Homily for Easter 6 - May 22, 2022

 

Homily for May 22, 2022

Easter 6

Jesus Speaks Through His Church

 

            In the fourth century, a priest named Nestorius was wrestling with a thorny question: can we really call Mary the “Mother of God”? How can God have a mother? Doesn’t that seem to imply that Mary is higher than God? He concluded that Mary did not give birth to the divinity of Christ, but only to His humanity.

            This launched a huge debate in the Church. They began to ask: can we separate Jesus’ divinity and humanity? Back-and-forth this debate raged, until a council was called in a town called Chalcedon, in modern-day Turkey. The aged Pope Leo was too sick to go, so he sent a famous letter – called the Tome of Leo – to speak in his stead.

            After some rousing debate at the council, the bishops quieted down as someone read the Tome of Leo, which declared that Mary did not give birth to only part of a person, but to the whole person of Jesus, who is both human and divine – meaning that we can truly call Mary “Theotokos”, meaning “God-bearer.” The bishops were so thrilled at the wisdom and authority of that letter that they began crying out, “St. Peter has spoken through Leo! St. Peter has spoken through Leo!”

            When Jesus was on this earth, how awesome it would be to hear Him! We could bring Him any question we had, and immediately have an answer from God Himself. But now that He has returned to His Father, He has not just left us to “figure it out on our own.” In today’s Gospel, He promises to send us the Holy Spirit to lead us into “all truth”…and He has established the Catholic Church as the guarantee of His truth. As Peter spoke through Leo, Christ continues to speak through the official teachings of the Catholic Church.

            We can see this in the debate taking place in the first reading. During the first few decades after Christ’s Resurrection, Christians weren’t sure if their faith in Jesus was a branch of Judaism, or if it was a whole new religion entirely. There was considerable debate about whether or not you had to become Jewish first, and obey the entire Jewish law – special diet, special clothing, circumcision – in order to come to faith in Christ. Especially as the Name of Jesus started to be preached in Rome and northern Africa and across the Mediterranean lands, many regular folks weren’t thrilled with the idea of following the Jewish laws along with their new faith in Christ.

            So the Church met in Jerusalem to debate this – and they trusted that the Holy Spirit would guide them into the truth. We see that Peter (the first Pope) and the Apostles (the first Bishops) decided – not on their own wisdom, but by the power and authority of the Holy Spirit – that the Jewish law was not necessary for salvation. So ever since the first century we can see that the Holy Spirit has protected the Church from errors and led believers into the truth.

            And this is such a gift – because without the Church, we would be floundering on our own! Some of our Protestant brothers and sisters, such as the Methodists, meet every four years to vote on what they believe for the next four years – and it has frequently changed! Imagine something being wrong in 2021 but being acceptable in 2022…that doesn’t make sense! Other Protestants simply follow the teachings of their own pastor – Pastor Jones may say one thing, but Pastor Brooks down the street might say another – who is to know what is truth?

            Christ wanted to spare us that confusion, so He gave us a visible Church and endowed it with the authority to teach in His Name. Now, there are certainly individual priests and bishops who teach strange things…and certainly many priests and bishops who are not holy as individuals. But when we read the Catechism or other Church documents, we can be confident that we are able to know the mind of Jesus Christ on any topic. We believe that the Church has a special gift of the Holy Spirit called infallibility which protects it from making errors when teaching about faith or morals. As Peter spoke through Leo, so Christ speaks through His Church.

            This past week, Deacon John was telling me of a discussion he had recently with a man who said, “We should update and re-write the Bible, because it doesn’t say anything about racism!” True – the Bible doesn’t directly say anything about many contemporary topics. But that doesn’t mean we need to re-write the Bible – rather, it means we need an institution that can authentically interpret the Bible – hence, the Church.

            Consider this analogy. Our country has a document which tells us who we are as a nation: the Constitution. But over the course of 250 years, questions may come up which make it hard to apply the Constitution to modern life – so we have the Supreme Court, which is (supposed to) teach us how to apply the Constitution to our modern challenges. In the same way, our Faith is based upon a text: the Bible. But how do we apply and interpret the Bible in an authoritative way with our modern challenges and questions? Through the Church.

            That’s why it’s not a burden but a blessing to have a Church that, despite the flaws of its members, still teaches the same truth that Christ left us in the Gospels. This truth has unfolded over the years like a flower that unveils its beauty slowly, but the teachings are unchanged and unchangeable.

            I regularly get asked, “What if I disagree with what the Church teaches on X?” (Usually some “woke” issue). We disagree with the Church to our own peril! If I disagree with a sign that says, “Caution: Wet Paint” and I say, “Oh, that’s foolishness. I can sit on this park bench!”, then disaster usually ensues. Or if we were to read the instructions on a bottle of medicine that says, “Do not take if you have such-and-such a condition” and we say, “Oh, it’s my life, I can do what I want!”, wouldn’t that be foolish! We obey medical authority and civil authority even when we don’t understand it – should we not do the same with authority that Christ Himself founded?

            The Catechism actually states, “Each and everything set forth definitively by the Magisterium of the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals must be firmly accepted and held; therefore, anyone who rejects propositions which are to be held definitively sets himself against the teaching of the Catholic Church.”

            I don’t know about you, but I want the surest and most secure way to eternal life – and I know I ain’t wise enough to know the mind of Christ in today’s crazy and mixed-up world! But fortunately for us, the Lord has not left us abandoned – He has sent us His Spirit to lead us into all truth, the Spirit that dwells in the Church. Peter has spoken through Leo…Christ continues to speak through His Church.

Homily for Easter 5 - May 15, 2022

Homily for Easter 5

May 15, 2022

Persevere!

 

            Winston Churchill was invited to give the commencement speech at his alma mater in the middle of World War II. According to the story, he got up from his seat, went to the microphone, and simply said, “Gentlemen, never, never, never give up.” And then sat back down. And it became one of the most influential and famous speeches in history.

            Now, that story is mostly urban legend, but his speech did encourage the young men to persevere. He would know something about that – he had the backbone to stare down Hitler and persevere in the most difficult war that Europe had ever seen. Perseverance is the key to achieving any goal – particularly in the spiritual life.

            I was very struck by St. Paul’s admonition to the Church in Antioch: “It is necessary to undergo many hardships in order to enter the Kingdom of God.” Perseverance in our faith – and in the practices of our faith, like prayer and Mass and the moral life – is critical if we wish to inherit the Kingdom. But a lot of people give up faith – or at least give up the practice of their Catholic Faith – because of three main obstacles.

            The first is discouragement. It can be easy to be discouraged if it seems we’re not making progress in the spiritual life, or our prayer life seems boring and empty. We may ask ourselves, what’s the point of praying? What’s the point of doing the same thing, getting the same results?

            That is an excellent question – what is the point of praying? It’s not just to check a box at the end of the day, or to get God to give us something. The whole point of praying is spending time in fellowship and union with the God Who is madly, passionately in love with us. And the more we spend time with Him, the more we will become like Him. A lot of people give up their faith entirely because they stop praying, saying that prayer is boring. If prayer is boring, switch it up! If we’ve always recited certain prayers before going to bed, try to pray in a different way – read the Bible, go for a walk in nature, listen to Christian music. He doesn’t just want to hear your words – He wants to win your heart. But the key is to never give up!!

            And this will effect a change in us. We might get discouraged in our spiritual journey because we keep falling into the same sins over and over again – but perseverance is the key. I think of the amazing story of St. Mark Tianxiang. He was a doctor in China in the early 1900s, and a devout Catholic man. He ended up getting very sick, and to ease his pain he prescribed himself opioids. Unfortunately, he quickly became addicted to the powerful painkillers, and even when his sickness was healed, he kept prescribing drugs for himself. He wanted to stop, but his addiction was strong. He went to Confession week after week, asking God to free him, but he struggled and struggled. It got to the point that the priest said, “You must not be truly sorry for your sins, because you keep falling into them – so I am going to refuse you absolution.” This was such a struggle for Mark, as he could no longer receive Communion since he could not be forgiven of his sins. But he kept praying that God would give him the grace to become a saint.

            In 1920, the Communists took over China and began to severely persecute Catholics. Mark and his whole family was arrested. At last, in prison, he was deprived of his drugs – and the addiction was broken. As he prepared to be killed for his faith, he asked that he be the last one killed, so he could comfort his other family members who died first. Finally, he was martyred for the Faith, and became a saint. God didn’t answer his prayers in the way he thought – but God was faithful and rewarded St. Mark Tianxiang’s perseverance by granting him the gift of holiness.

            In addition to discouragement, another obstacle to perseverance is the world. We live in a post-Christian society, and the pressure to conform is enormous. If we don’t go along with the crowd – who often scoffs at religion or Biblical morality or even the very notion of God – then we are at risk of getting cancelled. On the Catholic young adult radio show that I host, one of our co-hosts has asked that we not use his last name, for fear that his employer might find out that he is a faithful, practicing Catholic, and there might be professional reprisals for not being woke enough!

            It takes perseverance to keep our eyes on Christ and our Catholic Faith despite the powerful pull of peer pressure which seeks to draw us away from the Truth. But as Soren Kierkegaard said, “The bigger the crowd, the more likely that what it praises is foolishness.” At the end of the day, it was “the crowd” that cried out “Crucify Him!” while only three individuals – hardly a majority – stayed with Christ until the end. Which group do we want to be counted in?

            A final obstacle to perseverance is the Cross. The Gospel demands something of us! To follow Christ means that we can’t do everything we want to do. We can’t exact revenge on our enemies; we can’t live self-indulgently when people in Bridgeport don’t have basic needs met; we can’t sleep with whomever we want; we have to do things that are difficult and costly like getting up early on a Sunday morning to worship God, or to forgive those who hurt us. Most people don’t give up the faith because of an intellectual objection – most give it up because it costs too much to follow Jesus Christ.

            So why should we bother to persevere in practicing our Catholic Faith in the face of such obstacles? Because it is worth it! Our second reading reveals a beautiful scene of Heaven – total union with God, reunion with our family and friends, no more suffering, everlasting joy. I hike all the time, and 90% of hiking is a pretty boring slog up a mountain, over rough terrain, pretty unpleasant to be honest. But once you get to the incredible view, it makes all the struggle worth it. But if someone were to give up, they wouldn’t get the view. In the same way, the life of faith is nothing less than the Cross. It is a daily decision to follow Jesus, despite discouragement, the mockery of the world, and the sufferings entailed with being a faithful Christian. Yet we do it – because it is the only path to true and everlasting happiness.