Coming Clean (Thanksgiving Weekend, Sunday 28.C)

The title of this blog post is not the title of the homily that follows, even if it does bring to mind the "cleansing" or healing of the ten lepers in today's Gospel.

I'm coming clean about the source of my homily this Sunday. It is almost entirely paraphrased or quoted from someone else. When I read the commentary on today's readings from Father Mariano Perrón from Madrid, I liked his thoughts so much that I decided I couldn't improve on them. So all I really did was change the style of his comments to suit the spoken word.

(Needless to say, I'm responsible for the revised content--and hope that Father Perrón will forgive me the liberty I have taken!)

But I am not telling you this only for honesty's sake! The reason I was looking at Father Perrón's words in the first place is that I get his reflections every week by e-mail as part of a free Lectio Divina resource provided by the American Bible Society. Every Tuesday the ABS e-mails me the Lectio for the coming Sunday and even sends a reminder on Thursday.

Although the ABS is a largely Protestant organization, this resource follows the Lectionary Catholics use. (The text of the Gospel provided is from the Good News Translation, which the ABS publishes.) By chance, I was in Manhattan in 2010 when the Society launched this initiative with a presentation to the priests of the Archdiocese of New York.

I don't know anything about Father Perrón, but I've found his commentaries very challenging and fresh. They can either be used for the stated purpose of Lectio Divina (if you don't know what that is, click here or here or here) or just to prepare for Sunday Mass (or writing homilies!).

Subscribing is easy: there is a box on the website.

And now for the homily....

The first reading this morning is not our first meeting with Naaman, the commander of the Syrian army. He appeared in the Sunday Gospel last February, when Jesus mentioned him in his homily at the synagogue of Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30).

On that occasion, Naaman was a sign of God’s universal mercy, which was not limited to the people of Israel but embraced Gentiles as well.

And lepers aren’t new to our Sunday readings, either. Last year, one of the first signs performed by Jesus in Mark’s Gospel (4:40-43) was the healing of a leper, which showed that his presence meant liberation from legal impurity and social and religious isolation.

Nor are Samaritans unfamiliar to us. We heard the parable of the Good Samaritan back in July, where one of these foreigners was a sign of mercy and a model of compassion (Luke 10:25-37).

Today we meet a man who is both a Samaritan and a leper. This is a very bad combination in Israel. He is both officially unclean and outside. But like Naaman and the Good Samaritan, he has a lot to teach us.

The basic message, of course, is plain and simple: gratitude is the attitude God expects from anyone who has received a gift from Him. And what better time to hear that message than Thanksgiving weekend? The timing of these readings is a very happy coincidence.

However, the Gospel always offers more than a basic message if we spend a bit of time looking. Notice that Jesus is on “his way to Jerusalem.” We know what that means: Jesus is on his way to the place of his suffering, death and resurrection. By his parables and formal teaching and signs he intends to show who and what he is.

And notice where he meets the group of lepers: as he goes through the region between Samaria and Galilee. They are in “no man’s land,” rejected by the inhabitants of both territories. It’s that, as well as their physical illness, that moves Jesus to mercy.

The leper is more than grateful: he is a model of faith and understanding. He “gets it.” When he sees that he is healed, he understands what happened, and returns “praising God.” This is what the shepherds did when they saw the baby Jesus at Bethlehem (Luke 2:20).

Though ten lepers were healed but only the Samaritan is able to understand and respond in faith and gratitude. That is why Jesus tells him: “Your faith has made you well.”

For Naaman, too, his physical healing implied something more than just gratitude. From that moment on, he will not offer sacrifices “to any god except the Lord” and the loads of earth he takes with him are a sign of his allegiance to the God of Israel.

The Samaritan leper and the Syrian commander are standout examples of faith and thanksgiving, and they might make us feel weak and ungrateful by comparison. But our second reading shows that even if we are disloyal, forgetful and unfaithful, Jesus will never turn away from us or forget his promises. We can reject him; He cannot reject us. And that is a very good reason to be thankful.

How do we begin to receive the healing God wants for us? (Which most often is inner healing—the physical healings of the Bible are usually signs, not simply manifestations of God’s love.) The first step is to recognize and admit our sicknesses, addictions and shortcomings. All too often we ignore the roots of our problems or pretend they do not exist.

Naaman knew what the matter was. He knew his disease was incurable, but as soon as he heard there was a healing prophet in a foreign land, he started packing for the journey.

The ten lepers in today’s Gospel had more than one problem. They were both sick and discriminated against. But they were ready to shout for help, asking for a sign of mercy and compassion from Jesus.

Do we share their awareness about our own innermost “disease”? Do we approach the Lord with such boldness and confidence? When compared with the Samaritan, are we conscious of the gifts we constantly receive from the Lord? Or do we take for granted all the generous blessings that have been poured upon us in our lives? How often do we praise and say “thank you” to the Lord?

For the Samaritan leper, healing meant more than being born again to normal life; he was born again to faith in Jesus. He was a new man in every respect. Some of us may have experienced the kind of healing that left us feeling like a new creature—perhaps it was healing from a serious illness, or an addiction, or a deep crisis. But all of us have 1001 reasons to be thankful to the Lord, who has given us this life and promised that we will live and reign with him in the next.

Fan the Flames of Faith (27.C)

Have you ever tried to build a fire with wood that wasn’t quite dry? It’s tough going. You pile on the kindling, but fifteen minutes later all you’ve got is smoldering logs.

But with a fireplace bellows—or good lungs, if you’re making a campfire—you can blow on those logs until all at once they catch fire and the flames leap up.

The same is true when the blazing fire you’d built has burned down to embers. Fan those embers and you’ve got a real fire again.

This is the image St. Paul is using in our second reading when he reminds Timothy to “rekindle” the gift of God he already has. Fan it into a flame, the Apostle says. You already have what you need to be a Christian leader, but your gifts have burned down into glowing coals when they should be Pentecostal tongues of fire.

In today’s Gospel, the Apostles ask Jesus to increase their faith, because they want Jesus to do the work, which is fair enough because He hasn’t yet sent them the Holy Spirit. But from the day of Pentecost onwards, Paul’s words to Timothy are the answer to that prayer: rekindle what you have already received, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Of course it’s not just the apostles who pray “increase our faith.” Which one of us doesn’t feel that our faith falls short sometimes? Who doesn’t envy the person in the next pew who seems so much more prayerful than we are?

So St. Paul speaks to us, too. Or maybe he asks us a question. What have you done to fan into a flame the gifts of God you received in baptism and confirmation?

This is a very concrete question for every one of us. And we can make it more concrete still by asking ourselves some questions. If you are a man, what did you do yesterday? Because if you missed the Man Alive! conference, you missed a mighty wind of God’s Spirit that would have rekindled the faith of a weary soul.

If you are a woman, do you have the archdiocesan women’s conference on your calendar for next month?

Did you pray yesterday? Have you gone to confession recently? Did you do any spiritual reading in the past week, or check out a good Catholic blog?

Were you one of those who came to the first night of our course on prayer and contemplation on Wednesday? Fr. Elton Fernandes sure rekindled for me much I already knew but need to practice.

Did you find time last week to do some act of love that didn’t come easy? Did you do some small penance on Friday?

The Alpha course that begins tomorrow night is a way to share the Gospel with someone who may not know Christ. Sharing our faith is definitely a great way to rekindle it. But even an active Catholic will find that the course can revive the power of the central truths he or she already believes.

On Thursday night, St. Stephen's Parish in Lynn Valley begins the Life in the Spirit Seminar. The eight-week seminar is a sure path to revitalized faith in Jesus Christ and a personal experience of the Holy Spirit’s power.

In all these ways we invite the Spirit himself to send gusts of grace to inflame our hearts and to awaken the gifts we have already received in baptism and confirmation.

For my own sake as well as for yours, I am glad that the readings today offer such a practical challenge: because the Christian who is not on fire is something of a contradiction. In the Book of Revelation (3:15) the Lord laments those who are “lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold.” And in the Gospels, St. John the Baptist promises that Jesus will come to baptize “with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Yes, we do pray that the Lord will increase our faith. But he wants us to use the gifts we have—by discovering them, developing them, and displaying them.

If there’s one thing I hope for as the end of the Year of Faith approaches, it’s that my faith and yours will burn brighter—hotter—than it did at the beginning. I pray that the gifts of power and love and self-discipline that we already have will be guarded as a treasure but also invested in daily life.

The Daily "Audit": A Wedding Homily for Accountants!

Some folks think I must have given up blogging (or preaching). Not so, but I've been both away and very busy on my return. Wasn't sure how I'd find the time to write a homily for the wedding of a wonderful young couple today, since I was out at our wildly-successful diocesan men's conference for the first part of the day.  Happily, the profound Ignatian spirituality course that Father Elton Fernandes, S.J.of St. Mark's College launched at the parish this week gave me the inspiration for a slightly unusual wedding homily.

The "examen" (the popular name for St. Ignatius's examination of conscience in n. 43 of his Spiritual Exercises) deserves a deeper treatment than I could give it here.  You might like to look at one of the websites that treat this spiritual treasure: there's helpful information here and here and here. Even better, you can read The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin S.J., which has a good chapter on it, or a whole short book, The Examen Prayer by Timothy M. Gallagher. O.M.V.



I'm very well qualified to be marrying a pair of accountants, since I come from a long line of them.
My grandfather was a chartered accountant. My father was a chartered accountant. And so were my uncle, great-uncle and cousin.

On the other hand, I haven’t balanced a checkbook since I was twelve. And even then I was overdrawn.

Qualified or not, I found myself thinking about the accounting profession as I prepared some thoughts for this happy day. In fact, I could hardly avoid it, since this morning’s scripture reading in my prayer book was the passage where the Apostle Paul talks like someone keeping a ledger:

“When I was at Thessalonica,” he wrote to the Philippians, “you sent something for my needs… It is not that I am eager for the gift; rather, my concern is for the ever-growing balance in your account.

Herewith is my receipt, which says that I have been fully paid and more.”

But my thoughts for aspiring  C.A.s didn’t run in the direction of finances; today I want to talk about auditing.

What’s an audit? Of course you know the technical meaning, but the word’s often used outside your profession not only for the scrutiny of accounts but for any thorough check or examination of something. So today I want to propose something to you both: why not plan to audit yourselves each day?

Such an audit—usually known by other names, such as an examination of conscience—has a long history in the Christian tradition. By regularly taking stock of our relationship with God and with others, we nip problems in the bud—and, just as important—we learn to recognize the good things we might otherwise take for granted.

One of the best teachers of this subject is St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order to which Pope Francis belongs. Ignatius proposed a practical way of taking a look at how our day had gone.

The saint suggested we begin with thanks to God for the blessings we received before moving on to the events of the day and our response to them—where we’d done well and where we hadn’t. The prayerful exercise ends by asking God’s forgiveness for our faults.

Over the centuries, wise men and women have adapted St. Ignatius method to suit different temperaments and times. This week a young Jesuit taught a class in the parish where he offered a version that’s ultra-simple and more focused on the positive than the negative.

At the end of each day, we ask ourselves “Where did I receive the most love today?” And then “Where did I give the most love today?”

Wouldn’t that kind of audit produce a report well worth thinking about? Wouldn’t a daily tally of good things done and received strengthen the marriage of any couple, accountants or not?

But of course good accountants need to work with what are called Generally Accepted Auditing Standards so their evaluation is objective and accurate.

Keely and Kyle, the readings you have chosen for this Wedding Mass are an excellent standard with which to examine each day of your married lives. The first reading, from the Book of Genesis, presents God’s basic plan for creation and society—married life, man and woman created for each other.

The second reading sets a high standard—a standard of love—and offers numerous criteria against which you can judge your progress in married love, indeed your progress in loving your children and everyone else you meet in the course of our day.

And, finally, the Gospel we’ve just heard ties the Old Testament reading directly to the New Covenant of Christ. Jesus quotes the Book of Genesis, making the original plan of creation an intimate part of the new creation He has inaugurated.

Kyle and Keely, I pray that you will live each day according to the glorious vision of married love these Scriptures reveal—and may you do so with courage, conviction, and the daily adjustments needed to persevere.

God bless you both!

The Cost of Discipleship (23.C)

I wrote a pretty serious homily today now that the holiday season is over, but I spotted a story on the internet that can start us thinking about the demands of discipleship with a laugh.

Little Johnny's mother looked out the window and noticed him "playing church" with their cat. He had the cat sitting quietly and he was preaching to it. She smiled and said a little prayer that he might have a vocation. A little later she heard loud meowing and hissing and ran back to the open window to see Johnny baptizing the cat in a tub of water.

She yelled, “Johnny, stop that! The cat is afraid of water!”

Johnny looked up and said, “He should have thought about that before he joined my church.”

One of the many advantages of being a priest is that the folks you marry sometimes ask you to join them when they celebrate their 25th anniversary—and that becomes a really big advantage when they celebrate on a cruise ship! So I’ve just got back from a terrific holiday that included not only St. Petersburg—the focus of world attention last week—but also my first visit to Berlin.

My only disappointment was that there was no time in Berlin to look for any of the places historically connected to the Lutheran martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer. There aren’t many Christians of the twentieth century who fascinate me more than this 39 year old pastor who was executed by the Nazis just three weeks before the end of World War II.

Bonhoeffer’s theological writings fill 16 volumes, but two words from his best-known book struck me thirty years ago and challenge me still: “cheap grace.” Cheap grace, he writes, is “grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

In The Cost of Discipleship Bonhoeffer warns against one of the greatest dangers a Christian can face. He says “Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.”

There in a nutshell is the message of today’s Gospel. You can believe all you want, pray all you want, but if you are not following where Jesus leads you are not living the Christian life.

Bonhoeffer was, of course, a Protestant, but it’s fair to say his warning is particularly important for Catholics. We have the sacraments, we have a large and visible institution, and—dare I say—we offer excellent schools at affordable rates! It’s easier for us than for most to fall for cheap grace, Christianity without the cross, so-called “faith” without sacrifice or serious personal commitment.

Perhaps that’s why the meditation preached at the beginning of the conclave that elected Pope Francis reminded the Cardinals that the scandal of the cross is what humbles the proud human mind to accept the wisdom that comes from above. The elderly Maltese Cardinal Prospero Grech said “It is precisely the preaching of the absurdity of the cross that in less than three hundred years reduced to the minimum the religions of the Roman empire and opened the minds of men to a new view of hope and resurrection.”

“It is for the same hope that the modern world is thirsting, suffering from an existential depression.”

This “existential depression” cannot be cured by some feel-good remedy any more than the clinically depressed can be healed by a day at the beach.

Jesus steers us clear of cheap grace three different ways in today’s Gospel. First of all, he uses what the Greeks called hyperbole—he uses over the top language to make his point. Whoever does not hate their family and even their life itself cannot be his disciple—obviously not words to be taken literally, but words that underline a central truth: discipleship costs everything.

In a more material way, the final words of our Gospel passage make the same point: our Lord says “whoever of you does not give up all their possessions cannot be my disciple.” Again, the Church’s tradition has not taken these words literally, but they make the same point: if anything matters more to you than walking with Christ you are still unformed as his disciple.

Secondly, Jesus connects discipleship to the cross: “whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” It’s interesting, isn’t it, that he doesn’t tell us to pick up his cross but our own.

Accepting in union with Christ the hardships life sends us personally is a key part of discipleship. That’s not to say, of course, that we don’t also need to crucify ourselves by voluntary penance and sacrifice. If you heard about Pope Francis’s call for us to fast for peace yesterday and didn’t respond, you might ask yourself whether you missed a small call to grow as a disciple.

Finally, Jesus gives us a good dose of Christian logic with two little parables. The story about calculating the cost of building the tower and the story about considering the size of the enemy army both remind us to use our heads when thinking how we want to live.

We say—most of us, anyway—that we want to follow Christ. But words are cheap unless we plan the actions that prove we’re serious. How many of us have looked ahead and thought about what living as a serious Catholic will demand of us?

Have we accepted in advance that our employment may be in some ways limited by our moral convictions or that our popularity at school might be lessened by living the faith?

Have we added up the resources—spiritual and emotional—that we will need to battle against the forces of a hostile world?

Is our family life—everything from schedules to budgets—different because we are trying to live as disciples?

We plan for our retirement. We plan for our holidays. Some of us make strategic plans at work. Should we not plan with equal care to grow in faith?

When I look at the small percentage of parishioners who attend our first-rate adult faith formation programs, I sometimes wonder whether we’re strategic enough in preparing ourselves for the inevitable challenges and demands of Christian living.

A year or so back, I was reading Father Thomas Dubay’s book Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer when I came across a word I had to look up. The word was “velleity,” and it has haunted me ever since. A velleity is a wish or a desire that is not strong enough to lead to action.

Think hard about that. Jesus has just tried to tell us in the strongest possible language that true faith always leads to action. Real faith—the faith that moves mountains and can heal the depressed spirit of the modern world—is present only in courageous disciples who carry their cross and who put God first in all things.

Whether we look at Jesus, the saints, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or the martyrs of this very moment we see action and sacrifice, not velleities. Discipleship challenges us to act on what we believe.

This is not a feel-good message, since—in Bonhoeffer’s words— “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” But only that which costs everything we have rewards us—in the words of the Collect for today’s Mass—with “true freedom and an everlasting inheritance.”

When Life Doesn't Make Sense

What do we do when life doesn’t make sense?

How can we handle challenges that seem unfair—problems that pile up, one on top of another, leaving us gasping for air and grasping for God, who seems very far away, if not entirely absent?

These are not the questions that most of us ask every day, but they are questions that some of us ask more often than you might think. I meet people every week who think that life ought to be smooth sailing if only God is doing his job. I meet one of them in the mirror every morning.

And yet for almost everyone there comes a day, a week, or a year when life doesn’t make sense. A child drowns. A young parent dies in a car accident. A dear friend betrays our trust. Sometimes, we face two or even three tragic things around the same time and everything falls apart.

How does the Christian deal with this?

You won’t find many better answers than those offered in our readings today.

First of all, the Old Testament reading and the Gospel pair up to remind us that neither God’s Word nor the history of our salvation promises an easy life. Jeremiah is thrown down a well and left to die, precisely as a result of doing what God asked him to do. Who could blame him for asking God  'why?' as he sank into the mud?

Jesus, of course, is the ultimate example of innocent suffering, and we know that from the cross he asked why—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

It’s no surprise, then, that Jesus did not promise an earthly rose garden to his disciples. Do you think faith entitles Christians to a little peace and quiet? In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives an astonishing answer: not only will faith cause you problems at work, it’ll cause you problems at home!

Life’s miseries are doubly or triply hard for those of us who believe we’re entitled to make it through life without problems. Pain and trouble are much worse when they are unexpected. So the first step to coping with life as a Christian is to develop a realistic understanding and acceptance of what God has, and has not, promised to his faithful people.

But of course that’s not enough with which to face a real crisis. Happily, between the two bookends of Jeremiah’s misery, and the discouraging words of Jesus, we read a passage from the Letter to the Hebrews that makes sense of it all. These are four of my favourite verses in the entire Bible, and they give a framework for facing suffering and finding meaning in the disasters of life.

The very first words of the reading offer a starting place: the “great cloud of witnesses” that’s all around us. Who are these witnesses if not the saints? While the letter is likely thinking of the great figures of the Old Testament, we are surrounded also by twenty centuries of holy men and women whose example can strengthen us in any and every difficulty.

Do your children cause you great distress and worry? So did at least one of St. Monica’s, the future bishop Saint Augustine? Do you have a drinking problem? So did she at a young age.

Have you serious money problems? St. Gemma Galgani’s father died just when his prosperous pharmacy failed, leaving nothing for his orphaned daughter to live on. Creditors rushed in immediately after his death and searched the young girl’s own pockets, taking away the few small coins they found.

Do you mourn the loss of a husband? So did St. Paula, whose husband died when she was 32, and who could barely face her grief until St. Marcella, also recently widowed, showed her friend how to be happy again and find a purpose in life.

We could go on all morning with examples of people who proved by their lives that God is faithful and that human problems cannot defeat divine goodness—saints who bear witness in every age and culture that “all things work together for good for those who love God” and that nothing whatever can “separate us from the love of God” as St. Paul writes to the Romans.

But we’ve only looked at the first few words of the reading. It continues by inviting us to “lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely.” We can’t just look at the saints; we must look at ourselves. And what do we see—weight. Just like some of us see extra pounds when we look in the mirror, all of us have excess baggage that slows us down on the spiritual journey.

The word “weight” means here an encumbrance, an impediment—perhaps something we’re carrying around that we ought to let go of. In almost every sport except Sumo wrestling, being overweight is an obstacle to success. Like an athlete in training, the Christian needs to weigh-in. We’re not talking here about sin but about impediments—things that prevent us from running with speed and grace.

It could be nothing more than a love of comfort: the extra cup of coffee that always makes us arrive at the last minute for Mass, with never five minutes to quiet our hearts. It could be a fear of what people might think, an excessive demand for respect, even a love for TV that stops us from taking a walk with the family on a sunny evening.

Everyone has a different build—what’s excess weight for me might be necessary pounds for you. The thing is: we need to take stock, and to be ready to let go of whatever is slowing down our spiritual run.

Nothing, of course, slows us down like sin. The letter tells us to throw off—to rid ourselves—of sin, and especially of a particular kind of sin: “the sin that clings so closely.” We might see this as what’s sometimes called our “besetting sin,” a habitual sin with which we’ve struggled long and hard without much result (or even a sin we've given up fighting). But the truth is that all sin clings closely in the sense that it trips us up when we try to run the race.

What all this is saying is that we need to be in good spiritual shape in order to face life’s inevitable struggles. When times aren’t all that hard is when we need to grow in our relationship with God so we’ll be fit when the race starts a steep uphill climb.

I would never tell someone who is overcome by trouble that they should have strengthened their spiritual muscles in better times—that would be almost cruel. But there is some truth in it. A solid relationship with God is a wonderful thing to have when sorrow strikes. At the same time, our troubles themselves are an opportunity to grow in that relationship, because they can lead us to connect with the sufferings of Jesus.

The letter tells us to “consider Jesus” and all he endured before we give up hope for ourselves. By thinking about what he faced we can put our problems in perspective—even better, we can unite our sufferings with his. I’ve never been brave enough to suggest that someone who is angry with God read through one of the Gospel accounts of Christ’s passion, but perhaps that’s not a bad idea.

The key message in this wonderful passage is found in the phrase “looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” I prefer the less literal but more forceful translation in the New Jerusalem Bible, which reads “Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.”

We can lose sight of Jesus because of pain and sorrow. But there is only one remedy, and that is to look at him through our tears, to recall the great truths of our salvation, and to unite ourselves with him in faith and hope.

This is no mere pious prayer—it is a practical way to persevere in sorrow and to find strength when our human resources have failed. If life is tough right now, read over Hebrews 12 when you get home. If life is easy, read over Hebrews 12 and make a plan to be in shape to meet whatever challenges are still to come.

And most of all, in good times and in bad, let us not lose sight of Jesus, “who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection.” (NJB)

What Christ Wants from His Church

Chiesa, the English-language website of the prominent Vatican observer Sandro Magister, has published an unofficial translation of Cardinal Prosper Grech's meditation at the beginning of the Conclave that elected Pope Francis.  In the following excerpts, the elderly scholar is "drawing from Scripture some reflections to help us understand what Christ wants from his Church...."

These exhortations to the Cardinals seem appropriate and extremely valuable for every Catholic and so I am reprinting them here.

GOSPEL WITHOUT COMPROMISE

After his resurrection Jesus sent the apostles into the whole world to make disciples of all peoples and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Mt 29:19). The Church does this by presenting the Gospel without compromise, without diluting the word. […] When one descends to compromises with the Gospel one empties it of its “dynamis,” as if one were to remove the explosive from a hand grenade. Nor must one give in to temptation thinking that, since Vatican Council II is believed to have leveled out salvation for those who are outside of the Church as well, the need for baptism has been relativized. Today is added the abuse of many indifferent Catholics who neglect or refuse to baptize their children.

THE SCANDAL OF THE CROSS

The proclamation of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God is made concrete in the proclamation of “Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). […] It is precisely this scandal of the cross that humbles the “hubris" of the human mind and elevates it to accept a wisdom that comes from above. In this case as well, to relativize the person of Christ by placing him alongside other “saviors” means emptying Christianity itself of its substance. It is precisely the preaching of the absurdity of the cross that in less than three hundred years reduced to the minimum the religions of the Roman empire and opened the minds of men to a new view of hope and resurrection. It is for the same hope that the modern world is thirsting, suffering from an existential depression.

CHURCH OF MARTYRS

Christ crucified is intimately connected to the Church crucified. It is the Church of the martyrs, from those of the first centuries to the many faithful who, in certain countries, are exposing themselves to death simply by going to Sunday Mass. […] Jesus predicts: “if they have persecuted me, they will persecute you" (Jn 15:20). Therefore, persecution is a "quid constitutivum" of the Church, […] it is a cross that it must embrace. But persecution is not always physical, there is also the persecution of falsehood: “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake" (Mt 5:11). You have recently experienced this through some media outlets that do not love the Church. When the accusations are false one must not pay attention to them, even if they cause immense pain.

WHEN THE ACCUSATIONS TELL THE TRUTH

It is another thing when what is said about us is the truth, as has happened in many of the accusations of pedophilia. Then we must humble ourselves before God and men, and seek to uproot the evil at all costs, as did, to his great regret, Benedict XVI. And only in this way can we regain credibility before the world and give an example of sincerity. Today many people do not arrive at believing in Christ because his face is obscured or hidden behind an institution that lacks transparency. But if recently we have wept over many unpleasant events that have befallen clergy and laity, even in the pontifical household, we must consider that these evils, as great as they may be, if compared with certain evils in the history of the Church are nothing but a cold. And just as these have been overcome with God's help, so also the present crisis will be overcome. Even a cold needs to be taken care of well to keep it from turning into pneumonia.

SMOKE OF SATAN IN THE CHURCH

The evil spirit of the world, the “mysterium iniquitatis" (2 Thes 2:7), constantly strives to infiltrate the Church. Moreover, let us not forget the warning of the prophets of ancient Israel not to seek alliances with Babylon or with Egypt, but to follow a pure policy "ex fide" trusting solely in God (cf. Is 30:1; 31:1-3; Hos 12:2) and in his covenant. Courage! Christ relieves our minds when he exclaims: "Have trust, I have overcome the world" (Jn 16:33). […]

LURKING SCHISMS

No less easy for the future pontiff will be the task of keeping unity in the Catholic Church itself. Between ultratraditionalist extremists and ultraprogressive extremists, between priests who rebel against obedience and those who do not recognize the signs of the times, there will always be the danger of minor schisms that not only damage the Church but also go against the will of God: unity at all costs. Butt unity does not mean uniformity. It is evident that this does not close the doors to the intra-ecclesial discussion present in the whole history of the Church. All are free to express their thoughts on the task of the Church, but they should be proposals in line with that "depositum fidei" which the pontiff together with all of the bishops has the task of guarding. […]

SEXUAL FREEDOM AND PROGRESS

Unfortunately today theology suffers from the feeble thought that dominates the philosophical environment, and we need a good philosophical foundation in order to be able to develop dogma with a valid hermeneutic that speaks a language intelligible to the contemporary world. It often happens, however, that the proposals of many faithful for the progress of the Church are based on the level of freedom that is granted in the area of sexuality. Certainly laws and traditions that are purely ecclesiastical can be changed, but not every change means progress, it must be discerned whether such changes act to increase the holiness of the Church or to obscure it. […]

THAT LITTLE REMNANT WHICH DOES NOT BEND THE KNEE TO BAAL

In the West, at least in Europe, Christianity itself is in crisis. […] There reigns an ignorance and disregard not only of Catholic doctrine, but even of the ABC's of Christianity. The urgency is thus felt of a new evangelization that begins from pure kerygma and plain proclamation to nonbelievers, followed by a continual catechesis nourished by prayer. But the Lord is never defeated by human negligence and it seems that, while they are closing the doors to him in Europe, he is opening them elsewhere, especially in Asia. And even in the West God will not fail to keep for himself a remnant of Israel that does not bend the knee before Baal, a remnant that we find mainly in the many lay movements endowed with different charisms that are making a strong contribution to the new evangelization. […] Care must be taken, however, that particular movements should not believe that the Church is exhausted in them. In short, God cannot be defeated by our indifference. The Church is his, the gates of hell can wound its heel but can never suffocate it. […]

THE FAITH OF THE SIMPLE

There is another factor of hope in the Church that we must not overlook, the “sensus fidelium.” Augustine calls it "the inner teacher" in each believer. […] This creates in the depths of the heart that criterion of discernment of true and false, it makes us distinguish instinctively that which is "secundum Deum" from that which comes from the world and from the evil one (1 Jn 4:1-6). […] The coals of devout faith are kept alive by millions of simple faithful who are far from being called theologians but who in the intimacy of their prayers, reflections, and devotions can give profound advice to their pastors. It is these who "will destroy the wisdom of the wise and nullify the intelligence of the intelligent" (1 Cor 1:19). This means that when the world, with all of its knowledge and intelligence, abandons the logos of human reason, the Logos of God shines in simple hearts, which form the marrow from which the backbone of the Church is nourished. […]

UNDER THE HAND OF CHRIST THE JUDGE

While professing that the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, we do not always take him into consideration in our plans for the Church. He transcends all sociological analysis and historical prediction. He surpasses the scandals, the internal politics, the ambition, and the social problems, which in their complexity obscure the face of Christ that must shine even through dense clouds. Let's listen to Augustine: "The apostles saw Christ and believed in the Church that they did not see; we see the Church and must believe in Christ whom we do not see. By holding fast to what we see, we will arrive at seeing the one whom now we do not see" (Sermo 328, 3). […] In 1961 John XXIII received in audience in this Sistine Chapel the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See. He indicated the dominant figure of Christ the judge in the fresco of Michelangelo, and told them that Christ will also judge the actions of the individual nations in history. You find yourselves in this same Chapel, beneath the figure of that Christ with his hand raised not to crush but to illuminate your voting, that it may be "secundum Spiritum," not "secundum carnem." […] It is in this way that the elected will be not yours, but essentially His. […]

__________


English translation by Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A

Follow up on "Gay Pride"

At the end of last week's homily, I shared an e-mail--occasioned by the Gay Pride Parade--from a parishioner who lives chastely with same-sex attraction. It prompted a very warm reaction to his words from a number of folks in the parish and much support for him.

When I spoke about Church teaching on homosexuality last yearon the Sunday when the parade was held, I mentioned the blogger Steve Gershom, who accepts and defends that teaching while dealing with SSA himself. Steve Gershom was the pseudonym he used to protect his privacy.

"Steve" has now identified himself publicly as Joey Prever in a bold but humorous post. It's well worth a read, especially for those trying to understand Catholic teaching on homosexuality in a positive way.

Congratulations, Joey, for your fortitude and fidelity. God bless you!