Life without God is one long heartache, whether in society or in the family

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Aug. 14, 2011
Fr. Anthony Brankin
Free MP3 Audio Gospel: Matt. 15:21-28 “I was sent only to the lost sheep….”

Homily summary: Last week we had the feast day of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, who died in a Nazi concentration camp in the 1940s. She is also known as Edith Stein, a professor of philosophy in Germany. She was Jewish, and in her early years an atheist. She didn”t believe in God, but because she was intelligent, and because she wondered about the existence of God, she kept asking questions such as “Did God exist?” and “If so, did He love her?”

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“And if there is a God, why is there a universe, the stars,” and so on. If, on the other hand, if there is no God, there is no morality, no reason to say no to bad things. She concluded that there is a God; otherwise, nothing made sense. She knew that in our hearts it is important to be good. She kept praying, and thinking. Then she believed in God and in loving Jesus, and believed that Jesus was the Messiah.

Spectacular news

This was spectacular news to her family – first that she became a Catholic, and then that she became a Carmelite nun. This was the worst possible error in the worst possible century, that she not only became a Catholic, but a Carmelite nun.

And thus the 20th century became the era of government without God. With atheism, there is no hope, no peace – only death and misery. To be both Jewish and Catholic – Edith Stein was the wrong nationality and the wrong religion. The Nazis weren”t Christian, but atheists, they would do anything to achieve their goals.

That”s baloney

Modern atheists say that religion is the cause of all wars. That”s baloney. It is atheism that causes death and destruction. Troubles, sadness, tearfulness, atomic holocausts, torture, and terrorism, muggings, wars, and disaster – this is the world without God.

This is true, not just in the political sphere, but on a personal level. If we abandon God, we suffer on the personal and family level. No house can be big enough, nor even if we had a TV in every room, could we prevent divorce, or end drinking, or abuse. Only God is the answer.

Life in our families without God is a reflection of life in the world without God. This is why Edith Stein became a Catholic. There must be a God because goodness proves the necessity of God. Her death proved how true this is.