Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Anthony Brankin
In these first weeks of September, we are about to begin our school year and catechetical year. Happily, all our numbers are increasing. We have almost two hundred forty children in the school. And it seems as if our catechism program will have over four hundred children. I am very pleased. All our families and parishioners should be pleased. This is what is meant by going out to the peripheries. We are going out to the edges of our cities, and we are casting the net in a wide circle to gather in those forty-four thousand young people in Cicero and Berwyn—almost all of them are Catholic and almost all of them have no connection with the Catholic Church. Most were baptized—very few made their First communion—hardly any made their confirmation. And they will surely slip through the cracks and be lost if we do not find them. And what do they lose—besides their souls?
Think of how difficult their lives will be without the Catholic Faith. They will hardly be able to protect their children from the terrible influences out there. They won’t even know that there are bad things in our culture ready to pounce on their children and devour their babies and split apart their families. Without the Catholic faith in their lives they will not have any idea why everything in their lives and in their homes is falling apart. They will only know what this world teaches—that money and fun and pleasure are the only important things. They will only know about partying and drinking and drugging. They will never hear about the love of Jesus or about the beauty of the Virgin Mary. They will not desire heaven and they wont care if they go to hell. And their lives will be mean and ugly and pointless—they will cry and make others cry. That is the destiny of young people in modern America—whose families have lost the Faith. And it is very sad indeed.
Learning to live the faith
When we teach the Catholic Faith, we introduce our young people to Jesus—who will guide them and inspire them and give them the grace they will need to be good Catholic children of their own parents. They will learn to be good fathers and good mothers themselves. Of course, it is Jesus who is really teaching them—about Himself—about His Virgin mother— about how it all works. They learn how the sacraments and devotions are woven into the very structure of their own lives. They learn how our days and nights are punctuated with prayers and sacraments and populated with saints and angels.
They learn how to refresh their spirits with holy water and lift their hearts with the sound of holy bells. They learn how to feed their deepest hunger with Holy Communion— Jesus Himself—using our teachers—explains to our children about his Cross and Resurrection. He tells them about baptism and confession and marriage—and even about the last rites. Jesus tells them how to resist the temptations that assault them every day in the media. He tells them how to raise their families—how to work hard for their families’ bread—and how to comfort them with the rosary and Mass. He tells them how to be faithful to their spouses—in good times or bad—in sickness or in health—for richer or poorer.
And our students will learn that they will be a happy family only if they love each other and God. And they can only do it properly—if they do it as Catholics. Because that is the religion that comes from Jesus—and of course, the Virgin. Not the “Christians”, not the Cicero Bible Church, not the Iglesia Evangelica—no. The True Church of Christ is the Catholic Church. It is whole and complete—all the teachings—all the sacraments—all the commandments. And that is what Jesus wants to give our children. Oh, I know that they will not all turn out to be little Padre Pios and Mother Theresas. I accept that. But our children will know for the rest of their lives that they are Catholics, that the Catholic Church is their Mother; and they will return to their own homes and other parishes–renewed and refreshed. Our program may not be perfect, but could anyone deny that our children’s lives are better because they have met Jesus here—for the first time?