February 5, 2023 (Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

by Fr. Bob Glynn, S.J.

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

About 10 days ago, I was in my very tiny room at the Jesuit residence at the retreat center in Los Altos, minding my own business as always—I had the door locked—and it was about 7:30 in the morning, and I was preparing for the day. I did not have to come into Stanford until 9:30. I was virtually celebrating and dancing because I have all this time to myself. So I did very important things. I first read the New York Times. That was well alright, so wait. Alright, and then secondly, I played some video games. Then third, I brushed up and my French in this little lesson thing that I take and then I was just paying the Wells Fargo Bill those bloody robbers Alright, when I suddenly realized, Oh God, it's almost nine o'clock I've got to get myself moving.

So I put on the heavy jacket because it was raining as always. And then I sail down the stairs two flights, got down to the car, had the car keys. I was delighted. I opened the car. Then I thought: cell phone, boop, wallet… no. Wallet?… into the coat… No. I thought this will be just the day that those damn Los Altos police catch me on Foothill expressway just this day. So I had okay, I've got to go. So I ran up the stairs. Two flights, no direct routes at our house. Doo doo doo doo doo poop right around. Back to my room. I locked the door, got in, thought, okay, I must have left it on the chest. Boop. Not there. I thought okay, where do you usually lose it? It's went in the car. So I fly down the stairs again. Meanwhile, I'm looking at time. I send a message. Maybe a few minutes late. Likely. Into the car again. Okay, sometimes you know when I have that jacket one then I sit down just wrong. The thing falls out between the seat and the brake. So I was down there. Then I was underneath crawling. I said, this is not not very becoming and you're not finding the wallet.

So then I ran up the stairs again phoned and said I'm not making it. And then I looked and looked and they began to panic. I don't know if this ever happens to you. Panic is a regular event in my life. I thought my stress level is soaring. I have all these appointments. I just cancelled one. It's what? Now? Now I've lost the wallet. I've lost the wallet and I'm going to have to deal with Wells Fargo. I'm going to have to deal with the credit card people that visa I'm going to have to deal with the Department of Motor Vehicles. No, no, this is not humanly possible. And I say all around. Please, Lord, please, I got to have this. I have everything in the world to do today. And I sat down in this moment of immense stress when I thought I was going to have the heart attack and was offering up my soul to the Lord and then reached down and found the wallet sitting there in the middle of the chair cushion. I thought Oh, thank you, Jesus. Thank you St. Anthony, even though I didn't ask I'm sure you were involved in this too. And I thought, now everything is right. Now I can do the 10 things ahead of me today. And then I could just go home and go to bed.

You know and I you know I thought I didn't lose that wallet. Okay did not lose it. Because I wouldn't found it right I mislead it but my life felt like I had lost it because I had all the anxiety and the stress and everything would it is like when you lose something really important. That is going to cause you immense trouble not to have. So it was it was thinking about this one a thought about Jesus. And you know what? Saul loses its saltiness. You caught that one, right? Yeah, the Gospel wasn't too long today. And I've said it a couple of times just in case. Right? Do you know it is impossible. There is not a way on the earth that salt can lose its saltiness. Why not? I'm sure there are many chemistry people here. I looked it up and I asked him intelligent people. And then they asked him not intelligent people who would agree. But we all said yes, that sodium chloride is a naturally occurring compound, elemental compound that cannot lose its essence.

So you wonder what what is Jesus up to here with this nonsense about losing saltiness, you know, because losing something is very important. What is it he's talking about here? In essence, this saltiness this light with the our, our our love relationship with God, so do not something spectacular, funny, something that I've got and then I drop it in, it's gone, or I can't find it because somehow someone stole it or whatever it may have happened to it. But something can happen with my relationship with God. That is causes this saltiness, not to be lost, but to be mislead. Because I am a Christian baptized, I'm assuming everybody else here is or pretending. Okay, but I'm thinking we were all baptized here. That means that we are in a love relationship with God that has been guaranteed us in the sacramental glory of our baptism. So I can't lose it. But Jesus seems to be quite worried about it. I'm gonna certainly make me miss lay it. How do I know? Like it because Aren't we just I mean, I get that each day thinking okay, God and I wondering that, you know, I'm just going along this life doing one thing after another and eventually I'll die and one would hope that I would hit heaven. You know, but that's kind of the way I approach what is my love a relationship with God a lot of the time. That's not very loving. It's doing a lot of things. Now. How do I know that I am not salty. How do I know I have mislaid this salt? Very well. Let me mention a couple of symptoms.

One is high anxiety on a regular basis. Oh God, salt is poured out of Stanford. No. But high anxiety that says there is something wrong in my life that has that terrible stress like losing a wallet Philadelphus How am I going to carry on? Something is wrong. A feeling of boredom that I need to be doing 1,000,001 things and the defying get stuck with any spare time we were in trouble. I mean, it's better to fill it up with a video game the French lesson The New York Times and God forbid the Wells Fargo account. Hey, all those things that when I tick them off, I say, gosh, I have I feel fulfilled. I've succeeded yet again. I can count this day. As full of life. End the gospel warns us about this. boredom and anxiety are important things. Emptiness is an important thing. They are the indicators that our love relationship with God has fallen flat. Not from God's side, but from my own, that it has lost its flavor. That somehow I have equated that I'm doing one side of things, particularly if I'm successful. You know, if I get if I successfully defend my dissertation, if I get a promotion at work, if somebody says Wow, well done, that that somehow means that I am close to God because I'm doing a good job. Jesus never seems to give us that idea. How do we know if he doesn't seem to be about doing lots of things? That somehow this love relationship is actually having an effect in my life, that somehow it's growing.

Now, as Catholics we know particularly those of us who grew up as Catholics, that we were baptized, very young, if not as infants that we learned the tenets of our church. We learned the prayers that we all share as Catholics, we know the sacraments and that we go to Mass. Those are essential so let's not get some idea Father said these are bad things. I am not saying that. Do not repeat that to someone that's a lie. Right. With am saying is that those are the things that we have been given early in our lives as Catholics, that we might stand on them as our base of our friendship with God is our love relationship. If that the memorized prayers, the coming to mass, the praying the rosary, whatever it may be, they're all good things. But if they are still the same way that I have my connection to God they are it. There's nothing added to it.

Then my relationship my love relationship. With God is the same as when I was a child. It's as though I'm not really able to relate to adults. I relate to six year olds. This is an indication that we have mislaid that salt. How do we recover it? It's not about doing something great. It's about doing those already things we do. But it is about adding that every day is not about these things that I must accomplish. It is about am I experiencing that I am lived by loved by God. am I grateful for anything? Or am I earned at all and I'm doing it all on my own? Because he is only that I am going to strive through this day, then I know that things are amiss. I turn instead to say God, how have you loved me this day and like point to actual things that have happened in the day where I know that my life has been open up. I have felt more free. I have wanted to care for someone. I have wanted to be worried about someone besides me.

Then I ask How have I loved in return? How have I opened myself up to someone else? How have I gone out with who I am to share that? Because in that experience, which is love, that other person encounters God just like that person encounters my love and as they receive it I receive God's love again, and the cycle continues. And that this is the Soul This is the thing that makes our lives come alive. So they are not just moments of a tick off list. They are not just what must I get done? Yes, I've done it again. Oh god, I've got to do it again tomorrow. God calls us to more than that because God loves us a whole lot more than that. And the call is for us to envision that, to take time in my day. From the very beginning to the very end to say, Lord, where are you? How have you loved me? And how will I love in return? So that that day becomes transformed with light and salt.