What Characterizes us as Catholics?

When people see me, what do they think about Catholics? Can they testify that Catholics are people of faith, prayer, and justice or do they think of common stereotypes? We have heard much about faith and prayer over the past month, so today let’s focus on Justice.

Justice is the most important of the cardinal virtues. It helps us make right moral decisions and to give to others what belongs to them. We may be inclined to think justice is mostly about civil law and order, but it is much broader. In the OT reading from Sirach, the author teaches that “God is a God of justice who knows no favorites.” He is “not unduly partial to the weak”, yet he hears the oppressed, the orphan, and the widow. These people are lowly due to their circumstances and are apt to rely on God more than on themselves or others. There are also those who make themselves lowly, as Sirach puts it “who serve God willingly.”

These are the people whom God hears, but are they prepared for the answer: which could be YES, NO, or WAIT. If we are unhappy with God’s reply, our problem could be one of two things: We are either demanding a limited, earthly justice from God, or we think of ourselves as the willing and lowly servant when in actuality, we are still far from it. When faced with such feelings, we should question ourselves our motives and what we truly desire: “How lowly am I? How willing am I to be a servant of God? Do I really need what I am asking for? Do I really trust God’s eternal perspective?”

Saint Paul, the great missionary apostle, is a good example of this perspective. In today’s letter to Saint Timothy he says that God is “the just Judge” and that he, Paul, is certain to receive “the crown of righteousness” in heaven. He knows this not because he is proud or conceited, but because he had made himself God’s lowly servant. As he told the Philippians, “I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him”.

More importantly, Paul knows that justice is based first and foremost on the fact that we were created for heaven and that being there is our primary goal in life. For Paul, the proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ is an act of “primary justice” because it gives to all who hear what is their most basic need - the grace and knowledge of God leading to salvation. Everything else is secondary to that.

If our fundamental understanding of justice is earthly justice, then no fair accounting will ever be made to our satisfaction. Just look at how politcally tangled up we are as a society in striving for earthly fairness, equality, sameness which always fall short of the goal.

Even God does not implement an entirely earthly accounting of justice, for as Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel, “The poor you will always have with you.” He could have granted pure equality and sameness to all if the Father willed it, but this was not the primary goal. The revelation of God the Father, the Kingdom of Heaven, the knowledge of faith - these were his primary objectives, and they became Saint Paul’s as well. And even though Paul tells Timothy, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat,” he is still beheaded as a martyr. Does this mean a failure of justice on God’s part? Does God abandon his willing servants? Only look to the rest of Paul’s statement: “[The Lord] will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom.” Ultimately, God’s justice is fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ for “all who have longed for His appearance” for in heaven they receive all they could have longed for on earth.

In the gospel, Luke also takes up the theme of lowliness. Notice how the pharisee does good things (fasting, prayers, sacrifice), but he lacks perspective on his position before God - that he is really as dependent on the grace and mercy of God as the sinful tax collector. His attitude is actually a lack of justice toward God! We are not giving God what is due to him if we act as though He actually benefits from us or if we act as though his good gifts to us are unimportant or uninteresting.

Why does the tax collector go to the temple to seek mercy? because there is something different there - God meets his people in the temple. God meets us in this place - most perfectly in the Eucharist. This experience is meant to be different than the secular for a reason. Coming to church is a call to transformation, a turning of our hearts toward justice. Everything we do here matters. When we come here we symbolically wash off the negative influences of the world we experience outside. We bless ourselves with holy water, we confess our sin in the penitential act and we realize that we have brought some things into the mass that do not belong here. We cast them aside as Saint Paul did because our actions here should not be mechanical or empty repetitions and gestures. Here we come to do justice - primary justice - to give God the worship that belongs to him and to receive the grace he promised to the lowly and to help us be lowly.

Therefore, when people think of Catholics, the image ought to be more like the tax collector but also like Saint Paul whose primary objective was primary justice: revealing the good news by a humble life of service and meeting that primary need in others.

We have a few bus drivers in the parish who make it their primary objective to help others meet theirs. Bringing people to mass who cannot drive themselves. THIS is primary justice!

Children and adults who bless this mass by serving as greeters make it their primary objective to introduce people to this parish with a warm welcome and to provide assistance. If this mass is someone’s first experience of Christianity, what a difference a greeter can make. THIS is primary justice.

Choir members young and old bless this congregation with music to heighten our understanding of truth beauty and goodness during the liturgy. Sunday School Catechists, who outside of mass help parents communicate the same truth beauty and goodness to their children. THIS is primary justice.

I would be unjust if I did not tell you that we need more parishioners to stand up and go beyond the stereotypes and to perform acts of primary justice. I ask you to consider being bus drivers, greeters, choir members, and catechists for these are our areas of greatest need right now.

Today, we have washed off the injustice of the world. We have confessed our sins and turned toward God and rightly proclaimed his glory. Soon we will receive his Body and Blood in the Eucharistic Sacrifice and declare how right and just it is to give him thanks. As lowly and willing servants, let us once again resolve to take up the task of primary justice so that we can say with Saint Paul:

"The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat and will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen."

No Slave is Greater than His Master

How much do I really want to be like my master? How far am I really willing to go with him? To be like him? Tonight, we encounter our Lord in the greatest of his human actions, his passion and his death, and we ponder anew what his suffering means for us.

Looking back through Lent, Jesus says many things to challenge us. Perhaps you have taken some of them to heart, and are now wrestling with what he is saying to you. Faced with the challenges, you wonder if you can even meet them successfully. Maybe you began Lent with great resolve to overcome your sins and weaknesses, to dig deeper than you did in previous years, but as each week went by, you lost a little more of your strength and commitment. Do not give up and do not be discouraged.

From all eternity, knowing what we would do to damage the relationship we had with him, God in his wisdom planned to provide the ultimate remedy for us, for every form of injustice, every form of poverty, every sin and weakness, every manner of suffering, and, having fully prepared the human race through long ages, he planted that remedy at the epicenter of history as the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

So great and vast is it's power that God has woven this single event into the fabric of human experience, such that there is no moment or any fraction of a moment which does not contain its thread or feel the shockwave of its grace pouring forth from the earth of Calvary into which it was thrust.

As we read in Hebrews: "Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered, and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him." This suffering is not limited to his passion, but applies to everything he surrendered to become human. The obedience he learned and the perfection he gained must be understood in relation to his human nature, for in his divine nature, there would no need to learn obedience or gain perfection.

The entire human experience of Christ, and especially what he endured on this day, was a satisfactory offering to God the Father, not solely because God willed, but because Jesus in his human nature also willed to redeem that human nature for the sake of each and every human person, so that no one can say with any veracity, or truth, "God does not love me." - "I am unworthy of love." - "I am unlovable." or "I cannot love."

Last night, Father explained this great gift of the Eucharist, Christ’s Real Presence among us, the actual re-presentation of his sacrifice on the cross for all time. Dare we doubt the love and power of God in the face of so great a life as his and so great a mystery as the one presented to us on this altar, one by which we share in the divine life of God?

And if we share His divine life and we truly possess His love, then do we allow ourselves to be fooled into thinking that we cannot keep His commands, that we are without His help, that we cannot become like Him? We deceive ourselves if we partake of the sacraments believing that we cannot carry our own crosses to the point of losing our entire lives, even our entire selves to Him and that we would not be better off if we do; for the power and love flowing from His cross, the grace of perseverance, the grace each of us needs to imitate our master is available to us without doubt!

Yes, we can always do better. We can give up more, not just for Lent, but every day. For example, some may be surprised to hear that we, as Catholics, are obliged to observe every Friday as a day of penance. Every Friday in memory of this Friday is meant to be a day on which we either abstain from meat or perform some other acts of penance and charity. Beyond our Friday obligations, we can offer more of our prayers, joys, triumphs, sufferings, and thanksgivings to God every day of the year. After all, Lent, although a season, is not meant to have a temporary effect. After this weekend, we ought not think that we are to return to our old ways. Will we continue to be slaves to our appetites, consuming all that we want while our neighbors do not have even their most basic needs? If we can fast today, can we choose to fast once a month or once a week?
For, if God the Son would not stand by and watch us remain in our miserable state, but every day of his human life surrendered all to which he had claim for the sake of our greatest needs, then will we continue to fill our lives with what we do not need and stand by as our brothers and sisters throughout the world suffer poverty, hunger, nakedness, war, imprisonment, loneliness, mistreatment, and infirmity?

In our culture, we may be deceived into thinking that the way of the cross leads only to sadness and pain. In reality, it leads to freedom and joy. We must remember that the crucifixion of the body was only the beginning, but a necessary beginning. Without this death, there could not be resurrection and ultimate freedom from sin and death for all of us. In the same way, we too must first embrace the crucifixion of our own flesh through self-control, self-denial, and self-sacrifice. Only by being stripped of all that hinders us will we clearly see how much we need the Lord and how much we can offer others, especially our most needy brothers and sisters. Stripped of our own opinions and prideful ideals, we are able to receive His truth and know the full joy, freedom, and happiness that He experiences in the resurrection as we overcome sin and weakness. When we bring our souls to the point of being naked at the foot of the cross, our truest self remains open to the scrutiny of Christ, our master and teacher, who was also stripped of everything. He is then most able to fill us and clothe us with His righteousness and use us to accomplish His will.

As we heard two Sundays ago, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat, but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” Tonight, Christ lost his life for our sake. Do we really believe we can bear fruit without dying to our own disordered desires? Do we bury our lives under all the cares of this materialistic and entertainment-bound society instead of planting our hearts in the pierced heart of Christ? Do we suffocate the new life of baptism with a life of vanity? Have we been buried by the worldly ideals of bigger homes, fancier cars, more mobile devices, more fashionable clothes, the desire for popularity and celebrity? Do we value our degrees over our lives of faith? Do we value our TV shows, movies, and novels over and against a moral, modest, and chaste lifestyle? Do we do all these things and still call Christ our master and teacher? These are the very kinds of things he rejected and forsook so that we might live free and abundant lives of real and lasting joy and peace.

Do not be like the young lawyer who was so attached to his possessions that he could not follow Christ when he was asked to give them up. As we heard last night at the mass of the Lord’s Supper, “If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” And in the next passage we read, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.” Are we greater than he that we should live more opulent lives? Are we greater to the extent that we cannot endure patiently the wounds inflicted by those who hurt us and then forgive them? Are we greater to the extent that our own opinions matter more than his teachings handed on to us by the hand of His Bride, His Holy Church?

Let us not jeopardize our opportunity for eternal life by being so unnaturally wedded to the the temporal and fleeting pleasures of this life. Tonight, take hold of the power of this cross, receive his love and resolve to join Him in his passion and death. Claim his grace and offer everything you lay claim to, everything he has handed to you, in an act of love for the salvation of the whole world.