Power and Responsibility

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

           

On 28 August, I had the chance to attend Bishop Raica’s ordination as the fifth bishop of Gaylord.  It was a beautiful (and long) Mass with so many symbols of Christ’s abiding presence with us, especially in His Body and Blood, but also in the person of Bishop Raica, who now acts in the Person of Christ the High Priest and as a successor to the apostles with authority govern, sanctify, and teach. 

            I think we can get caught up with power and authority.  We want power, and we want it badly.  We want to control our own lives, our own destinies, and we want to be able to not have others exact that power over us.  No matter whether you have very little power or a lot, I think we all want to have more and more power.  When we look at the issue of power and authority in the Church, the scene is often expressed as a battlefield with the priests and the bishops on one side, and the laity on the other, trying to fight for control of power in the Church.  So often, when the question of why the Church cannot ordain women comes up, the argument quickly turns to power: power to teach the faith (as if we just make it up as we go along); power to decide where the money goes; power to administer the sacraments.  The question, not just from women, is often, “Why should an old man (though Bishops Boyea and Raica I’m sure would not think of themselves as old) be able to tell me how to live my life?”

            But our first reading reminds us that being named a watchman or shepherd is not about getting a cushy job.  True, there are fewer earthly concerns that I have to worry about: I have a house provided for me, a food allowance, and a certain job security.  But, Ezekiel tells us in the first reading that the shepherds that God has appointed have to worry about the lives of the sheep.  I may not have to worry about a roof over my head, but I have to worry about whether or not I am sufficiently helping people to grow in a relationship with God and to choose good and avoid evil.  St. Joseph is a relatively small parish in the Diocese of Lansing (673 parishioners or so on the books), but that’s a lot of people to care for!!  Ezekiel, prophesying in the Name of God, reminds the shepherds of Israel, the religious leaders, that if they do not warn the people to follow God, to choose good and avoid evil, then they, too, will perish for the sins the people commit, against which they were not warned.  The same holds true for me: if I do not, by my life and preaching, help you to grow closer to God, to choose good and avoid evil, then I will suffer punishment, too. 

            Bishop Raica, on his ordination card, quoted St. Augustine, who took up a similar theme.  And while St. Augustine was talking about being a bishop, the same could be said for a parish priest:

From the moment this burden, about which such a difficult account has to be rendered, was placed on my shoulders, anxiety about the honor shown to me has always haunted me. What is to be dreaded about the office I hold, if not that I may take more pleasure (which is so dangerous) in the honor shown to me than in what bears fruit in your salvation? Whenever I am terrified by what I am for you, I am given comfort by what I am with you. For you I am a bishop, but with you I am, after all, a Christian. The former signifies an office undertaken, the latter, grace; the former is a name for danger, the latter a name for salvation.



Being a priest is not about having a job with honors placed upon it; it is about helping you to gain salvation.  And for those who are only concerned about honor, a terrifying judgment awaits!

            But, Jesus reminds us in the Gospel that it is not only priests who have responsibility for each other.  All of us are called to help each other on the pilgrimage to heaven.  No longer are we to say, with Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  When someone sins against us, we are encouraged to deal with the issue ourselves, not as if we are judge and jury, but so that we might be able to bring reconciliation to the relationship.  We start just between the involved parties, then bring in witnesses if there is still no healing, and then, and only then, bring in the Church, to apply the wisdom of the entire Mystical Body of Christ so that reconciliation can be obtained.  I’m not in this alone.  Yes, I have certain responsibility as a priest to help guide you in living a Christ-centered life, but we all have a responsibility to help each other live that same Christ-centered life.  If it’s just me, I know I will fail.  But if we work together to encourage one another, and even to hold each other accountable, then the Kingdom of God can be proclaimed more effectively and with vigor in the great unity of our one faith, and the diversity of the People of God.

            I love being a priest!  I love being able to serve you, and hopefully drawing you closer to God.  Are there great responsibilities?  Yes.  To paraphrase Jesus, to whom much has been given, much will be expected.  But I wouldn’t trade it for the whole world!!  Do I love being a priest because of the power and authority?  No.  I love it because it is the way God has called me to serve Him, and, in serving Him, to serve you.  For you I am a priest.  With you I am a Christian.

Freedom without Consequence

First Sunday of Lent

            This weekend is not just the first weekend of Lent, but also is the opening weekend for the movie “300: Rise of an Empire.”  I had seen the last “300” movie, and given it’s importance at Michigan State University (if I yelled out, “Spartans, what is your profession?” I know I would get a particular response), I thought I would see the sequel which deals with the battle between the rest of the Greeks and the Persians.  It was very bloody, and earned the R rating that it received.  However, at one point, and I don’t think this gives anything away, the Greek general is speaking with the leader of the Persian navy, who says to the Greek: “I can offer you freedom without consequence, without responsibility.”

           

That is the seductive lie that our first parents were told, and which they swallowed hook, line, and sinker.  Adam and Eve had paradise in the Garden of Eden.  They were truly free.  They wanted for nothing, and everything responded to their will, because they responded to the will of God.  Their only responsibility was to not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  But the serpent, the Devil, the Father of Lies, seduced Adam and Eve into believing that they could be God’s equal.  Satan convinced them that they could have freedom without responsibility or consequence, that they would be answerable to no one.  And so they ate.  And by Adam’s act of disobedience, death entered the world as the order that God planned for the world was disrupted.  Because Adam had disobeyed God, the plants and animals would no longer obey Adam and Eve; Adam and Eve’s body would no longer be subject to their mind and soul; and Adam and Eve would both work to dominate each other, rather than work in a loving partnership.  Adam and Even thought that they could have freedom without responsibility or consequence, and so sin and death entered the world.

            This is what St. Paul reminds us in our first reading when he says, “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death.”  One man represented all of humanity.  And in his exercise of freedom, we all received the consequences.  This is what the church calls original sin: not that we are born with a personal sin, but we receive the consequences of the disobedience of our first parents with the perpetual desire on earth to misuse freedom; to pretend that we can have freedom without responsibility, without consequence.  Who here has not experienced that desire, that temptation?  Who here has never wanted to do whatever he or she wanted and not have to worry about what would happen later?  We are born under the illusion that such a reality is possible, that there are actions that never affect anyone else.

            And because Jesus shared our human nature in all things but sin, Satan wanted to try to get the Son of God to fall.  Satan wanted to seduce Jesus into believing that He could use His power any way He wanted to, without any responsibility or consequence.  “Command that these stones becomes loaves of bread”; “throw yourself down”; “prostrate yourself and worship me”; in other words: “do whatever you want to do.”  But Jesus, as the new head of the human race, the new Adam, succeeds where Adam failed.  Because He is the author of freedom, He knows that freedom always has responsibility, always has consequences, and that freedom truly comes not from doing whatever we want, but from doing what is right.  He knows that to do whatever we want only makes us slaves to our passions and to the Evil One, whereas controlling our passions and resisting sin allows us to have true freedom by living according to the order God originally created for us. 

And so He rebukes Satan and the temptations he offers, and not only begins to undue the shackles of slavery which had formerly bound us (the shackles which will be definitively broken by Jesus freely submitting to the consequence of sin, though He did not know sin, and dying on the cross), but also, as our preface will say, “by overturning the snares of the ancient serpent, taught us to cast out the leaven of malice, so that, celebrating worthily the Paschal Mystery, we might pass over at last to the eternal paschal feast.”   He teaches us that we can use our freedom well and not be seduced by a false view of freedom.

Each day we are faced with countless opportunities to use our freedom that God has given to us.  We can use our freedom poorly, thinking that freedom does not involve responsibility or consequences and means that we can do whatever we want.  And when we do that, we lock the shackles of slavery around our necks, wrists, and ankles, and hand the key over to the ancient serpent.  Or we can use our freedom well, and claim “the abundance of grace and…the gift of justification,” so that we are not slaves to our passions and sins, but can “reign in life through…Jesus Christ.”  May our penitential practices this Lent purify our understanding of freedom so that we may share in the eternal freedom of the children of God in heaven.

***************DURING THE RITE OF SENDING ONLY***************

My dear Catechumens, I want to address you now, in a specific way.  You have been preparing, coming to know Jesus and accept the invitation that He extends to all people: to receive the benefits of His freedom and be cleansed from original sin through baptism; to be strengthened to profess His Name to all people through confirmation; and to come into full union with Him through the reception of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist.

My dear candidates, I also want to address you.  You are already one with us in baptism, which is no small thing, because you have been claimed for Christ already and washed clean of the stain of original sin.  You have also been preparing to know Jesus more deeply, and have been preparing to join the one Church of Christ, to receive that gift of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation by which you can spread the faith, and to come into full union with Jesus through the reception of His Body and Blood.

Catechumens and candidates, you are a witness to us of how Christ continues to call people into His Church, into the fullness of truth, and how to live freely.  You are a witness to the world that the lie that freedom is doing whatever you want is just that, a lie, and that true freedom only comes from life in Christ.  Thank you for your witness.  May you be upheld in that witness during this time of final preparation for the Easter mysteries and receive what Christ intends for each of you as you begin your new pilgrimage with us as full members of the Catholic Church.