There’s no such thing as a bad boy!
Homily preached October 30, 2022
by Monsignor Michael Deering

Something that many of us will likely do as we get closer to Christmas, now less than 2 months away ... is to pull out and watch some Christmas videos from your home library ... or simply search the memorable titles on You-tube ...  old movies like “White Christmas” or “Miracle on 34^th Street” and enjoy them once again.

Many are the Motion Pictures that were produced in the 1930s, 40s and 50s that portrayed God and the Catholic Church in a favorable light and presented viewers with  heartwarming examples of the love of God at work in the world. They’re the kind of movies you can see over and over again and always feel happy & renewed.

One of those movies from long ago is the motion picture “Boys Town” that starred Spencer Tracy as a Catholic Priest named Father Flanagan,

who builds a city for wayward boys, a city called “Boys Town”. 

The movie opens with a man going to the electric chair for his crimes against society.

And as he prepares to die ... he says,  

“If I had only had one friend at twelve, I wouldn’t be here!”

That sad testimonial motivates Father Flanagan to go and establish Boys Town

as a way to offer friendship and help to disadvantaged and delinquent boys.

In the movie, Father Flanagan coins the phrase, “There’s no such thing as a bad boy.”

By this he is asserting that boys aren’t made bad; rather they are made good.

And with proper love and direction they will go on to do good things.

Boys who do not experience love and direction in their lives

are the ones who fall from goodness into misbehavior and do bad things.

But it was not so from the beginning ... God made them good.

In fact everything God makes is good.

So, in Father Flanagan’s mind, “There’s no such thing as a bad boy.”

This theme, beautifully presented in this 1938 movie, was actually presented way before that in the O. T. Wisdom. as we just heard in our First Reading:

“For you (God) love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made;

for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.”

This reminds me of a saying from the 1970’s, “God doesn’t make any junk!”

And surely He doesn’t!

From the Account of Creation Genesis, we know everything God made was good.

And God is still creating good things ... each and every day ... as He creates ...

a new, unique immortal soul for every new human being that is conceived.

Yes, every soul He makes is good ... because God doesn’t make any junk.

So we come into this world good ... and God wants us to remain good but unfortunately there are people & temptations & situations that move us to do evil.

Thank goodness we have a patient God, who loves us and comes looking to help us.

You know, often times when we think of God going after lost souls, we may think of the parable Jesus told of the Shepherd going after a lost sheep. And we probably have a mental image of the gentle Jesus roaming the hillsides looking for that sheep and when finding it, simply puts it on his shoulders and brings it back to the fold.

Well, here’s another image of what God, the Good Shepherd, might be like.

It comes in the movie Boys Town where the lead bad boy, Whitey Marsh, played by Mickey Rooney, and his buddies get thrown in prison.

Just like the Good Shepherd, Father Flanagan immediately goes to the prison

to see them but the Warden won’t let him.

Father Flanagan, determined to see his boy, says, “I want to see Whitey Marsh!”

The Warden says “No, no visitors!”

Father Flanagan again says, “I want to see Whitey Marsh!”

The Warden says, “Absolutely not!” And he adds,

“If you weren’t wearing that collar, I’d show you a thing or two.”

At which point Father Flanagan takes off his priestly collar, comes around the Warden’s desk, grabs him by the shirt collar and says, “I want to see Whitey Marsh!”

And the Warden says, “OK, OK!”

as he gets his keys and takes Father Flanagan to Whitey’s cell.

What a marvelous show of determination and resolve.

Father Flanagan didn’t want his boy imprisoned ...

and he courageously and determinedly sought him out to set him free.

That’s the image of God that lives for me. The image of God as our powerful and determined Father that loves us and doesn’t want to see us imprisoned by anything … not by ourselves, not by society, not by drugs, not by alcohol,

not by our past, not by any situation whatsoever.

In the movie, Whitey Marsh and his buddies were so happy to see Father Flanagan

and so happy that he freed them from prison.

God created us good ... He created us to good and to stay free ...

of anything that can keep us from being united with Him.

God created us for Himself. And He doesn’t want us to get away. So, if we ever wander away from following Him, He comes looking for us and is prepared to do whatever He needs to do to rescue us and release us from what binds us.

We see this in our Gospel today where Jesus changes His plans to rescue a sinner!

St. Luke writes that Jesus intended to pass right thru Jericho.

And yet, when He sees Zacchaeus, Jesus changes His plans and says to Zacchaeus:

“Today I must stay at your house.” ...  the house of the Chief Tax Collector

 The people notice this right away and comment,

“He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.”

Jesus doesn’t care.

All He knows is that He wants to bring Zacchaeus back in the fold of His Father.

And what happened to Zacchaeus happens to every sinner who opens the door of his heart and lets Jesus come in.   Conversion! Recovery! Freedom!

Now with Jesus so near, Zacchaeus says,

“Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor,

and if I have extorted anything from anyone, I shall repay it four times over.”

How about that ... from the Tax Collector!

That’s conversion! That’s changing the way you’ve been doing things

and doing something new ...  something different ... something good.

Conversion puts us back on the path to fulfilling the purpose for which we were made.     God made us good ... to do good!

St. Paul refers to this in our Second Reading today from 2^nd Thess. saying,

“We … pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling

and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose ...

that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him.”

We were made good ... to do good!

And how blessed we are ... that God is patient with us.

We heard of His patience in our First Reading, where the writer from Wisdom says,

“(Lord) ... you overlook people’s sins that they may repent.

For you love all things ... and loathe nothing that you have made.”

“O Lord and lover of souls … you rebuke offenders little by little,

warn them and remind them of the sins they are committing,

that they may abandon their wickedness and believe in you.”

Wow! what a God! He loves us and wants our conversion, not our condemnation!

Thank goodness we have a God who persistently goes looking for us

when we wander away from Him ... to gather us back into His fold.

Our God, who is all good wants us, His children, who were made good,

to be with Him forever. Jesus affirms this in our Gospel when He says,

       “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

He’s resolutely looking for us because we are members of His family.

Notice how Jesus referred to Zacchaeus,

“This man too is a descendent of Abraham.”

We are all God’s children and He doesn’t want to lose any of us.

Contemplate what Father Flanagan believed, “There’s no such thing as a bad boy.” 

    In the same way, “There’s no such thing as a bad girl.”

We are good because we were made by God in the image of God.

And whenever we take a side-trip away from Him, we need only to let Him into our hearts once again to experience freedom and become good once again.

God is determined.

Can’t you just see God going right up to whatever Devil has us imprisoned ...

grabbing him by the collar and saying, “I want to see my child!”

That’s how God looks for us when we’re lost: determinedly, resolutely, powerfully.

And what must the Devil say?    Just like the Warden ... “Ok, Ok, Ok!”

For there’s nothing more powerful than God ...

Who can break down anything that imprisons us ... and set us free!

Let’s be like Zacchaeus, who went out on a limb to see Jesus

and let Him in to our home too ...

          so that we will be free of anything keeping us apart from His love!