Lent 2 - February 25, 2018

Homily for Second Sunday of Lent

February 25, 2018

Faith

            In Connecticut we have lots of official state “things”. Our state flower is the Mountain Laurel, our state mineral is the Garnet (who knew we could have an official state mineral!), the official state cookie is the snickerdoodle. I kid you not – these things are officially named, by our state legislature, as our state symbols. We also have an official state hero: Nathan Hale. You may have heard of him in your studies of state history!

            Nathan Hale, a Connecticut native, was an American spy during the Revolutionary War sent to gather information about the British forces in New York. He was captured in his work and sentenced to death by hanging, but it was on the gallows that he uttered his famous line: “I have only one regret: that I have but one life to give for my country.” He was proud to die for what he believed in. He had faith in the cause, and so for him it was a privilege to lay down his life.

            But we live in a culture nowadays that lacks faith – in anything. Our wider culture certainly does not have faith in God, many people have lost their faith in their country or in other human beings…but what is life without faith? Don’t we need something that we can trust, something we can build our lives on, something bigger than ourselves that we can live for?

            I look at Abraham, who is the model of faith in the first reading. He has already believed God once, when God promised him some unlikely things – that he and his wife would have a son despite their old age. God came though on that promise, but now He ups the ante – “Ok, Abraham, you trusted Me once and I gave you a son. Now, will you trust Me again and give your son back to Me?” Abraham is forced to confront some really tough questions – is God real? Are His promises trustworthy? Or is all this just my own imagination talking to me? He steps out in faith, says a radical “yes” to the Lord, and the Lord blesses him abundantly for such radical faith.

            My friends, all of us have to face that same decision: is God real, or is He just a myth? Is the Catholic Faith true, or just one option among many? Are Heaven and Hell real, or is it just wishful thinking? Is the Eucharist really the Body and Blood of Jesus, or is it just a symbol? The reason why many people no longer attend Mass, no longer identify as Catholic, and no longer cling to organized religion is that many people see all of this as just a fairy tale, a myth, an old legend that makes us feel good but doesn’t really have real answers to life’s tough questions.

            What a far cry from true faith! Look, for example, at the faith of the martyrs, who were so convinced that this Catholic Faith was true that they shed their blood for it. One of my favorites is St. Margaret Clitherow. (Her story can be found here: http://www.ewtn.com/library/Mary/Clither.HTM ). These martyrs believed wholeheartedly that this Catholic Faith is true!

            Please don’t misunderstand me – faith is not some blind belief. Faith seeks to be illuminated, and our faith is the most logical and rational of all faiths. We ought to understand reasons for our faith – there are ways in which we can know that God exists, that Jesus rose from the dead, that the Eucharist is truly His Body and Blood. But we know these things from evidence, not from proof. The difference is that proof is scientific knowledge – we know things because we can examine them in a laboratory. We cannot scientifically prove the teachings of our Faith. But we also can’t prove the existence of Julius Caesar. We have testimony about him, but we can’t scientifically prove that he existed, in the sense that we could perform a laboratory experiment on him. We only have historical evidence – which is pretty convincing that he was a real person! I also cannot prove that my mother loves me. There is no biological test to measure for love. But I have received her love on many occasions – her kind words, her gifts, her thoughtful gestures, her hugs. All of this says that I can experience her love, even though I cannot scientifically prove it.

            Likewise, even though we cannot scientifically prove our Faith, we believe it because we have historical testimony (the Apostles who saw the miracles, who walked with Jesus, who touched the Resurrected Lord, the other miracles throughout the centuries, etc), and we also have had personal experiences of the Lord (ways in which God has worked in our life, times of beauty or love or goodness where we have experienced Him). These two types of knowledge – historical testimony and personal experience – are enough evidence to make me say that this Catholic Faith is absolutely true, worth living and dying for!

            My friends, I want to speak the truth. The truth is that God exists. The truth is that Jesus Christ is God-made-man. The truth is that He really died and really rose from the dead. He really established His Church and the Sacraments for us to follow. He really left us His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. He really invites us into eternity with Him in Heaven. These aren’t myths; they aren’t fairy tales. These are truths that we can build our lives on through faith.

            If you believe these truths as well, let us profess our faith.