Be the 10%

Homily
21st Sunday in Ordinary Time B
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Registration Weekend
26 August 2012
Daily Readings

Taken out of context, it would be hard to find more offensive words to our modern liberal feminist sensibilities than to say that wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.  Couples typically shy away from Ephesians Chapter 5 as a lectionary selection for their wedding, even though it contains the most profound theological explanation of how Christ and His Church ground the great sacrament of marriage between a man and a woman.  They don't choose this reading because that line is so hard to hear.  Taken out of context, wives be subordinate to your husbands in everything sounds like something from Islam, or makes our Church sound stuck in the patriarchal dark ages rather than a player in the modern dynamic between men and women.

Taken in context, however, this hard saying becomes beautiful and true, as do all of the hard sayings of our Lord Jesus.  Taken in the context of what St. Paul says about the role of men, that their mission is to make women holy by cleansing them with the sacrifice of their own bodies, in imitation of Christ, the words find their power.  Taken in the context of being able to look at a crucifix, and to see what it means for Christ the bridegroom to become one flesh, one spirit with his bride the Church, then the words wives be subordinate to your husbands in everything become quite easy to hear, since we all as Christ's bride the Church gladly place ourselves under the beauty and power of our Lord's beautiful mission to bring mercy and reconciliation to the world.

To be Catholic today is to live hard truths, and to be faithful to hard sayings, that cause many to shy away from Christ and from a Church they find irrelevant to their lives.  To be Catholic particularly at a public university is to live at the intersection of good or evil, truth or relativism, and vocation or ambition.  With every challenge to your Catholic faith, there is the reality that 90% of Catholics will walk away from their faith like almost all of Jesus's disciples, because his saying were too hard, whereas only 10% will use the challenge to deepen their understanding of what they believe, and more importantly, will take the challenge as an invitation to deepen their relationship with Jesus Christ.

I pray that this year more than 10% of you will use the resources of the St. Lawence Catholic Center to deepen your understanding of Catholicism and consequently, to take the next steps in the development of your relationship with Jesus.