Walls of Enmity

Homily for Tuesday of the 29th Week of Ordinary Time

One of my favorite poems is entitled “Mending Wall,” by Robert Frost. In the poem he describes how two men who live on adjoining pieces of property walk the line of their property mending the stone wall that separates them. During the winter the frozen ground would make the stones heave and fall off the wall. Some stones fell on one side of the wall, and some fell on the other side. Each farmer picked up the stones on his side of the wall and balanced them back where they belonged. As they work, one of them says: “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Men and women in every age in history have built walls. It seems to be something in our DNA. Whether we say the words out loud or not, we seem to agree with the farmer who things that good fences make good neighbors.

At the same time, the poet makes the comment, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” No matter how often these two farmers try to mend the wall, it seems to fall apart without any help from the farmers who create it.

St. Paul writes about a wall in today’s passage from the Letter to the Ephesians: “For Jesus is our peace, he made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his Flesh.” As I have mentioned before, there was a very real wall in the Temple of Jerusalem upon which a sign appeared. It warned that anyone who was not a Jew was taking his life into his own hands if he entered the Courtyard of the Jews.

St. Paul spent his entire life trying to tear down the wall that existed between Jew and Gentile. In today’s world, there are many more walls that have been built to separate people. St. Paul asserts today that Jesus has torn down these dividing walls of enmity through his death on the cross. Not only must we stop building these walls, we must constantly pray that all people will eventually tear them down.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator