Ordinary Time 26 - Outrageous

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 26

September 28, 2025

Outrageous

 

            So much that passes for news is actually just outrage, usually over the smallest stuff – what this politician said on Twitter, what scandal that celebrity has fallen into. Our principal at Cardinal Kung jokingly calls it “pearl-clutching” – “Gasp, I can’t believe that person did that!”

            But anger and outrage can actually be quite virtuous and positive, if we’re angry about the right things. In Catholic theology, our emotions are actually called “passions” and St. Thomas Aquinas lists eleven basic passions, such as desire, fear, and anger. But he says that passions are morally neutral in themselves – whether or not they are justified depends upon the object of our passion. If we are afraid of our shadow, we’d say that fear is not good. But if we’re afraid of the bear in our backyard, that fear is quite justified!

            So, likewise, anger and outrage should occur when we see a real injustice in front of us (not an imagined injustice like getting cut off in traffic). In the first reading, God is complaining that the Israelite leaders are complacent and apathetic when a real threat was attacking their people: due to Israel’s sinfulness, God was allowing the nation of Assyria to march upon Israel and take them into captivity, which did occur about twenty years after the prophet Amos penned those words. But the leaders were unconcerned about this brewing threat to their people, because they were living comfortable lives with plenty of food, and couldn’t be bothered with the sufferings of the “little people”. Likewise in the Gospels, this rich man should have been outraged at the sufferings of this poor man Lazarus, but was complacent and ignored this problem.

            As long as we live in this fallen world, evil and injustice will be with us – and we should never grow complacent with it! We should be angry that over a million unborn children are killed each year in abortion. We should be angry that there is an epidemic of drug addiction in our culture. We should be angry that man-made famines and wars are causing untold suffering in many places in our world.

            But that justified outrage must then lead us to action. As Edmund Burke famously said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing.” This is where our media-outrage-machine stops short – they proffer outrage but then don’t move on to action. God does not merely want us to wring our hands and say, “Oh, what a shame,” and then move on to Candy Crush. But what can we do?

            First, we can pray. Prayer has the power to move mountains. Back in the 400s, the barbarian Attila the Hun was rampaging his way across the crumbling Roman Empire. The last man standing in his way was a little old weak Pope, Leo the Great. Knowing that he was the last chance to save the city of Rome, Leo went out by himself to meet the mighty conqueror – his only weapon was prayer, as he and the entire city were praying to be saved. Leo met Attila on the road just outside the city, and no one knows what conversation passed in between the two – but in the end, Attila turned away and left the city untouched. Leo was victorious, not with weapons and armies, but with prayer.

            Some politicians will have us believe that prayer is ineffective in the face of tragedy. But prayer is incredibly effective – it can change hearts, move mountains, heal the sick, and bring Christ into a time of pain. But it is true that prayer isn’t meant to be a substitute for action. There is a beautiful quote attributed to Mother Teresa: “I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that he will guide me to do whatever I'm supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I'm praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.”

            So prayer then must move us to do what we can. Not all of us are called to end world hunger in Malawi or solve the injustices of the world, but all of us can and should do our part. We may be grieved about abortion – but how many of us have ever gone to pray in front of Planned Parenthood in Bridgeport, which our parish is doing next Sunday? We may tsk-tsk when we pass by a drug addict beneath a bridge, but would we ever take five minutes to meet him and hear his story? We may wring our hands about how young people aren’t going to church, but have we volunteered to teach religious education?

            A dear friend of mine, a priest in Baltimore, got one of the worst assignments as pastor of the Basilica of the Assumption in one of the worst neighborhoods in town. Homeless people would sleep in the back pews of his church, and gunshots would ring out at all hours of the night. He knew that his city needed Jesus Christ – but how to bring Him to them? Around the same time he was assigned there, he met a young man named Colin who felt God calling him to serve the poor, but he didn’t know how. Together, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Fr. James and Colin were led to start a twofold ministry called “Source of All Hope”. They found passionate young Catholics who would give up a year of their life to do two things: adore our Eucharistic Lord in the Basilica (Adoration is now 24/7 in one of the roughest ‘hoods in the city) and then take Jesus to the streets by loving and serving the homeless. Now, dozens of young adults give up a summer or a year of their lives to serve as missionaries, dedicated to loving Jesus in the Eucharist and loving Jesus in the poor. Has it ended poverty and homelessness? No. But has it changed lives, one at a time? Absolutely. Fr. James could have wrung his hands and said, “Oh, what a shame this city has come to.” Instead, he was motivated by love to do something about it.

            The world and the media get outraged about a lot. Most of it is silly, but some of it actually matters. As a Christian, we ought to be outraged by the real injustices and offenses against human dignity that are so prevalent in our world. But what if our outrage leads us to actually do something about it? That would be outrageous!

Triumph of the Cross

 

Feast of the Triumph of the Cross

September 14, 2025

The Meaning of the Cross

 

            Today’s Feast celebrates the day that the Cross of Christ was found. After Jesus’ death, the Romans threw His cross into a giant pit with hundreds of other crosses, and then filled in the pit with dirt. When Christianity became legal under Emperor Constantine in 313 AD, Constantine’s mother, St. Helen, traveled to Jerusalem to search for relics of Christ’s Passion. Her excavations uncovered the pit, but no one knew which was the Cross of Christ until they found a man with leprosy and had him touch each beam of wood. When he touched one specific cross, he was miraculously cured, showing this was the Cross of Christ. Today’s feast celebrates that great finding.

            But more than a dusty relic from the past, the Cross of Jesus Christ is the very cornerstone of our Faith. Without the Cross, there is no Savior, no mercy, no Eucharist. Without the Cross, Heaven remains closed, our lives remain meaningless, we die in our sin. The Cross is the meeting-place between God and humanity; between His love and our misery; a stark visual of the horror of sin and the unfathomable depths of mercy.

            Today I want to mention four effects of the Cross, and why it is truly the central piece of Christianity.

            First, the Cross paid back the debt that we owed God, but could not pay. The story goes that a dying man saw the devil holding a list of all his sins. What a list it was – listing each sin in lurid, graphic detail! The devil said, “Ah, what good deeds can undo all of this? Where are your virtues? You are mine forever!” But the man, a believer in Christ, replied, “Ah, you have shown me only one side of the page – the side with the debts. But turn the page over and you will see the credits – the Cross of Christ, which more than paid for all my sins.” At the mention of the Cross, the Evil One vanished.

            Something similar actually happened to a saint. St. Genesius, a Roman actor who had a conversion on his deathbed, had a vision of an angel holding a book of his sins. What a tremendous book it was! But as he was baptized, he saw the angel erasing the sins, as the water of baptism, given cleansing power through the Cross, was able to erase all the evil he had done!

            Firefighters out West will often prevent forest fires by actually burning part of the ground in a controlled way. They say that “fire cannot come where fire has already been.” A perfect analogy of the Cross – God’s judgment cannot come where His judgment has already been. And since God has seen it fit to enact His punishment upon His Son, then those who live in the shadow of the Cross have confidence that His punishment will not fall upon us, but only mercy!

            Second, the Cross showed us the depths of God’s love for us. One time several drunk college students were stumbling across their campus when they came across the chapel. One student, seeing the cross on the top, cried out, “Look, O mathematicians, at God’s plus sign!” This comment lodged in the mind of one of the other students, who was troubled by it for days. God’s plus sign – God plus us – the unity between two variables – God and us together. He was converted when he realized that the Cross is indeed the plus sign of God – it is the meeting place of the vertical (reaching out to God) and the horizontal (our humanity). There, the two lines converge, and there, God and humanity converge.

            In every ancient world religion, priests spent centuries spilling animal blood in the hope of appeasing Almighty God. But at the Cross, God spills His own Blood, in the hopes of winning our hearts and purchasing our salvation. Can there be any greater love? If you wonder if God loves you, if your life has any value, if you are precious in His sight, look at the Cross and behold a God who would rather die than spend eternity without you.

            Third, the Cross teaches us how to love. The world says that love is shaped like a heart; Jesus shows us that love is shaped like the Cross. He says we must love one another as He has loved us. So when we’re struggling to love our difficult spouse, the Cross is our answer. When our child is getting on our last nerve, we take strength in the Cross. When we are at our wits end taking care of our elderly parents, we see that Christ loved to the end and beyond. Not only is the Cross our example, the Cross is our strength – Crucified Lord, make my heart like unto Thine!

            Finally, the Cross redeems suffering and death. We can run from it, take medicine to avoid it, or try to mask it with pleasures, but all of us will encounter suffering and death. The Cross, however, has the power to redeem it and sanctify it. When we unite our sufferings to those of the Cross, we become privileged to participate in Christ’s saving action, and our sufferings become acts of love. Many great saints were made by embracing suffering!

            For a recent example, consider Bl. Benedetta Porro. She was an Italian saint born in the 1930s, who seemed destined for suffering. She contracted polio at only three months old, had recurring bronchitis, and was crippled. As a teen, she began to lose her hearing, and was soon diagnosed with a rare disease where she would lose all five senses and become paralyzed. You’d think that someone like this would give up, retreat to her room and watch TV all day, and maybe grow bitter and angry at fate, but not Benedetta. She was a voracious reader, enrolled in medical school (although unable to finish due to her illness), kept up many correspondences with people, and took several pilgrimages to holy sites. Even as her illness got so progressively bad that she was unable to move and could only move one hand, she kept her spirit of joy and peace.

            Toward the end of her life she said, “I do not lack hope. I know that at the end of the road, Jesus is waiting for me … I have discovered that God exists, that He is love, faithfulness, joy, certitude, to the end of the ages. My days are not easy. They are hard. But sweet because Jesus is with me.” This incredible hope is only possible because of the Cross – her sufferings could be offered to Jesus as a sweet gift of love, since she was following a Savior who suffered first out of love for her.

            My friends, the Cross is everything. I hope that the Cross hangs in your homes and your bedrooms; that you perhaps wear a Cross around your neck; and that you look upon it often. For there, upon the Cross, hangs our Love, our Hope, and our Salvation.

Ordinary Time 23 - Modern-Day Slavery

 

Ordinary Time 23

September 7, 2025

Modern-Day Slavery

 

            Today’s second reading is from one of the shortest books in the Bible: Paul’s letter to Philemon. Philemon was a Christian man who had a slave named Onesimus. Onesimus ran away and encountered Paul, and through him became a baptized Christian. Paul is then sending Onesimus back to Philemon, but this time asking that Onesimus be treated like a brother, not a slave.

            The Church has always been against slavery. Yes, it’s true that at times churchmen held slaves (such as the Jesuit priests in southern Maryland, who held 300 slaves on their tobacco plantation), but that was against the direct prohibition of the Vatican. In fact, all the way back in 1537, Pope Paul III declared that it was immoral to enslave another human being. There are even two religious orders whose entire mission was to rescue slaves: the Trinitarians and Mercedarians. They would beg to raise money to purchase slaves and then set them free, and there were even occasions where these brothers and priests would actually exchange places with the slaves!

            Sadly, slavery still exists in today’s world – and quite often, we enable it without even knowing it. First, physical slavery still exists. All of us purchase goods made in sweatshops and through slavery. The US Department of Labor puts out a document annually detailing which countries and products are made as a result of slavery – it’s worth a read, and sobering in its content. We know about companies such as Forever 21 and Adidas which use garments made in sweatshops, but a lot of the food we eat too: some coffees from Brazil, rice from India, or sugar from the Dominican Republic. It’s hard in today’s world to avoid these things, as everything is so global, but as far as we are able we should be aware, make our voices heard in objection to these things, and put our dollars where our beliefs are.

            More concerning is the reality of human trafficking, which is still immensely prevalent. The UN detects, on average, about 51,000 victims of human trafficking worldwide each year, the majority of which are used for sins of lust. It’s a tragedy that we must pray to end.

            But there is one major way that we might actually participate in human trafficking. If someone regularly views lustful content on the internet, there is a very good chance that they might be seeing someone who is a victim of trafficking. My friends, the sin of lustful content must stop among Christians. Every human being has dignity and deserves to be treated with love, not used for pleasure. John Paul II had a brilliant insight when he said that the problem with lustful content is not that it shows too much, but that it shows too little, since it shows only the body but not the person. It reduces a person to nothing more than a body, thereby making them an object.

            But of course lustful content also leads to another kind of slavery: spiritual slavery, which is far more common than physical slavery in today’s world. Oh how many of us struggle with real addictions! Whether it be to lust, or to our phones, or to drugs or alcohol, or to online gaming, or anything else that hampers our freedom in Christ! This is why in today’s Gospel, Jesus commands us to give up anything that hinders us from following Him in freedom: whether it be possessions that consume our time and energy, family members or friends who lead us into sin, any hobby that prevents us from giving time to Christ, anything. We can only truly follow Him in complete freedom – using the things of this earth rightly and in their proper context.

            So how can we find this complete freedom in Christ? Again, the tools are simple: Confession (which is available after Mass today), the Eucharist, the Rosary, the Scriptures. But the first step is that we have to want it – not just, “Oh, yes, I’d like to be free of my addiction if it’s not too hard.” No, rather we should say, “I will do whatever it takes to have freedom in Christ.” Jesus Christ is stronger than any spiritual slavery. His Cross is the key that unlocks our chains. We might want to even meet with a priest to pray some prayers called Deliverance Prayers, which are powerful prayers that any priest can pray, which ask God to deliver you from any chains of Satan that may hold you bound. A layperson can pray certain deliverance prayers yourself – just Google “Catholic Deliverance Prayers” or “The St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal” to find some excellent ones that you can pray on your own.

            But if you find yourself in spiritual slavery, do not despair – God can even make you a saint. There was a wonderful story of St. Mark Tianxiang – I’ve told it before, but it was several years ago, so please forgive it if you’ve heard it before. He was a devout Catholic doctor in China before the Communist revolution. He had a reputation as a compassionate man, always ready to offer his services for free to the poor. But he began to have a stomach ailment, so he prescribed himself opium…and quickly became an addict.

            He would go to Confession weekly, but kept falling back into the addiction again and again. Eventually his parish priest refused him Absolution because he thought that Mark wasn’t truly sorry. Rather than leave the Church in a huff, he attended Mass for thirty years without receiving Communion, praying all the while that God would make him a saint.

            When the anti-Catholic Boxer Rebellion occurred in China, Mark was arrested with his whole family for their Catholic Faith. While in prison, he had no chance to obtain the drugs – so he began to experience a great freedom! He was finally martyred for his faith, giving the ultimate witness. It’s comforting to know that someone who struggled for thirty years as a drug addict can become a saint!

            My friends, St. Paul tells us that “it is for freedom that Christ set us free.” Our Lord created men and women to be free – so let us do our part to help end the physical slavery in today’s world, and also overcome spiritual slaveries through the power of God’s grace.