No ice bucket required.

Homily for October 2, 2016 (27th Sunday in Ordinary Time)
Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4; Psalm 95; 2 Timothy 1:6-8. 13-14; Luke 17:5-10

In 2012 Peter Frates seemed to have his life in front of him.  An outgoing 27 year-old and former baseball player at Boston College and then professionally in Europe, he still loved to play the game.  Then a seemingly routine injury led to a diagnosis that he, his family and friends could not have imagined:  he had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease—an aggressive, progressive, incurable and ultimately fatal neurological disease.

Most people would be devastated upon receiving that news.  Pete may have been shaken, but when he first met with his parents and siblings only six hours after receiving his diagnosis, he didn’t dwell on himself or his current or future suffering.  Instead, he told them that they had an incredible opportunity to make a difference—to fight and one day find a cure for ALS.

A couple of years later, through a serendipitous exchange of messages with other ALS patients, Pete reinvigorated what had up to that point was a relatively minor fund raising project:  the Ice Bucket Challenge.  Leveraging his contacts with athletes and using some creative postings on Facebook and YouTube, the movement went viral in the summer of 2014 and has since raised hundreds of millions of dollars for ALS research and support.

Today Pete Frates is nearing the end of his earthly journey.  Confined to a wheelchair and relying on a computer-assisted device to communicate, he can no longer move his arms and legs. Soon he won’t be able to breathe on his own.  Yet his enthusiasm and hope remain strong.  Perhaps the biggest sign of that is his daughter Lucy, who turned two years old at the end of August.  Barring a miracle, Pete won’t see her much longer; but he will leave her with a lesson and a legacy of what can happen through the power of a vision and a faith that can move mountains.

Our mortal lives are filled with tests, immediate and longstanding, large and small.  We may never know the ruin, misery, violence and destruction that Habakkuk witnessed as his nation experienced invasion, occupation and exile, but most of us have enough troubles of our own.  Some of them are big enough that we feel like joining him in crying out:  “How long, O LORD?  I cry for help but you do not listen!”  We learn from Habakkuk that patience is an essential quality of faith; but so are questioning and letting God know exactly how we feel.  In his image of the mustard seed, Jesus likewise reminds us that a little faith can go a long way if we are humble and place ourselves at God’s service.

This faith was part of the “gift of God” that Paul urged his young and inexperienced fellow minister Timothy to “stir into flame” when it was in danger of being extinguished in the face of discouragement, false teachings, division and personal attacks.  “God,” he admonished Timothy and admonishes the Church today, “did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.”

Even as his disease has robbed him of his voice and the use of his limbs and is relentlessly ushering him toward death, Pete Frates has showed the world what those gifts really look like.  As followers of Jesus, let’s embrace our own challenge to show the world what it means to be a people of power and love and self-control—no ice bucket required. +