26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wow, Jesus!  Don't hold back.  Why don't you tell us what's really on your mind?

Most Sundays the Gospel starts out "Jesus said to the disciples...."  Then we hear a nice little story about lost sheep, or prodigal sons, or mustard seeds, or something equally pleasant that makes a point and tells us how to live better lives.  Today, not so much.  He hits us right between the eyes.  And not just once, but a couple of times.

You may remember that at the end of last week's Gospel He was holding a little child.  He told the disciples, "Whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me", a very positive statement.  Today's Gospel picks up where we left off last week.  He's still holding the child and  He gives them (and us) the flip side.  "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea." 

We all know that Jesus was a master at creating word pictures and this is a picture that I think we can all relate to.  Imagine being thrown into the ocean with a great weight tied around your neck.  You would struggle to get free, knowing that in a matter of seconds you're going to drown.  But you can't escape and every effort you make to free yourself just wastes precious oxygen.  Your heart is racing which uses up even more oxygen.  As your lungs empty they start to burn.  At some point you must realize that there's nothing you can do to save yourself and the life drains out of your body.  What a nightmare!

But even that horrible death is better than what's going to happen to you if you cause one of Jesus' children to sin.

But He's not done with us yet.  He goes on to deal with our own sin.  "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.  It's better for you to enter into life maimed, than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire."  It's another graphic word picture.  Did He really mean it?  Was he really suggesting self-mutilation?  Probably not, but He's making a pretty strong argument for not using our hands to sin.  He says the same about cutting off a foot or plucking out an eye. 

Losing a hand or a foot or an eye would be a terrible thing but still better than going to the bad place because of our sinfulness.  "Gehenna, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched."  Another really graphic image.  But, it's an uphill fight.   We're not born knowing right from wrong.  We have to learn that from our parents, our teachers, and other adults in our lives.  When we baptize a child the priest or deacon tells the parents, "You have asked to have your child baptized.  In doing so you are accepting the responsibility of training him or her in the practice of the faith.  It will be your duty to bring him or her up to keep God's commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and neighbor.  Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?"

Maybe we should add that if you cause this little one to sin, it would be better for you if a great millstone were put around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.  That is what Jesus said, isn't it?   But even if our parents do their part, sooner or later we're going to have to deal with a world that, frankly, doesn't care where we spend eternity.  In fact, sometimes I wonder if some people have gotten this Gospel backwards.  Maybe they think He said you should cause sin.  An awful lot of people act that way.

 But would someone deliberately cause a child to sin?  Sadly, the answer is yes.  Parents, we may think we're doing all we can.  We try to teach them right from wrong.  But what about our actions?  Do we bring them to mass every Sunday?  Do we set a good example by the way we act?  Do we tell them not to take the Lord's name in vain, then curse the driver in the next car while our kids are sitting in the back seat?  Do we tell them not to bear false witness then criticize others behind their backs, but in front of our kids?  I could go on, but I think you get the point.  We may not be deliberately causing them to sin, but we still do.

But, let's say we are being the best parents we can be.  What about other people, what we call society?  There are a lot of people who make a lot of money because of sin.  Television, movies, video games.  They all make money from sin.  Sadly, a movie about sex and violence makes a lot more money than a movie about chastity and peaceful coexistence.  Hugh Hefner is a very wealthy man.

I was listening to a talk the other day about the old Catholic Legion of Decency.  Some of you will remember them.  They rated movies and advised Catholics whether they should see them or not.  There was actually a time, from about the 1930s to the 60s,  when the movie producers were afraid of the Legion of Decency and were very careful not to make movies that didn't meet their standards.  There wasn't much of a chance for a movie to make a profit if all the Catholics stayed home.   Sadly, the group disbanded when they realized that people, including some Catholics, would actually go out of their way to see movies that they had banned.  In fact, movie makers started to advertise that their movies had been "banned" by the Legion of Decency.  Our Bishops decided that they were inadvertently helping the makers of objectionable films.

So did Jesus really mean that you would be better off going through this life maimed if it meant that you'd avoid spending eternity in the place where your "worms do not die"?  Yes,  I think He did.  But He said you'd be better off, not that you have to do it.  There are better, less painful ways to avoid sin.  In fact, if the only way we can avoid sin is to start cutting off arms and legs, that says something about our internal morality.  There's really not much virtue in a blind man's avoiding pornography.  A man who doesn't steal because he has no hands really isn't exercising any kind of moral code.  Being a true follower of Christ really demands more.  Resisting peer pressure and taking a stand against immorality may seem harder sometimes than cutting off a limb.

To look at this from a positive, rather than a negative perspective, there are plenty of good books, good movies, and good television shows.  They deserve our support.  There are plenty of wholesome places to go for entertainment.  If we fill our lives and our minds with good things, there won't be any room for the bad.  One thing we can do to fill our time and our minds with something good is prayer.  It's very hard to sin and pray at the same time.

This past Tuesday was the feast of St. Padre Pio.  He spent ten hours per day hearing confessions and also said as many as 35 full rosaries each day.  He had to be a pretty virtuous guy, just because he didn't have time to sin.  Obviously he was virtuous enough to be declared a saint.  But you and I aren't called to that kind of life.  We have to live in a world where sin and temptation are everywhere.  It's up to us to avoid the sin and fight the temptation.  But we don't have to do it alone.  In fact, we can't do it alone.

But with God's help and the power of prayer, we can live saintly lives and keep all our body parts intact. 

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The kids are back in school and the first thing they're often asked to do is write a paper on how they spent their summer vacation.  So, in the spirit of the new school year I thought I'd tell you what I did on my summer vacation.  Don't panic.  I'm not going to show slides or anything, but a couple of things happened while Jan and I were away a couple of weeks ago that I thought were kind of interesting. 

Three weeks ago we attended a wedding at a Baptist Church in Atlanta.  The church is right next door to the Atlanta Cathedral so we decided to go to 5:00 mass and then walk next door for the 6:00 wedding.  The mass itself was nothing out of the ordinary except for the number of clergy on the altar.  There were four priests and a deacon.  They were getting ready for a parish mission so the homilist that day was from Nebraska.  The interesting thing was the pre-mass announcement.  We don't do it here at St. Bernadette but a lot of parishes do ask everyone to silence their cell phones and pagers, nothing special there.  But what the man said next made me do a Loony Tunes double take.  He said, "please refrain from texting during the holy sacrifice of the mass."

Refrain from texting!  I thought it might be a joke.  But I looked around and no one was laughing, so I guess he was serious.  Are there really people who would send and receive text messages during mass?  Sadly, I guess there are.  An announcement like that is usually made because it's been a problem in the past.  C'mon, people.  We're not at a ball game!  Where are our priorities?

The other thing worth mentioning is the length of the mass.  Jan and I did something that we haven't done in years and something that I'm not recommending to you.  Don't say "the deacon does it so it must be ok."  This was an emergency.  We left after communion.  Remember I said that the wedding was at 6:00 and the mass was at 5:00.  We walked in just ahead of the wedding party. 

Another thing worth mentioning:  Even though Atlanta is almost twice as big as St. Louis and has 200,000 more Catholics, their Cathedral isn't nearly as big or as nice as our own Cathedral Basilica.  We should be very proud of that.  One more thing before we leave Atlanta.  The wedding was held at the Ponce de Leon Baptist Church.  It was a very nice church in a protestant sort of way, but Ponce de Leon was Spanish.  He lived in the last half of the 1400s and the first half of the 1500s.  Wouldn't he have been a Catholic?  It just seems like a strange name for a Baptist Church.

Jumping ahead seven days, two weeks ago we went to mass at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Madison, Alabama.  The pastor there is Fr. Phillip O'Kennedy, a fine Irish lad with a gift of gab.  Quite a gift of gab. The one hour plus mass in Atlanta was nothing.  This one lasted more than an hour and a half.  I thought to myself, the folks back home at St. Bernadette wouldn't like this.  We were supposed to meet our son and daughter-in-law for lunch at 1:00.  Needless to say, we were late. 

But here's the thing.  No one in that church looked at their watch as Fr. Kennedy delivered his half-hour homily.  It was that good.  I've commandeered some of his words for this morning.  They actually fit pretty well with today's readings, particularly the second reading from the Letter of St. James.  We've heard from James for the last three Sundays (counting today) and we'll hear from him for a couple of more weeks. 

Two weeks ago, the weekend that we were in Alabama, he wrote to us "Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves."  Last week he reminded us that we shouldn't show preference to those with gold rings and fine clothes over poor people with shabby clothes.  Today we heard my personal favorite from James, "If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,' what good is it?  So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead."
You can't get much plainer than that! 

Fr. O'Kennedy used a term that I'd never heard before, but that seems so appropriate when you're talking about James writings.  He said, "Don't be a pew potato!"  A pew potato.  James couldn't have said it better himself.

We all know what a couch potato is.  It's someone who just sits on the couch doing nothing.  So, it follows that a pew potato comes to church on Saturday or Sunday but doesn't do anything.  That's what James was warning us about.  Some say that faith alone is all that we need to get into heaven.  Solo fidae.  Faith alone.  But James says no.  "Be doers of the word."  "Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead."  "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works."  Don't be a pew potato.

Alabama isn't exactly a hot bed of Catholicism.  There are seven Catholic churches in the Huntsville/Madison area.  There are more protestant churches than that on the street where St. Joseph is located.  So, I think the good father might have been taking a little bit of a shot at the competition.  He said that we don't come to church to feel good.  We come to do good and to be good.  Isn't that exactly what St. James has been telling us.  Our purpose in this life is to take others with us to the next life.  We do that by doing good and by being good, leading by example.  And that comes from church. 

Some folks think that they can master the do good and the be good on their own.  We've all heard someone say that they don't need a "building" to be close to God.  They're right, up to a point.  Between Atlanta and Huntsville we spent a few days in the Smoky Mountains.  You can't visit the mountains without feeling close to God.  At least I can't.  But admiring His handiwork, as awesome as it is, won't help you to do good and be good. 

For one thing, we need the Eucharist.  We need Christ's physical presence coursing through our bodies to help us stand up against the pressures of modern society to be bad and do bad.  We also need the encouragement of the Word of God.  I'll let you in on a little secret.  I may read Sunday's readings a hundred times, but when I hear the lector read them out loud, I always pick up on something that I missed reading them to myself.  The word is spiritual food just like the Eucharist.

Here's something you may not know.  Have you ever noticed that we carry the Book of the Gospels into church but we don't carry it out?  The reason for that is that you carry the word out of church in your hearts and minds.  The readings are crucial in your daily struggle to do good and be good.

Finally, we need to surround ourselves with a community of believers.  We're not naturally solitary people.  Remember that in the Passion the people shouted "Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!"  Chances are that if there had been only one person there he would have kept his mouth shut.  But there's strength in numbers.  In the same way, when we're challenged by society to do what's popular rather than what's right, we can be stronger knowing that we're part of a world-wide community of believers who gather each and every week to hear the Word, share the Eucharist, and worship with our fellow Catholics. 

Before mass you heard Greg tell us how generous you are.  You're the best when it comes to supporting the church and helping the poor.  We've had a parish surplus for ten years.  We exceeded our goal for the Annual Catholic Appeal with one of the highest percentages of givers in the Deanery.  You should be very proud of that.

[long pause]
Eight years ago yesterday (Friday) our country was brutally attacked by terrorists who hate our country and hate our way of life.  Thousands of our brothers and sisters were killed and injured that day.  But instead of bringing us to our knees, those attacks brought us together.  Instead of running away from the burning buildings, brave Americans ran in, hoping to save the people trapped inside. Some of those brave men and women died themselves.  All Americans, regardless of our religious faith or political party banded together.  For days and even weeks and months afterwards we rallied around the President and our country, determined not to let the acts of a few deranged individuals destroy the America that we all know and love.  After all, we're one nation, UNDER GOD. 

Sadly it didn't take us long to get back to business as usual.   911 became one of those days, like the moon landing or the Kennedy assassination, where we remember where we were on the day, but the significance has faded away.  Remember how everything used to stop when their was a launch at Cape Kennedy?  We were glued to our television sets.  Not anymore.  Did you know that there was a shuttle landing just last night?  (Friday night?)  I'm just sayin'...... Ironically, our country's success in warding off further attacks has lulled us into thinking that the threat isn't still there.  Make no mistake.  It is.   But we, as Catholic Christians have other enemies, the first of all being Satan.  And he's done a pretty good job of convincing us that he's not still around, just like we may have forgotten that Al Kaida is still around. 

I apologize to those of you who were at yesterday's (Friday's) communion service.  You already heard some of this.  But I think it's important enough to repeat.  Our country was founded on religious freedom.  The pilgrims came here to escape religious persecution.  Our founding fathers created a nation UNDER GOD.  But in trying to avoid creating a national religion, our courts have done exactly that.  Through a series of misguided decisions athiesm has become our national religion.  Our brothers and sisters who don't believe in God are the only Americans who are 100% free to practice their faith, or lack of faith, as they see fit.  Not only that, they demand that laws be changed to reflect their views and usually win. The bad news is that what they want may not be what God wants.  When Christians sit by and watch as laws are passed that are clearly not what God wants, that's when we end up with the legal murder of unborn children.  That's what happens when good Christians become hearers of the word and not doers of the word.  That's what happens when we become pew potatoes.  Complacency and inaction are the enemies of faith and of freedom. 

God gave us free will so we have a choice.  We can come to mass on the weekend, shake the priest's and the deacon's hands on the way out the door and go about our business or we can become "doers of the word."    Nourished by the word and by the Body and Blood of Christ, fortified by the strength of the community, we can stand up for what we believe and show the world through our words and our actions that we're people of faith, or we can be careful not to make waves.  Not to rock the boat.  We can forget James' words, "Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead."  We can feed the hungry, clothe the poor, comfort the lonely or we can say 'Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,'  Oh, and have a nice day!

He gave us free will so it's really up to us.
 

9/11/2009

Eight years ago today, our country was brutally attacked by terrorists.  Thousands of American citizens died due to a senseless act of terrorism which changed the course of life in our country.  Many of us became aware that day of just how fragile this life really is.  It's one thing for a soldier to die in battle.  As terrible as that is, it's something that every member of the military knows could happen at any time.  Like police and firefighters, our brave men and women know that they could make the ultimate sacrifice.

It's something else altogether for a secretary to die at her desk at the hands of a terrorist.  Office work is not considered to be a hazardous profession, at least not a life-threatening one.   The potential of being blown up isn't usually part of the job description.

Many people asked in the aftermath of that terrible day, "How could God let this happen?"  A better question might be, "How could God NOT let this happen?"  For one thing, He gave us free will.  We're not puppets.  We can do any stupid, evil thing we choose.  Like a human parent, God wants us to love Him.  He wants that more than anything.  But how can He know if we love Him or not if He controls everything we do?  He can't, so he gives us the freedom to choose.  As it turns out, most people DO love Him and act accordingly.  But some don't.  Or, they have such a misguided, warped sense of what God asks of them that they do all kinds of stupid stuff, thinking they're doing the right thing.  They've been misled by false prophets, as Jesus warned we all might be.

As Paul says in our first reading today, "I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man, but I have been mercifully treated
because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief.  Indeed, the grace of our Lord has been abundant, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus."  Maybe terrorists act out of ignorance, or maybe they're just pure evil.  No one knows the truth except God Himself.

As Christians we believe that there is some good in everything, even something as vile as the 911 attacks.  They did bring about great change in our country.  In the aftermath of the attacks the country came together in a way that I've never seen in my lifetime.  Suddenly partisan politics gave way to patriotism.  "God Bless America" replaced "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at our stadiums.  Republicans and Democrats joined together in searching for survivors at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the fields of Pennsylvania.  President Bush's approval rating shot through the roof as he took decisive action to ward off future attacks.  Did the terrorists misjudge us?  Would the attacks make us better and stronger instead of bringing us to our knees?

For a while they did.  Like I said, "God Bless America" became our song of choice anywhere we gathered in the months following 911. Lee Greenwood and his song "I'm Proud to be an American" was back on the radio.  Greenwood himself, hardly a household name prior the September, 2001 was suddenly in great demand.  Country singers rushed to record other patriotic songs.   But gradually that all changed.

It didn't take long for the left and the right to get back to bickering over the best way to fight this new threat.  The President's new-found popularity started to slip.  Politicians and their cronies from both parties began to find ways to make money from the crisis.  Before long, it was business as usual on Capital Hill and in the White House.  Today, just eight years later, we're back to singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".  With the Cardinals making another run to the playoffs, how many St. Louisians are really focused on the continuing threat to our way of life from people who are jealous of our way of life?  I was at the Tour of Missouri on Monday and I was shocked at the number of men who didn't take off their hats for the singing of the National Anthem. 

There have been no attacks on American soil since 2001, though many have been averted.  But, rather than thanking God for these years of safety, many of us just complain about having to take off our shoes before boarding an airplane, or throw a fit when the security agent tells us that we can't take our pocket knife or bottle of shampoo on the plane.

Jesus asks us today, “Can a blind person guide a blind person?  Will not both fall into a pit?"  Of course the context was different in the first century, but don't His words apply to us today?  Are we blind to what's going on around us, or are we vigilant in our lives and our faith?  As I said earlier, many people wondered how God could let 911 happen?  God didn't make it happen but given our free will, He couldn't stop it either.  Even if He could have prevented it, why would He? 

This country was founded on religious freedom.  The first settlers came here to get away from religious persecution.  How could they have known that they were landing in such a vast land with abundant natural resources and a diverse climate which made it possible to grow crops to feed the entire world, not just in the sixteenth century, but even today?  We have been truly blessed from the very beginning.  Our founding fathers recognized God's gifts when they chartered our new nation.  "We have been endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights."

But over the course of the last two centuries we've gradually turned away from God.  In their efforts to accommodate all people and to avoid creating a state religion, the courts, through a series of misguided decisions have created a state religion.  It's called atheism.  Our brothers and sisters who don't believe in God are the only group that can practice their faith without fear of interference. 

While the courts have led us down this path, you and I share in the blame by sitting quietly by and letting this happen.  We can't display the Ten Commandments.  We can't have a Nativity scene on public property.  We can't have prayer in public schools.  Worst of all, the killing of innocent, unborn babies has become the law of the land. 

I don't want to turn this into a political rant and believe me, both parties have been instrumental in our turning away from God, but did you know that just yesterday the Senate voted to confirm Harvard professor Cass Sunstein as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Budget and Management. This is a man who believes that animals should have more rights than unborn children.  He's on record as saying that animals should have the right to sue human beings if they're mistreated.  And, in his new job, he has the power to make it happen.

I have to ask again, "Why would God want to grant us special treatment?" 

But all isn't lost.  Like a human father who loves his sons and daughters no matter what they do, God loves us.  When a parent gets that dreaded phone call in the middle of the night, "Mr. Buckley, this is the St. Louis County Police.  We have your son (or daughter) at the police station." we don't say "Don't bother me.  I'm through with him or her.  He or she is just too much trouble."  We get dressed and drive down there to bail them out.  We love them no matter what.  If we can be that loving, that forgiving, how much more will a loving God be there for us when we get in trouble?

You and I have the right and the obligation to defend our faith and to insist that we be able to practice it when and where we choose.  Every time we come to church we're reminded of the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep us free to do just that.  So, as we remember the thousands of our brothers and sisters who lost their lives on that terrible day eight years ago, let's not lose sight of what's really important.  We live in the land of the free and the home of the brave.  Let's do all we can, through our prayers and our actions, to keep it that way.  As Jesus said, "Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.”