October homilies

Sin is still sin

23rd Sunday of the Year-September 7

"B" Readings: Isa. 35:4-7 James 2:1-5 Mark 7:31-37

Purpose: to explain (1) the two kinds of actual sin, and (2) the three conditions necessary for a mortal sin.

n After being treated to a five-week interlude of Saint John's Gospel (John 6:1-15; 24-35; 41-51; 51-58; 60-69) at Sunday Mass, we returned last week to Saint Mark's Gospel (Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23). In last week's gospel, the sacred author has Jesus castigating the Pharisees and experts in the law over their misunderstanding of the origin of sin. Contrary to what the Pharisees and experts hold, Jesus reminds us that sin originates not outside man but in his heart (Mark 7:21).

The gospel for the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time returns us to one of the chief themes of Saint Mark, that is, the miracles of Jesus. According to today's gospel, Jesus has just arrived in a place called the district of the Ten Cities (Mark 7:31). Soon after he arrives, the inhabitants of the region bring Our Lord "a deaf man who had a speech impediment and beg him to lay his hand on him" (Mark 7:32). With great mercy, Jesus restores the hearing and speech of this man with the command, "Ephphatha!" or "Be opened" (Mark 7:34)! After the healing, Jesus asks that his miracle not be reported to anyone. But the people cannot contain their enthusiasm and go about telling everyone about Christ's healing power. "He has done everything well! He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak (Mark 7:37).

In the Rite of Baptism for Children, the officiant at the sacrament gently touches the ears and mouths of the children and says: "The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father." This small and sometimes unnoticed gesture and prayer follow the climax of the ritual action: the pouring of water over the foreheads of the children. As the children are initiated into the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ and made members of the Church, so too is Original Sin remitted (CCC, 1263). Incorporated into the Body of Christ now, the newly baptized children are set on a course to share fully in the eternal life of heaven.

As potent and as strong as the new life of Baptism is, we are still weak and sinful men and women. Rather than leading lives in harmony with Baptism, we choose deliberately to set ourselves apart from the life of grace. Christians have traditionally called this separation sin.

In Catholic life today, few things are as muddled as the meaning of sin and its gravity. When we dare to analyze what has happened to our understanding of sin, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that sin has not changed on us but our perception of it has changed a great deal. As the liturgy changed and a great many other things changed in the Church, some thought that the nature of sin had changed too, that we need not see sin as a genuine threat to a holy life anymore. Perhaps some of this naivete has finally worn off though as we see the devastating effects in personal lives and in social life of failing to take proper account of sin.

Following the Synod of 1983 in Rome, the Holy Father took due note of the month-long proceedings of the world's bishops and produced the following year (1984) one of the many splendid magisterial documents of his pontificate. Entitled Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, the apostolic exhortation treats the meaning of sin and its gravity. Calling sin a disobedience to God and the moral norm given to man (14), Pope John Paul II remarks that the human mind has not ceased to ponder the question of sin's gravity (17). Observing that the question cannot be overlooked and the Christian conscience must give an answer to it (17), the pontiff recalls that doctors, theologians, spiritual teachers and pastors have divided sins into mortal and venial (17). He restates the teaching of the Council of Trent that some sins are intrinsically grave and mortal by reason of their matter. That is, independent of circumstances, certain things we do are seriously wrong by reason of their object. These acts, if carried out with sufficient freedom and deliberate consent, are always gravely sinful (17). This kind of sin, the Holy Father tells us, is different from sin of a venial nature. In venial sin, we don't abandon the way of God and we are not deprived of sanctifying grace (17). But while obviously not as damaging to our relationship with God as mortal sin is, the Successor of Peter cautions against ignoring or regarding venial sin as of little importance (17).

On the two kinds of actual sin and the conditions necessary for mortal sin, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia does not introduce anything new. What it does achieve however is clarity, much needed when the air is heavy with doubt and confusion as our own era tends to be. The dogmatic clarity is indeed helpful, and it is not unrelated to another kind of clarity: evangelical.

As we approach the new millennium, we consider ourselves as possessing a message as dogmatically sure as it is existentially fresh and exciting. The sureness of knowing the disorder of our souls and of taking responsibility for it in all of its degrees of severity is a first step in the direction of a peace which the world cannot give itself (John 14:27). This peace can only come from Christ. With his peace, we may then hear and speak a new language of love.

Those who witnessed Jesus' miracle in today's gospel can hardly restrain their joy in proclaiming the good news to others. The joy of reconciliation with God and our brothers and sisters distinguishes those who believe from those who languish in the sullenness of unbelief. The proclamation of the gospel of joy is a living sign of God's vindication (Isa. 35:4) and pardon. We are privileged to share in this great mystery of Christ through the Sacrament of Penance. The absolution of sacramental reconciliation opens up our ears and our mouths. The spiritually deaf now hear and the spiritually mute now speak. What we hear and speak of course is the forgiveness of Christ. Through us, then, may the forgiveness of Christ echo and resound to the farthest ends of the earth.

As we attempt to plumb the depths of our redemption in Christ, we take to heart what the Holy Father writes in Reconciliatio et Paenitentia. Wisely, he contends that a restoration of a proper sense of sin is the first way of facing the grave spiritual crisis looming over man today. This is accomplished, he maintains, through a clear reminder of the unchangeable principles of reason and faith which the moral teaching of the Church has always upheld (18). In this first year of proximate preparation for the Jubilee Year of 2000 when we focus on Jesus and the virtue of faith, our knowledge of sin and its degrees of severity allows us to proclaim with the Psalmist: I acknowledge my offense . . . a clean heart create for me, O God (Ps. 51:5,12).

Suggested readings: Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1849-1876.

The tree of life

Triumph of the Holy Cross-September 14

"B"Readings: Num. 21:4-9 Phil. 2:6-11 John 3:13-17

Title: The Triumph of the Holy Cross

More than ten years ago, a woman in her mid-twenties gave birth to a boy weighing only one pound and three ounces. Long before the baby was born though, his mother had entered the hospital when she had slipped into a coma. While in a coma, the expectant mother was declared brain dead. But rather than pull the plug and end two lives, the expectant mother was nursed along so that her son could get a chance at life.

The mother's coma was hardly a freak accident. She was a chronic drug user who exposed her developing child to the worst kind of risk. While abusing her own body with illegal narcotics, she callously placed another human life in jeopardy too. Infants who are born with drug addictions suffer as the result of the malevolence of their own mothers. They are innocent and, like aborted children, infants born with addictions have no say in what will happen to them. To begin life in such an afflicted way is horrific and tragic.

The birth of an infant, coming as it does at the same time his mother dies, forces us to ponder the paradoxical nature of life. It also forces us to examine the paradoxical nature of the Christian faith. And is there not anything more paradoxical about the faith we profess than a Cross which kills and brings life at the same time?

Today's feast traces its origin all the way back to the year 335 when a church, built by the Emperor Constantine on the site of Calvary, was dedicated. It is said that the Basilica of the Resurrection, as it is now known, contains relics of the true cross. How fitting too that a church which honors Calvary be raised up in dignity to the rank of a basilica! As the Son of Man was lifted up (John 3:14) on the Cross, triumph would not reach its apex until the Resurrection occurred.

Saint Andrew of Crete (c. 660-740), an eloquent preacher and poet, wrote that the cross is honorable because it is both the sign of God's suffering and the trophy of his victory. In the Incarnation, God draws close to us as the eternal Word takes on human flesh. This identification, this solidarity as Pope John Paul II would say, is deepest however when the Son of God suffers in his passion and death. Suffering, in a sense, seals the identification against any lingering doubt that Jesus might not be really like us. He is indeed like us in all things but one: sin. And while Jesus did not experience along with us sin, in his suffering he bore the sins of the world. As Saint Paul says, he who knew no sin was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). And by the suffering of the Righteous One, victory came to all (Rom. 5:18).

The suffering of Jesus on the Cross re-constitutes the meaning of human suffering. It lifts up our suffering from the likes of masochism and nihilism and offers us the good news of suffering. Indeed, this is precisely the way Pope John Paul II puts it in his apostolic letter entitled Salvifici Doloris (1984).

The Holy Father notes that we pose the question "why" as we suffer (26). When we do so, we should be sure to address the question to Christ. By spiritually uniting ourselves to the Cross of Christ, the pontiff teaches, the salvific meaning of suffering is revealed to us. The discovery is made not at our own human level but at the level of the suffering Christ. From this level of Christ, the salvific meaning of suffering descends to man's level.

Today's first reading has the Israelites out in the desert where they complain against God and Moses (Num. 21:5). As a punishment, the Lord sent seraph serpents among his people (Num. 21:6). When many of them died at the bite of the seraph serpents, the Israelites repented of their sin and pleaded for a removal of their affliction (Num. 21:7). Moses then interceded for the Israelites and was in turn commanded by the Lord to make a seraph and mount it on a pole (Num. 21:8). After those bitten looked at the pole, they would then recover (Num. 21:8). Healing comes to us too when we look and behold the Tree of Life.

Increasingly, there are signs in our midst that we refuse to look and behold the Tree of Life. Much of what inspires the right to die movement and the campaign to assist in suicide today is based on a rejection and outright dismissal of suffering. But as we reject and dismiss suffering, we are rejecting and dismissing the Gospel at the same time. As the Holy Father puts it in Salvifici Doloris, the Gospel of suffering is being written unceasingly, and it speaks unceasingly with the words of this strange paradox: the springs of divine power gush forth precisely in the midst of human weakness. Those who share in the sufferings of Christ preserve in their own sufferings a very special particle of the infinite treasure of the world's Redemption, and can share this treasure with others (27).

To endure suffering out of love as Jesus did is a triumph not just for Christ but for all those who confess his name. Through the Spirit, we are made fit to continue the work of the suffering Son and thereby contribute to the sanctification of the Body.

In our suffering, the Spirit is of key importance for he is the Comforter. And in comforting us, the Spirit opens us up and transforms us inwardly and produces a spiritual maturity. And if one can believe it, the Spirit brings out of our suffering a spiritual greatness. Very astutely, the Holy Father points out in Salvifici Doloris that Christ has made suffering the firmest basis of the definitive good, namely the good of eternal salvation. . . . To the suffering brother or sister, Christ discloses and gradually reveals . . . a world being built on the saving power of love. Into saving love, Christ leads suffering man. By saving love, suffering man is changed from within by grace (26). The true power of this sanctification can never really be calculated according to a human scale, we believe that the Mystical Body is being built up mysteriously through our suffering.

A mother lost her life and a son gained his more than ten years ago. It is a reversal of Calvary where a mother kept her life and a Son lost his . . . or so it seemed. Not rejecting or dismissing suffering, the Son would later be vindicated in the glorious lifting up which comes in the Resurrection. Not rejecting or dismissing suffering either, the Blessed Mother and the Apostle John are lifted up in faith. Until it comes time for our bodies to be remade according to the Lord's glorified body (Phil. 3:21) and suffering is no more, may we endure patiently on the model of Our Lady of Sorrows and the Beloved Apostle.

Suggested readings: Catechism of the Catholic Church, 599-623.

True greatness

25th Sunday of the Year-September 21

"B" Readings: Wis. 2:17-20 James 3:16-4:3 Mark 9:3-37

Title: The Laity in the Church

Purpose: (1) to show the Church as basically made up of laity, baptized in Christ; (2) to emphasize the importance, the dignity-the priesthood-of the laity in the Church.

Since the first time men organized themselves into communities, there have always been ways to indicate how some men are more important than others. Perhaps the easiest one to identify is material wealth. Those who possess the most money, live in the biggest houses and drive the most expensive automobiles are considered by many to be the most important members of society. Another mark of importance is title or office. The general, the chief executive officer, the dean are all thought by man to have the most indispensable roles in the social pecking order. A third factor in determining importance is intelligence. The one with the highest IQ, the highest SAT score is greater than everyone else in the social hierarchy.

These three characteristics-wealth, title or office and intelligence-are reliable indices of social importance. Just think if we were to use their opposites: poverty, egalitarianism and stupidity as benchmarks for social greatness, where would we be then? Indeed, an unusual preference for poverty, egalitarianism and stupidity would preclude meritocracy and crush personal aspiration. But what if you wanted to preserve meritocracy and personal aspiration, would you still have to retain wealth, title or office and intelligence as defining greatness? What if you could come up with a different yardstick for greatness?

After telling the disciples that the Son of Man was going to be delivered over to death (Mark 9:31), Jesus inquires of them what was discussed on the way home (Mark 9:33). As Saint Mark tells us, the disciples became silent because "they had been arguing about who was the most important (Mark 9:34). Our Lord uses the occasion then to instruct the disciples about the true meaning of greatness. The most important one is he who remains last and the servant of all (Mark 9:35).

Later on in Saint Mark's Gospel, the evangelist records how James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approach Jesus and ask for seats at the right and left of the glorified Lord (Mark 10:35-45). Here, too, Our Lord has just finished counselling the disciples that he would be going to Jerusalem where he would be delivered over to death (Mark 10:33-34). In the correction of James and John, Jesus advises "anyone among you who aspires to greatness must serve the rest (Mark 10:43).

The circumstances of these two incidents related by the sacred author vary but the meaning is the same. The Lord's disciples are distinguished for their service. It is interesting to note the New American Bible translation for Mark 10:43 when we compare it with today's gospel. Today's gospel uses the expression "wish[ing] to rank first." This wishing to rank first is very close to "aspir[ing] to greatness."

Whoever said that every aspiration is deserving of censure? What about the aspiration to holiness? Should we suppress it too?

Holiness is a grace afforded those who desire it and wishing holiness for yourself is not the same as spiritual pride. As Lumen Gentium acknowledges the different ranks within Christ's faithful (40), so too does it say that all of us are called to holiness (40). This holiness is found in "devoting [ourselves] with all [our] being to the glory of God and the service of [our] neighbor (40). To be holy we must, first, desire it and, second, we must see its intrinsic connection to a life of service.

The teaching of Vatican II on holiness and service is carried forward and made more forceful in the magisterium of Pope John Paul II. In Christifideles Laici (1988), the apostolic exhortation following the 1987 Synod on the Laity, the Holy Father writes that holiness is the greatest testimony of the dignity conferred on a disciple of Christ (16). The Holy Father goes on to say that the call to holiness is answered by the lay faithful through their involvement in temporal affairs and their participation in earthly activities (17). This point cannot be emphasized enough today. Somehow, a notion has developed in certain places that lay people are not fulfilling their baptismal dignity until they are exercising liturgical ministries. It is an odd thought and leads inexorably to a clericalization of the laity, a tendency noted in Christifideles Laici (23). On the verge of a new millennium, we need to be reminded that holiness and Christian dignity are different yet complementary in the Body of Christ (55). The significance of the earthly and temporal realities in the salvific plan of God is lost when and wherever the lay apostolate is reduced to a service in and around the sanctuary, as it sometimes appears to be. The greatness of the lay person's service is the witness he or she can give and the priest cannot in family life, in professional life, and in public life. Greatness is not found in the homogeneity of ecclesial service but in its heterogeneity.

We don't want to be Pelagian about our service and think that it is only by the sweat of our brows that the Kingdom of God is being built. Yes, building the Kingdom of God is demanding for us but it is the work of grace too. It is the achievement of Christ the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints. No effort on our part can rival what God has seen fit to do in salvation history. And yet, what we do is important insofar as it is rooted in Christ.

As we participate in the merit and work of Christ, the grace we accept is transformed into human, free actions which acquire merit through Christ. This is all the work of God's grace. However, through our union with Christ, we are rewarded graciously by God for what we do in Christ. Through sanctifying grace, we are made partners with Christ in our salvation and this brings about an increase in faith, hope and love.

Our greatness is not predicated so much on wealth, title and intelligence as much as it is on the riches and wisdom of the Lord. His richness is not passing or fading; it lasts unto eternity and he generously shares it with us. His wisdom is never obsolete or out of date; it is wonderfully preserved for us in the Magisterium of the Church.

The Preface for the Solemnity of Christ the King is a marvelous expression of Kingdom theology. Before the priest prays the canon of the Mass, he declares in the Preface that Christ reigns over a kingdom of truth and life, holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace. As this kind of Kingdom is being advanced in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, laypersons are bid to go forth and shape this Kingdom in the marketplace. This invitation is extended to all the lay members of Christ's faithful without exception. Greatness rises and falls with an acceptance or rejection of this invitation. No amount of wealth, no lofty title and no sharpness of mind can secure the invitation. This noble calling and destiny is every layperson's through faith and Baptism. Faith and Baptism, a yardstick for greatness in the new millenium!

Suggested readings: Catechism of the Catholic Church, 781-786, 897-913.

Test of virtue

26th Sunday of the Year-September 28

"B" Readings: Num. 11:25-29 James 5:1-6 Mark 9:38-43. 45. 47-48

Title: Occasions of Sin and Temptation

Purpose: (1) to define an occasion of sin and a temptation; (2) to give helpful spiritual guidance concerning each.

Way back on February 16th, we celebrated the First Sunday of Lent. Every First Sunday of Lent, the gospel has Jesus out in the desert where he is tempted by Satan. The three accounts (Mark, Matt. and Luke) of Jesus tempted by Satan out in the desert have their differences in length and detail. But they are also the same in a number of respects. One similarity for the three evangelists is who propels Jesus out into the desert. All three evangelists report that the Holy Spirit led or sent the Son of God to the desert.

The Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, puts Jesus in a position of compromise. But why would Love and Goodness ever put Jesus in a place where evil and sin can seduce? The temptations of Jesus to change stomes into bread, to throw himself off the temple and to pay homage to the devil force Jesus to make choices. By rejecting each of the temptations, Jesus chooses in favor of the Father's will. Temptation operates the same way in our lives. It gives us situations when we can choose in favor of God. In other words, fidelity isn't fidelity until it has been tested.

There is an awfully big difference though in who is being tested. Even when tempted, Jesus was never anything but the eternal Word who took on flesh, completely impeccable. We, on the other hand, have not dwelled with God from all eternity. We are weak men and women who succumb to temptation all the time. While we are different in nature from the Son of God, whoever said that we cannot reject temptation as he did? Even with darkened intellects and weakened wills, we can still cast aside what is surely harmful to us.

In today's gospel, Jesus counsels the disciples that "if your hand is your difficulty, cut it off" (Mark 9:43). Jesus continues in this vein when he says "if your foot is your undoing, cut if off" (Mark 9:45). Lastly, Jesus advises "if your eye is your downfall, tear it out" (Mark 9:47). In each instance, Jesus warns that the alternative is much worse. The disciple risks Gehenna, the abode of the damned and a place of torment if he is not willing to separate himself from the cause of his sin.

Today's gospel recalls for us the Church's wisdom concerning how to overcome sin and its stranglehold on us. This wisdom is not a long, complex treatise on how to avoid evil. It really offers rather brief, concrete advice on the beginnings of living a sound moral life. It consists of knowing yourself well enough to avoid proximate occasions of sin as a first step in the journey to moral and spiritual greatness. Let's take the first step by remembering what Jesus said when he taught his disciples to pray.

When asked to teach his disciples how to pray, Jesus responded by giving to them the prayer we call the Our Father. At the end of this wonderful prayer, we utter the words "and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil." Christians having prayed the Our Father for nearly two millennia are privileged now to have the petitions of the Lord's Prayer analyzed in all their beauty and richness in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

As the Spirit sent Jesus to the desert, the same Spirit makes us discern between trials (2847). Calling temptations necessary for our inner growth (2847), the Catechism instructs us to distinguish between being tempted and consenting to temptation (2847). This discernment is critical because we can be deceived by appearances. Some objects appear to be good but in reality they are poisonous.

Some of the biggest trouble we can have spiritually and morally is traceable to our lack of ability in distinguishing properly between a genuine good and an apparent good. The lure and attractiveness of the latter is just too much for us to resist, and we judge the superficial goodness of one object to be superior to the authentic goodness of another object. To help us choose wisely, then, we need the assistance of the Spirit.

The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit which are bestowed upon us at Confirmation are always with us. The Catechism calls wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord permanent dispositions which make us docile in following the promptings of the Holy Spirit (1830). These favors from the Lord we then apply to the concrete circumstances of our lives. Together with reason and faith, these charisms allow us to judge accurately what is tempting for us so that we might avoid altogether some proximate occasions of sin and rise above others.

Avoiding some proximate occasions of sin and rising above others require great interior resolve. And this is the work of a very quiet and consistent formation of the heart. Just as we might train our bodies to be in good physical condition and commit ourselves to a lifetime of physical fitness, we can train our hearts to order properly our passions. This ordering of passions is crucial because an upright will orders the movements of the senses to good but an evil will succumbs to disordered passions (1768).

The advice that Jesus offers in today's gospel-cut it off (hand), cut it off (foot) and tear it out (eye)-is firm and unyielding. While obviously eschewing the most literal translation of this advice, we must still have a firm and unyielding attitude when it comes to temptation. In some cases, this will mean a severing of ties to individuals whose company and association place virtue at risk. In other cases, it will mean a withdrawal from places where right judgments of conscience are put in peril. In still other cases, it will mean breaking with conditions and circumstances which pose a threat to good habits.

Today's gospel should not cause us to reassess the fundamental Christian attitude toward the body. The human body is clearly good and wholesome. If it were not, the eternal Word would never have assumed a human body to save us. Therefore, it is not really a hatred or disregard of the body but a training of the body which is needed in the face of some temptations. Just as Jesus spoke of a pruning of the branches so that they might bear more fruit (John 15:2), it is necessary that we apply some self-denial or self-mortification to discipline the senses. This is an effective way to resist some temptations and the lives of many saints testify to its efficacy.

To avoid the extremes of naivete and cynicism, it is best that we adopt a realistic view when it comes to temptation. We should neither underestimate it nor should we consider ourselves effete against it. We are not angels and therefore we can be seduced by evil and sin. But just as the angels were with Jesus in the desert (Mark 1:12) ministering to him, so might we have deliverance from evil and sin by a reliance on the Bread of Angels in the Holy Eucharist.

Suggested readings: Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2846-2854.