Mass readings for the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Jeremiah 20.10-13 Psalm 69.7-9, 13, 16, 32-33, 35-36 Romans 5.12-15 Matthew 10.26-33
“Fear no one,” says the Lord. And, indeed we shouldn’t; but I think we are all aware of how we live in fearful times. We fear to say “the wrong thing” and not just because of social embarrassment, but because the penalties for doing so are pretty dire for many of us: loss of job, and perhaps even career because one is shut out completely from a given industry; loss of one’s business as one is subject to protest and boycott without the resources of a major corporation to survive; loss of social connection as friends and family, either because they’ve decided you are unworthy of their support, or because they fear for themselves in being seen to support you; loss of community as one experiences isolation from others because one fears to express oneself any further and make matters worse. And a great deal of the risk arises from one’s speaking from a faith perspective.
The Catholic bishops of Canada have issued a pastoral letter on the matter of religious conscience; on freedom of religion in Canada. They are clearly concerned about where we are headed as a supposedly free society governed by constitutional arrangements that ought to serve as a guarantee of our fundamental human rights, but increasingly do not. I urge you all to read it. It’s available at our website on the home page; it’s available on the diocesan home page – the parish sent it out in its weekly email as an attachment. As the bishops plainly and truthfully say in the letter, “All of us… have a role to play not only in defending religious freedom but in publicly living out a vibrant Catholic faith.”
As the letter observes, our society is fast moving from a situation of “open” secularism to one that is closed. This is in reference to the fact that many in power now hold a set of beliefs with religious conviction and are eager to proselytize, “convert” the people to their cause, their faith. And we are talking about a new religion, something that is metaphysical as much as it claims to be rooted in science. I’m not going to go through the tenets of their creed, not only is it a confusing and inconsistent one, but I’ve spoken often in other homilies of what these are. What is dire for us as Catholics is that this new faith that animates so much of our political and cultural and educational elites is wholly intolerant of the perspective of religious traditions, and Catholicism in particular.
Now some argue that we should be led by the spirit of our times to reconsider the Apostolic teachings, to dismiss a great deal of what St. Paul says about morality, for example—the moral law of the Apostolic tradition excludes too many, it sets a standard that is too high, and in the minds of many, one that is essentially arbitrary, relying on ancient notions of virtue that our modern enlightenment dismisses as antiquated, but also because the idea of virtue itself is nothing more than a social construct expressly designed to give power to institutions like the Church – that is, it’s time to hand the keys of Peter over to others; and to be quiet, listen, and ultimately do what we are told by the powers that be.
Yet our bishops have now asserted that there is value in the Catholic perspective; indeed, they hold it to be essential to the continuance of our civilization. But what is it that the “Catholic Perspective” brings to discussion of public policy? What is its contribution to the debates that rage?
As far as I can tell from the legacy media, from what our enemies say of us; we only bring a negative perspective, one of oppression, suppression, sublimation, submission, spiritual suffocation.
Well, I think that the misrepresentation of our faith’s perspective, no less by Catholics themselves, has created an impression that our faith is one that teaches intolerance, hypocrisy and any number of other vices rather than leading people to enlightenment and a life of true virtue.
I recently watched an interview with the Catholic author and speaker, Kim Zember. She gives presentations on her journey back to faith from being a child of Catholic converts. Now, I say “convert” in the sense that her parents went from being nominal and rather indifferent Catholics to taking their faith seriously and doing their best to form themselves and their children according to the Church’s teaching. They had a “conversion” experience that was very dramatic, and life-changing.
But as she describes it: that conversion didn’t happen to her. She was their daughter, and so as a child had a very different experience of Catholicism as something that was about rules and obligation; things you shouldn’t do, and things you must do.
I imagine, and I can only gather this from my occasional encounters with the many non-practicing Catholics of Dundas, that this is their experience. Catholicism is a lot of rules, a lot of obligation, and so, a lot of guilt if you make the mistake of taking it seriously. So, better to treat it as a cultural artifact that one can return to out of sentimentality, but not anything that will actually deliver on the promises of Christ.
Zember tells us that this made Catholicism anything but attractive to her, especially as she struggled through adolescence into adulthood. Ironically, in her journey back to faith, she encountered something of the new sensibility in Christianity and in Catholicism, what I can only call a massive over-correction of the dour rules-laden faith she had known. The message of the “unconditional love” God has for us also left her spiritually bereft. The idea that “God loves you just the way you are” did nothing for her, especially as she felt burdened by a powerful sense of not being who God made her to be; that in living out of a secular sensibility, of loving oneself and following her “bliss” this had led her to a dead end.
The starting place of our authentic Catholic faith, what won me over, what was at the heart of my conversion, the heart of my continuing conversion, was the same for her, was the same for her parents, and I am convinced it will be the same, as it always has been, for everyone else. It is in the realization, and growing knowledge within oneself that we are the sons and daughters of God. And if, this is who we are, then like children of a good and virtuous parent, we ought to learn how to be who we are from our heavenly parent.
I think some of us have known the burden of having a good mother or a good father, or both: there is then something for us to live up to; but in our love for our earthly parents, that becomes our aspiration. We want mom and dad to be proud of us. The same instinctive drive exists in us spiritually – as we accept who we are as spiritual beings incarnate in this world, we aspire to please our God by how we live, by what we accomplish spiritually. And that kind of self-knowledge leads us to profoundly re-order our priorities, and as we know as Christians who look to Jesus as the example without equal concerning how to live in this world, we come to know that salvation lies not in ego-centric self-fulfilment, but in selfless self-giving to others, but first of all in our giving ourselves to God.
But in that lies the terrifying risk of being vulnerable in this world. Like little sparrows, we are fragile yet beautiful creatures fashioned by God but with even greater purpose than our winged friends. As Jesus says, if God regards the fall of a sparrow, how much more is he mindful of us? And yet, he lets the sparrow fall, doesn’t he? But as in famous children’s hymn, this “meets his tender view” of love that will not let the life of the little bird be lost in the coldness of the universe but rather is taken up into God who is the source of all life. The sparrow’s vocation, we might say, is to be a song bird, to be fully what a sparrow is meant to be, whatever that might involve; and in fulfilling that call, pleases our Father, its creator.
We are called into a much more profound union with God, an eternal communion that can only come about if we acknowledge who we are and strive to be children of God. The only other option is to deny who we are, deny ourselves a relationship with God through Christ, and so settle for this earthly life and nothing more. Many will choose this, but most will do so in ignorance. The Church, that is, we believe they all should have a chance to hear the message of Christ, to ponder the gospel, and perhaps, be led into the saving truth that was and can still be the rock upon which our society is built.
Amen.