I was prepared to say a few words on that text, but I have an inclination that I can't resist, so I give into them. That's a way of getting rid of temptations, you know, give into them. We just have been reading in this Responsorial Psalm, the Lord is near to broken hearts. Have you been near to a person that we say has a broken heart? Have you ever experienced it either in your own life or been close to someone who has a broken heart?
Well, there's one thing that I must say is I didn't find the Lord very near there. Suicide in some instances was much closer. Now, that's the fact. Take a man like C. S.
Lewis when he lost his wife. Here's a man who was a devout Christian, a very devout Christian. He nearly committed suicide. Now, we say the Lord is near to those with broken heart, what what do we mean? What do we mean by near?
As I have said many times, you can take your little finger, or your index finger, or any finger, and the sun can be out It looks like we're going to do it today. The sun can be out in its fullness. All you have to do is to hold your finger up close enough to your eye and you won't see the sun. Is the sun near to you? Of course, the sun is near to you.
What good is it doing you? Nothing. Not me as far as singing is concerned. So when we say the Lord is near, what do we mean by that? When you take a man like Maximilian Kobe, who threw himself, Maybe on the spur of the moment, it certainly wasn't that it was not an anticipated a planned gesture.
What he did was done under the under the impulse of the minute. When this man who was selected to be sent into the into the cell to die of starvation, and when Colby said, I'll take his place, that was done like that. Was the Lord near him or in what sense was he near him? I'm I wasn't around. I wasn't there, and I can't give you any text.
But I'm willing to put my life on the line that the suffering that Colby went through of dying of starvation, no food and no drink for for over several weeks before he died. Well, he didn't die. They had to kill him. Gave him an injection. That he never thought of committing suicide.
Now, what's the difference? His state His situation was utterly hopeless. Was the Lord near him? We say, yes, he was. Was the Lord near C.
S. Lewis when he lost his wife? Well, what do you mean by the word near? Of course, the Lord was near him. But it the point I'm making is we can blank out the Lord.
We can exclude the Lord. He stands at the door and knocks. And that painting of Hunt, remember, shows you the door, and there's no latch string. There is no doorknob. There is no way that door can be opened from the outside where Jesus is standing.
It can only be opened from the inside where I stand. The Lord knocking on the door, is he near? Of course, he's near. Who's going to open the door? He's not gonna give it a kick and walk in.
Not gonna call up a bunch of Boy Scouts and said, look friends, there's somebody in there needs me. Let's go in there and slam this door down so they get a ramrod and to push the door in. That's not the way God works. God respects us too much. We are autonomous human beings as our holy father never ceases or gets tired of saying, economist, irreplaceable individual human beings.
And it's the individual human being that opens the door. Is that society can help him, his friends can help him, The environment can help him. Culture can help him. Language can help him. Churches can help him.
The last analysis, it's the I, the self that opens the door. The Lord is near to those with a broken heart. We know what the word broken heart We're not talking about a muscle. We mean that a person is practically at their wits hands. That the whole bottom of life seems to have fallen out of it.
That there is nothing hopeful on the horizon. I'm not exaggerating this. You take that young wife and mother. Here it is early morning. She's got a million things to do.
She dashes out of the house to go to the grocery store. She jumps in her car, puts it in reverse, backs it down the driveway right over her two year old baby. And she comes in and kills herself. Happened up in Wilmington. I've never forgotten it's years ago.
That's why she just came in the house and got a gun and shot herself. Was the Lord near her with a broken heart? Course he was near her, but she shut him out. I don't know. I say that.
I don't know whether she did or not. I have no idea. But the point is we can shut God out. The fact that the Lord is near doesn't mean that that that it's going to be effective. He doesn't kick the door in to make me accepted.
God never does it. Not my will, but Thine be done. That's an act of an individual person. So, we say this You see, we use so many words, you know, and they just go flitting around. But when say the Lord is near the broken heart, remember a lot of people with broken hearts have no consciousness at all of the Lord being near, believe me.
Matter of fact, he's about as far away as it can possibly be. Look at Job. Does that mean that the Lord is not near? Of course, it does. It isn't a matter of fact of the Lord ever leaving me.
The question is whether I will stay with him. He's there. I can move around. I can desert him. I can abandon him.
And there comes a time you see, when we have to make an absolute act of faith. You see, you hear so much today about religion being fulfillment. Whoever said that? If you want fulfillment, go into a bar and get a couple of shots of scotch. Religion is a relationship between me and God where I give God myself.
At the basis of religion, I am the Lord thy God. You shall have no other gods but me, not even yourself. So, don't let's talk about self fulfillment, shall we? The greatest God we can put up is myself. And so, let us face it.
We do, not all of us, some of us go through life and never experience this. You're lucky. But plenty of people go through life and do experience. Now, how do they handle these great when we say they have been clobbered to the extent of a broken heart? The doctor, this is another side.
It's I've never forgotten it. Don't ask me what But it goes back to years and years, where a physician kept a bottle of whiskey on his desk right in his office to remind himself that well in one of his drunken sprees he killed his wife. People do have broken hearts. And the Lord is there with them. If they remove that little finger and open their hearts to him with a tremendous act of faith.
My Lord and my God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.