|
Yet not my will be done, but your will be done.
There are moments in all of our lives that are defining moments.
They are inflection points where something happens to us
or we interact with an occasion or person
and we change because of that moment.
It is an inflection point in our life for good or for bad,
in small ways or in larger ways.
These moments define who we become as a character, as an individual.
They instill values in us,
or mark us with scars from which we sometimes can never recover.
These moments, as a collection of them in our life,
really define who we become.
They become defining moments,
and make our character and the values we receive.
I remember one such moment,
and it is seared into my memory with great clarity.
It was the day that I was in fourth grade and
I was expelled from the school for something I did not do!
Here is what happened.
I remember I was accused of stealing money.
I had gone into the senior boy’s dressing room
because I had seen pink newspapers.
I had never seen a pink newspaper in my life.
There was this big stack of Financial Times newspapers.
I went in, I looked at them and then went about my way.
A couple hours later, the brother principal
brought me into his office, interrogated me
and told me to confess that I had stolen money.
I had not, I would not.
So he did what they did back then.
He beat me up. I still would not tell him.
So he expelled me and told me to go home.
It was the longest mile I ever walked home.
I did not know what was I going to say to my mom and my dad.
There were ten boys in my house,
and eight of us were at the same school at the same time.
So I got in that day, and my mother was shocked to see me.
She called my father at work.
My father came home and my father was shocked and said,
“What happened?”
I told him what happened with tears in my eyes.
Then I always remember what he did next.
He got down low, sat down and he held my hands.
He looked me straight into my eyes.
He said, “Brendan, I want you to tell me the truth.
Did you take that money?”
And with teary eyes, I said,
“No, I did not take the money.
I just looked at the newspapers.”
And so he says, “I believe you.”
Then he took me by the hand.
We got back into the car and we went back to the brother's office.
The brother principal saw us
and my father pleaded my case.
He said, “My son said he did not take the money. I believe him.”
And the brother says, “Well, I do not.”
My father says,
“Well, I believe him and
every person is entitled to face his accuser.
Who is the boy who is accusing Brendan?”
So the other boy was brought in
and I looked at the other boy and I said,
“Why would you tell this lie?
I have just now been expelled?”
The boy started to cry, at which my dad then turned around
and asked him what happened.
He tried to tell the story but could not do it.
My father asked him to empty his pockets.
And there was the money.
He had accused me of doing what he had done.
The brother principal went into a tirade
and started to hit the boy.
And my dad intervened.
Then the brother said,
“Well, you deserve the same punishment as was given to Brendan,
but I will let Brendan decide.
My father looked at me with the same look
that he had give me at home.
The boy looked at me and I said,
“I think he learnt his lesson.”
That boy and I became friends that day.
That day was a defining moment for me.
It was a defining moment for that boy.
It was a defining moment for that brother
who reversed course in his harsh treatment of others.
All because my father had the clarity of mind
and the brilliance to say what he did,
to be present to the moment, to a defining moment in my life.
He acted with compassion and kindness.
My friends, I think we all have moments
where we can play a role in other people's lives.
A defining moment in their life.
Sometimes it is a small moment,
sometimes it is a large moment.
Sometimes it is your child,
sometimes it is this friend,
sometimes it is a spouse or
sometimes it is a stranger.
The challenge for us is to
become aware of those moments in our lives,
to be aware of these defining moments
when we can change the direction of somebody else's life for good.
We can become aware of what other people
say or do become for good or for bad.
The scriptures are a collection of defining moments
for the Jewish and the Christian people.
They have been put together for us
to remember and to recall
the most defining moments of our history.
The Gospels are collection of defining moments of Jesus' life.
And today's Gospel is a bevy of collective and of defining moments.
We have multitude of them,
not only just for Jesus, but for others.
Pilate and Herod become friends that very day,
enemies before now friends.
Peter betrays Jesus and sees those eyes
and then later he will have another defining moment
where he turns back to Jesus forever.
But Jesus has one defining moment after the next,
the crucifixion and what we celebrate today,
the passion of Christ.
We begin this Holy Week as the defining moment for Jesus in his life.
It points away from the cross to the resurrection.
My friends, this Holy Week for us every year
is a defining moment for us as Christians.
We pause and we recall with great detail day after day,
a whole list of things that are defining moments for us as Christians.
And we are called to reflect upon them
so that we can be attentive to the defining moments in our lives.
So that we can know that we are at
the precipice of changing our life and other people's lives.
If we can be attentive to it
and know how to play our role.
My friends, we are in a defining moment as a nation.
We have to pay very clear attention
to what is happening in our country.
We have to decide on what line
shall we eventually use our voice
for which to speak up and to say “No more.”
We are at a defining moment every year for us as people
to re-look at our faith and to say, “Where am I called to act?”
There are many defining moments in your lives
with your children each and every day.
We must be attentive to those moments.
We have moments with each other all the time
where we can play critical roles in forming,
especially, the young people among us.
We must be attentive to those powerful defining moments
because they will make all the difference in their life.
For my friends, how we can be attentive to them
is reliant on us to pause and to pray,
to listen to how Christ would have us act.
To listen to how the Father will want us to act,
not our will, but the father's will.
The only way we can do that is
if we are attentive in our own prayer life,
listening and putting up before the Lord,
when and how we are to act.
My friends, I can not tell you what to do.
It is not for me.
It is for us to listen to the spirit.
It is for us to listen to the Father and to do his will,
just as Jesus has taught us.
The gospel is our manifesto.
The gospel is what we call, we recall and we listen to it carefully
because we are guided by it in how to act with one another.
My friends, let us be very attentive to the defining moments
that is in our lives today with our children,
with our friends, with our community, and with our nation.
Yet not my will be done, but your will be done.
| 
