Many, indignant, walked away.
But Lincoln had told the nation in his second inaugural address
that ending the war and binding up the nation's wounds would
be pursued "with malice toward none, with charity for all," and,
in the midst of the victory celebration, he was telling the
nation that he meant it. Abraham Lincoln had received the
gift of living the heart of Christianity: "Love one another
as I have loved you."
Three hundred years earlier, Thomas More, Lord Chancellor
of England, was convicted of treason for not acknowledging
his King to be head of the Church in England. Before the
sentence of death was pronounced, More was asked if he had
anything further to say, and he replied, "More have I not
to say, my lords, but that as Paul, as we read in the Acts
of the Apostles, was present at and consented to the death
of Stephen, and held the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen
to death, and yet be they now both holy saints in heaven
and shall continue there friends forever, so I trust and
shall fervently pray that, though your lordships have now
here on earth been judges to my condemnation, we may yet
one day meet again in heaven and enjoy there together everlasting
happiness. More, like Lincoln, had learned to love as Jesus
loved: "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do." Lincoln
taught us how to transform winning into loving; More taught
us how to transform losing into loving.
Fifty years ago, when younger minds and hearts than have
gathered here this morning were together on this Hill, we
knew something about winning and losing, and we had begun
to learn how insignificant winning and losing is when compared
to loving one another. Etched in our memory, in that regard,
is a Sunday evening in the spring of 1950 when the nation's
#1 ranked college basketball team returned to this campus
after its first loss, following 26 consecutive victories,
then a national record. It was late in the evening, closing
in on midnight as I recall, when the cars bearing the members
of the team made their way up College Street expecting to
enter a silent, sad campus. But as the cars turned into Linden
Lane, they found waiting at the gate the Holy Cross band
to lead them up Linden Lane through a crush of two thousand
young men cheering their lungs out for a team that had lost
a game and nothing more. The songs and the cheers were to
tell Oftring and Cousy, McMullan and Laska, Formon and O'Shea-and
the underclassmen on the team-that, winning or losing, they
were ours; we were theirs; together we were us, and we always
would be. And in memorable words from the steps of O'Kane,
Bob Cousy told us they felt exactly the same.
We celebrate today a Mass of thanksgiving for God's countless
gifts to us, especially for the friendships, the learning,
the enhancement of our lives that came to us through Holy
Cross. We do so on a day when the whole Church gives thanks
for the gift of God's own Self, the Holy Spirit, first given
to us at Baptism, again at Confirmation, and offered to us
every day of our lives, simply for the asking, to enlighten
us, energize us, strengthen us to live as Jesus lived and
to love as He loved.
In the familiar passage from the Acts of the Apostles read
as our first reading, St. Luke depicts a grand outpouring
of the Holy Spirit in the imagery of fire to symbolize the
light and truth and the warmth of love, in the imagery of
a roaring wind to symbolize missionary energy, zeal, and
strength, and in the imagery of speech in multiple languages
to symbolize the universality of our mission to share the
life of Christ with people in every culture, in every circumstance,
and at every age-from the youngest great-grandchild to the
youngest grandchild, to adolescents, to grown-up daughters
and sons, to young and not-so-young adults, each age group
of which speaks a language all its own and so needs to be
spoken to about God in words it can understand.
In the letter to the Corinthians, from which our second
reading was taken, St. Paul expands on Luke's teaching about
the Holy Spirit by drawing attention to the unifying action
of the Spirit in bringing into a great oneness the diversely
gifted members of the Body of Christ, an action of the Spirit
known well to the members of the Class of 1950 who came here
as a mob of disparate individuals, more sharply divided by
age, experience and levels of maturity than any class before
or since, but who left here as solidly united an "us" as
this campus has ever seen.
In the Gospel passage today, the apostle John recounts
an earlier, quieter giving of the Holy Spirit than that depicted
by Luke and Paul. No driving wind, no fire, no speaking in
varied tongues. It was evening on the first day of the week
after the crucifixion of Jesus. The disciples were huddled
behind locked doors. They knew one of their number had betrayed
Jesus; another, Peter, who was there with them, the rock
upon which Jesus had said He would build His Church, had
denied he even knew Jesus; and all of them had fled from
Jesus in Gethsemane, leaving Him to face His enemies alone.
Mary Magdelene and other women had brought word that Jesus
had risen from the dead and had asked the women to tell the
apostles to meet Him in Galilee. But the apostles had made
no move to set out for Galilee, partly because they didn't
believe the women and partly because they were afraid of
what He might say to them if, in fact, He were alive.
Into such a scene, John tells us, Jesus came and stood
before them. They were not where He had asked them to be,
as we often are not where we are supposed to be; so He came
to them where they were, as He so often has come to us. Filled
with guilt, shame and fear, they waited for His first words.
John has recorded them. "Peace be with you," He said. No
word of blame; He understood. No demand that they beg forgiveness,
for each of them was His Father's masterpiece-an image of
God; He would never demean them by making them beg. He showed
them His wounds, partly to assure them it was truly He, and
partly to fix indelibly in their minds the depth of His love
for them and the price He had to pay to save them from themselves.
He said for a second time, "Peace be with you," words that
say more profoundly than any other words: "You have nothing
to fear; I love you." Then He breathed on them (reminiscent
of the first creation when, according to the Book of Genesis,
God breathed life into the clay that was to become the first
human beings) and, as Jesus breathed on them, He began the
new creation and said, "Receive the Spirit. As the Father
has sent me, so I send you. Go-and forgive." Christ's words
about forgiveness are understood by the Church to be the
foundation of the Sacrament of Penance, but the implication
of the words is understood to go far beyond sacramental forgiveness.
The apostle John's account of the giving of the Holy Spirit
focuses solely on forgiveness. It is a perspective unique
to John, perhaps because John was the only apostle who was
at the Cross. Like the others, John had fled from Jesus in
Gethsemane; but, unlike the others, John eventually made
his way to Calvary where he was close enough to the excruciating
agony of the crucifixion to hear those searing words: "Father,
forgive them." John learned at the Cross, and again in the
locked room on the evening of the first day of the week,
the depth of the challenge Jesus left us in commanding us
to "love one another as I have loved you." To love as Jesus
loved is to forgive-enemies, friends, family, everyone-quickly,
totally, for good.
Christianity is a religion of forgiveness, a life of loving
forgiveness given and received, without limitation. It is
a life that, without divine assistance, no mere human can
live. But it is precisely through the gift we celebrate this
day, God's gift to us of the Holy Spirit, that we are empowered
to forgive as Jesus forgave. That is the teaching of the
apostle John who, like us, went to the Cross. To love one
another as Jesus loved is to forgive. Abraham Lincoln knew
that; so did Thomas More; so must every Christian, especially
those who bear the honored name of the Holy Cross.
It was evening on that first day of the week when Jesus
brought to His disciples the peace of loving forgiveness,
breathed new life into them, and sent them, empowered by
His Spirit, to bring the peace of forgiveness to a world
that prefers vengeance. It is now the evening of our lives,
and once more we are about to leave the Cross-please God,
not for the last time, but the number of our returns and
our leavings is fast dwindling. On this great feast, newly
empowered by the Holy Spirit, let us leave the Cross as the
apostle John left the Cross, totally committed to loving
forgiveness; seeking it where there is still forgiveness
for us to seek; granting it where there is still forgiveness
for us to grant.
May the evening of our lives not come to a close while
any sons or daughters are unforgiven for not fulfilling our
dreams for them but choosing instead to fulfill their own;
or while any professional or business competitors of ours
remain unforgiven for smearing our reputation, injuring our
good name, in order to advance their own ambition. May the
evening of our lives not come to a close while any of those
we trusted remain unforgiven for betraying our trust, or
any of those we counted as friends remain unforgiven for
letting us down in times of need. May the evening not end
for us with those we looked to for leadership unforgiven
for failing us, or those we expected to follow us unforgiven
for rebelling; or those who judged us wrongly, or slighted
us, or hurt us in any of a thousand different ways. Let not
the evening of our lives end with anyone unforgiven-not even
God.
Our forgiving God may sound strange, but in order to complete
our mission of forgiveness we may need to ask ourselves if
we have yet fully forgiven God for taking a loved one from
us too soon; or for asking a loved one of ours to suffer
physical or mental anguish or both; or for taking us, who
claim to be of the Cross, at our word and sending us heartbreaks,
setbacks, hardships, illnesses, sufferings as graced opportunities
to take up the Cross, follow Christ and help save His Father's
world. Let the evening of our lives not end before we have
truly forgiven even God, who taught us how to forgive by
forgiving us so often.
Today is the first day of the week. For us, it is the evening-the
evening of our lives. And we are about to leave the Cross.
Before we leave, may we truly listen and thrill to hear again
words first spoken long ago but spoken on this day to us: "Peace
be with you. Receive the Holy Spirit. As the Father sent
Me, so I send you." And may we thrill to hear Him continue: "Go
spend the evening of your lives bringing the peace of loving
forgiveness to your varied worlds. And know, as you do so,
that in My Sacred Heart thy honored names shall never die."
See the home page
of this issue for a feature on Rev.
Robert T. Kennedy '50.
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