GETTING TO KNOW YOU
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
January 19, 2020
Many of you
know that we had a big, beautiful, spirit-filled funeral liturgy for Fran
Heitzman here on Friday. Many of you know it because you were here for it. We
pretty much filled the church with worshippers and with song and prayer and
memories. Last week when there was a lovely feature story in the Star Tribune
about Fran’s life, one of my relatives told me, “Hey! It’s the Bridging Guy!
I’ve seen him when I have volunteered there.” There are very many people who
knew Fran from that incredible public work of faith and justice. But when his
family came in here to Pax to plan the funeral last week, I asked them to share
a story or two that wasn’t about Bridging—a story that was perhaps closer to
the man he was with his family and friends. And his children began to tell of
memories from 40 and 50 years ago about the heart of compassion and fairness
and generosity that burned in their Dad.
Of all the
stories that were mentioned at the funeral (and there were many) the ones that
I heard from those long ago days were not heard among the people here in
church. They are not my stories to tell, but they speak of a profound Catholic
Christian servant, and a depth of determination that ran even deeper than that of
“The Bridging Guy.”
It made me
realize that while I knew Fran Heitzman the public person, the parishioner, the
worker, the salesman, the warm human spirit, there was a depth to his person
that only a few of his closest loved ones could speak of.
There is
“knowing somebody,” and then there’s really knowing somebody—and those aren’t
the same thing. We all “know people.” But do we?
In today’s
gospel of John, we hear an extended speech from John the Baptist announcing the
arrival of the Lamb of God into the world, Jesus the Savior. And twice during
that proclamation John the Baptist goes out of his way to tell the crowd. “I
did not know him—even though he is the very reason for my work.” I did not know
him.
That seems
an exceptionally odd thing to say because elsewhere in the gospels we are told
that John and Jesus were blood relatives—perhaps first cousins. John was the
son of Elizabeth, the kinswoman of Mary the mother of Jesus. They were all part
of the same clan. How could it be that “I did not know him?” Who doesn’t know
their own relatives? Well, there’s knowing—and then there’s knowing.
I can tell
you about all of my cousins if all you need to know is which branch of the
family they come from, what they do for work, where they live, whose parents
they are, and where they went to school. But that’s a pretty superficial kind
of knowing. In fact anybody could do an online people search and come up with
most of that information in a couple of minutes.
But when it
comes to their deepest identities, the most profound commitments of their
hearts, their most intimate joys and fears and hopes, and especially their most
core relationship with God, I really don’t know them much at all. And maybe
it’s precisely because of the fact that I think I know them that I can be so
amazed to learn what I never have recognized in them before. Perhaps it was
something like that for John the Baptist when his cousin Jesus appeared before
him. “I did not know him. I did not know him.” I only thought I did. Because
the soul of a human being—the most fundamental identity of a person—is forever
mysterious—mysterious in the best and most spiritual way; there’s always a
“more” to the people whom we claim to know, even those with whom we are the
very most intimately bound.
Spouses, do
you know all there is to know about your partner? Really? Even after all these
years? Parents, do you really know your children that way? And vice versa?
Friends, siblings, neighbors, parishioners…have you got them all figured out?
Really?
Even John
the Baptist needed a sign from God to confirm the deepest meaning of his cousin
Jesus. He wasn’t just his Aunt Mary’s son. He was the Lamb of God. The dove of
the Holy Spirit appeared in order to assure him of it.
We only come
to know of the most secret and important source of our being—our own and those
around us—by living together with them and with God and laying open our
stories. And the adventure of that journey never ends, because it can’t.
And the most
intense opportunity for us to remember just who we are is right here at the
Eucharist. Here is where we all spend time with God, in the power of the Holy
Spirit, laying out our most important stories to one another—ours to God and
God’s to us. Here we recall that, while we know God, we are still very much in
the process of getting to know God. And so it will be until we see Him with our
own eyes.
Fran
Heitzman was the Bridging Guy, it is true. And so we knew him. But if that’s
all we knew of him, we didn’t know much about him. Jesus Christ is the
“Salvation Guy,” the Lamb of God. That’s true too. But if that’s the only
information we have about Him, then we’d better spend a lot more time with the
sharing of our stories and the opening of our deepest selves. And the time to
do that is right here, right now. Eucharist.
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