The Equation of Life

A Homily Given on the Solemnity of the Ascension

At St. Francis Xavier Church in Hyannis

to the Students, Faculty, and Staff

of St. John Paul II High School

and St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School

I always enjoyed math when I was a kid. It was so straight forward, so logical, so simple. And even as it gets more complicated, by and large, math does not get that much harder as much as it gets busy.

Math is always based on the reality of 1+1=2; its just that this phrase gets tacked on to other fairly simple phrases like it, relationships that we know to be true, in an order of operations that gets longer and longer and more complex.

Complex and yet fundamentally simple, because if you do the right functions in the right way cancelling out terms it all comes down to simple math.

Despite my like of Math and Physics in High School I quickly realized that I did not have the discipline, patience, or interest to keep

All those simple relationships straight. As I left high school I made an academic left turn away from the so-called hard sciences and toward the arts and philosophy in particular; However, one thing I realized very early on is that ideas matter! Even simple little ideas that perhaps seem cliché..  

Ideas are the simple terms in the equation of life that get put together in more and more complex ways. Just like the simple relationships expressed in a mathematical equation, no matter the complexity of a reality, or how accurately you describe it, if you don’t keep the simple ideas, like 1+1, in order, your whole project will be doomed to failure.

Today, Jesus gives us the answer to the final exam of life. He does so not that we can avoided actually solving the problem of life, but so that when we make mistakes, when we confuse simple terms in the equation of life, when we pick up bad ideas and ways of thinking, we will know that when the answer comes out to anything other than what Jesus shows us today, that we need to go back and check our work.

Sadly, like your math teachers have most likely told you again and again the answer is not as important as showing how you got there.

 And so what is the answer Jesus gives us today?

Why did God make you? He made you to be with Him forever in Heaven.

The answer to the problem is God, and so how do we get there?

Well, at the beginning of the year we talked about love,

but the problem with this is that God is Love,

and so saying Love is the way to God

is as your math teachers will have told you

the same as saying God is the way to God.

If God is unknowable, ultimately Love,

and here I am speaking of the transcendent perfection,

not the cheap human love of pizza or even our imperfect love of our mothers,

real Love, with an upper case “L”, is unknowable.

But there is Hope, because thankfully we have a divine math tutor who lays out all the terms of the equation.

In Scripture, Jesus tells us what Love means, when He lays out the Greatest Commandment, and its corollary the Golden Rule.

Teacher what is the greatest commandment of the Law?

“Love the Lord your God, with all your Heart, all your Mind, and all your Being.”
Here, Jesus expands on God = Love in two ways giving us the idea of Heart, Mind, and Being, and the idea of Commandments.

He further elaborates by saying the second greatest commandment is like it,

Love your neighbor as yourself.

In John’s Gospel, our divine Math tutor shows us what the equation of Love looks like, by giving us a peak over his shoulder at His work, when He says:

“Love one another as I have Loved you”

and

“No greater love has a man than to lay down his life for a friend.”

Giving us the example of the Cross Jesus shows us the equation for true love: cross multiplication--a simple equation, that does not admit counterfeits, but which is difficult only in that it demands everything.

If we pay attention to the terms in this simple equation God = Love

Love = 1Heart + 1Mind + 1Being / All given on the cross.

Remembering that this is the answer to the Commandments we see how Jesus, who came to fulfill, not abolish the Law desires us to do that mathematics of eternal life.

The hard part, is keeping your terms in order though, because like math, in life things start simple: thou shall not steal, thou shall not lie--but they quickly become more complicated as more and more terms, more and more ideas, more and more realities of human life are added to the equation.

One of the most frustrating things for me, and for your teachers, and parents, frustrating, I would guess in a sense, also for God, is that we can’t do the work for you--in fact, we have a hard enough time doing our own home work. 

You need to do it yourself in the complicated equation of your life, and a simple error, like a bad idea in philosophy, or a mistaken phrase in a mathematical equation, can throw everything off.

Thankfully, the time for your exam is the rest of your life.  Now that may seem like a long time, but time flies when you are having fun. For some life is just long enough, for others there will be time left over to help others, however, sadly the reality is that for some, for those who ignore the answer Christ gives and fail to check their life's work against it, when the divine proctor says put down your pencils at the end of life they will not have the right answer, and the work to prove it.

On this feast of the Ascension, Jesus invites you to check your work, to examine the ideas, and actions in your life, and ask if they lead to the answer giver today.

Today the Word who became Man, and who shows us what it means to be Human shows us that ultimately being human means leaving every created thing behind to be with God.

He does so, so that His Apostles and Disciples not be confused into thinking that anything in creation can truly make us happy.

When you think about the components, the terms of your life, the A + B +X / Y  less Pie that makes you who you are, remember if any term seem to be the answer

but doesn’t itself = God, or one of those terms that = God

Beauty, Truth, Goodness, Love, Being

then you have a mistake in the equation of life, that you need to fix.

Sorry for the lack of Material

I really like publishing my homilies here for the sake of posterity but for the past few years I have found myself not writing out my homilies any more.  The reason for this is, I hope, an increase in my skill as a preacher, my confidence, and comfortableness giving homilies, as well as advice given by parishoners who said my homilies were better when I freed myself from text.  The result is that while I might write some brief notes, I rarely take the time to write out a full homily unless it is intended to be published in some format.  Laziness, or the reality of my busy schedule, usually prevents me from putting into writing what I am not going to use a text for, however, this has resulted in some EXCELLENT (IMHO, as well as the opinions of others mind you) homilies never being posted here. Therefore I am hoping to look into the possibility of audio recording homilies and talks going forward so that I can upload them here.  We will see what time allows.  +AMDG+

In Christ,

Fr. Ron