Homily for August
16, 2020
Twentieth Sunday
of Ordinary Time
God Who Embraces
All Nations
When I
was a teen, I used to go on week-long retreats with my family to an amazing
place that has a seriously embarrassing name: Catholic Familyland. Yes, that’s
a real place, and things always got cringey when my friends asked where my
family went for vacation…Catholic Familyland…but the place was actually really
great, and I grew so much in my faith during those week-long vacation/retreats.
For a few
years, Cardinal Francis Arinze joined us there. One time, he led a
question-and-answer session for all of us, both youth and parents. My brother
spoke up and asked, “Being from Nigeria, did you ever experience racism within
the Church?”
The
cardinal pondered for a moment and replied, “The Church is filled with human
beings, who are sinners, and the sin of racism is certainly present in some
members of the Church. But the Church is also universal and God’s love
encompasses all nations.”
Our
readings today speak about a hot-button issue that is as contemporary as
today’s headlines – racism and welcoming other cultures. Jesus has a powerful encounter
with a Canaanite woman – a woman of another race, culture, and religion – whose
faith in Him is strong. Is Jesus being racist by refusing her request? Of
course not – rather, the Lord is trying to show His disciples that having
Jewish heritage is not as important as genuine faith – which is open to people
of all backgrounds. Jesus challenges the woman to show the strength of her
faith, and she persists in acknowledging that Jesus is “the Master” – a
contrast to the frequent faithlessness of the disciples!
Paul,
too, writing to the Romans, addresses the racial divide present in the early
Christian community. Again, it’s between Jews and non-Jews (Gentiles), but Paul
says that in Christ, God has had mercy on all
– every race and tribe and tongue and nation – so the Jews had no reason to
boast of their special status before God.
We are
now seeing racism again in the news. But most of the solutions that are
proposed today, such as with the Black Lives Matter movement, are utterly
ineffective at solving the issue of racism (and in many cases, they lead to
deeper division and animosity). This is because such secular organizations are
not looking at the problem through a Christian understanding of race. I want to
make three points about how Christians should look at racism.
First,
racism is a sin. That seems simple, but many modern people don’t want to use
that word. It’s often called “institutional racism” or “systemic racism”. But
that misses the point – racism is a sin found in the human heart and soul before it’s present in any institution
or system. So if it’s a sin of the human soul, the antidote is the same for any
other sin: repentance and Christian charity.
Second,
the reason why we should treat others with equality and love is because we are
all made in God’s image and likeness. This fundamental fact has been completely overlooked by the
totally-secular Black Lives Matter movement! Yet this was the reason for the
success of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s – Martin Luther King Jr. and
other civil rights leaders emphasized that we are equal before God since we were all created in His image. Without this fundamental principle, what unites us?
All secular efforts to heal our nation’s divides will remain inadequate without
a reference to God and our status as His beloved sons and daughters.
Finally,
what unites us most fully is our
Catholic Faith. The word “Catholic” means universal, and truly this Church has
the power to unite us! One summer, I hiked the Camino of Santiago de
Compostella, the ancient pilgrimage route across northern Spain to the bones of
St. James. Along those 498 miles, over 33 days, I attended Mass in six
different languages (English, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese…and Korean!)
Truly a microcosm of the universal Church!
Which is
why it is unfortunate that some people have tried to destroy statues of Jesus
or Mary, or St. Junipero Serra or St. Damien of Molokai, claiming that they
were “too white” or symbols of white supremacy. Nothing could be further from
the truth! Jesus came to unite all
races into one Faith – the Catholic
Church. Have you ever seen the Basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome? The colonnade, which
is those pillars that surround the Basilica, were purposely designed by Bernini
to look like arms, as the arms of the Church are embracing the entire world.
When the
Spanish conquistadores came to Mexico, they were accompanied by missionaries, who
had very little success. After decades, only 10% of Mexico had converted to the
Catholic Faith. But in 1531, one person visited Mexico and converted the whole
nation – the Blessed Mother, who appeared as an Aztec maiden at Guadalupe. Within
ten years, 90% of the country had converted to Catholicism. Since the Blessed
Mother appeared as one of them, they realized that the Catholic Faith was not
just a “white man’s religion”. Rather,
they too were welcome to become Catholic.
Mary has
often appeared in different cultures: In 1981, she appeared in Kibeho, Rwanda;
in 1798 she appeared as an Oriental woman in La Vang, Vietnam. In 1973, she
appeared in Akita, Japan, under the title of Our Lady of All Nations. I believe
that Mary wants to tell her children that she is the mother of us all!
My
friends, it is tragic that racism is still present within our society. But it
will not be healed through the secular, liberal Black Lives Matter movement. It
will only be healed when we see it through a Christian lens: recognizing that
racism is a sin that needs to be repented of, realizing that we are all created
in the image and likeness of God, and encouraging all races to find their home
within the Catholic Faith. God rejoices in the diversity that He has created,
knowing that through Christ and His Church, we can be united in that diversity.
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