Remembering a Past (and Current) Teaching

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Sometimes, after a number of years or decades, if the meaning of something is not refreshed in the minds of the people, things once taken for granted are forgotten.  Take Veterans’ Day: you may or may not know that Veterans’ Day is always 11 November, no matter on what day of the week that date falls.  But many people probably don’t know that 11 November wasn’t a random day chosen for this federal holiday.  11 November marked the end of World War I in 1918, and was celebrated as the end of the war to end all wars.  Of course, we know that World War II followed, and so, in 1954, rather than simply celebrating Armistice Day and the end of World War I, the name was changed to Veterans’ Day, honoring all those who served in war.  
    Today in our second reading, we heard about a particular sin: that of withholding wages from laborers.  St. James writes, “the wages you withheld from the workers…and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.”  This is one of a list of sins that Scripture notes cry to heaven for vengeance.  The full list is: the blood of Abel (homicide); the sin of the Sodomites (homosexual activity); the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt (slavery); the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan; and injustice to the wage earner, which we heard today.  You can find this list in paragraph 1867 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
    We probably don’t use this phrase that often, and because we don’t use it, we forget that it still holds true.  Certain sins cry out to God for His divine justice.  And even though one may think that he has gotten away with it because no one has noticed, God has taken notice; He has heard the cry from that sin, and will repay accordingly if there is no repentance.  Some make sense, especially homicide and slavery.  Others, like the sin of Sodom or maybe even the sin that St. James mentions today, may not seem serious.  In fact, some would not even call them sins.  But they are gravely against God’s plan for human happiness and the justice that He desires exist among all people.
    In the Gospel, Jesus also reminds His disciples, which includes us, that while good deeds, even the smallest ones, can echo into eternity, so can evil deeds.  Jesus advises us to take seriously the punishment for sin, because one will account for the evil done in the “unquenchable fire” of Gehenna, another name for Hell.  Jesus even notes hyperbolically, that if a part of our us is causing sin, then cut it off.  Of course, he’s not asking us to perform surgery and mutilate ourselves.  But He is encouraging us to figuratively cut out the parts of our life that separate us from God, so that we can enter heaven.  
    We don’t talk about sin too much, because talking about sin makes us admit that we are wrong, and no one likes to do that.  We don’t talk about the consequences of sin because we prefer to think about God as more of a grandparent who never tells us no, and who will welcome us into His home no matter what we may have done at ours.  Sin has an effect on us, and draws us farther away from God.  God, who is Justice Himself, cannot ignore unrepentant sin, anymore than light can allow darkness to continue in its presence.  The light always destroys the darkness whenever it is present.  This doesn’t take away from God’s mercy, which is also who God is, but somehow in God justice and mercy meet perfectly.
    Dr. Peter Kreeft, a Catholic apologist, notes:
 

If you really think that you can endure and enjoy the full light and fire of God for a second after you die, being essentially the same kind of being you are now, without any kind of divine operation on your soul, then you dangerously underestimate either your sinful nature, God’s holiness, or the gap between them.

It’s not as if God can let sin go, in the sense that He can allow sin to persist in His divine presence, like it’s a permission He can grant.  God, being holiness itself, burns away sin, which is why God told Moses that he couldn’t see God face to face on earth and live.  Instead, God had to shield Moses in the rock, and only let Moses see God as He passed by, so that Moses would not be destroyed.  
    So, for us, all unrepentant sin will receive its consequence.  Venial sins will not be treated harshly because they were not a strong turning away from God and His life.  But God will still deal with them.  And even more harshly will God deal with mortal sins and the sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance, because they signify serious, even deadly repudiation of God’s presence in our life.  We can deal with those mortal sins in confession, where the Blood of Jesus washes those sins away so that they are no more, or we can deal with them at our judgement, at which point, as the Church teaches, we have no hope of salvation if we have not yet repented.  Again, we don’t talk that way often, but the Church teaches, and I quote, “If [mortal sin] is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell.”  
    So today, it’s a good thing to ask ourselves, do I have serious sin that needs to be forgiven through sacramental confession?  Do I participate in or encourage any of the sins that cry to heaven for vengeance?  Am I forming hatred in my heart for another that can lead to homicide?  Do I encourage human trafficking through the viewing of pornography?  Do I oppress those who have no one to help them, like the foreigner, the widow, or the orphan?  Am I just to those who work for me?  Are there other mortal sins, even simple ones like taking God’s name in vain or skipping Mass out of laziness or preference for other things that are endangering my eternal salvation?  If so, today is the day for repentance.  Today is the day to return to the Sacrament of Penance so that the mercy, rather than the justice, of God can wash over you and save you.  
    Just because we don’t talk about sin as much does not mean that it has gone away, or that it no longer matters.  May we not forget just how serious sin is, but rather accept God’s grace to turn away from our sin, and turn to God to be wrapped in His divine mercy.  

The End is Near!

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

            We seem to have two themes running through all our readings today: the first theme is praise of a worthy wife which we heard in our first reading and responsorial psalm; the second theme is preparing properly for the end of the world which we heard in our second reading and Gospel passage.  Though I’m not married, I do not think a worthy wife and the end of the world are related.

            These last few weeks of Ordinary Time (next week is already the last Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe) and the first couple weeks of Advent always focus us on Jesus’ second coming.  This is a major part of our faith, and we profess it each week in the creed: “He will come again to judge the living and the dead.”  Ever since the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the Catholic Church has always considered herself to be living in the end times, and that Jesus could return at any minute.  Hence the message we heard in our second reading: “For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.  When people are saying, ‘Peace and security,’ then sudden disaster comes upon them.”  We cannot grow lax in waiting for Jesus to return. 

            And we are advised against being lax in our Gospel passage when Jesus tells us to use our talents well and make something with them, rather than just hiding them away.  God has given us each something to do that no one else can do, and our eternal salvation is connected to whether or not we are using our talents. 

           

But it’s all too easy to forget about Jesus’ return.  We write off people who hold up signs saying, “The End is Near” as crazy.  How often do we think about Jesus’ coming back to judge us?  Now, we never know the day nor the hour, but we do know it’s coming, and it could be any minute.  Peter Kreeft, a Catholic professor at Boston College, puts the question in a very direct way: If you were to die today, and God asked you, “Why should I let you into heaven?”, what would you say?  That’s a pretty big question!  Maybe we’ve never thought of it that way before.  What would we say?  Of course, in general, the answer is because Jesus died for our sins so that we could enter into heaven.  But that answer begs another question: what have we done to show that we have accepted the gift of eternal salvation that Jesus gave us?  In other words, what have we done with the talents God gave us?  Talents, in the sense Jesus used it in the Gospel, were not so much gifts, as a way of expressing a monetary value.  One talent could have equaled anywhere from $1,000 to 20 years’ worth of wages (Scripture scholars disagree).  But even if we low-ball it at $1,000: we would know what to do with $1,000 or $2,000 or $5,000.  We would use it wisely if entrusted to us.  Even more so with 20, or 40, or 100 years’ worth of wages!!  The gift of eternal salvation is much more expensive: it cost the Son of God His life!!  But what do we do with that?  How do we accept the precious gift of salvation?  Do we capitalize on it and make sure we make the most of it?  Or do we bury it away?

            The servant who had one talent says that he buried the talent out of fear.  But we also know that the master did not come back until after a long time.  In all that time, the servant never had to think about whether or not he was using the talent well.  It was hidden from the world, not doing anything.  Even the master tells the servant that he could have at least put the talent in the bank, done the least little bit with it, so that it would earn interest.  Maybe it wouldn’t be thought of a lot, but at least the talent would be active in the sense of earning more.  And, as we look at the servants who made something with their talents, they were actively engaged with their talent.  Maybe they lost some of what they made.  Maybe at one point they had more than doubled their money, but then lost some.  Still, they used their talents all the while their master was gone.

            What have we done with Jesus’ salvation that was offered to us?  Maybe coming to Mass each week is like putting that talent in the bank.  It’s not much, but at least it’s something.  Maybe earning two more talents is being involved once or twice a month in works of charity, or helping to spread the faith, or talking to someone about Jesus, or reading Scripture on our own.  Maybe earning five more talents is praying daily in addition to going to Mass as often as we can, and being involved in serving the poor, teaching people about Jesus, and trying each day to become closer friends with Jesus.  I honestly don’t know, though, because I’m not the judge; Jesus is.  But if we don’t know, then we have to make a decision: if we do less and more is required of us to show that we accept Jesus’ salvation, then we’re in trouble; if we do more and less is required of us to show that we accept Jesus’ salvation, then we’re set either way, and maybe we’ll enjoy a better reward in heaven.  Put another way: if we are not sure, better to aim for heaven and miss (so that we go to Purgatory) than to aim for Purgatory and miss (so that we go to Hell).  In doing less, we risk hearing: “‘“You wicked, lazy servant!  [...T]hrow this useless servant into the darkness outside where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”’”  But in doing more, it is more likely that we will hear: “‘“Well done, my good and faithful servant.  […]Come, share your master’s joy.”’”  Which do you want to hear?