July 3, 2022 (Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

by Fr. Bob Glynn, S.J.

[This text is an automatically generated transcript. Some edits have been made.]

You’re in for a real treat this afternoon. I am going to give you a peek into what religious life in the Jesuits was like twenty… forty-two years ago when I entered in the good old days. So I had finished one year after university and applied and been accepted to the Society of Jesus here in California. And so my parents had not been very keen on priesthood for me. I believe their… both of them said at the same time, maybe the only time they ever agreed on anything was they said, No. But I it was one of the few times in my life that I was exceptionally stubborn and I held out. And so they had agreed on the Jesuits, at least, if we had to go to anything, all right, it could be the Jesuits. So I was on the way for the Jesuits and a few months, maybe a couple of months in advance of my entering, and my father said, will we not get any sort of information here? My father and I were both of the same practical bent. You know, what are we supposed to do just dump you at the place in Santa Barbara, and I thought, well, maybe I don’t know.

So finally, one day a letter came that said what it was that we were supposed to do in preparation for coming. And the letter began by explaining to those of us who not knew nothing about religious life, and I came from a family in which no one ever in any generation had been a priest, nun or brother zero. I had ruined the perfect track record for this family. And so we get a letter and says, usually when someone is entering the convent, or you know, the seminary or whatever it may be, the religious order will ask for a dowry. So that is a certain amount of money to take care of you. In case you leave, basically, and then you get the remainder to go with you when you leave. So it said the Society of Jesus asked for no dowry. My father was delighted with this. Alright, then it said, but your son should bring with him the following things. List page one, list page two, list page three, list page four… My father said can we just give them ten thousand dollars and you take a car with you and call it even? And I was very worried because I knew my father might do something like that—he was capable. So my mother who was not the practical one, but had a sense of mine, not making a mess of things, said, Alright, you’re going to get all these things.

So the first thing you had to have was a trunk. Now who the heck had a trunk in 1980 who wasn’t already 80 years old? Right? You just didn’t have them. So I had to go and my mother said you will not go to the other end of the island. I lived in Alameda where there was a naval air station, you are not to go to the other end of the island. You’re not going to naval supply or anything like that. I was sent to what was Liberty House at the time at Southland malls. I got a very nice trunk. It was huge. That cedar lined my mother was very happy. I had not screwed this up. They said five seven it was seven handkerchiefs. My mother sent me with the 100 linen handkerchief. She said you’re messy. Okay. I had you should have seen all the junk because whatever they had on the list, my mother multiplied. So I had this immense thing. It was so heavy and then it was shipped down to Santa Barbara. We never used anything in the division. I mean, I could have had probably five sets of underwear let’s say 797 sets of underwear and I would have been perfectly happy and all of that but I had all this junk with me.

So vows came two years later, and I was being sent to Chicago. Well, I didn’t know… we all had our trunks and we all put our names on them. Then we all had to go to Greyhound to ship the trunk. Now in Santa Barbara is the only place where they had a nice Greyhound station—was maybe just location, we could say. Chicago’s was a bit dodgy and I worried the entire time. I flew to Chicago with very little because everything was coming in that trunk. The trunk was late. The trunk finally arrived. We opened the trunk took things out had to buy half the things because Santa Barbara—believe it or not, the climate in Santa Barbara varies from that in Chicago. So we had to buy coats and things and I had more junk than you could have believed.

Well, I did not like philosophy studies. So in the Society of Jesus, you have this kind of thing you can do: you just work harder, and then they let you go. So it was supposed to be two years and I finished in a year. So then they were sending me to Boston for my masters. Yes. What went before me? The trunk. The trunk, finding the place I knew it didn’t Chicago I was scared the first time I was there. I was scared when I went back to take things. It was sent off to Boston. In Boston, I got the trunk and forever carrying things and people looking at me like who is this idiot with this huge trunk that he’s carrying everywhere? And I did look kind of young to have a trunk. So Boston was fine. That lasted a year. Then I was sent to Phoenix. So the trunk then had to go to the Greyhound station in both places. Now, I have winter coats. I have scarves, I even earmuffs I was very cool. Alright, loves everything. This trunk full of utterly useless things being sent to me in Phoenix. I got the thing in Phoenix I put it in the basement and I never looked in it. It was a wealthy house; I bought new clothes.

So you know three years later, it was time to move to Berkeley. And I went down I looked at what was in the trunk I took out the four or five things... the handkerchiefs had been ruined by then. Let me tell you linen handkerchiefs do not go nicely through a washer dryer. And I refuse I am not taking this strong quality, one more place because it just sits and it’s useless. And I always worry about it. I had more worry about that trunk, getting it to the Greyhound station picking it up and it hadn’t been stolen. All these things meant that I am just not taking it. And to this day that trunk remains in that basement in Phoenix, I assure you.

Now, in the Gospel today, we have the disciples who are sent out and it’s very interesting to me two things. Jesus tells them instead of getting the list from the Society of Jesus of the four pages of things that you should bring, Jesus gives a list of things that you should not bring—really anything useful. Do not bring those and the other thing he sends them out not in the sense of going out like I was doing my studies preaching the word here I am, you know my luggage come up before me and I arrive you know as though the trunk heralded my arrival. They do not go doing things on their own. They go before Him and their job is to say he is coming. Look at the things that we can do minimal though they are and the important thing is that he is coming who is so much more than we are.

Now we have a calling as well, and when we look at those disciples, it might seem as a model for us. Part of it is. We spend a great deal of time—I do at least and I usually think I’m not the only one because I’m even on I am bizarre I am radically normal, too—worrying about do I have the right stuff to do the job. Do I have the right degrees? Why was they sending why were they sending me everywhere? Do I have the technology that I need? Do I have enough clothes that I’m not going to spend spending a fortune? Do I have the right sense? So all of us, as we prepare for any move or anything, we worry about a great deal of things, all of the things—almost all of those things we worry about are about ourselves. Will I have this? Will I be ready to this? Will I look like a fool if I don’t have this? Will everyone think...?

But we’re called in a very interesting way not to precede Jesus, but we are His disciples who come after him. So where we go in the mission of our lives, he is already there. He got there a long time before I did. His spirit lives there. And my job is not to come with my bag of tricks and say, look, look, I’m proclaiming the Lord to you in whatever it is that I’m doing at any given moment here. But to say, here he is. Look, do you see him? They’re here in your life. They’re in this place. My job then is not to come back for battle here. But really to point out where the Lord is. Now, is that saying oh, well then we shouldn’t you know, prepare ourselves we shouldn’t get… No. What it’s saying is that as I prepare, where is my focus? Is my focus going to be on myself or on the Lord who calls to me? How do I know that the focus is on God? Well, one, the focus is not on me. So the issue is not how am I doing? Am I succeeding? Does everybody like me? Am I the brightest person? Am I the sharpest? Is everybody asking me for advice? Does everyone think I’m the most holy? No. It’s rather that I know with great certainty that the Lord is acting in my life. I cannot give what I do not have.

So how do I know? Well, one, I pray. Now, I am not saying... there’s nothing wrong with grace before meals or Good night, God, thank you for the day. But that does not exactly build a close personal relationship with the Lord. We can only come close to Jesus through real prayer that says this is my life, the life you have given me. What do you think? Where should I go?

How do we know, then? I am giving you a quick Jesuit cram course on this. One, I am open in prayer. That is, prayer is really prayer. It’s not the afterthought at the end of the day or right before meals, the thing that’s blocking our being able to take the first forkful Okay? Rather, it’s this sense that I am in God’s presence when I pray and that I want to be there.

Two, I pay attention to the movements in that prayer and in my life. How do I know God is there? One, peace, not relief from stress for a moment, but real calmed, peace. Two, a sense of clarity, that in fact, I am not seeing the world in that confused, anxious way that I may often do, but that I see more clearly than is usually the case. Three, that there is a certain sense of joy, a certain sense that there is a reason to hope that there is a warmth in my life that I did not put there myself with all of my own efforts. Fourthly, the focus is on someone else. The focus is on the Lord. The focus is on others. I am moved and I am moved with the desire that says let me proclaim—not... maybe in words, but definitely in deeds; we are Roman Catholics, definitely in deeds—your love that I know and that others will know it. They will feel it from me. It will be real. It will touch them. And I won’t need to look at myself and ask how am I doing? God will know and God will share with me what is the next step for you? How should you move? How will you go?

And then we can leave behind those things that encumber us like big trunks left in a basement in Phoenix.