Weekly HOMILY for October 9, 2011: Have You Seen the Rabbit?

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
St. Alphonsus Church, Woodstock
October 9, 2011

Have You Seen the Rabbit?
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato


GUEST AT THE SON'S WEDDING BANQUET

Everybody wonders why that man in the gospel came to a party improperly dressed

I know why. He actually thought he was correctly attired.

He even looked like everyone else: tux, pleated shirt, shinny shoes. But the host spotted an outsider right away. He told the intruder, “You may look like one of us, but I can tell you have never seen the rabbit.” “Seen the rabbit?”

Many of us look and talk like we belong in God’s inner circle, that we are close enough to God to actually be invited to this memorial feast of his Son’s death and resurrection.

We try to belong. Sometimes we even spruce up our souls and start out on a spiritual program in search of God, but most of us get tired quickly.

We lose interest and eventually give up the chase. Do you know why? It’s because we have never seen the rabbit. There’s that phrase again, “Never seen the rabbit.”


CHASING RABBITS AT MRS. VINCI’S

When I was a little boy, we used to visit an aunt on a farm in the country. While there, we loved to go rabbit hunting with my cousins and their hounds.

I always rooted for the rabbit and the rabbit almost always won because it was fast, on its own turf, and knew the hiding places.

When the first dog caught sight of the rabbit it would let out a howl and hurtled off barking. The other dogs got excited by the noise and commotion and joined in the chase.

There are few sights as exciting as a hound on the scent, flinging its body about with wild abandon. Leaping in the air, burrowing through briars, wiggling under barbed wire, scurrying through drainpipes.

But most of the dogs would eventually tire of the chase and turn back after a while. Do you know why they turned back? It’s because they never actually saw the rabbit.

They just got excited by the barking and enthusiasm of the first dog and then they acted as if they had seen the rabbit and hoped their enthusiasm would make up for their lack of sight. But it cannot.

Either they see the rabbit or they don’t. And no amount of enthusiasm and effort can substitute for actually seeing.


SAINTS CHASING RABBITS

It’s the same with us in our chase of God. We have to actually see the rabbit, actually see and experience God to stay active in the pursuit.

Instead, we see the saints in search of God and think we can imitate them. But even if we become as faithful as Moses or as poor as St. Francis or as compassionate as St. Vincent de Paul, we finally quit trying, knowing we will never succeed.

Because Moses saw God in the bush, Francis saw God in the leper, Vincent saw God in the poor.

But all we see is other people seeing God. Second-hand sight will not cure this blindness. We have to see and experience God with our own eyes.


OUR CHASING RABBITS

Now we know that God is always there, but it takes some personal attention to discern, to feel, to experience God’s presence in the tangle of our lives.

Remember those puzzles that contain objects hidden in the jumble of lines? We have to sense their presence before we can actually see them.

People say they will believe when they see it, but we actually see it, when we believe it’s really there.

We try to create and image of God in prayer. So we meditate like St. Ignatius, have conversation like the Little Flower, St. Therese, or we contemplate like St. John of the Cross.

But God remains silent. God remains silent because St. Ignatius and St. Therese and St. John learned their personal language by first seeing and experiencing God.


THE JOY OF THE CHASE

I would like to tell you an easy, secret way to catch God, but there is none.

You and I are programmed to pursue God as surely as a beagle is programmed in our DNA to pursue rabbits. That’s the way it is.

Of course, a dog can laze in the sun instead, and likewise we too can find other pleasant pursuits. It can be a nice life, but it will not be the best life.

A hound is never happier than when chasing a rabbit; a man or woman is never happier than when panting after God.

And God, God is happiest of all when he stays one jump ahead of us. It makes the pursuit all worth while with God remaining God.