28th Sunday of ordinary time, Oct. 10, 2010.
Fr. Anthony Brankin
MP3 Audio
Full text of homily: Despite what anyone might think, after reading today’s scriptures, those readings are not about how God’s desire to cure people of their illnesses—as if we were telling the tale of a supernatural doctor. Nor are these stories about how we must be grateful to God when He works a miracle of healing on our behalf—as if the Scriptures were reminding us about the importance of the magic words, “Please” and ‘Thank you.”
Consider a life of prayer and teaching. Saint Francis de Sales’ “little virtues” of gentleness, kindness, humility, and cheerful optimism shape our monastic life. Washington, DC
No. These readings are about the fact that God is God—and that He is all-powerful as well as all-loving and allknowing. These stories are told with this point in mind: that there is a Supreme Being who made all things, who is not only the source of these miracles, but also the Source of the Universe. As the one reading declares; “Now I know that there is no God in all the Earth, except in Israel.”
And of course, that God is our God—the One true God—the God of Israel—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, The Father of Jesus. There is only one Lord, one God, and it is He whom we worship and whom we follow.
But if that is true, then it would seem that the way we live our lives—the way we think and the way we act and the way we love, must always be a response to the reality of this God.
How could we ever ignore Him? How could we ever go about our daily business without constant reference to Him and to His will in our lives? as if He does not really exist?
Well sometimes I think we do. I know I do. I know I can find myself acting and behaving and thinking and willing as if I really do not need to worry about this God until He finally appears before me at the end of my life at my judgment.
I know that often enough I will go about my days and my nights and be thinking and worrying about so many things that God—the Supreme Being who made all things—becomes just the occasional thought—the One in whose direction I throw an occasional prayer when I need something.
Does God really have anything significant to do with us and the way we live our lives?
This is the temptation—and all of us are subject to it—to what is sometimes called “practical atheism”—where we live our lives and make all of our decisions and decide what is important or not important to us as if God really doesn’t exist—and we really do not need to consult any higher authority than ourselves. Not God, not his religion, not His teachings not His church. Oh yes, we believe in God, and believe in all the sacred truths of our religion and know in our heart of hearts that those beliefs come from God, but we go about our lives public and private with hardly a reference to this God and what He demands of us. And we no longer to regard His Church as His Presence in this world to help us form our consciences and do what is right and avoid what is wrong. We fall victim to the temptation of practical atheism and start to look at the Church as just a bunch of flawed men who are trying to push their old-fashioned agenda into our lives and into our laws.
This is how we have the spectacle of Catholic politicians selling their souls to the government and voting for and promoting the most heinous crimes. This is how we see otherwise decent people with no problem defending the moral enormities that civilized societies eliminated once they became civilized—things like the killing of babies in or out of the womb—or the mercy-killing of ill senior citizens and same sex marriage.
They obviously don’t believe that what the Church teaches about these things is true or that it comes from God. Or if they believe it, they have decided that for the purpose of being re-elected and all the extra money and favors that come into their lives as a result of being elected, that they will keep their beliefs private not let those beliefs have anything to do with their public lives or platforms. There are, thankfully, a few notable exceptions.
But do you remember what Mayor Daley said a few months ago? That he would not let his beliefs have any influence in the way he ruled the city. My Goodness! I can’t believe any Catholic would ever say that! And there are Catholic people both in and out of government who applaud that stance.
These are practical atheists. They live and move and have their being in a spiritual vacuum. They have bought into the idea that society should be structured and lived as if God did not exist. And they have begun to persuade us that this is the ideal society.
In fact ignoring God is enshrined in the constitutions of most modern democracies. We have allowed our governments to decree that God and God’s revealed religion shall have no place in the policies and laws of this land. And regular normal people—the voters shall we say, have begun to accept that as part of our national landscape. God and His Catholic Church should have nothing to do with our policies and programs and therefore, our lives.
Our modern secular states are very pleased to promote practical of atheism—because it enhances their control over our lives. When we enact laws and policies without reference to a Supernatural God and His Church to which we look for help in moral decision-making, then the state becomes God and Church—pope and Bishop—all in one happy electable package.
This is what we do all the time. We let a government of the politicians and by the politicians and for the politicians assume the role of God in our lives. They become the moral measure of our society—politicians! They will decide right from wrong—good from evil—important from not important! Politicians!
But this is what you get with no God or no Church to object to wrong and evil government policies. You get politicians in league with the media and celebrities to decide what is right or wrong, moral or immoral in our lives and in our country.
Dick Durbin and Oprah are going to tell our families what is good? Rahm Emmanuel and Barack Obama are going to teach us morality? To hand over to a creature the authority that belongs only to God—well that is the surest possible recipe for personal and societal disaster.
The true God—the God of Israel—and the God of Jesus—cannot be relegated to the occasional reference on a Sunday— and no more influential in our lives than helping us pick the hymns we sing. When that happens we create an authority vacuum. Who will help us negotiate the moral issues of our lives we ask? And the state—in the practical absence of God—says “We will.” I’ll bet they will!
That is how the state becomes a god and makes a wreck of our country and our world and our families— Practical atheism—living our lives as if there were no God, or as if he really had nothing to do with our lives—and can develop even within the Church.
Sometimes people in the church—including priests—and even Bishops can act as if the Church does not come from the True God or speak with the authority of God. They think the Church as more of club for a select few where we can pick and choose what we believe according to how we feel about it all.
For a Catholic practical atheist, God is not really involved with what we believe.
We don’t like this teaching? Toss it. We don’t like the Pope’s decrees? Ignore them.
But the problem is that if God is God, then what He teaches by means of the Church is true and it cannot change and we must accept it and believe. Maybe we don’t like something—maybe we don’t want it to be true in our lives or in the lives of others—but that’s too bad; because if it is true— all the complaining in the world will not make it false—and—if it is false—there is nothing we can do that will make it true—and all the wishing in the world will not change it.
Not too long ago we were treated to the news that a Catholic parish and its pastor, had submitted to their bishop a petition in which they were all protesting one of the infallible teachings of the Church concerning the sacrament of Holy Orders—that only men can be ordained priests.
What they were doing was telling their Bishop and all the world that—even though they were Catholic-they were not going to believe what the Catholic church believes about Holy Orders! I am sure their Bishop will explain things to them, but welcome to the world of practical atheism where we make all our decisions about what we believe and how we should live as if God and the infallible teachings of His Church did not matter.
You see how practical atheism has made inroads all over our world. Our resolution must be firm—we must understand that there is no God in all the earth—but our God—and His Church speaks with His Authority. And this is whom we will follow in all the decisions in all of our lives—when we are in the voting booth—when we are in the pews.
We may not make friends being so bold about the implications of our beliefs, but at least we will be genuine and Faithful and that is all that our God wants.