Liminal Moment of Our Generation

“I am the Good Shepherd. I know mine and mine know me.”

Historically, this Sunday has been called Good Shepherd Sunday,

the obvious connection to the gospel today,

a reminder that Christ Jesus is the Good Shepherd

that draws us into his one flock as Shepherd of us all;

a reminder that we are of all different

Catholic communities around the world,

but we still follow the one Jesus Christ.

In fact, all Christian churches throughout the whole world

follow the same one Shepherd making us one flock.

It is a great reminder for us to remain focused

on the one voice of Christ Jesus that leads us away from,

if you would, the wolves that will come to take us and scatter us.

These last few days, we are celebrating

our 65th anniversary as a parish and

our 60th anniversary as a parish school.

We have been honoring the stories

of those who have gone before us;

the founding mothers and fathers of our parish.

One of our parishioners did a wonderful job

in capturing in video these stories.

They are available on line on our website.

I encourage you to go and watch them or

at least the summary that will be available after this Mass.

It is beautiful because the stories are told

of those who were originally here

and those who have come since those early years;

and the tremendous joy they experienced in building this parish;

and the challenges they experienced.

They first built this church;

then they built the school;

then they rebuilt this church because they renovated it.

And then they built a gymnasium;

and they have added so many things to the school over these years;

and the stories of enormous challenges that have come along with that.

They have built this fantastic community of faith;

that is one community, parish and school,

that work together inside this one church.

What is so important for us is that as we receive this legacy,

this incredible gift

that we acknowledge and honor it then build on it.

Acknowledging that they had their challenges

and they stepped up and met those challenges of that generation

that we too now have new challenges.

Maybe it is not building buildings

but it is building community or re-building our community.

There are moments in all of our lives

that are going to be what I call liminal moments;

liminal moments are these moments that we will forever remember;

they are like a switch gate.

They will go one way or the other but we have to be present to them.

That root word “limen” comes from the Latin meaning “threshold.”

These liminal moments or liminal experiences

are threshold experiences.

They usher in an era of transformation

but that transformation just doesn’t happen.

We have to cooperate with it.

Otherwise, we remain stagnant, and remain stale.

The liminal moment presents us with an opportunity,

a moment in which to reflect and

to choose and to allow for our purposes

as people of faith

to allow the one Shepherd to transform us

into something even greater.

As a community and a nation,

we have experienced a collective liminal moment

as we have experienced the shared trauma

of the pandemic experience.

We are now beginning to emerge from it

and all that has happened in this year.

But we must not allow this moment

to pass us by as if it is just another moment.

This year is going to challenge us when we return

to what will be church; something very different.

Right now, I am celebrating Mass with six people in church

because we are still in this lockdown.

We still have Mass outside.

And the temptation is,

“Oh we can’t wait until we just come back to church!”

As if everyone is going to come back inside the church

like the good ole’ days

in whatever version of the good ole’ days it was.

Remember, before we even entered into the pandemic,

we at this parish, here at St. Simon,

had lost over 50% of our attending parishioners

over the last 10 years; pre-pandemic!

As we come back, we are going to have to

reimagine what it looks like.

What does it look like to be church again;

to build on what our founding fathers and mothers have given us.

It is not just to accept what was

and to continue as if it always was

but it is for us to be creative and to look at this liminal moment,

seize it and to be different;

to look again at the future and see what can we do differently.

Who can we be that is different?

In just this week, yet another liminal moment happened for us

that reminds us of the trauma we experienced a year ago.

Who of us would not remember watching that video last year

that has been replayed multiple times

since the trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.

In that moment, we heard the verdict this week,

that he was convicted of murder and

of course, when we watched that video

we knew that it was murder;

when he held his knee down on the neck of the man

as he breathed his last with no emotion.

No a single emotion.

We knew in our hearts that this was

something radically, profoundly wrong.

And it is not who we are as America.

It is not who by far the majority percentage of officers are;

yet it presents to us, now, a liminal moment.

And here is what it says to us: 

It says we cannot go back and be the same.

We need to bring back in, usher in a new, a new community

and not allow the moment to pass us by.

But to seize this liminal moment

and eradicate every trace of racism that might exist within ourselves.

And that is deeply uncomfortable to admit.

I do not expect any of us to be racist

but that it is not enough anymore; to just not be racist.

We have to be willing to be anti-racist.

We have to seize this moment and

eradicate everything that we might even say or think

that has even a trace of racism.

Then we must be willing to not just say

that this is their problem but it is our problem;

that we together will be anti-racist

and fight for the rights of all especially those most persecuted,

most feeling objectified,

most especially those who are black.

We know in these last weeks

that the Asian Pacific Islanders have felt the exact same thing.

It is time for us to seize this moment as people of faith.

This is not about political correctness.

This is about people of faith and

seeing that we have one Good Shepherd

who is Father and Shepherd of us all.

And he calls us to work for justice.

He calls us to work for the right and

the equality of all people even people of different faiths;

that we will acknowledge that we have one God.

One Creator that has created all of us.

This Sunday is a good Sunday to do this

and to seize this liminal moment and

to accept that we are one flock with one Shepherd

and we gather at the one table.

What that is going to require of us

is something that is deeply uncomfortable.

It is going to require of us to sit with these liminal moments

and not let them pass as if they are another ordinary moment.

The temptation is to be oversaturated

but we want to seize it and be present to it

and to allow it to transform us.

Then to vow to be different; to act differently.

So then we honor the memory

of our forefathers and our foremothers

who have founded this parish 65 years ago.

Then we will recreate a parish that is alive;

online and in person

because people will want to be part of this community,

this Body of Christ that comes led by

the one Lord into action, in word and in prayer.

My friends today it starts with our own internal reckoning

in prayer with that one voice listening to Christ

and asking him what is he calling me to in this liminal moment;

so that we can rebuild this community

and be a great legacy to those who have handed it on to us;

and we will pass it on to those who come after us.

We have one Good Shepherd.

And we are one flock.

And we have one Lord at this one table.

May we celebrate that today.