I can do all things in him who strengthens me.

In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need.  I can do all things in him who strengthens me.

I love that line, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” This past week the priests of the diocese had a retreat with Fr. Greg Boyle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Boyle), of Homeboy Industries - a re-entry training and employment program helping ex-felons and gang members leave their old lives behind.  Fr Boyle, or as he is known on the streets as, “G,”  told stories of how homies from “East Los” moved from the life on the streets to getting jobs, training, and getting on with life. The stories of these men and women is captured in the line, (“I can do all things in him who strengthens me.”).  Our retreat with G helped us understand that the “homies” are our kin.  His homies are not distant people disconnected from us; they are literally our sons and daughters, our sisters and brothers, our flesh and blood.

G’s stories served one central theme for our retreat: that when we find kinship with others, we will find kinship with God within our selves.  This interior kinship with God is something that cannot be taken away or forgotten. It is something that changes us for ever. Like a tattoo on the heart.

When G went to Dolores Mission, he started out ministering with the idea that intervention would save the people in the community. After having worked at the Mission for several years, he came to the conclusion that salvation is not about saving people from themselves, but having people be restored to themselves. He had to come to understand that salvation is about seeing ourselves as God sees us and ministry as the opportunity in which people find their way back to their true self.

G is one of the best storytellers I know. He told stories about gang members who entered into Homeboy Industries right out of prison had their life changed by the Homeboys program. One one side the program is practical: participants achieve stability and acquire new skills - but the real change happens when participants make a heart-connection to former enemies, to staff and most significantly, with themselves.

When people connect with themselves they begin to see themselves in a much more gentle, graceful way.  He told the story about a young man who was covered head to toe in tattoos who went into the Men’s Warehouse to buy a new suit because that man, G and a couple other homies were going to DC to meet the president in the White House. G brought the young men to the store to buy suits for the occasion. When this one guy came out of the dressing room and stood in front of the mirror, he saw himself as if it were for the first time. 

The way that G told the story, the young man saw something that he hadn’t noticed earlier in his life.  Standing at the mirror, looking at his reflection in silence, the young man for the first time saw the real person who dwelt inside him.  This hard-nosed gang member covered in tattoos and scars from old scuffles, realized that he wasn’t just ink and old wounds. He was much more.  He realized at the most intimate level of his life that he was a someBody. He wasn’t just a gang-banger, a former hoodlum or criminal. He was God’s beautiful child. The veil of self-deception that would have led to his death fell away. 

On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever.

This young man had to come to a reckoning with himself. While his fingers touched his tattoos and old scars as he stood in front of that mirror, he knew that he couldn’t just erase the past. He had to make peace with the past. When we reconcile within ourselves, our kinship to God becomes ever more powerful. Kinship with others and self-acceptance makes us experience God in a real, concrete, tangible, visceral way. God isn’t a distant concept or theological construct.  God is a real force of healing and confidence.

The Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from every face; the reproach of his people he will remove from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken. …This is the LORD for whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!” For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain.

When any of us see ourselves in a gentle, loving way, we see ourselves as God sees us and when that happens we start living differently than our old way of life.  While transformation is possible, it is not an easy task. Jesus said, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” Transformation happens when we find kinship rather than enmity, when we find resolution rather than conflict. When we find forgiveness rather than resentment and love rather than separation.

The homies who’d been given the opportunity to go to the White House, had been living their lives differently, but they still lacked one thing. They needed to see themselves differently. The last part of their transformation was self-realization - standing in front of the mirror, wearing a suit, saying, “Damn, I am someBODY.” The suit was just a simple outward sign of the inward change.   Today they don’t need the suit. They have faith.

One day we too will be invited to show our inner self to another person. One day we will stand in front of a mirror - maybe a real mirror or a spiritual mirror and look at our reflection and ask, “What do I see?”

When we come to this Table, we have been invited to a banquet of kinship. The point of our Eucharistic banquet is to share in the one cup and the one bread as an outward sign of what we are feeling on the inside: kinship, connection, a bond with our sisters and brothers. The host in the parable kicked out the guest who wasn’t wearing a wedding garment. The guy wasn’t tossed out because he couldn’t afford garments, he was tossed out because he didn’t see the point of connecting to the event, to the groom nor to the host. So, like the host at the wedding feast who expected his guests to adorn themselves with a wedding garment that expressed honor and support for the families of the newlyweds, we too will be asked to put on the garment of kinship as we come to this banquet.

It is my hope that as we come forward, we have prepared ourselves to share in this banquet now.