(Note: Since I talk about fraternal correction in this homily here is a link to the Catholic Encyclopedia article about fraternal correction, what it is and how to apply it: CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Fraternal Correction (newadvent.org)
Homily 5th Sunday of Lent C
The husband looked out of the living room window and called to his wife, “There goes that woman Bill Jones is in love with.” She dropped the cup she was drying in the kitchen, hurtled through the door, knocked over a lamp and craned her neck to look. “Where?” she panted. “There,” he pointed, “that woman at the corner in the tweed coat.” “You idiot,” she said. “That's his wife!” “Well, of course it is,” he replied. “who did you think it was?”
The wife in our story was hoping to catch her neighbor doing something wrong, wasn’t she? It is likely that she was ready to fire up the gossip mill, as well. The woman in our Gospel reading was caught red handed, but the scribes and Pharisees were more interested in using her as a test for Jesus then they were in obtaining justice as outlined in Deuteronomy. Now, under the law both the man and the woman have committed a capital crime—but only the woman is presented for judgment. Two male witnesses are also required, yet they too are absent.
So it was self-evident to our Lord what the real motive of the Pharisees was. In response to their questioning the Lord bends down and starts writing in the dirt with His finger. We don’t know why. He could be buying Himself time, although that’s not the reason I would want to believe. He has all of the answers, after all, and doesn’t need to delay. He could be alluding to Jerimiah 17:13 which reads: “O Hope of Israel…all who abandon you will be put to shame, those who turn away will be written in the earth because they have abandoned the Fountain of Living Waters.”
The scribes and Pharisees would have been familiar with this passage, so the Lord’s action could be an enactment of this scripture. I want to believe that this is what Jesus was doing, not only because it is poetic, but because the Lord often explained His actions by quoting from the Old Testament. The scribes and Pharisees keep pressing Him for an answer and finally He straightens up, looks at them and gives them an answer that is completely unexpected—“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” In short, He turns the tables on them.
After saying this He bends over and continues to write in the dirt. The elders slink away, followed quickly by the rest. They all realized that their trap had been turned around on themselves. Some of them may have had a change of heart, acknowledging their own sinfulness. The Lord is left with the accused. Can you imagine being in her sandals at this moment? This man straightens up and looks you square in the eye, into the depths of your very soul. “Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.” I don’t know about you but I would probably be a pile of goo after an encounter like that.
If we look briefly at our Gospel readings for Lent this year here’s what we find. In week one Christ is tempted in the desert; we face many temptations in the desert that is our culture. Week two Jesus is transfigured on Mount Tabor; we must transfigure ourselves to be His active disciples. Repentance is the theme of week three and Jesus reminds us that we need to repent of our sins if we are to grow fruit for our Father. In week four our theme is reconciliation and our real need to reconcile with our friends and our enemies. The theme for the fifth and final week of Lent is forgiveness. As Isaiah writes, “I am doing something new.”
The Pharisees approach Jesus with the old way, the law of the Torah and He gives them something new and unexpected in return. Mercy. Forgiveness. The same forgiveness we find in the confessional in the sacrament of Reconciliation. The same mercy is extended to us. Jesus would have been well within His rights to condemn the woman. The law is quite clear and as God He knows the fullness of her guilt in all things, not just the adultery in which she is caught, and He forgives her.
Once more our Lord sets an example for us to follow. If we are going to truly love our neighbor we need to be able to forgive them their trespasses. Even more so for the people who have hurt us the most and the people that we don’t like. Just as we forgive ourselves our own transgressions. We have a great ability to forgive ourselves, don’t we? No matter what we’ve done we justify it in our mind—I know that it is wrong to want Jimmy’s bike, but its really nice and I don’t have the money for one of my own. I know that I should honor my father and mother, but they don’t really deserve it after the way that they raised me. Whatever our own sins are we excuse them away and minimize them in our minds.
And how do we react if someone calls us out on one of these sins? Usually we respond in anger. In her song “Heart Like Mine” Miranda Lambert includes these lines: “Even though I hate to admit it, sometimes I smoke cigarettes. The Christian folks say I should quit it, I just smile and say ‘God bless’.” Now, before I continue here’s a bit of an explanation. In the south the expressions “God bless” and “bless your heart” have many meanings depending on context and are often used as an insult. So, Miranda acknowledges that she’s doing something wrong and when corrected responds with an insult. I know that whenever someone has told me that what I am doing is wrong…and I already know that what I am doing is wrong…well, my response is not fit to say within these walls.
I know what your are thinking. “But Deacon George, aren’t we supposed to correct sinners?” Yes, we are, but we need to be very careful when doing so and it takes both skill and training in order to provide this correction. We need to be careful that we don’t pass from loving correction into sinful judgment of another. We need to be mindful of our motive for providing the correction—are we motivated by a true love and concern for our brother and sister—or are we motivated by something less worthy? We need to be mindful of who we are correcting…is it a fellow believer or a non-believer? Are we correcting a child, or an adult? Remember, a person may be an adult physically yet remain a child spiritually.
And it isn’t always necessary to provide fraternal correction. St Thomas Aquinas gives us three instances where we can omit fraternal correction, but I’ll only touch on one of them here. “First…when out of charity one omits to correct someone. For Augustine says: ‘If a man refrains from chiding and reproving wrongdoers, because he awaits a suitable time for so doing, or because he fears lest, if he does so, they may become worse, or hinder, oppress, or turn away from the faith, others who are weak and need to be instructed in a life of goodness and virtue, this [is]…counseled by charity.”
I’ve known many people who have been driven away from the faith by the well meaning actions of a believer. If we don’t know what we are doing, if we haven’t been given the gift of providing correction or have been trained in it, then we’re likely to do more harm then good and as St Augustine points out it would be better if we did nothing, except pray for them. After all, if we know that a friend is having an appendicitis attack we aren’t going to lay them out on a table and grab a knife, we’d do much more damage through our ignorance. The best fraternal correction that we can often provide is the example of our own lives. If our lives aren’t good enough examples then our first duty is to make them good examples. We can’t be like the Pharisees who were “do as we say, not as we do”.
Jesus provided forgiveness and mercy to the woman caught in adultery. We need to provide no less to those in our own lives. I hope that you have a blessed and fruitful Holy Week.
Homily 4th Sunday of Easter (C)
First of all I would like to wish a happy Mother’s Day to all of our moms, godmothers and grandmothers. This weekend we celebrate those who gave us life, and those who raised us to be the people that we have become. We recognize that not everyone knew their natural mom, and they were raised by someone who stepped up and valiantly did what needed to be done. Mother’s Day is an extension of an old Catholic tradition, Mothering Sunday, which traditionally took place the 4th Sunday of Lent. On this day people would pay honor to their Mother Church, which is the Church in which they received their baptism. Mother’s Day as we know it was started just after the turn of the 20th century when the Methodist Church started observing it as a memorial service for those who had lost their mothers and in 1914 it became a civic holiday. So let us remember our mothers, wherever they may be, and thank them for all that they gave us.
Arriving at the oil field after a long drive, Bill and his friend decided to stretch their legs by racing to the well. Bill was ahead and as he looked back to see how much lead he had, he stopped dead in his tracks. Running up behind him at breakneck speed was the whole drilling crew. “What’s the matter?” he yelled as they approached. “Look, mister,” one of them said, “in this business when you see someone running like heck, you run too – and ask questions later.”
As our brief story shows human beings like to be a part of a crowd, and this is something that we also see in nature. Animals will group together for safety and comfort. Outsiders are usually not accepted by any given group. We see this in our first reading today. The Jews are jealous of the crowds that are being attracted by Paul and Barnabas, so jealous in fact that they start to conspire against them.
In our Gospel reading Jesus says that His sheep hear His voice and they follow Him. His sheep receive eternal life and cannot be taken away. This is true because our Lord can only speak the truth. But who are His sheep? My Nama, may she rest in peace, used to say that if you weren’t Catholic you couldn’t be saved. Other denominations say the same about us. But this is not what our Church teaches, which means that my Nama was wrong (sorry, Nama). The Jews in our first reading reacted with jealousy to the preaching of Paul and Barnabas. Why would they do that?
Well, they had been told their entire lives that they were God’s chosen ones and they were the “in” crowd. We humans like to be a part of the “in” crowd and the more exclusive that the group is the more we humans like it. Now here are these upstarts, telling everyone that salvation is available to everyone. How dare they! So naturally they conspired together and stirred up a persecution against Paul and Barnabas and forced them from the city.
Our second reading talks about a great multitude who had washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. These folks come from every nation, every race, every people and every tongue. If we look at the preceding verses in the Book of Revelation it mentions first that 144,000 had been marked with the seal, 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. So we have a vision of 144,000, plus such a large group of people that they can’t be counted.
Jesus rejects exclusivity and we are called to welcome others, not to exclude them. There is an incident that happened that both St Mark and St Luke write about. John came up to the Lord and said, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” Do you hear that—“hey, he isn’t a part of our “in” crowd, he can’t do that!” Jesus’ response is telling—“Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.”
Neither Gospel writer explains who the person was, or where he came from, or where he learned of Jesus. All they knew was he was not a part of their group. He was not a chosen one. At the time this event took place the Apostles had already been sent out to preach the good news and Jesus had been going around the area preaching and performing miracles. This person had hear the Word, possibly from Jesus Himself, and acted on it by casting out demons in Jesus’ name, even though he had no commission to do so and wasn’t one of the chosen ones.
Our Catechism, the teaching of the Church, tells us that all people are called to holiness and that salvation is available to all. While Catholics are fully incorporated into the society of the Church we must persevere in charity if we are to be saved. I note that while the Roman Church is the largest group of Catholic Churches there are 21 other Churches that are considered Catholic and who look to the Pontiff for guidance.
The teaching continues. Those who are Christian but not Catholic are still in communion with the Church, although imperfectly. Our shared baptism still binds us together. With our Orthodox brothers and sisters this communion is so profound that it would take little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration. What prevents this, if only little needs to be done to attain this? I can only think that it is human pride.
The Jewish faith is already a response to God’s revelation and they were the first to hear the word of God. God’s covenant with them is an eternal one and that has not been changed. Muslims worship the God of Abraham and the plan of salvation includes those who acknowledge the Creator.
The Church recognizes in other religions that search for God, often among shadows and images. The Church recognizes all goodness and truth found in these religions as a preparation for the Gospel. Even those who don’t know the Gospel of Christ or His church may achieve eternal salvation if they seek God with a sincere heart and moved by grace try to do His will in their actions by the dictates of their conscience. If you would like to study this more these points are made in the Catechism sections 837 thru 844.
As Bishop Robert Baron said, Catholics enjoy a privileged route that God has offered to mankind. As the Church teaches, the fullness of the faith is found in the Catholic Church. But that does not mean that by being Catholic that it earns us anything, just as not being Catholic does not condemn one. Jesus died for all of mankind and the eternal life that He offers is available to all. Jesus is going to save those He choses to save, whether that person is a part of the “in” crowd or not. It might be more difficult for a non-Catholic to receive salvation but as Mary was told by Gabriel, nothing will be impossible to God.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:21 “…not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of God, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” This is our task, brothers and sisters, to do the Father’s will. All who do that sufficiently enough will find favor with God, regardless of what group they belong to. I pray that we are each able to discern the Father’s will in our lives. If we are able to do this then we will become one of the greatest “in” crowds of all—the ones who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.
Good evening/morning! It is good to be with you once more. As you may remember Deacon Armand and I had planned to swap places on our homily weekend several times per year. We’ve been able to do this…once. Man makes his plans and he hears God laughing. I hear God laughing a lot.
Today we celebrate the Holy Trinity, one of the greatest mysteries of our faith. Theologians throughout the ages have tried to explain it. To understand it. Many heresies in the early Church arose because someone didn’t quite understand it properly or they tried to explain it so poorly. One God. Three separate and distinct persons. It’s hard to wrap our heads around the concept, so we do what needs to be done in response—we take it on faith that it is so. That is what we do any time we are dealing with a mystery of the faith—we recognize that something is so and we accept it as it is, even though our human comprehension fails to fully understand why it is so.
I used to teach catechism and the closest that I ever came to explaining it was this. I am one person. I am the son of my father, I am the father to my children, and I have an eternal soul. Each of these are inseparable from myself and each has its own role to play in my life. As a son I have certain duties and obligations. The same holds true for my role as a father. And my eternal soul is the spirit within me that guides me on my journey. That’s as close as I can come to explaining the Trinity.
It helps to keep in mind that God is not a being as we humans define beings. Because of the weakness of our language we give God a male pronoun, but God has no gender as we understand that term. God is outside space and time. Again, a concept that beings stuck inside space and time struggle with. The Son, the Word, was a being like us, confined within space and time. He shared our temptations and needed to be perfected in His human nature, while His divine nature was already perfect. But the Son originally was outside of space and time. As St John writes in his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh.
In our first reading we see that the Holy Spirit, depicted as Lady Wisdom, was also with God from the beginning- “…from of old I was poured forth, at the first, before the earth.” This is where human language fails us because scripture attempts to teach us perfection by using our imperfect language. Yet somehow the sense of things still resonates in the words and even now we can catch a glimmer of the ultimate reality. The words given to our forefathers thousands of years ago, when humans weren’t as sophisticated as they are today, given to an agrarian, nomadic, and warlike people in words they would understand still work to show us the truth. The Holy Spirit is also outside space and time, yet the Spirit is able to move within space and time in the human heart and soul.
Our second reading gives us a glimpse of how the Trinity works for our benefit. We receive the peace of God through the Son and the love of God is poured out through the Holy Spirit. Through our trials and tribulations we receive endurance, which gives us proven character. And that gives us hope. Hope in God does not disappoint and it gives us peace. Our society promotes a lifestyle that is filled with anxiety and pessimism. This is evident in the news…on social media…in our books…in our entertainment. If we have faith in God and do our best to carry out His will for us then a life of peace is ours, even if our lives aren’t perfect.
In my own life I have experienced this peace first hand. The closer I have let myself get to God the more peace I experience. The more I have reformed my life to comply with God’s will the more peace I have experienced. This has taken effort, prayer, and discernment on my part. From this peace has come a confidence that no matter what happens I know that I will be okay. There are still things going on in my life that used to cause stress and worry, but they no longer have any control.
Our Gospel reading recounts part of Jesus’ final discourse to the Apostles on the night before He was crucified. He reassures them that, while they aren’t ready now to learn what else He has to teach that the Spirit of truth will be sent to them to guide them to the truth. In a way this is part of His last Will and Testament. The same Holy Spirit is still guiding the Church today, even if it appears not to be.
In the year 356 AD Doctor of the Church St Athanasius wrote a letter regarding the Trinity where he talks about the ancient tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church. Three hundred twenty years have passed from the time of Christ and this great teacher is already referring to an ancient tradition. He points out that the Trinity is free from any intrusion from outside of itself and that it is not a blend of creative and created being. He writes, “It is a wholly creative and energizing reality, self-consistent and undivided in its active power…”. He goes on to write, “God is above all things as Father, for he is principle and source; he is through all things through the Word; and he is in all things in the Holy Spirit.”
Above all things…through all things…in all things. A great way of understanding how the Trinity interacts with mankind. St Athanasius also writes, “For grace and the gift of the Trinity are given by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.” And the Saint tells us what this means for us as Christians—“But when we share in the Spirit, we possess the love of the Father, the grace of the Son and the fellowship of the Spirit himself.”
Our combined mission as Christians is to show the love of the Father, the grace of the Son and the fellowship of the Spirit to those around us. People should be able to see the Trinity in us by the way we live our lives and by the things that we do. We need to reform our lives for this to happen and it doesn’t happen by itself. It takes effort. It takes prayer. It takes discernment. We must listen to the voice of God even if He is asking us to do something that we don’t particularly want to do. For a long time I resisted the call to be a Deacon, even while discerning my vocation. I didn’t want to be the center of attention. I didn’t want to be judged by others. But finally I gave in to the will of God and fully embraced this vocation. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has been spiritually fulfilling.
We must be conscious of God’s love being poured into our hearts and then we must pour it out to others. If we can consistently do this then we will be faithful children of God. The first Christians attracted new followers simply by living their lives of faith honestly and openly. This new way of living was attractive then. It is attractive today. On this Trinity Sunday ask yourself- how do I perceive God’s love in my life? How do I demonstrate this love in my actions toward others? You’ll be moving in the right direction by asking these questions.