What word has authority over you?

Homily

4th Sunday of Ordinary Time B2

28 January 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

What word has authority over you?  Unfortunately, it's not always the word Jesus wishes to speak to you.  Too often the lie that evil speaks to us has an authority over us it was never meant to have.  You know the voice of the enemy well.  It is the voice of the accuser and the divider.  It is the word of shame, that you're not good enough.  I have four demons, four words, that constantly threaten authority over me - selfish, coward, loser, quitter.

I need the authority of Jesus to speak a word that will cast out these demons.  I need to hear I'm worth dying for, that I'm enough, that I'm beloved and forgiven.  I can never hear these words enough, and I pray that one day I can trust them completely, and always.

Paul's word of authority in today's second reading is celibacy!  Nice word choice, St. Paul!  Our reading gives voice to the Church's 2000 year history of being obedient to the path of marriage and celibacy written in our nature, the way to authentic love and self-gift our Lord has marked out for us.

The Catholic moral teaching on sexuality is astoundingly simple.  Sex finds its fulfilment when shared between a man and woman promised to each other in marriage and open to a family.  Those who are unmarried are asked to witness to the sacred dignity of sex by loving and serving each other in non-sexual ways in the celibate vocation.  Celibates love and give life and bear fruit through witness, service and prayer.  The Church's teaching on sexuality is really as simple as that. It's never changed, for its written into our nature and confirmed by the teaching of our Lord Jesus.

Pope Francis is trying to speak an authoritative word of compassion in relation to the Church's clear moral teaching on sexuality.  A lot of people have asked me why Pope Francis is changing the Church's teaching.  He is not. He never has, nor do I think he will or can.  Yet his word of authority received from Jesus and spoken into the modern human experience is one of compassion.  Pope Francis reaches out.  He stays in touch.  He admits that many do not see an authentic path of love for themselves in marriage or celibacy.  Many others do not experience their human nature as an intrinsic and simultaneous unity of body and soul.  Still others feel rejected by the Church.  

Whenever someone feels rejected, Pope Francis considers it our problem, not theirs.  For everyone has dignity as a child of God.  Everyone belongs to the Church if we dare to believe our Lord has begged us to be the shepherd and mother of all of humanity. Therefore, everyone is to be blessed who asks for the Lord's help to live and love well.  Blessings are for sinners who are trying.  That's me, and that's you, and that's everyone.

The Pope can speak this authoritative word of compassion from Jesus without confusing or changing the Church's life-giving and compelling teaching on sex.  He can bless individuals without endorsing unchaste relationships or behavior.  He can do so without changing the intrinsic meaning of our sexuality, and without bending to gender ideologies that confuse human nature.  He can do so while rejecting intervention that harm the unity of body and soul, and destroy lives.

If only the Church stays the course, and shares her true teaching in both compelling and compassionate ways, most people will arrive at a mature sexual integration that frees them to live the marital or celibate vocation with conviction, joy and fruitfulness.  But if we betray our teaching, or discard our neighbor, things will only get worse.  The Pope has faith that together, we can fulfill our capacity to love authentically in accord with our nature, and so lay hold of the fullness of life and love we were made for.

I pray that I can live this spiritual and sexual maturity with conviction and compassion. I pray the same for you, that this word of authority spoken to us by our Lord will case out the evils that threaten to divide us.

+mj