Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 23, 2022 – Sirach 35:12-14; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14

Jesus doesn’t need any help from me this morning to explain what he was trying to say. So, I thought maybe we would focus on the second reading. 

Last week, if you were at Mass, you remember that I talked about playing the long game. Last weekend, all three of our readings were about playing the long game. Being faithful to the end. And that’s what today’s second reading is about, again.

I asked you to listen carefully to the metaphor and the simile that St. Paul uses at the beginning of his letter. “I have been poured out like a libation.” That metaphor comes from the worship customs of all ancient peoples, both Jewish and non-Jewish. When they wanted to make a sacrifice of some sort to God or to the Gods, they tried to render it useless for anyone else. And so, if you had a jug of expensive wine or freshly produced olive oil, you took it and poured it all over the altar. It could never be used again. A libation. That’s how the writer says his life is. He’s simply being poured out, never to be used again in fidelity and in service to God. And right after that he says, “I have finished the race.” That image is too simple to even need an explanation or description. But both of them describe a person who is in it for the long game.

I’d like to tell you a story, this morning, about someone whom I met who was in it for the long game. It happened at the very, very beginning of my priesthood. Long, long time ago. So long ago that I have actually forgotten the person’s name. But she was an elderly Irish woman, in her early 90s when I met her. So, let’s just call her Mrs. Brogan, okay, for the brogue. Mrs. Brogan. Well, I met Mrs. Brogan in a very awkward way. Back then, I was skinnier, taller and much more agile than I am now. And the church where I served, even though we had an altar facing the people, you came down three steps from the altar and there was still an altar rail and, at the center of the rail, two gates that swung in. Now, very often after Mass, I would come out of the sacristy and, instead of opening the two gates, which meant moving the latch, I would simply hike up my cassock and jump over the altar rail. And one morning this woman came up to me after I did that and scolded me. She said, “You’re a disgrace. You’re giving bad example to your altar boys.” Back then there were no altar girls. And even though she was angry with me, it turned out that we would talk almost every morning after Mass. I got to know a lot about her.

She and her husband had come to the United States from Ireland in the very first years of the twentieth century in order to make a better life for themselves and for the children they would have. And they did. He got a good job. She worked outside the home. The kids went to grammar school, high school and college; got good jobs. And when I met her, her very successful children took their grandchildren and went home to Ireland. A couple years after that her husband died and there she was, in her declining years, all alone in this neighborhood, except for some neighbors. Maybe once every two or three years, the kids would scrape together enough money to fly over and see her and call her every now and then, but long-distance telephone calls were expensive. She was not bitter. You could see lines of sadness in her face, but when she smiled, they all disappeared.

So, we were kind of friends the whole time I was there, but I finally was assigned to another parish and went away. And a number of years later, I went back to the parish for something. And whatever it was, it was going to be an afternoon event - probably a wedding - and I asked to sleep over in the rectory the night before. So, I had the whole morning before the wedding to kill. I decided to go over her house and look her up. So, I go. I ring the doorbell, knock on the door. She opens the door. Mind now, that she was a little old lady, and I was taller than I am now. And she looks up at me and she says, “Yes?” And I said “Mrs. Brogan, it’s me, Father Pete.” “Oh, so it is. Come in, come in, come in.” And she sits me down in her little parlor, and she sits opposite me on her couch, and between us there is a cocktail table. And spread out on the cocktail table is all sorts of stuff. Pictures of her grandchildren, a bible, a whole bunch of prayer cards, a prayer book, and a rosary. And while we’re conversing, she picks up the rosary and she dangles it at me with the crucifix this way. And she says, “See that? I talk to Him every day and He talks to me. And I still talk to Him about you, Father.”

My very best friend in the seminary left six months before ordination. My next best friend left six months after ordination. My next best friend left about seven years after ordination and, although he got a job in South America, he would come back to New York City quite frequently, would never look me up. Two more of my friends left while I was assigned to Warwick. One of them was in a neighboring parish to mine. One of them was the first one in our class made a pastor and he used to bring Communion to my Italian grandmother.

You could probably say, at this point, that I have played the long game. But if I have, it’s at least partly because of old Mrs. Brogan.

Be in it for the long game.