Homily
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time A
13 November 2011
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings
A good wife is invaluable. Those guys who are called to marriage do well to 'marry above yourself' as they say. A good Catholic man seeking a holy wife has the deck stacked in his favor. There are more women in college than men these days, and women are naturally more receptive in the things that belong to God. Men perhaps have it too easy these days. There was a time, so I hear, when a man would have to pursue a wife with reckless abandon to have any chance at all. Courtship, especially on the part of men, has lost so much of what made it beautiful. It's too casual these days. There is a real need to teach men how to be men, and how to desire a holy wife. At any rate, that is not what the reading from Proverbs is about. It is about the treasure of being a holy woman, a woman who fears the Lord. Her life is incomparably fruitful. The proverb is to be a great encouragement to any women called to marriage, that being holy will pay off with great dividends. A favorite facebook posting of mine shared among women is that a woman is to be so holy that any man has to meet Christ and fall in love with him if he is to have any chance in meeting her.
Today's Gospel flies in the face of the current protests against income inequality. The protests are legitimate. The economic system fails many people, by putting the poor at great risk of losing what they have, and insulating the rich from the risks that they take. The economic system does not place enough economic decisions in the real economy in the hands of real people. It's important that injustices and corruption be addressed. It shouldn't surprise us, however, that the economy, while it is the #1 concern of politicians, is not the top concern of our Lord.
After an initial unequal distribution of talents, Jesus makes it worse by taking the last talent from the lazy servant and giving it to the richest. Talk about redistribution in the wrong direction. From the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Before you capitalists out there rejoice too much that Jesus agrees with a free market survival of the fittest, people are paid what they're worth mentality, need I remind you of all the times Jesus cautions about trusting in wealth, and God's preference for those who are poor. Jesus is making a different point here. Faith buried is faith lost. Divine life that is not given away is divine life that is wasted.
That is the same as saying that a faith that is merely private is not faith at all, that seeking a faith in God that works only personally for me is making God in my image, not being receptive to the greater gifts He wants to bestow upon his bride, the Church. If you ask me whether I would rather be spiritual or religious, I would say I would rather be religious every time. Despite the trappings and sinfulness of institutional and organized religion, of which many are rightfully suspicious, sharing faith with others and living faith with others and believing in God together is the only way that faith can exponentialy grow. If I horde my faith for myself, it is worth nothing.
John Paul II referred to this as the 'law of the gift.' Your faith in God will grow precisely to the extent that you give it away. This also pertains to evangelization and living the grace of our Confirmation, for by that grace we are all filled with the Spirit to the point of overflowing, and yet too often we try to control that Spirit and find the minimum we can do. Lest this law of the gift become too generically understood, the Holy Spirit is the teacher who shows us precisely how we can make Jesus Christ and his redeeming love more present and real in the exact circumstances of our lives. There is a mission given to us that has been entrusted to no one else, a vocation that we ignore to our own peril. To make it more precise, none of us should have as our goal in life just being good enough to get ourselves into heaven. This is pathetic thinking. No, our goal is to be holy enough to bring one other person with us to heaven. The difference between the former and the latter is like night and day. How easily do we settle for mediocrity when we are thinking about only our own salvation? Yet if we were all working for the salvation of another, the world could not contain the fire.
Let us pray for our Catholic students at KU. So poor is the catechesis we have given them, so little have we taught them about the real grace of confirmation, how pervasive is that pressure to keep one's faith private, that easily 90% of them do not have a real chance to invest the talent of their Catholic faith into their vocation as a student at the university. These students deserve our encouragement, support and constant prayers, for they are in real danger of having what little faith we have given them be taken away.
Finally, a word about Joe Paterno. He is a Catholic. His wife is the main patronness of the Catholic student center at Penn State. As you know, he is not an abuser, but is accused of enabling an absuive assistant coach. There have been many parallels drawn, and perhaps you have done so yourself, to the sexual abuse scandal within the Church. In response, let us pray fervently for all victims, that they will have a chance to find healing and live happy lives in which they can trust in God and in their fellow man, and give and receive love which is the right of every human person. Let us thank God as well, that as painful as these situations are, that it is more painful for them to remain in the dark. I can tell you as a pastor that the scourge of sexual abuse unfortunately extends far beyond churches or youth organizations or even universities. It is worst within our poor families, where oftentimes there are people trapped and secrets hidden for generations. Let us pray that even as we learn more about this scourage in the most painful of ways, in seeing children hurt unnecessarily, that millions of Americans will learn that when they have a chance to stop abuse, they will, and that slowly, but surely, this scourge once hidden in darkness will be shattered by the light. Amen.
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time A
13 November 2011
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings
A good wife is invaluable. Those guys who are called to marriage do well to 'marry above yourself' as they say. A good Catholic man seeking a holy wife has the deck stacked in his favor. There are more women in college than men these days, and women are naturally more receptive in the things that belong to God. Men perhaps have it too easy these days. There was a time, so I hear, when a man would have to pursue a wife with reckless abandon to have any chance at all. Courtship, especially on the part of men, has lost so much of what made it beautiful. It's too casual these days. There is a real need to teach men how to be men, and how to desire a holy wife. At any rate, that is not what the reading from Proverbs is about. It is about the treasure of being a holy woman, a woman who fears the Lord. Her life is incomparably fruitful. The proverb is to be a great encouragement to any women called to marriage, that being holy will pay off with great dividends. A favorite facebook posting of mine shared among women is that a woman is to be so holy that any man has to meet Christ and fall in love with him if he is to have any chance in meeting her.
Today's Gospel flies in the face of the current protests against income inequality. The protests are legitimate. The economic system fails many people, by putting the poor at great risk of losing what they have, and insulating the rich from the risks that they take. The economic system does not place enough economic decisions in the real economy in the hands of real people. It's important that injustices and corruption be addressed. It shouldn't surprise us, however, that the economy, while it is the #1 concern of politicians, is not the top concern of our Lord.
After an initial unequal distribution of talents, Jesus makes it worse by taking the last talent from the lazy servant and giving it to the richest. Talk about redistribution in the wrong direction. From the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Before you capitalists out there rejoice too much that Jesus agrees with a free market survival of the fittest, people are paid what they're worth mentality, need I remind you of all the times Jesus cautions about trusting in wealth, and God's preference for those who are poor. Jesus is making a different point here. Faith buried is faith lost. Divine life that is not given away is divine life that is wasted.
That is the same as saying that a faith that is merely private is not faith at all, that seeking a faith in God that works only personally for me is making God in my image, not being receptive to the greater gifts He wants to bestow upon his bride, the Church. If you ask me whether I would rather be spiritual or religious, I would say I would rather be religious every time. Despite the trappings and sinfulness of institutional and organized religion, of which many are rightfully suspicious, sharing faith with others and living faith with others and believing in God together is the only way that faith can exponentialy grow. If I horde my faith for myself, it is worth nothing.
John Paul II referred to this as the 'law of the gift.' Your faith in God will grow precisely to the extent that you give it away. This also pertains to evangelization and living the grace of our Confirmation, for by that grace we are all filled with the Spirit to the point of overflowing, and yet too often we try to control that Spirit and find the minimum we can do. Lest this law of the gift become too generically understood, the Holy Spirit is the teacher who shows us precisely how we can make Jesus Christ and his redeeming love more present and real in the exact circumstances of our lives. There is a mission given to us that has been entrusted to no one else, a vocation that we ignore to our own peril. To make it more precise, none of us should have as our goal in life just being good enough to get ourselves into heaven. This is pathetic thinking. No, our goal is to be holy enough to bring one other person with us to heaven. The difference between the former and the latter is like night and day. How easily do we settle for mediocrity when we are thinking about only our own salvation? Yet if we were all working for the salvation of another, the world could not contain the fire.
Let us pray for our Catholic students at KU. So poor is the catechesis we have given them, so little have we taught them about the real grace of confirmation, how pervasive is that pressure to keep one's faith private, that easily 90% of them do not have a real chance to invest the talent of their Catholic faith into their vocation as a student at the university. These students deserve our encouragement, support and constant prayers, for they are in real danger of having what little faith we have given them be taken away.
Finally, a word about Joe Paterno. He is a Catholic. His wife is the main patronness of the Catholic student center at Penn State. As you know, he is not an abuser, but is accused of enabling an absuive assistant coach. There have been many parallels drawn, and perhaps you have done so yourself, to the sexual abuse scandal within the Church. In response, let us pray fervently for all victims, that they will have a chance to find healing and live happy lives in which they can trust in God and in their fellow man, and give and receive love which is the right of every human person. Let us thank God as well, that as painful as these situations are, that it is more painful for them to remain in the dark. I can tell you as a pastor that the scourge of sexual abuse unfortunately extends far beyond churches or youth organizations or even universities. It is worst within our poor families, where oftentimes there are people trapped and secrets hidden for generations. Let us pray that even as we learn more about this scourage in the most painful of ways, in seeing children hurt unnecessarily, that millions of Americans will learn that when they have a chance to stop abuse, they will, and that slowly, but surely, this scourge once hidden in darkness will be shattered by the light. Amen.
1 comment:
Thank you! I saw all of the comments on facebook, so I figured I should check it out. Have a great week!
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