I was praying with the readings all week. Sometimes a word will just stick out to me. There was a word in the First Reading – a phrase that I never really noticed before. I knew the Reading, but I just never noticed this word before. The word was “rear-guard.” The Glory of the Lord will be your rear-guard. I was thinking, “Man, that was kind of interesting, what does that mean?” I began praying about that. As I was praying about that, an image came to my mind of a time that I was in the seminary.
In the seminary, there is a college seminary and a graduate school. The college is Borromeo. That is where all the guys study, and then on to St. Mary’s. I went to Borromeo Seminary for a year and St. Mary’s for five years. In the time in the seminary, we always had this huge rivalry that would come about and the epicenter of it was Game Day. We would have this big football game between Borromeo and St. Mary’s. Now I have to tell you, in grade school, I played football. My dad was a really little kid. I didn’t have my growth spurt until I was 16 or 17 years old. I always rode the bench in grade school. But in the seminary, something happened. I had grown. Suddenly all these gifts and talents were coming out of me. I discovered that I was actually pretty good at football.
So, Ben. Hey can you throw me that football? Are you really good at it? All right, thank you. That was a good throw. (Laughter and applause)
One of the positions I naturally played was one of the half-backs or full-backs. I would be a running-back on offense. They would give me the ball and we would always do like a right sweep or a left sweep and before you know it, we won every single game. But the thing that was really cool about it is I would be given the ball and start running. All I had to do was run. I would discover these guys coming at me. Now one of these guys had to be like 7’5″. He was really huge. His name was Gerald Dunman. He had wild hair, and a goatee, and he was about 300 pounds. Gerry would be running at me, and all of a sudden I would think “Oh, my God, this is going to hurt.” I’m running, and all of a sudden, I don’t know if you guys know Fr. McCandless – he’s our vocation director – he’s a total football player. So all of a sudden, McCandless would come out of nowhere, just like out of the back of me, and just clock Dunman. He would take him and just knock him out. I would be like “Alright, I just got to run in the end zone here.” Nothing of my own doing. It was just McCandless taking him out.
I am praying with this. “The Glory of the Lord will be your rear-guard.” What does that mean, “The Glory of the Lord will be your rear-guard?” What it means is, God has your back. He has your back. No matter what you are doing, as long as you are doing the will of God, you are running the race, as
St. Paul would say, you are fighting the good fight, God will have your back. Not only does he have your back, but when Satan comes after you, He is going to clock him. He is going to totally knock his lights out. The amazing thing about God is Satan is weak. As terrifying as he can seem to be sometime, God can just totally take him out.
Mass, I think for us, is kind of like the huddle. We are celebrating Super Bowl Sunday. Every Sunday we gather together. We huddle up. We get in the huddle, and you are given the football. The football is the Body of Christ. The priest is like the quarterback. You are going to get the football today. You are going to receive the Body of Christ. Then you are going to go out into the world. You are going to go out into your week, into your family, into your lives, into your work, and you are going to run. Satan’s going to attack you. I guarantee you this week he is going to come at you from all different angles. The amazing thing is, all you have to do is kind of look. God, your rear-guard, has your back. He is going to not only attack Satan, He is going to totally knock him out. He is going to just knock his lights out and ring his bell. Just like Fr. McCandless did and God is going to do the same thing to Satan. Just realize that today. We are huddling together. We are receiving the Body of Christ. You are taking the ball. Now like disciples, you are going to go into your week. Remember, God has your back. The Glory of the Lord is your rear-guard.
Excellent.