24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Anthony Brankin
Gospel: Matt. 18:21-35 How often shall I forgive my brother?
Summary (Today’s homily was followed by a heartfelt applause): Last week we had two great holidays – Labor Day and the feast of St. Peter Claver. One of the Church’s best kept secrets is its social teaching. This teaching needs to be understood more because it helps people and families.
Are you attracted to a life of prayer and contemplation? The words Contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere – “to contemplate and to share with other the fruits of the contemplation” – is the motto of the Dominican Order – friars, nuns, and active sisters. Learn more about the Dominican Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and find out whether you might have a calling as a Dominican Sister by taking our 7 Quick Questions survey.
St. Peter Claver was a servant of the poorest of the poor. There were people in Africa captured by Arabs and sold as slaves. The slaves suffered from starvation, dehydration, and died by the hundreds of thousands in the holds of ships. Peter Claver understood the wickedness of the slave trade as they were dumped on the shores of South America. He gave them food and water, and told them about the God who loves them, told them about Jesus who suffered like they did, and died for them. Peter Claver baptized hundreds of thousands of slaves, and even is credited for making South America Catholic.
The Church condemned slavery for hundreds of years, but Catholic slave owners and others ignored the Church. Today, the Church – the Pope, bishops, priests and the people fight against abortion and other evils, and they tell us to stay out of politics, and stick to religion.
They don’t give a hoot
Does the Catholic governor of Illinois, the senators in Washington, and our Christian president in Washington care about today’s social evils? They don’t give a hoot about unborn babies. If today’s politicians and those influencing social policy in banking, loans and other matters listened to the Church, our society would be thriving as before.
Fr. Brankin’s grandfather, born in 1860 in Belgium, worked as a six-year-old boy in a factory winding bobbins and making cloth on a big dangerous machine, just to bring home some pennies for his family. The Church had to lay down principles as to what was fair. We have become a nation of wage slaves. We buy things that we don’t need, with money that we don’t have. It’s all done for money, and the money makers send their earnings to the Bahamas. They pick our pockets even as they are picking our brains. How crucial and important is Catholic social teaching – if it were followed, families and marriages would be strengthened.