Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. As kids, but even as adults, we can make up rules. Kids do it with games they create. The games may not always make sense, and the rules often favor the person making up the game. Sometimes they’re made up as the game progresses. But even as adults we change rules, not often in games, but in relationships, in decisions we make and how we make them, in order to suit our whims and fancies. Not all of this is vicious or devious, but sometimes just the result of more experience. This is often the case with parents’ rules for their children. The firstborn often has very strict rules, and is not allowed to do much, as the parents are still trying to figure out how to be parents and how to keep their eldest safe and responsible. But, as more and more kids come, sometimes the rules soften a bit. Sometimes the baby of the family gets away with things that the oldest child never could have done, this being attributed either to the favor of the youngest child, or because the parents are too tired to fight those battles with another child, so they acquiesce.
Many Catholics see the teachings of the faith as made up rules and regulations. How often does the trope get repeated that this teaching or that Church law is simply the will of a bunch of old men with pointy hats. But St. Paul reminds us of something important today: while there are rules that can change based upon later needs of generations, what is most precious to us and what is necessary is not made up by old men, but is handed down to us, starting from the Apostles, and then further expounded by their successors, the bishops.
In communicating the faith, it’s important to start with those basic teachings (again, we call it the kergyma, which is just the Greek word for teaching). When talking to our neighbors, they may not even be sure if God exists, so we should start there. Whether using St. Thomas Aquinas’s five ways, or simply talking about how there is a desire on our heart for the infinite, which could not be there without an infinite being implanting that in our heart, we can start with the truths about God, who He is, and how He works. This will lead us to how the Church teaches that God is not a monad, but a Trinity of Divine Persons, a Communion of Love.
St. Paul, after talking about God (Christ), then says that He died for our sins. Sin is pretty obvious. G.K. Chesterton said that sin is one of the teachings of the Church that can be proved simply by observation. Look around and you will see people missing the mark (the Greek word for sin, 𝛼𝜇𝛼𝜌𝜏𝜄𝛼, literally means to miss the mark). We see people, and we even notice ourselves, making choices that we don’t really want to make, or that take us in a different direction than we want to travel in life. And if God is life, and sin is choosing against God, then choosing sin is choosing death, more specifically, eternal death if it is grave and we do not repent. That’s a pretty bad place to be, but God didn’t leave us in sin, He took upon Himself the punishment for sin (death), though He was sinless, so that we could have life. He reconciled us to the Father, and gave us the possibility that we could choose God and not choose against God. He accomplished this by His Resurrection, proving that sin and its consequence, death, had no power over Him, that He was more powerful than anything else.
St. Paul then talks about how Christ appeared to Cephas (Peter) and the Eleven. Then other disciples, and then Paul again reiterates Christ appearing to the Apostles, including to St. Paul himself eventually. This is also, I would argue, the basis of the apostolic teaching: Christ continues His ministry through His Apostles (whom He chose to lead the Church) and through His disciples (all those who follow Him in the Church). And His grace, through the Apostles and disciples, is not in vain; it is active and enlivens the Church. But always in harmony with the basic teachings, and how the Magisterium, the fancy term for the pope and bishops exercising their teaching office, has developed those basic teachings.
Our job is to share those teachings, and hold fast to what has been handed down to us in matters of faith and morals. When we do that, we participate in our Lord opening the ears and mouths of the deaf and mute (but without having to spit on everyone with whom we share the Gospel). All of those teachings are in Scripture, directly or indirectly; others are promulgated in Ecumenical Councils, from Nicaea I to Vatican II; others are in papal pronouncements on faith and morals; others are commonly taught by the popes and bishops. But we do not change those teachings that touch on what has been revealed as part of the divine and Catholic faith: not the pope, not any bishop, not any priest, not any layperson. If we were to do that, we would cut ourselves off from communion with the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, and we would find ourselves on the outside looking in, rather than part of that communion of Trinitarian love that God desires for each of us.
Yes, some rules are created that flow from our belief, but can change based on the needs of certain generations and peoples. But our teachings on faith and morals are not made up, like in a child’s game, just to favor those who are in power. Our teachings on faith and morals is a bottomless treasure chest, helping us to find the happiness that God desires for us, but always in harmony with the earliest treasures God gave to us in His Truth. May we all be equipped to understand those treasures of faith and morals, and share them with others, so that they, too, can come into a saving relationship with the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
