Is my faith dangerous?

Homily

10th Sunday of Ordinary Time B2

9 June 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Is my faith dangerous?

On a recent mission trip to Mexico City with Jayhawks, I asked them that if my wearing clerics increased the likelihood of my being targeted for violence, of my being abducted and held hostage or even killed, would they want me to wear clerics?  Without hesitation they all said - YES!  Boy did I feel loved!  Thanks Jayhawks!

Yet the truth is that I did feel loved, very much so.  So I did wear my clerics, even as the aforementioned danger surely resulted.  It was a danger these young people were also desiring to experience.  These young people had a sense that if you're not living dangerously, you're not living, you're merely surviving.  They had a sense that if there is an evil to be overcome, then a person of faith ought to go about overcoming it.  They had a sense that if someone is trying to kill you, the best path is the one taught by Jesus, not to run away and hide, or play it safe, but to swallow up that evil and transform it with a sacrificial and merciful love.  They had a sense that only if there is the witness of martyrdom, will faith in a love that is stronger than death increase.  I didn't sense they wanted me to uselessly or recklessly throw my life away, they just wanted to know if it's really true that whoever saves his life loses it, but whoever loses it for the sake of the Gospel finds it for eternal life.  They knew, maybe because they're young and haven't yet learned to take themselves more seriously than evil, that as important as it is to be safe, in the condition we all find ourselves, death will come for us all, so it's better to choose what you're gonna die for before death chooses you.  It's best to live one's faith dangerously.

The first chapters of Genesis relay the truth that there is an evil in the world that wants to lie to you and kill you.  If this is really true, it's best not to pretend that it isn't.  We take this fallen reality quite seriously in baptism, don't we, choosing to die with and for Christ in baptism long before the enemy has a chance to kill us?  To die with and for Christ - this is the way by which the seed of the new Eve the virgin Mary, and all His little followers, strike at the head of the liar, the divider, and the accuser, while we are being struck by him through sin at our heel.

To pretend that this is not our reality, is to commit the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit burns, like God who immediately searches for Adam and Eve after losing them, in order to convict the world regarding sin and righteousness.  The Holy Spirit encourages, while the liar comforts by saying there is no truth and no consequences.  To sin against the Holy Spirit is to ignore what has been revealed, that there is an original harmony to life, that has been damaged so that all must die.  The Holy Spirit convicts us that there is an evil that wants lies to you and wants you dead, and this evil must be opposed, not affirmed.

Yet the Holy Spirit also convicts us about the remedy revealed by Jesus - to call out the divisive, accusatory and empty lies of the evil one, and to oppose them together, and to participate instead in a love stronger than death.  The Holy Spirit convicts us that God wishes to forgive and reconcile, to seek and save what lost, and that whoever gives up his temporary tent in love through the paschal mystery, participates in the creation of a new temple greater than Eden, a new heaven and new earth that death can never again destroy.

The evils to be defeated are obvious, if only we don't try to escape or hide from them, or affirm the lies about them.  Secularism - that creation is a given not a gift, and does not need God - is a creation destined to fade into nothingness.  Racism - a failure to see the inherent dignity of God in all people, including the most unwanted and most unlike us and even in our enemies - is a world that must necessarily kill each other.  Materialism - that the resources available to us, including the gift and dignity of our own bodies, are merely things to be manipulated, mutilated, and discarded, rather than gifts to be received, cherished, respected and given away - is a world at war with its own environment and of human nature.  None of these evils can be affirmed, and they must all be opposed vigorously, even if it means danger to those that oppose them, lest we sin against the Holy Spirit, who convicts us regarding truth and consequences.  If we sin against the Holy Spirit we embrace a future that will only end in futility, meaninglessness, destruction and death.

Jesus says that his family are those that will take reality seriously with Him and through His Holy Spirit, and who will do something about evil.  To be with Him is to admit there is danger, and to live dangerously.

+mj