A Jesuit priest gave one of the most beautiful homilies I’ve heard in a while. This note is just an attempt to capture it - it would be devoid of the beauty of his quivering voice, his pauses when he wants to give emphasis, and his body language that fed the air in the silent chapel with poetry. The way I write it would be blemished by my unreliable memory and writing style, but it’s worth the attempt, if only to be able to share the homily. Anyway,

He was telling of a story of an old woman who wanted to be a poet. The story begins with a woman looking at a river daily, until one day she saw something different beneath the surface of the river. That was when she started wanting to become a poet.

In poetry class, her teacher once brought an apple and held it out in front of the class. The teacher then challenged the students to see the apple. The priest paused as he held out the imaginary apple as he stood in the altar. He then challenged the people in the mass to see the apple, like the poetry teacher.

“What do you see?”

I did not see any apple. But I imagined that I was the old woman wanting to be a poet, challenged by her poetry teacher to see the real apple he was holding out in front of the class. The challenge was to see the apple. In the story, the teacher was holding out a real apple, so the challenge would have been easily dealt with. But it was poetry class, and in poetry, words almost never mean their first meanings. 

The priest went on to remind us how the old woman once looked at the river, and saw something different beneath the surface. The teacher issued a difficult challenge: to actually see the apple. The teacher then went on to say: “You do not have to climb mountains or cross oceans to be a poet. Beauty and truth is all around us. You just have to look and see.”

The priest asked the people inside the chapel again, “what do you see?” as he still held out the imaginary apple. “I see an apple,” he continued. “I see an apple formed by mysteries of sun and rain and wind. I see an apple formed by so many things, insects, bugs, soil. I see an apple that went through so many turbulent times. I ask the apple, how did you get here? And the apple shows me a seed. The seed comes to the soil, and with water a small plant sprouts out of the soil. His friend the sun feeds the plant until it grows, and it grows, and it grows, until a small fruit appears. After a long process the fruit grows, and becomes him.” “Why are you here?” the priest asks the apple. “I bring the story of creation,” the apple answers. “I go through hard times to grow, and I hold on hard, so that I can survive and be a fully-grown apple.”

“I am here to lay my life for you.”

“I am here to give up my body and blood for your nourishment.”