We are the Light of the World; Matt 5:13-16

Ever so often we are given the opportunity to display or show off our talents, either by invitation or at times as a challenge.  When I say "Show Off" I don't mean it in a vain way, rather in a positive and useful manner. It may happen in our business world, in the social world or in the educational field.  It could have happened in our youth, or even childhood, or as adults.  It could have sounded something like this "Show us what you can do" or "Let's see what your are made of?".

That is what Jesus seems to be saying to me in today's gospel.  He seems to be saying "Alright Anselmo, you say you are a Catholic Christian, show me".  But before I can profess my Christianity, I have to be living it. My Christianity starts with a vibrant and dynamic relationship with God, his son Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit must be part of what is going on in my life on a daily basis or as much as possible.  Only when I am in communion with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can I effectively reach out to my brothers and sisters in Christ.  Prayer, meditation and following God's will lead us to serve where we are needed, where we can be the instruments that fulfill His purpose.

I was called to be the Salt of the Earth when I was visiting my Hispanic brothers and sisters in the Regional Justice Center in Kent, and at the Deportation Facility for Immigrants Tacoma.  I served them weekly for about 10 to 12 years in the past.  For the last 6 years I have serving my brothers and sisters at the Federation Detention Center in SeaTac.  I am called to be the Light of the World helping in the Cursillo en Cristiandad, a powerful renewal experience. It was a blessing for me to help get it started in Spanish in the Seattle 6 years ago.

So the call by Jesus to each one of us today is to make our Christianity shine using our gifts, talents and time.  The beatitudes that Jesus shared in last Sunday's gospel might help us identify our calling.  As we know, the Body of Christ has many members each one is unique but is needed for the whole body to be effective. So we are called to look at our Christian values, talents and gifts and use to guide them us so as to be the Salt of the Earth and that Light that radiates the love of Jesus to our world.

 

FROM FATHER MARC

You'd worry, wouldn't you?

If someone had a 500 pound weight to pull from A to B and so strapped one end of a pull-harness to themselves and the other to the weight and pulled and pulled, you'd worry.

You'd worry that, one, they'd hurt themselves, and two, that the weight wouldn't get where it needed to go.

It would make more sense, wouldn't it, to borrow a friend's 4-Wheel Drive truck, hitch one end of the harness to said truck, the other to the weight, and simply step on the gas? Nobody gets hurt, the weight easily gets where it needs to go.

We all need help sometimes with what we cannot do alone.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven is theirs," Jesus says in Matthew's Gospel.

But why? What's so great about lack, about having to go without what's necessary, what's so great about being poor?

Let's focus on the last word and think spiritually, not materially, and recall our opening images. It might help us understand Christ, and understanding him here is key, because none of the other Beatitudes are fully understood without His prerequisite poverty of Spirit. Miss this one and the others can become just so many pious words of no more practical use than a perfect plastic saint to holy to be imitated.

Alone, we try and try to get from A to B in the spiritual life: From earth to heaven. But we carry a weight, don't we? A weight that makes our destination impossible, a weight that keeps us earthbound, nailed in place. Who needs gravity when we have our own personal sins and lies and gossip-mongering, when we have our world's wars and massacres and atrocities? Who needs gravity; we are going nowhere.

Not by ourselves.

But Jesus offers to transfer the burdensome weight to himself. Share our burden. Fully human and fully divine, he is made of sterner stuff than we; he's like the monster-torque of a 4-Wheel Drive truck to our puny human muscle.

What's more, he wants to help. Because he's worried, about us hurting ourselves. And about us not getting to where we need to go, where he wants us to go, all of us. He wants to pull out the nails that fix us fast to the spot and drive them into his own hands and feet upon the cross. That's how bad he wants to help.

But he will not force us. As always, the choice is ours. We have to ask for his help. But beforehand, we must first admit that we can't carry the weight of our sins alone. That we are too weak, too fallen, to lacking, to ... poor in spirit.

But if pride comes before a fall, then humility comes before take-off. Because to humbly admit our weakness is to receive the Lord's strength; to humbly admit that our independence cannot save us is to admit dependence on a God for whom nothing is impossible; to humbly admit our poverty is to ask for the Lord's riches of grace, forgiveness and salvation.

When we've asked for the Lord's help, he participates in our life. What's more, he then invites us to participate in his. And here is where the Beatitudes begin to take on full meaning as Christ-imitating steps along the Way of the Cross: The holy mourning ... of Good Friday; the holy meekness ... of the Savior coming as a helpless infant to serve and not be served; the holy hunger ... to do the Father's will; the holy mercy ... that gifts sinful humanity with a saving forgiveness it does not deserve.

But continuing this litany will take us through all the Beatitudes. So let's stop here, and go back to the first, the most important, the key that unlocks the rest:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Though we try and try, we fail to earn heaven. But if we ask for his help, the Lord will get us there.

Whew! Isn't that a weight off?

 

FROM FATHER MARC

My God is a magician. And I am his greatest trick.

He took a selfish and ambitious man with a shy heart afraid of groups, and he turned him into one of his priests; and groups, they tend to collect around The Collared like we're TV sets. I used to run from spotlights. Now I seek them out like a preacher with a pulpit must; the heat, it still makes me sweat, yet the light - His light - does offer comfort too.

His trick, my God my magician, how he did it? He created a lack in me I could feel, feel in my body and in my spirit and in my bones. And then he let me know that only He could fill it. Then he made me hungry, a funny kind of hungry; he made me hungry for what He wanted.

I write a play or a screenplay: Hey, I should be happy, right? No, something's missing, something's incomplete, there's that lack again, that funny hunger. So I change the scripts, change them so they speak of Him, his message and his truth, and ... Ahhh, now I'm full, now I am complete, so this is what it takes, huh?

Yes. It is.

Alrighty then. I'll switch to journalism. Take that. I feed my ego with every by-line, feed it with my boundless ambition and every story that makes it to the front page. But wait, I thought I was feeding my ego but if I'm feeding my ego then why am I still hungry for a story I cannot write, I cannot report, I cannot ... what's that?

What about your story? you say. Your story in which I play but a part? Do I know this story?

You do.

The Christian story of service. You want me to tell that story. Your story? Write journalistically for you, cinematically for you, theatrically for you. I do not want this; but I need this. I will not be haunted, hounded and chased like a Jonah. And I tire of going hungry. At last I will want for me what you want for me, and apostle-like, leave my family and my friends, shed my thirst for money and for status and for fame - a thirst that only grows upon that which it drinks.

I will be an empty begging bowl held up to the sky. Rain down your grace and fill me, or nothing will. I want this now, because you want it for me. And so I will be your priest.

Our new Pastoral Council members heard your call too. Most tell me they did not want to say yes, but that they needed to. Theirs is a hunger that only serving You can fill.

And then your Spirit really pulled the rabbit out of the hat. He called one of them to step forward again, to lead the leaders, to be the council Chair. Oh, if Jonah and the apostles could only have seen the "Who me!?" look on his face. They'd have sworn they were looking into the mirror. I recognized myself in that look, as well. Haven't we all?

God doesn't call the willing. Doesn't call the competent. Doesn't call the holy or the best.

He calls the called.

And he works his magic through them in ways that shock and awe them, mystifies and perplexes them, with the Power and the Glory. We find ourselves hungry, so hungry for what he wants, and we hold our hearts become begging bowls up to the sky, and plead that He rain down some more of that magic, that we be filled again, filled enough, that those we serve in His name can drink their soul's content.

What's He making you hungry for? What's He want you to do, to say, to write? What will not let you rest, what idea from him, what word, what inspiration? He's calling you.

Who me?

Yes you.

You may not want to answer. But if he really wants you, trust me, you will.

Because my God is a magician. And we are his greatest trick.

 

 

HOMILY / 5^th Sunday of Easter                       

Fr Marc Powell

 "When Judas had left, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.'"

Scandals are not new in the Christian community; when Jesus says in today's Gospel that he is glorified, it's because he knows Judas leaves to betray him, a scandalous sin which will lead to the Lord's death and resurrection to new glorified life. Judas' sin, like every sin and crime - especially when committed by the Lord's chosen church leaders - is a scandal, a scandal in the religious sense of that word: Any event that causes controversy and damages faith in Christ and his Church.

The current abuse scandal in the Church - for leaders to sin and break the law so heinously seems unforgivable, and it has shaken the faith of so many.

***

He'd been a no-show at Mass several Sundays in a row. And so when I ran into him at the grocery store, I put a bit of challenge with the sincere concern in my voice when I said Long time no see, everything okay?

No, he said, staring up into the overhead florescents, for how to phrase something delicate, it seemed. Everything's not okay. I don't know if I can be Catholic anymore.

Really! Why?

The scandals, priests and bishops ... you know, what they've ... done, how they ... you know ...

Abused kids? And covered it up?

Exactly.

There, that was the toughest part, saying it for him, what priests and bishops have done, respectively and allegedly. Not the first time I'd heard such a response to the scandals, a response that, as I listened to this particular parishioner further, conflated faith in priests and bishops with faith in Christ. If I can't look up to priests and bishops, the intimation went, I can't look up to Christ, or remain a member of his Church.

In the past couple years, I'd heard it often, too often, I decided then and there. Up to now I'd said little to nothing in response, at Mass or out. Too embarrassed.  Too ashamed. And most of all, truth be told, too grossed out. What polite-company taboo is stronger, after all, than avoiding mention of such an unmentionable?

But now I had to say something. Didn't I? I was his shepherd; he was the sheep in danger of becoming lost; it was my ordained duty to say something.

But nothing less than his faith was at stake. So it had to be the right something, something compassionate, something sensitive, something that met him where he was - in despair - but that refused to wallow in it with him there. Something that challenged him but did not challenge him over-aggressively with a truth of his faith and mine - yes, that was it, something challenging and at the same time ... uplifting: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Not even scandals!

That's right, a Catholic and not a Protestant, but I still quoted Scripture. At the grocery store, no less! I was impressed. But his eyes said he wanted something more; it was that terrifying look priests see sometimes in their parishioner's faces after the proclamation of a particularly inconvenient reading at Mass - Paul's exhortation for women to be submissive to their husbands comes to mind - and everyone's wondering All right, then, Father, let's see what you can do with THIS one.

             In other words, my parishioner wanted a Grocery Store Homilette.

So, as I do when that reading from Paul comes around, I whispered Jesus' name in my head for strength, and, amid the purchasing of bread, butter and soy milk at the local Thriftway, I gave it my best shot:

Take the statue of a saint, any saint so long as it's plastic, and place it high up on a pedestal.  From one perspective, yours, you've exalted this saint, lifted him up in your estimation, made him nobler.

But from another perspective, the statue's, you've lowered yourself, put yourself beneath that saint in your estimation, made yourself, in relation to him, humbler.

Not a bad thing, so long as this "repositioning" aids our faith in Christ, so long as it represents reverence of and not worship for this saint's imperfect reflecting of the perfect Christ, who we alone worship. In this careful way, we worship our Lord through reverencing his moral-spiritual "features" recognized in his saints. In the end, our faith, the trust we stake our immortal souls on, is always in the divine Jesus, not in the merely human saints.

Because to put our faith in any human, no matter how seemingly holy or good, no matter how seemingly trustworthy or saintly, no matter how much they "resemble" Christ, is a mistake. They are not Christ. Priests and bishops are not Christ. They have sinned, do sin and will continue to sin until they die, and some may even commit heinous crimes. Believing priests and bishops are Christ will only serve to separate us from orthodoxy - from sole worship of the one true God - and lead to eventual disappointment. Christ alone will never disappoint.

My parishioner is still listening, but his eyes are telling me Make your point, Father, this is starting to drift and my milk's getting warm. So as we move through checkout now, with our grocery bags all packed and in arm, I walk him to his car and try to get to my point ...

I refer to an old Sy Safransky essay, about Swami Muktanada, a famous Hindu spiritual guru ruined in the 90s by reports he had sex with his underage American pupils, as well as embezzling a fortune and hiding it in a Swiss bank account. In response, his students abandoned not only Muktanada, but the Hindu religion all together. Sadly, their faith, Safransky implies, was in Muktanada, because to them he and the Divine that Hindus worship had become synonymous.

Writes Safransky:

The deceit of the guru [or priest or bishop] - that his hands raised heavenward in the morning are at night [doing unmentionable things to children] - is somehow harder to stomach than the lies of a politician (who, after all, promises only heaven on earth), or the more forgivable trespasses of a wife or a friend, because we know their love is haunted, as ours is, as everyone's is. Even, it turns out, the love of the lovers of God, these sinners in drag as saints. It's all one can do to keep from closing the door not just on fake saints but on the very idea of saintliness; not just on bargain-basement godliness but on God, too.

But we must not close the door on God, must not let faith in men substitute for our faith in God, must not let disappointment in human beings, who only represent Christ, separate us from Christ.

             Continues Safransky: "Instead of reacting to Muktanada and other fallen heroes as if their arrogance and dishonesty were a personal insult to me, as if - simply because they set themselves up as saints - I had every right to expect saintliness from them, I could instead remember that they were as deserving of forgiveness as anyone."

To put priests and bishops on pedestals, and to in our minds lower ourselves in relation to them, is to make them plastic gods and to worship them as if they were the real thing.

Concludes Safransky:

Again and again, I'm struck by the consequences of mythologizing someone else's power, whether a guru or a beautiful stranger. To respect people is one thing; to raise them up on a pedestal merely shows how deep a hole I've dug for myself. Making myself lower than another [human being] isn't a sign of humility; rather it's an insidious kind of pride, in which I bow before my real or imagined weaknesses, making them the sum of me. True humility lies in forgiving myself for being so perplexingly human, and forgiving others for pretending they're any less human than I.

So come back to Mass, I told my parishioner as he put his bags in the back seat and got into his car. And, I added, don't ever let misplaced faith in men separate you from Christ and his Church. He drove away.

But I saw his face staring at me expectantly from the pews come homily-time that Sunday. I prayed then and there, up on the raised sanctuary platform like some kind of plastic saint, that Christ would give his merely human representative something to say. Something good. Something that would make my parishioner want to stay.

***

We must take responsibility for our actions. So any who commit sins and crimes must answer to the laws of God and to the laws of Man - this is as it should be. But, as Jesus firmly instructs us in today's Gospel: "As I have loved you, so should you love one another."

             He loved us by forgiving us. And so we try to forgive one another, in and through our faith in the one and only Jesus Christ.

 

 

Below is an article appearing in The Tablet, a monthly magazine in England that covers religious issues. Timothy Radcliffe, the author, has had a relationship with our archdiocese in that he recently led a four-day workshop on the issue of the Church scandals at Priest Days.

 

 

 

 

Should I stay or should I go

Clerical-abuse scandal

Timothy Radcliffe

            As the scandal of child sexual abuse and its cover-up swirls around the Church, some Catholics are considering their options as regards their very membership of the institution. Here a former Master of the Dominicans explains why the Church is stuck with him, whatever happens
Fresh revelations of sexual abuse by priests in Germany and Italy have provoked a tide of anger and disgust. I have received emails from people all around Europe asking how can they possibly remain in the Church? I was even sent a form with which to renounce my membership of the Church. Why stay?
            First of all, why go? Some people feel that they can no longer remain associated with an institution that is so corrupt and dangerous for children. The suffering of so many children is indeed horrific. They must be our first concern. Nothing that I will write is intended in any way to lessen our horror at the evil of sexual abuse. But the statistics for the US, from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2004, suggest that Catholic clergy do not offend more than the married clergy of other Churches.
            Some surveys even give a lower level of offence for Catholic priests. They are less likely to offend than lay school teachers, and perhaps half as likely as the general population. Celibacy does not push people to abuse children. It is simply untrue to imagine that leaving the Church for another denomination would make one's children safer.  We must face the terrible fact that the abuse of children is widespread in every part of society. To make the Church the scapegoat would be a cover-up.
            But what about the cover-up within the Church? Have not our bishops been shockingly irresponsible in moving offenders around, not reporting them to the police and so perpetuating the abuse? Yes, sometimes. But the great majority of these cases go back to the 1960s and 1970s, when bishops often regarded sexual abuse as a sin rather than also a pathological condition, and when lawyers and psychologists often reassured them that it was safe to reassign priests after treatment. It is unjust to project backwards an awareness of the nature and seriousness of sexual abuse which simply did not exist then. It was only the rise of feminism in the late 1970s which, by shedding light on the violence of some men against women, alerted us to the terrible damage done to vulnerable children.
            But what about the Vatican? Pope Benedict has taken a strong line in tackling this issue as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and since becoming Pope. Now the finger is pointed at him. It appears that some cases reported to the CDF under his watch were not dealt with. Isn't the Pope's credibility undermined? There are demonstrators in front of St Peter's calling for his resignation. I am morally certain that he bears no blame here.
            It is generally imagined that the Vatican is a vast and efficient organisation. In fact it is tiny. The CDF only employs 45 people, dealing with doctrinal and disciplinary issues for a Church which has 1.3 billion members, 17 per cent of the world's population, and some 400,000 priests. When I dealt with the CDF as Master of the Dominican Order, it was obvious that they were struggling to cope. Documents slipped through the cracks. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger lamented to me that the staff was simply too small for the job.
            People are furious with the Vatican's failure to open up its files and offer a clear explanation of what happened. Why is it so secretive? Angry and hurt Catholics feel a right to transparent government. I agree. But we must, in justice, understand why the Vatican is so self-protective. There were more martyrs in the twentieth century than in all the previous centuries combined. Bishops and priests, Religious and laity were assassinated in Western Europe, in Soviet countries, in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
            Many Catholics still suffer imprisonment and death for their faith. Of course, the Vatican tends to stress confidentiality; this has been necessary to protect the Church from people who wish to destroy her. So it is understandable that the Vatican reacts aggressively to demands for transparency and will read legitimate requests for openness as a form of persecution. And some people in the media do, without any doubt, wish to damage the credibility of the Church.
            But we owe a debt of gratitude to the press for its insistence that the Church face its failures. If it had not been for the media, then this shameful abuse might have remained unaddressed.
            Confidentiality is also a consequence of the Church's insistence on the right of everyone accused to keep their good name until they are proved to be guilty. This is very hard for our society to understand, whose media destroy people's reputations without a thought.
            Why go? If it is to find a safer haven, a less corrupt Church, then I think that you will be disappointed. I too long for more transparent government, more open debate, but the Church's secrecy is understandable, and sometimes necessary. To understand is not always to condone, but necessary if we are to act justly.
            Why stay? I must lay my cards on the table; even if the Church were obviously worse than other Churches, I still would not go. I am not a Catholic because our Church is the best, or even because I like Catholicism. I do love much about my Church but there are aspects of it which I dislike. I am not a Catholic because of a consumer option for an ecclesiastical Waitrose rather than Tesco, but because I believe that it embodies something which is essential to the Christian witness to the Resurrection, visible unity.
            When Jesus died, his community fell apart. He had been betrayed, denied, and most of his disciples fled. It was chiefly the women who accompanied him to the end. On Easter Day, he appeared to the disciples. This was more than the physical resuscitation of a dead corpse.
            In him God triumphed over all that destroys community: sin, cowardice, lies, misunderstanding, suffering and death. The Resurrection was made visible to the world in the astonishing sight of a community reborn. These cowards and deniers were gathered together again. They were not a reputable bunch, and shamefaced at what they had done, but once again they were one. The unity of the Church is a sign that all the forces that fragment and scatter are defeated in Christ.
            All Christians are one in the Body of Christ. I have deepest respect and affection for Christians from other Churches who nurture and inspire me. But this unity in Christ needs some visible embodiment. Christianity is not a vague spirituality but a religion of incarnation, in which the deepest truths take the physical and sometimes institutional form. Historically this unity has found its focus in Peter, the Rock in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and the shepherd of the flock in John's gospel.
            From the beginning and throughout history, Peter has often been a wobbly rock, a source of scandal, corrupt, and yet this is the one - and his successors - whose task is to hold us together so that we may witness to Christ's defeat on Easter Day of sin's power to divide. And so the Church is stuck with me whatever happens. We may be embarrassed to admit that we are Catholics, but Jesus kept shameful company from the beginning.