One of the Hardest Things about being Catholic

 Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    What’s the hardest thing about being Catholic?  Is it believing that Jesus, who looked just like us, is God?  Is it believing that Mary never sinned, and did not have original sin?  Is it trusting that Jesus will not allow His Church to teach anything about what we are to believe or how we are to live that goes against His will?  Is it that bread and wine are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to truly become the Body and Blood of Jesus?  Is it having only one spouse for an entire life?  Is it not using artificial contraception, or artificial means of conceiving?   Is it going to church every Sunday and holyday?  Is it not lying, not gossiping, not coveting?  Or is it Jesus’ command that we hear today, that we are to forgive?
    Maybe some of those other things are hard for us as well, but I hazard a guess that forgiving someone who has hurt us is one of the most difficult parts of our faith.  I don’t mean forgiving someone who didn’t really do us that much harm, or even forgiving someone who did us harm, but whom we easily love and so we easily forgive.  And I don’t mean forgiving a stranger whom we don’t care about and will never see again.  I mean forgiving someone who truly pierced our hearts by their actions, by their betrayal, by their serious wrongdoing, whom we know, with whom we interact.  
    And yet, that’s what Jesus calls us to do as His followers.  We forgive, not only seven times, but seventy-seven times (and if you think that the number seventy-seven is meant to be exact, think again; it means over and over again).  Forgiveness should be easy, because, as the author of Sirach says, “Wrath and anger are hateful things.”  We usually stay away from things that are full of hatred.  But for some reason, we can cling to wrath, anger, and unforgiveness.  
    We think that by holding on to the pain, to the hurt, to the wrong, to our grudge, that it makes us more powerful.  We think that it hurts the other person by our being mad at them (when, in fact, the other person generally doesn’t know and/or doesn’t care).  So we nurture our hatred toward that person.  What that person did can be truly wrong, maybe even heinously wrong.  Maybe someone ruined our good name, or cost us our job.  Maybe someone inflicted great bodily harm against us, or, sometimes even worse than bodily harm, emotional or spiritual harm.  I’m not talking, and neither is the Lord, about ignoring the bad behavior, or saying that it doesn’t matter.  Forgiveness only means something when what happened does matter, and did really hurt us.  
    Perhaps even more striking than what Jesus teaches us about forgiving others, though, is that the way we forgive, or don’t forgive, others, is how we will be forgiven.  Elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says it this way: the measure we measure out to others will in turn be measured out to us.  In other words, God will forgive us as we forgive others.  This shouldn’t come as a shock, though, because we say it each time we say the Our Father: forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.  May we take it as: forgive us, because we’re forgiving others.  But we can also look at it as: forgive us in the measure that we forgive others.
    I want you to close your eyes now.  Go ahead, close them.  Think of a person that has hurt you, that you are having a hard time forgiving, or maybe cannot forgive.  Think of that person’s face, their eyes.  Think about what that person did that you are finding it difficult or impossible to forgive.  Maybe you feel that hurt welling up inside you again, that anger pulsing through your body, wanting retribution, wanting justice, wanting revenge.  What words did you say to that person in anger?  
    Keep your eyes closed.  Now picture yourself standing before the judgement seat of Christ.  You are there, cognizant of your sinfulness, but wanting mercy, wanting to be welcomed into heaven.  You can almost feel the joy, the warmth, the light coming from just beyond where you are.  You can sense that you were made for that place, that it would complete you.  And from the mouth of Christ you hear the words that you spoke in anger to the person you cannot forgive.  What do you feel now?  
    You can open your eyes again.  If we really took that exercise seriously, it was probably pretty stark; maybe even scary.  I know it was for me as I composed this homily.  Jesus died for us, He forgave us for leading Him to the cross, not because He had to, but because He loves us.  He wants to forgive us, and the only thing that can stand in our way is our lack of forgiveness towards others.  So today, even if it can only be far away and can’t or shouldn’t be in person, forgive that person who has harmed you.  Let go of the hatred and the grudge you’ve been holding on to.  Forgive others, so that your heavenly Father can forgive you.

Interdependence not Independence

 Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Think about the great milestones in a person’s life that we celebrate: first steps; going to school; riding a bicycle without training wheels; driving; going to college; buying your first house.  What do all those have in common?  They are all about independence.  It’s not so amazing that a child walks while his or her parents are holding on; it’s noteworthy (as well as the beginning of a new, scary part of childhood) when the child can walk on his or her own.  Yes, kids first learn how to drive with a parent in the car.  But when do we really celebrate?  When you can drive on your own.  Going off to college is, yes, going to a large group of people in a new place (at least before COVID), but it’s striking out on one’s own away from parents.  And buying one’s own house (or apartment) means, generally, that you’re not living with your parents anymore.
    There’s nothing in se wrong with this, but look at how much we celebrate independence and individuality and doing things on one’s own.  We celebrate when a person doesn’t need another person anymore, but can do something on his or her own.  I can tell you that I really knew I was an adult when my parents didn’t have to pay for their own birthday dinners, but I paid the check.
    And yet, our readings today all talk about interdependence, rather than independence.  Let’s start with the Gospel.  Jesus recognizes that there will be conflicts among His disciples.  While He calls them to love one another, He also realizes that we do not always do that.  And so, Jesus says that if our fellow disciple sins against us, we are to deal with it, not independently (by gossiping and holding on to grudges by ourselves), but interdependently, by telling our brother or sister that they have sinned against us, and need to repent.  If the other doesn’t listen to us, we invite others who have knowledge of the fault to bolster our case.  If the other doesn’t listen to them, we invite the church to get involved (notice that running to tell the priest is not the first step!).  If the other won’t even listen to the church, then we can work on separating from them.  The process of reconciliation is not one-sided in Jesus’ church, but always works with at least two.
    In our second reading, St. Paul tells us that we are to love one another, because love fulfills the law.  Love, by its very nature, is diffusive.  It seeks an outlet.  Self-love is not really what is meant by love.  Yes, we have to care for ourselves, but if we truly love, then it always involves the way we treat each other.  All of the commandments that we are bound to keep, are examples of ways that we should love each other.  We cannot say that we are keeping the commandments if we cut everyone else out of our life or only do what is best for ourselves.  That narcissism is part and parcel of our current culture, but it’s anathema for followers of Jesus.
    And lastly, in our first reading, Ezekiel talks about the shepherds of Israel.  He’s not talking about people who care for sheep, but people who care for people, the religious leaders.  And God says through Ezekiel that shepherds have a responsibility to look out for others, to warn them about sin and death, so that they can avoid it.  When the shepherds warn about sin and death, they also save themselves.  If they don’t warn the sheep about sin and death, not only do the sheep die, but God promises to hold the shepherds responsible, too.  
    As followers of Jesus, we are interdependent.  What we do affects each other.  We are our brother’s keeper.  We cannot simply say that we’re doing the right thing, so let the world go to hell in a hand basket.  We have a responsibility towards each other, especially as fellow believers.  
    There’s a word that we have when a follower of Jesus doesn’t do publicly what he or she is supposed to do, and that word is scandal.  We currently associate that work with priests who committed horrible crimes against the most innocent, and that is certainly a horrible scandal.  But scandal applies to all, not just priests and not just about sexual abuse.  When a Catholic says publicly that he or she supports abortion, euthanasia, artificial contraception, sex outside of marriage, marriage between two people of the same sex, or that sex has no connection to biology, that is a scandal, because Catholics are not to support such practices or ideas because they are contrary to God’s revelation.  When a Catholic makes derogatory comments about a person simply because of that person’s race, gender, IQ, economic status, or religion, that is a scandal, because Catholics are called to show respect to every person as created in the image and likeness of God.  As Catholics we can judge certain beliefs and actions to be wrong without judging another because God has revealed to us that those things are wrong.  Sin, too, is always interdependent: it always effects more than simply the person committing the sin.  We are both to work so that we are not a scandal to others, as well as work to correct others so that they are not a scandal to the world.
    G.K. Chesterton, an early 20th century Catholic author said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”  So often, when we come to a difficult part of our faith, we try to be independent, to make it on our own, or to choose to reject what the Church calls us to believe or how the Church calls us to live.  We owe it to Jesus, and to each other, to be interdependent; to help each other live as followers of Jesus.  Catholicism is not a religion of independence; it’s a religion of interdependence which calls us to care for and to challenge each other to be the saints that God call us to be in Baptism.