Finding Neverland

This is my favorite Sunday of the Church year. I know I am not supposed to have favorites, but this Sunday is it. Gaudete Sunday means to rejoice. We are rejoicing because we are so close to Christmas. We are so near to Christ coming into our lives once more.

I know that I mentioned before that there are ultimately three Advents. The First Advent was 2000 years ago when we were waiting for Christ to come into our world. He has come already. The Second Advent is the present time. The Third Advent is the Second Coming. Gaudete Sunday is to celebrate and rejoice because He is so near.

I want you to think about that and how you feel. If you feel close to God or if you are distant from God. Just know that He is so close. He is so near to breaking into your life and in your way. He is so near to bringing about Christmas within you. He said whenever He comes, there will be signs and miracles that will happen. Thousands of years before He came, the Prophet Isaiah spoke of these miracles. The Prophet Isaiah said, “This is how you will know if the Savior of the world is here. The eyes of the blind will be opened. The ears of the deaf will be cleared. Then will the lame leap like a stag, and then the tongue of the mute will sing.”

And now, with Jesus coming into the world thousands of years after that, we hear John the Baptist is imprisoned because he’s already prophesied. John the Baptist has said the Savior is here. They throw him in prison. John the Baptist begins to hear of these amazing things happening. He said to the disciples, “Go to Jesus. Go to Him and find out if He is the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” The disciples went to Jesus and asked Him, “Lord are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” The wonderful thing is, Jesus does not just give them a yes or no answer. He says this, “Go and tell John what you see and what you hear.” This should sound very familiar to the First Reading. The blind regain their sight. The lame walk. Lepers are cleansed. The deaf hear. The dead are raised and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them, and blessed are they who takes no offense here. Jesus is saying, “Go tell John all the miracles that you are experiencing.” Jesus is doing these miracles right now. All the ones that the prophets said and longed for, Jesus was working the miracles right in their midst. That is how we would know that He is the Savior.

The amazing thing is, now as we await the Advent of Christ into our hearts, right now, we celebrate Gaudete Sunday. The reality is He wants to work these same miracles in our day and age. He wants to work these same miracles for you. In fact, after Jesus suffered, died, arose and ascended into heaven, He sent His Holy Spirit upon His disciples and He said to them, “You will do not only the things that I did but even greater things.”

How many of you have been Confirmed. Raise your hand. All of you have received Confirmation. Raise your hand for a second because this is pretty amazing. All of you, all of you right now have the power to work miracles. You can do not only the things that Jesus did but even greater things. How do we know that Jesus is present in the world today? Because we see the miracles that happen through your hands, through your prayers, through your faith. Ultimately, He said that you will do it. I want you to think about that. Have you experienced any miracles in your life? Raise your hand if you have experienced a miracle. Alright, so I don’t see as many hands raised high. The reality is, we probably have all experienced it. We just might not have seen it. How do we experience miracles in our lives?

Recently there was a play that came to Cleveland’s Playhouse Square. “Finding Neverland” was the title of the play. “Finding Neverland” is the story of J. M. Barrie and how he wrote Peter Pan. It is the story of how Peter became Peter Pan. In the story, the theme, over and over again, is the necessity of believing. He began to write this whole idea of Neverland (this is a spoiler alert so close your ears if you don’t want to hear any of this). He actually began to write about Neverland when his younger brother died. When he was just a little boy, his younger brother died in an ice skating accident. After his younger brother died, he wished there was a time and a place where he could always be with his brother. He got the idea in his imagination of a place called Neverland where boys would never grow up. He could always be with his brother.

We know that J. M. Barrie over the years grew into an adult. During that time, he became a famous playwright in London. He would write play after play after play but he discovered that his plays were becoming stale. They were no longer wonderful plays. They were just the same old thing being rehashed over and over again. One day, he was in the park and he was trying to come up with a new play because the theater was running out of money. His plays were bombing and he saw these boys playing. The family he meets is the Darling family. There are the boys and their mother. They have lost their father. The boys are looking for a father figure in their life. The boys teach him how to play again. He discovers this whole childlike ability to play and laced throughout it all is this whole theme of believing. There is a very powerful scene at the end of the movie where the mother of the boys is dying. It is actually the opening night of Peter Pan. It is a true story. She is dying, so she can’t make the play. They brought the play to her house and they performed the whole play of “Peter Pan.” She died shortly thereafter. The oldest boy said to J. M. Barrie, “How do I keep her alive? How do I stay with the presence of my mother?” J. M. Barrie said to him, “Close your eyes, and if you believe, you can always be with her.” The little boy closes his eyes and then a few tears come down his face, and in his vision, his imagination, he sees his mother come to him. He opened his eyes and he said, “I saw her. I saw her.”

Just last night, I was talking to someone about this homily, and I said, “Have you ever experienced a miracle?” and he said “No, I don’t think I have.” Then he said, “Wait a minute.” He said after his dad died he came to him in a dream two times. He got to see him and experience him.

The reality is that we can experience miracles. Not only can we experience miracles, we are supposed to experience miracles. We are supposed to work miracles in our lives. Jesus said it. He promised when He sent you the Holy Spirit. When you were Baptized and Confirmed, He gave you everything that you need to work miracles in this world. Not only the ones that He did, but greater miracles.

I know in this very parish before I came here, we had a miracle. There was a young girl here whose heart was enlarged. The entire parish prayed for her. The next thing you know, the doctors took X-rays and her heart had returned to normal size.

Miracles happen all the time, but the reality is, sometimes we don’t see them because we don’t believe. This Gaudete Sunday, I invite all of us, for one moment to come like children again. To have that wonderful imaginative belief that God not only can do miracles in our lives, and does work miracles in our lives, but that He will work miracles through our hands and through our prayers if only we believe.