24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Anthony Brankin
Gospel: Matt. 18:21-35 How often shall I forgive my brother?
Full homily text: (This homily was followed by heartfelt applause.) We had an interesting combination of celebrations this week—and of course those are the ones I really like. I am talking about last Monday being Labor Day, and a day or so ago being the Feast of St. Peter Claver.
Walk on the spiritual path along with St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal into the Love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Are you a lay person interested in plunging more fully into a way of daily devotion? Or considering a vocation to the monastic Visitandine tradition? Go to Visitation Spirit website.
It just seems to me that the two days come together beautifully for Catholics as an incredible opportunity to talk about one of the best kept secrets of Catholic life—and that is Catholic Social teaching. I am convinced that if we understand even some of the most basic principles of Catholic Social teaching and use this understanding in our politics and our lives we will have done immensely more to help people and families than we could have ever imagined.
A servant to the slaves
First—Peter Claver. He was a priest born in Spain and God gave him an incredible vocation—much like Mother Theresa of Calcutta. He was called to serve the poorest of the poor. At that time that was slaves. No one in the whole world suffered more miserably or more deeply in body or soul than the poor fathers, mothers and children who were captured by Arab traders and then sold into slavery and brought to the New World, North and South America.
You can only imagine the misery of these starving, dehydrated, sick and injured slaves coming by the hundreds of thousands, chained and shoved into the ship’s hold. These poor wretches were covered in filth and disease and they must have been absolutely terrified about what was going to happen to them. That, of course, is the ones who didn’t die on the voyage over.
(And I used that word “wretches” on purpose. Did you know that the man who wrote “Amazing Grace” was what they called a “Yankee Slaver”. When he finally returned to his Christian Faith, he felt so guilty about what he had done to thousands of people as a slave trader that he wrote that song and called himself—so full of sin—“Wretch” because of his sins. How amazing that God loved him who was so wicked.)
Wickedness of slave trade
Well Peter Claver understood from the bottom up the wickedness of the slave trade and he spent his whole life as a priest caring for them as the ships with their sad human cargo came to port.
He went on each boat and he bound up the injured, gave food and water to the starving and those dying of thirst. He cleaned them and held them and comforted them and told them about a God who loved them—even if these awful slave traders and owners didn’t. He told them about Jesus who suffered like they were suffering and would even die for them.
Baptized 300,000
And then he would baptize them—and give them the first bright moment in months of terrible ordeals. Peter Claver they say, baptized about three hundred thousand persons and was deeply responsible for much of the Catholicity of Latin America. People—you know the modernist atheists—will likely say, “Well why didn’t the Church condemn the slave trade? Weren’t all the slavers in Latin America Catholic?”
Well the Church did condemn the slave trade! For hundreds of years the Popes had thundered against the immorality of taking other human beings captive and enslaving them. And for hundreds of years the Catholic governors and Catholic viceroys and Catholic slave owners and Catholic officials ignored the Popes and their teachings.
They would sneer: “The Pope shouldn’t get involved in politics. He should stick to religion! We have always had slaves. This is the law of the land.”
Some guy in Italy
They would snarl: “That’s only the Pope talking—just some guy in Italy all dressed up who thinks he has all this authority. Heck there is big money in slaves–a lot of money—and no Roman nosed priest who says he speaks for Christ is going to tell us we can’t make that money.”
That’s what the rulers and politicians said then to the church; and doesn’t it sound familiar even to our modern ears when the church—its Pope and all the bishops and priests and faithful Catholic people rail against abortion the killing of little babies before they are born? What do the cool people say? what do our handlers and masters tell us? “Be quiet. Don’t get involved in politics. Stick to religion!” And like the Catholic slave owners from five hundred years ago they simply don’t care about what the Church teaches as long as they can profit from it all.
Does the Catholic Governor of Illinois care what his Church teaches about the sacredness of human life? Do any of the Catholic senators and representatives in Washington or even the Christian president of the United States give a hoot as to what the Vicar of Christ teaches about killing innocent babies?
Why we have slavery and abortion
And that’s why we had slaves and that is why we have abortion—none of the people who run this country are listening to the moral teachings of the Church.
This is where Labor Day comes in. Because Labor Day gives us an opportunity to meditate upon the social teaching of the Church—which is part of the moral magisterium of the church.
You see it is not enough to say you believe in One God and three Persons and all the catalog of Catholic mysteries. You must also believe what the Church tells us about how we live out that faith in our lives—in our private lives, our family lives, our working lives and in our political lives. What does the Church teach about how we should behave with each other in the world? And also what is the role or obligation of the State in all of this?
Society would be thriving
This is important, because if the world of industry and business and labor and politics actually started to listen to the Church—as it did not do with slavery—then our families would be thriving and prospering as they never have before.
Catholic social teaching begins and ends with the family. The first principle of Catholic social teaching—is that all governmental and social policies: what we legislate about wages and labor; how we determine what is just and moral in banking and finance; the laws and rules regarding how and what people can lend—all these policies and ideas must be designed to help the family. If those policies do not help the family then they are immoral.
I think of my grandfather who was born in 1860 in Belfast Northern Ireland—right around the beginning of the Industrial revolution. That was when they pulled all our families off the farms and stuck them in urban slums all over the world—London, Liverpool, Belfast, New York, Chicago—and promised them a salary in exchange for their lives.
Six-year-old working in factory
Well things were so bad in Belfast that my grandfather was only six years old—and they had him working in a factory. He worked and slaved probably twelve or fourteen hours a day—a little six year old boy—laboring in a linen mill.
He wound bobbins on big dangerous iron machines. Just a tiny little boy making cloth for rich people—and he bringing home a couple of pennies to put on his family’s table to add to the pennies the rest of his brothers and sisters were making in their factories.
With a situation like this—where fathers made so little that their children and the children’s mothers and sisters were made to work in inhuman ways and for impossibly long hours—with no hope of things getting better —is it any wonder we needed a labor movement. Is it any wonder we needed a Church to lay down principles about what is moral—what is just? What is fair? What will help and not hurt families?
Fathers must be paid
This is the reason for Catholic social teaching. For example one of the first principles—and it was taught by all the Popes since Leo the XIII—is that fathers must be paid enough salary so that their wives can stay home—and that their children do not have to go to work.
Can you imagine the changes in our society if all of our fathers were making enough money so that all the mothers could stay home and therefore create a family with all the love possible present. Imagine how it would be with Mom being there all the time—and drawing the family together in her warm and wonderful embrace.
This is what is called a “Living Wage” because it is what families can live on! A living wage is way more than even “minimum wage” which is what conservatives and liberals are always fighting over.
But a Living Wage is certainly not what the capitalists or even the socialists want to hear. They want an economy and society that spends all its energies and time on the creation of wealth—its production and its consumption.
“Family” for moderns is not the foundation Society. “Family” for moderns is only a means to wealth. Money is the goal. Filthy lucre as they used to call it. And we see it every day played out in our world where families are just one more disposable cog in the “wheel of fortune.”
Today’s wage slaves
In our modern society, we and our families have become the new slaves, but this time we are “wage slaves”. Most of the time we are not even aware of what they have done to us and what they have made out of us—producers and consumers who work all day so that we could spend all night, buying things we don’t need with money we don’t have. Isn’t that what has happened?
And as our families fall apart—these masterminds get richer and richer. But we don’t really notice it because they have mesmerized us with big screen “Vampires in Love” and HDTV Sports on Steroids. We are so numbed that we don’t even notice that they have been picking our pockets as they have been picking our brains.
Some guy called me a fascist the other day. (I guess a fascist can be defined as someone who says something we disagree with.) He said that I ought to be removed from the parish and the priesthood because I talk about these things. Well sorry. This discussion is part of the teaching authority of the church—the Magisterium. This is part of what we must believe and do to be saved. It is not optional—not for us—not for the politicians. If we fail to discuss it and teach it—then we do so at peril to our souls.
A better society
We need to remember that Catholic social teaching is prior to politics; and the politicians need to know that. They need to know that the key to a better society and happier families is for everyone to follow what the Church teaches in regards to life and love and family and business and finance.
If our society—its politicians and voters—that’s us—always understood how crucial and important is Catholic social teaching, then slavery would have ended a long time before it did; and today’s babies would be saved, while seniors would be comforted, marriages encouraged and families strengthened.
The Church is always teaching—we just need to start listening.