Homily
4th Sunday of Lent B
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings
Most of us have heard the story of the man who kept refusing help in escaping an impending flood, telling the rescuers that he was putting his trust in God alone to help him. Finally, the flood got the man, and in heaven, he asked why God let him down, and God pointed out that the many rescuers who offered help were God's helpers.
The first reading today from Chronicles notes how stubborn the people of God are. I'm a Volga German, born on St. Patrick's Day, mind you, but not a drop of Irish blood that I know of, and I've been told numerous times how proud we Volga Germans are to be of our stubbornness. We are help yourself kind of people. Hardworking. Independent. Which is ok for many things, and I've benefitted from this upbringing immensely, but this doesn't always make one attentive in the spiritual life to God's rescue operations that he is sending.
The Navy SEALS make a lot of news these days. People are impressed with their training, which can be used for lethal strategic missions, like taking out Usama bin Laden, to be sure, but also for daring, precise rescue missions. It is inspiring that our country will still send a team of people to rescue even a single captured or imperiled American citizen. It is what made the story of Saving Private Ryan so inspiring, that a whole team of men was put in harm's way in order to save the last surviving son of the Ryan family.
The first reading from Chronicles says that God had to go to Plan B because the Israelites were so stubborn. His plan of sending messenger after messenger from within Israel was being met with resistance. So in his anger he allowed the Israelites, who had a law and prophets greater than any other nation, to be taken into captivity by a nation less moral, a nation less connected to God. It was left to a Persian king eventually to tell the Israelites to return home and to reclaim their religion, and to build a temple, for they had failed to listen to their own prophets.
So too the moral teaching of the Church today. What is happening our midst today follows the storyline from 1st Chronicles to a T. There are courageous teachers and prophets in our midst, but they are not winning the culture when everyone is looking at the world through the lens of their own viewpoint, whether politically, economically, or through the entertainment industry. We are stubborn, independent, I did it my way kind of people. God is sending us lots of teachers, messengers and signs, but we are missing most all of them because we prefer to look at the world through our own view, not as God sees the world.
The white elephant in the contraception debate between the president and the bishops is that too many Catholics use artificial birth control, despite the solid teaching and good scientific and moral reasons to consider not using it. The horse is so far out of the barn now that if things don't change, it will be up to history to judge why Catholics were unable to live up to such a beautiful and solid moral teaching, a teaching that favors the sanctity and gift of human life and is pro-marriage and pro-family. Talk about a case of history repeating itself. The Israelites forsook their own beautiful teaching for the opinion polls of their day, ignored their own prophets, and were humbled to learn from someone else, a Persian king, that they should return to their faith. History might say the same thing about our generation, as we see the pillars the build a society - chastity, marriage, and a respect for human life from conception to natural death, being eroded slowly but surely, one by one. The bishops are right to try to draw attention away from the use of contraception to the deeper issues of religious freedom, and the forced payment for sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. I applaud their effort. Yet whenever people pay more attention to polls than to arguments, the popular opinions and practices become the law of the land, and it is hard to tell if the bishops can make their voices heard. There are many things, as we know, working against them.
I want to also today add a perspective to the arguments around sexuality that are raging, and to suggest that behind it all is a deep crisis in masculinity. There wouldn't be as much room for discussing a war on women as the media likes to frame things, if there were more men like St. Joseph, a chaste and just man, obedient to the mission of protecting the holy family. Behind the debate on sexuality is the reality that we are producing fewer and fewer men in our society, and in our Church, who mature so as to desire and become capable of the sacrament of marriage and/or the priesthood. As much as anything, what we are seeing today is a crisis of fatherhood, a deep confusion in what it means to be a spiritual and a natural father. There can be no oppression of women where the definition of being a true man is to imitate Christ, who wishes to make his bride holy and without blemish by giving his life to her. See Ephesians chapter 5 if you need a refresher on what it means to be a Christian man. I encourage you that if you devotion to St. Patrick is greater than your devotion to St. Joseph, you should go to Mass tomorrow on St. Joseph's solemnity, to at least make your devotion to these two men equal. Let's us all pray to St. Joseph to restore our ability to be men, and to know how to be chaste and to do what is right.
Finally, since you've never studied the Theology of the Body written by John Paul II, if you've never watched the Catholicism videos of Fr. Robert Barron, if you've never read Jesus of Nazareth, a reflection of Holy Week, by Pope Benedict XVI, please do so this Lent, so that we can be assured that God is sending us messengers and prophets to help us turn the lights on! Let us let ourselves not be filled with the darkness of the culture, but let's live up to the promise of our baptism, and allow ourselves to be filled and enlightened instead by Christ, who scatters every darkness and reveals each one of us fully to ourselves. Amen.
4th Sunday of Lent B
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings
Most of us have heard the story of the man who kept refusing help in escaping an impending flood, telling the rescuers that he was putting his trust in God alone to help him. Finally, the flood got the man, and in heaven, he asked why God let him down, and God pointed out that the many rescuers who offered help were God's helpers.
The first reading today from Chronicles notes how stubborn the people of God are. I'm a Volga German, born on St. Patrick's Day, mind you, but not a drop of Irish blood that I know of, and I've been told numerous times how proud we Volga Germans are to be of our stubbornness. We are help yourself kind of people. Hardworking. Independent. Which is ok for many things, and I've benefitted from this upbringing immensely, but this doesn't always make one attentive in the spiritual life to God's rescue operations that he is sending.
The Navy SEALS make a lot of news these days. People are impressed with their training, which can be used for lethal strategic missions, like taking out Usama bin Laden, to be sure, but also for daring, precise rescue missions. It is inspiring that our country will still send a team of people to rescue even a single captured or imperiled American citizen. It is what made the story of Saving Private Ryan so inspiring, that a whole team of men was put in harm's way in order to save the last surviving son of the Ryan family.
The first reading from Chronicles says that God had to go to Plan B because the Israelites were so stubborn. His plan of sending messenger after messenger from within Israel was being met with resistance. So in his anger he allowed the Israelites, who had a law and prophets greater than any other nation, to be taken into captivity by a nation less moral, a nation less connected to God. It was left to a Persian king eventually to tell the Israelites to return home and to reclaim their religion, and to build a temple, for they had failed to listen to their own prophets.
So too the moral teaching of the Church today. What is happening our midst today follows the storyline from 1st Chronicles to a T. There are courageous teachers and prophets in our midst, but they are not winning the culture when everyone is looking at the world through the lens of their own viewpoint, whether politically, economically, or through the entertainment industry. We are stubborn, independent, I did it my way kind of people. God is sending us lots of teachers, messengers and signs, but we are missing most all of them because we prefer to look at the world through our own view, not as God sees the world.
The white elephant in the contraception debate between the president and the bishops is that too many Catholics use artificial birth control, despite the solid teaching and good scientific and moral reasons to consider not using it. The horse is so far out of the barn now that if things don't change, it will be up to history to judge why Catholics were unable to live up to such a beautiful and solid moral teaching, a teaching that favors the sanctity and gift of human life and is pro-marriage and pro-family. Talk about a case of history repeating itself. The Israelites forsook their own beautiful teaching for the opinion polls of their day, ignored their own prophets, and were humbled to learn from someone else, a Persian king, that they should return to their faith. History might say the same thing about our generation, as we see the pillars the build a society - chastity, marriage, and a respect for human life from conception to natural death, being eroded slowly but surely, one by one. The bishops are right to try to draw attention away from the use of contraception to the deeper issues of religious freedom, and the forced payment for sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. I applaud their effort. Yet whenever people pay more attention to polls than to arguments, the popular opinions and practices become the law of the land, and it is hard to tell if the bishops can make their voices heard. There are many things, as we know, working against them.
I want to also today add a perspective to the arguments around sexuality that are raging, and to suggest that behind it all is a deep crisis in masculinity. There wouldn't be as much room for discussing a war on women as the media likes to frame things, if there were more men like St. Joseph, a chaste and just man, obedient to the mission of protecting the holy family. Behind the debate on sexuality is the reality that we are producing fewer and fewer men in our society, and in our Church, who mature so as to desire and become capable of the sacrament of marriage and/or the priesthood. As much as anything, what we are seeing today is a crisis of fatherhood, a deep confusion in what it means to be a spiritual and a natural father. There can be no oppression of women where the definition of being a true man is to imitate Christ, who wishes to make his bride holy and without blemish by giving his life to her. See Ephesians chapter 5 if you need a refresher on what it means to be a Christian man. I encourage you that if you devotion to St. Patrick is greater than your devotion to St. Joseph, you should go to Mass tomorrow on St. Joseph's solemnity, to at least make your devotion to these two men equal. Let's us all pray to St. Joseph to restore our ability to be men, and to know how to be chaste and to do what is right.
Finally, since you've never studied the Theology of the Body written by John Paul II, if you've never watched the Catholicism videos of Fr. Robert Barron, if you've never read Jesus of Nazareth, a reflection of Holy Week, by Pope Benedict XVI, please do so this Lent, so that we can be assured that God is sending us messengers and prophets to help us turn the lights on! Let us let ourselves not be filled with the darkness of the culture, but let's live up to the promise of our baptism, and allow ourselves to be filled and enlightened instead by Christ, who scatters every darkness and reveals each one of us fully to ourselves. Amen.
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