Stopping the Cycle

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time/Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  Most Sundays I preach on the word of God in the Scriptures or a particular season or feast day.  But last week, during the 10 a.m. Mass, our country experienced yet another act of violence.  But this time it hit closer to home, as this mass shooting occurred in Grand Blanc, where many of you live.  I will admit that, before this past Sunday, it was always somewhere else, some other State, some other community.  
    Perhaps we can identify with the Prophet Habakkuk, who wrote, “How long, O LORD?  I cry for help but you do not listen!  I cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not intervene.  Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery?  Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord.”  In the wake of these tragedies, we seek to understand how this could happen, and what we could do to bring these tragedies to an end.  
    I’m not going to suggest any political solutions today.  And that’s not because political solutions cannot do anything.  We need to examine causes and do whatever we can to stop the natural causes of these acts of violence and terrorism.  

    But it’s all too easy to get stuck on arguing about external causes and political solutions to problems which go deeper than what we see on the outside and what government can do to solve our problems, though government certainly does have a role in preventing these evils in some ways.  Whenever these evils manifest, we seem to go through the same cycle every time: sympathy for those who died or were injured; moral outrage that this should happen; divergent views on how to prevent these acts of terror from happening in the future, be it gun control, mental health funding, violent video game restrictions, or other solutions upon which we divide into two major camps: liberal and conservative.  Then, because there is no consensus between liberals and conservatives, we do almost nothing, and basically wait for the next act of terrorism, where we go through the same steps again, and achieve nothing.
    Again, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do anything in the political arena.  Government’s first responsibility is to protect life.  But government cannot solve the problem, because the problem is not, at its heart, political.  The problem is not liberals or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans.  The problem is here, in our hearts, in our souls.  The problem that we don’t want to admit is that evil exists, and we are all too comfortable with evil, only to be surprised when it reaches its natural conclusion in horrible acts of violence.
    To be clear, I composed this homily before I learned much of anything about the shooter, whose name I will not share, and who has now stood before the just and merciful judgement of God.  So I can’t and won’t talk in any cogent matter about this particular person and what could have motivated him to cooperate in grave evil.
    But the reason what we continue to go through this cycle of violence is because our society has rejected God, at least at a wholesale level.  We are unwilling to acknowledge our sins, both as individuals and as a society.  We cooperate with evil, and then act surprised when evil does what it always does, seek destruction and chaos, whereas God is the source of creation and order.
    It doesn’t start with horrible evil, of course,  It starts when we say that something else is more important than God; when parents decide that the traveling sports team is more important than Sunday Mass; when a man or a woman decides that lust on a screen seems more enjoyable than following God’s plan for our ability to create new life; when prayer is too much of a burden each day; when we try to pretend that a loving father and loving mother are not key to stable and mentally healthy children; when we treat life only as valuable as it can serve some purpose for us and our utilitarian ends; when we accept the lie that our life has no relationship to God and how he has created us; when we live in an ungodly way; when we turn away from God and exalt our will and our egos; when we do these and other smaller acts of evil, we decide that we want these evils to continue again and again, until it strikes closer to home than we wanted or ever thought possible.  
    God has plans for us to thrive.  God can bring  this cycle of violence to an end, if we follow Him.  But we have to follow Him.  External policies can help, but they cannot solve the problem, any more than a band-aid can heal a severed artery.  The solution to our national problem with violence requires us to live Godly lives.  It is that simple and that complicated.  We have to love the Lord our God with all of who we are, and love our neighbor as ourselves, even when they are difficult to love.  Men and women need to truly love each other and commit to marriage before they have children.  We have to stop demonizing those who disagree with us, but rather use logic and God’s revelation to form them to understand the truth, not simply an opinion that seems easier to follow.  We need to go to Mass each Sunday and Holyday and recognize our dependence on God, rather than pretending that we are gods and the masters of the universe.  Until this happens, there will be more examples of Columbine; Sandy Hook; Nashville; Oxford; Minneapolis; Grand Blanc.  Until this happens, we’re just spending more money on better security, which others will try to beat with better guns and weapons and tactics, which will lead to more money being spent on security, in a vicious cycle.  
    If we want this unending violence to come to an end, then we need to submit ourselves to God and His law.  It may seem like this won’t do much.  But God promises: “For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.”  If we wish to live in a safe society, then do not join the diabolical forces that seek to exult the self over God and do whatever we want and whatever feels good.  God’s vision, subjection to Him and His rule, will not disappoint.  It will transform it into the world that we want at our deepest core, the desire that God has put into our hearts for order and peace, a desire that comes only when we conform our wills to His[: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen].     

Having a Beer with Jesus

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

    In his song, “Beer with Jesus,” Thomas Rhett sings about what many a person would like to do: sit down and share an adult beverage with the Lord.  And, as the country music singer muses, he would ask Him numerous questions including: “Do you hear the prayers I send?”; “What happens when life ends?”; “What’s on the other side?”; “Is mom and daddy alright?”  As rational human beings we seek knowledge, we seek to understand.  And yet, as we heard in our first reading, “Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?”
    In humility we must acknowledge that we do not always know why God does what He does, nor do we always find an answer on this side of eternity.  Even if we did sit down and drink a beer with Jesus, there would probably be some things that He didn’t tell us, or He’d tell us not to worry about certain things because we don’t need to know some things, even when we think we do.
    But God has a plan, and He calls us to trust Him that His plan will bring about the best result.  This is where faith comes in, where we go along with God and His ways, even when we can’t make out how it makes sense.  And while God sometimes asks us simply to trust, He proves Himself worthy of that trust by what He did for us.  
    It would be odd for God to tell us that we have to take up our cross and follow Him, unless He took up His cross and followed the will of God, even when it meant extreme suffering and death.  And He proved, by His Resurrection, that though following God and trusting in His plan can mean great anguish, that anguish passes and a joy and life beyond all imagining follows.
    So many people will ask the question, “Why does a good God allow good people to suffer?”  Or, “How can there be evil in the world if God is good?”  The only answer we have is that free will, which allows us to love God, also allows us to disobey God and cause great pain and suffering to others.  Robots and pets cannot truly love because they cannot truly choose.  And a person feeling affection for us without having a choice doesn’t feel good at all or affirm that it is good that we exist.  To use a very recent and probably still raw example, the same free will which allows a very confused man to shoot at a school Mass in Minneapolis, also allows a student to lay on top of his younger schoolmate so that any bullets don’t hit the younger student.  “Greater love has no man than this, to lay down his life for his friend.”  But love can only exist where free will exists.
    But rather than asking why evil exists, for us as Catholics I would argue we gain more by asking what God does with suffering.  What does God do in the face of the cross?  He endures it with us.  He shows us that He will never abandon us when the going gets tough.  Where was God in Minneapolis?  He was with the students, giving some courage to put their own lives on the line, even though they can’t even drive a car or vote.  He was present with the teachers, helping them to use their training and give instructions and provide as much calm as they could so that their students could be as safe as possible.  He was there with the students who died, mourning that their lives had to be cut so short and that a person would misuse free will in such a way as to bring unbearable pain and sorrow to the families who now bury their children.  He was there with the parents, wondering if their child was alive or mourning the loss of their own flesh and blood.  Never did God say that the suffering was too much for Him to remain.  Never did God shy away from that pain and heartache.  He was there, on His cross, suffering in Minneapolis as He suffered on Calvary for the salvation of the world.

    And just as Christ brought the Resurrection from all the evil, hate, and sin that was thrown at Him on the cross, so He will bring a resurrection from Minneapolis and from every evil that happens at every moment in every place around the world.  Somehow, God will cause greater good, not at the expense of the innocent, but transforming a privation of good, that which we call evil, into an overflowing of good, so that even though evil thinks it wins, it ends up in defeat, no matter what evil does or how hard it strives to find victory.  As St. Paul says elsewhere, “Where, O death, is your victory?”  
    And the fact that God brings good out of evil should cause us consolation, because we, all too often, perpetrate evil.  We, all too often, misuse our free will in private or in public, but because all sin is communal, we weaken the entire Body of Christ by our rejection of God, no matter how big or how little a sin we commit.  But God can use our rejection of Him to bring about great goods, even if that good is simply our own conversion as we repent of our sinful deeds and turn back to the Lord to strive, by His grace, to choose good and build back up the Body of Christ.
    Certainly, it would be cool to have a beer, or bourbon, with Jesus.  We would likely have some questions which Jesus may or may not answer, not to hide stuff, but because we really don’t need to know.  But what we do know is God’s love for us, because He proved it on the cross, and makes present in an unbloody manner that same sacrifice as we celebrate this Mass.  May our worthy reception of Holy Communion strengthen us in choosing the good, and strengthen our trust in God’s plan, even when it seems so mysterious to us.

Being Patient with God and Ourselves

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Probably each of us has been on the receiving or the giving end of the question, “Are we there yet?”  If we’re on the receiving end of that question, maybe we responded with some form of, “No; and if I hear that question one more time…”  Especially as kids, we may not always have a lot of patience, but even as adults patience can be difficult.  It never seems to fail; whenever I’m in a rush, I always seem to end up behind a person who wants to drive 5 mph lower than the speed limit without a safe way to pass, or I manage to hit every red light.  

Whether we’re young or more advanced in age, we can also struggle with being patient with the world.  We see so many bad things that happen, so often to good people, and we get impatient.  We wonder why these bad things are allowed to happen.  Maybe we even get impatient with God as we get upset that someone we know and love goes through a difficult time and the person causing them a difficult time seems to have everything going right for them.

Things were not much different 2,000 years ago when Jesus preached in Palestine.  He tells this familiar parable about a farmer planting good seed, but an enemy going through the field and planting weeds that start to come up with the wheat.  Those working the fields ask if they should pull the weeds, but the sower tells them not to, lest the wheat get pulled up prematurely as the weeds are pulled up.

It is not a surprise to us that good and evil are so often intertwined with each other.  We may like this good trait of that particular person, but dislike the bad trait of the same person.  Maybe we see a good thing happening, but then it leads to someone else suffering.  Our world seems to be one large, mixed field of weeds and wheat.  And that may frustrate us to no end.  We just want the pure good, we want evil to be defeated and eliminated from the earth.

That desire is good.  It shows that we have a desire for heaven.  In the Book of Revelation, the cry of the martyrs under the throne of God is how long will God allow the evil to continue and His servants to suffer?  But God is more patient than we are, and His patience is meant to allow for conversion, for a change of heart and life.  God’s forgiveness is there to give time, as long as the person still lives, to turn away from evil and turn toward God.

Because it’s not just the world that is a mixed bag; it’s not just the outside world that is weeds sown amongst wheat.  Our own hearts are the same way.  There are parts of us that seek to do God’s will, that are full of His grace and love.  There are also parts of us that prefer our own will, that are full of wickedness.  It can be very easy to demand the justice of God, that evil be finally vanquished.  But if we look into our hearts, how much of us would be destroyed if God were not patient with us, if God exacted His justice upon us rather than His mercy.  I know I would be in trouble.

It is easy to think that the Church herself is a place for good people.  And in one sense, the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is untrained by sin, because Jesus is untainted by sin.  But, in a different sense, the Church on earth in her members, is what St. Augustine of Hippo calls a corpus permixtum, a mixed body which has both saint and sinner.  The Church on earth is not simply for the righteous, but is also for sinners.  Pope Francis used the image of the Church as a field hospital that goes out to treat the mortally wounded.  We might extend that analogy to also say that in a field hospital, some are wounded in minor ways from the ricochet of shrapnel, while others have missing limbs and life-threatening injuries.  That is who we are as a Church.  Some of us are more injured than others, but we all suffer from the wounds of sin.  And if we don’t know that, if we think that we’re good, then we no longer need a Savior.  And if we don’t need a Savior, then we don’t need Jesus.  And if we don’t need Jesus, then we are the most pitiable people of all, and heaven is not the place for us.

Now, all analogies limp, and even as Jesus talks about the weeds and the wheat, and even as our hearts are fields mixed with weeds and wheat, it doesn’t mean we let the weeds go.  We cannot simply ignore our sin because God is merciful and patient with us.  We need to ask ourselves how the weeds got in our fields, and try to make sure they don’t get there again.  In reality, each morning of our life is the time for sewing seed, and each evening of our life is the time for harvesting.  Every day we can ask ourselves what good we did, and thank God for that.  Every day we can ask ourselves what evil we did, big or small, and ask God to forgive us, and help us to avoid those sins tomorrow.  It is especially effective if we confess those evils in the Sacrament of Penance, aka confession, because we receive the very life of God in order to help prevent the weeds from being sewn in our hearts.  

We may struggle with patience, especially when it involves someone else suffering evil.  But if we are impatient with others, then we should ask if God should be that impatient with us, or if we’d rather receive His mercy and give us time to turn back to Him.  And if we want God to do that with us, so we should do with others.