Homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

It’s the nature of the human person to often refuse to “let go” of things that are making our lives so much less than we want them to be. We may often cling to the things that enable us to have the trappings of a lifestyle — but at the cost of a life in which joy, love, and fulfillment are the center.

This tendency is something that Jesus warns us about in today’s Gospel reading. He lets us know that we need to spend our lives preparing for the kingdom to come; that even though we say we are committed to the Good News that he brings, it takes much more than that:  It takes a lifetime of preparation and work; it takes a lifetime of letting go and giving our spirit and our very lives over to the mercy and the goodness of God.

A number of years ago, the LA Times ran a story about a man who followed the advice of Jesus and who put God as the absolute first priority in his life. His name was Charlie DeLeo.

Charlie grew up as a tough kid on New York’s Lower East Side. He served in Viet Nam and, after returning, he got a job as a maintenance worker at the Statue of Liberty.

Charlie told the reporter from the LA Times that part of his job was to take care of the torch in the statue’s hand and the crown on the statue’s head. It was his job to see that the sodium vapor lights were always working and that the 200 glass windows were clean.

Pointing to the torch, Charlie said proudly, “That’s my chapel. I dedicated it to the Lord, and I go up there and meditate on my breaks.”

But Charlie does other things for the Lord as well. He received a commendation from the Red Cross after donating his 65th pint of blood. Ever since he heard of the work that Mother Teresa and her Sisters were doing for the poor, he gave them several thousand dollars to help them in their work.

Charlie said to the reporter, “I don’t socialize much, don’t have fancy clothes but I have fun. The thing is, however, I don’t have enough money to get married. I don’t keep any of my money. After I got my job, I sponsored six orphans through those children’s organizations.”

Charlie ended the interview by telling the reporter that he calls himself “The Keeper of the Flame” of the Statue of Liberty. And that’s exactly what everyone who worked with Charlie saw him as too. But they saw the flame that he kept burning as something much more and much deeper than the torch on the Statue of Liberty.

Charlie is an example of the two points that Jesus makes in today’s Gospel: the decision to put God first in one’s life, and the decision to do whatever it takes to live out that choice. Each of us is called to live up to both of these challenges and to “let go” of that which keeps us from bringing these things to fulfillment in our lives.

I’d like to close with a prayer that Charlie DeLeo wrote:

O Lord, I don’t ever expect to have the faith of Abraham, Nor do I ever expect to have the leadership of Moses, nor the strength of Samson, nor the courage of David, nor the wisdom of Solomon… But what I do expect, O Lord, is your calling on me some day. What is your will, I shall do; what is your command shall be my joy. And I shall not fail you, O Lord, for you are all I seek to serve.”