Homily for Friday, June 1 - Feast of St. Justin, Martyr

Homily for June 1, 2018

St. Justin, Martyr

Fruit of Holiness

            “The end of all things is at hand” – that’s how our readings started off today, from the Apostle Peter. Yes, the end of school is at hand…but so is the end of all things, the end of your life.

            Perhaps I’m strange, but I love wandering through old graveyards. Maybe it’s because my Eagle Scout project was to clean and fix a graveyard at my local church in Maryland. Right next to Holy Spirit Church, where I live, is a small graveyard from the early- to mid- 1800s that I often wander through. It’s amazing to see these graves, some of which belong to Revolutionary War or Civil War veterans, people who lived through some hard times and monumental changes in the world…I look at the graves and think, I’m going to go join them too. I don’t know how long, I don’t know when, but it’s inevitable: I will die. And so will you. And the sooner we realize and take this to heart, the sooner we can really start to live.

            I’ll never forget the only time I’d ever seen someone die. I was hiking with some friends along the Potomac River in Maryland a few years ago. It had just rained, and the river was truly raging and swollen. There are big signs along the whole trail: Do Not Swim in the River. Fair enough – it looked like chocolate milk, it was so brown and raging. Not something I would want to swim in, anyway. We took a break for lunch and looked across the river, where another group was picnicking on the other side. We saw two young men, in their early 20s, take off their shirts and start to wade in the river. All of a sudden we got nervous – this couldn’t end well. They both started swimming – the first man made it across to our side, several hundred feet downriver because of the strong current. The second man started strong, but soon started struggling. We could hear him crying out, “Help me! Help me!” as he bobbed up and down. We knew we couldn’t go in to help him, or we would drown ourselves. We immediately called 911 as we watched him go under…and he didn’t come up.

            Needless to say, we were all shocked and stunned. After giving reports to the police about what had happened, we sat there to process it. It was a sobering moment for me – it made me realize that life on this earth is temporary. That young man got up that morning, thinking that he was just going for a fun hike with some friends, and because of one bad decision he was now facing Jesus Christ his Judge. He never thought that he would have died that day.

            Interestingly enough, in the days that followed, my friends had two reactions. Some of my friends though, “Wow, life is short. I’d better make my time count” and they started living a better life – praying more, treating their parents with more respect, studying harder. But some of my friends thought, “Wow, life is short. I’d better live it up before I die” and started drinking more, partying more, sleeping around more, smoking more weed. The difference? One group of friends thought that eternity was real – and they lived accordingly. The other group of friends thought that this life was all there is – and they lived accordingly.

            My friends, Jesus makes it clear in today’s Gospel that something is required of us from this life. We see this mysterious story of the Lord cursing a fig tree because it didn’t give Him fruit – well that seems rather strange, now doesn’t it? Why would Jesus curse something He created? It’s actually richly symbolic – He curses something that doesn’t bring Him what it’s supposed to. The fig tree doesn’t produce figs; therefore, it’s useless. You and I are supposed to bring Him something too – a holy life. We are supposed to present our lives before Him, saying, “Lord, here I am. I have tried to live my life for You and Your glory, living a life of holiness.” If, at the end of our life, we are able to bring Him the fruits of a holy life, the fruits of prayer, of virtue, of humility and repentance and love – then we have done what is asked of us from this life. But if we bring Him nothing but a wasted life of pleasures and empty riches, bad habits and addictions, then we will be like the fig tree – cursed, condemned.

            I was reading the life of one of my favorite saints, St. Dominic Savio. He was a young man who achieved great holiness at the young age of 15. In his Catholic boarding school that he attended, I was reading that all of the students participated monthly in a prayer for a happy death. I thought, “Woah! Young teens are preparing for a happy death?” But that was part of the secret of his holiness. St. Dominic Savio lived his life in such a way that he was ready to die at any moment, ready to meet the Lord.

            Are you? If today was your last day on earth, would you be ready to meet Him? Would you be able to present Him with a life of holiness if you were to meet Him this day?