God bigger than the world!

Homily for Tuesday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time
Benedictine College - St. Martin's Chapel
13 October 2009
Year for Priests

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St. Paul suggests in his letter to the Romans that it is idolatry that is the principal sin that has delivered many into every impiety and wickedness. It is suppression of the truth that God is not a part of the world and the world is not necessary, that causes men to think they are gods, or to treat idols as gods, the result being the loss of a sense of transcendent goodness, and an erosion of conscience and morals. St. Paul points us toward two mistakes that we can easily make, but that there is no excuse for us making. First of all, God's power and divinity can be perceived through creation, but creation is not God. God, if he is God and not an idol, must be bigger than the world, and not a part of the world. Consequently, we cannot make the second mistake made by so many today, to regard the world as necessary and God as optional or contingent. For the atheist materialist, what is real is what can be measured, whereas what cannot be measured is fictional. Yet it does not follow that the world must be, that there must be something instead of nothing. We cannot make the mistake, says St. Paul, of turning God into an idol by assuming that the world, just because it is, is more necessary than God.

Jesus at the end of tonight's Gospel from Luke reminds us of a powerful means of cleansing ourselves from the inside. Of the three penitential practices recommended always by our Church in the battle against sin, almsgiving is suggested by Jesus to the exclusion of prayer and fasting, at least in this Gospel. I've heard of people having great success in their fight against certain sins by giving alms to a worthy cause every time that they recommit a certain sin. Fining ourselves, as it were, is oftentimes a strong remedy, both against our attachment to money, and our attachment to particular sins. If we know that we must give alms, maybe more than we think we can afford, if we commit a certain sin, and truly hold ourselves accountable, we can have a very effective and creative strategic weapon in our battle against presumption, complacency, and sin.

To Christ through Mary.