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.