ETERNAL TRAJECTORY

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On Monday, January 28, I celebrated the funeral mass of my 86 year-old brother Richard ("Dick"), and preached the homily. I've decided to post my notes form that sermon, hoping that there might be a useful thought or two in there for you.

Screen writers often talk about a character's "trajectory," the movement or development of someone's life and character over a specific time period, the "plot" of someone's life. I want to reflect this morning on the trajectory of my brother's life. For me, it starts with his role as "big brother" to us three younger siblings. He was ten years older than me, and was always the model of a big brother. When I describe what he was like as a teenager, you'll recognize the Dick Holtz that you all knew as an adult. He was patient with us who were often underfoot, he was generous with his time, he was consistent, someone you could always count on, and very important for me, he was kind to us.

Then the trajectory of his life continued with his marriage to Joan, and from then on he was part of a partnership: "Dick-'n-Joan" became a single word, reflecting the loving union that lasted for the next 62 years. Then he took on the role of father to his children, Bill and Nancy. I remember watching him relate with his young children and realized that he had learned lots of parenting skills by dealing with my brother, my sister and me. 

His career as a mechanical engineer working for "Mother Alcoa" took him and his family from New Jersey to Australia, Indiana, Wales and Lebanon Pennsylvania before landing him here at the home office in Pittsburgh. From here, especially after his retirement, he and Joan would happily drive to Massachusetts or Connecticut or New Jersey to visit grandchildren and other family members.

Then his life's trajectory took an unexpected turn with the onset of medical problems such as bypass surgery and kidney transplants. Ultimately he went on dialysis, which meant the end of those trips to see his grandchildren. The last ten years of his life were spend on dialysis, and he became progressively more and more frail with the passing of the years.

But be careful! Don't picture the trajectory of his life at that point as heading downward. No, that would be to miss the whole point. To help you see what I mean, let's turn to this morning's scripture readings.

Road to Emmaus - Rouault

The gospel passage told the story of the two disciples on Easter morning walking home to their village, completely discouraged because they had hoped that Jesus was the one that would deliver Israel. You remember that suddenly Jesus appears, walking along beside them.For the next seven miles he talks with them, explaining all the Old Testament prophecies that show that the messiah must suffer. Remember that the passion accounts in the gospels were written to console and encourage Christians who were being persecuted and even killed at the time. This story of Jesus's teaching on  the road to Emmaus would have been of real comfort to the first readers of Luke's gospel, as they identified their own sufferings with those of their suffering messiah.  

A pastor in the Midwest had renovated the sanctuary of his church, and had replaced the huge crucifix that portrayed Jesus hanging in agony on the cross. He asked the contractor what to do with the lovely old crucifix. "There must be some church that could use this beautiful carved crucifix," he said. "We should be able to sell it to someone." The contractor, a specialist in church renovations, shook his head. "Sorry, father, I'm afraid not. You see, there's no market for a suffering Jesus."

Those two disciples on the road were not in the market for a suffering messiah that morning, and so they had been totally discouraged at the fate of Jesus: they had watched the trajectory of Christ's life take a nosedive into failure.

Our first reading, from Ecclesiastes, speaks of there being a time for everything: a time to be born and a time to die, and so on. But underlying that text is the worldview that everything under the sun is ultimately futile and serves no real purpose. That reflects the crucial fact that when that Old Testament text was written there was as yet no Christ: Jesus had not yet come into the world to show us that our lives, even the tedium and suffering, have ultimate meaning.

The central insight of Christianity is this: suffering is at the center of the plot; it is not some embarrassing interruption of God's plan, but rather is somehow, mysteriously, at the very center of the plot. That's why the crucifix is so important to our spirituality and our devotion and our liturgy: it reminds us that our lives and even our deaths have a meaning.

Jesus, the Son of God, became one of us precisely to take on himself all of our human weaknesses,  sufferings, dialysis and even death. He came to grips with death itself and, in a wonderful, mysterious turn of events, he won! His love conquered even death itself. His love for us forever turned to trajectory of our human lives upside down! Our suffering has now become the means of our salvation, our defeat is turned into victory, and our death becomes life eternal.

To return to my brother. As his earthly trajectory entered a new and final phase with dialysis and increasing disability, his wife Joan walked with him every step of the way: "Dick-'n-Joan" was still a single word. The suffering Jesus became a close friend of Dick's, walking with him on the road home. One day a couple of years ago as he and I were about to end a phone call, he said to me, "I love you!"

I was touched and delighted at the words that would become our ritual and the end of every phone call: "I love you!" He had come to see, perhaps, in the final phase of his earthly life, that it really is all about love. We, even as we mourn here this morning, can look at Dick's life and see the trajectory that he lived: It was all about love. His trajectory was always upward, ever upward, and has taken him onward, ahead of us to where we all hope to be one day. As we thank him for the loving example he was for us, let us close by reflecting on Paul's message in today's reading from the Second Letter to Timothy:

The time of my death is at hand.
I have fought a beautiful fight,
I've finished the race,
I've kept the faith.
From now on the crown of righteousness is waiting for me
which the Lord, the just judge, will give to me on that day.

That's the upward trajectory that Dick has followed; it's not finished at all, but continues in a new way that allows him to continue loving and helping and encouraging each one of us.

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.