21st Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA
Jesus
tells the truth. And b/c they find truth shocking, “many of his
disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer
accompanied him.” What is this shocking truth? That to attain
eternal life we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. Watching
those who could not accept this hard saying walk away, Jesus asks the
Twelve (and us), “Do you also want to leave?” After 2,000 years
of Church teaching on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
maybe this saying doesn't sound all that hard anymore. We understand
what those who walk away did not. The bread and the wine of the
Passover Feast become the Body and Blood of Christ, truly present in
the sacrament. Not many of us these days are prepared to walk away
from Christ b/c we find the idea of transubstantiation shocking.
However, some might be tempted to walk away and return to their
former way of life b/c they find the moral corruption eating away at
the Church all too shocking and unacceptable. To these disciples
Paul says, “. . .no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes
and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are
members of his body.” We are members of Christ's body. Do not walk
away from this hard truth.
As
we continue to reel from revelation after revelation that Catholic
clergy violated children, teens, and seminarians, and that bishops
and cardinals conspired to cover-up these violations, we are tempted
to look for causes and quick fixes. Mandatory celibacy is the
problem! No, it's homosexuality in the clergy. Wrong. It's feminism
or clericalism or communism or some other “–ism” that I find
offensive. Whatever the immediate cause of this current crisis may
be, the remote cause is quite easy to identify. It's been part and
parcel of the human condition since Adam and Eve were driven from the
Garden: that devilish
desire to become god w/o God,
a.k.a. pride. Pride is the cardinal sin that drives all the others.
And it remains the chief strategist and overall commander of how we
betray God and our restored human nature. We cannot fight pride with
self-righteousness or unrighteous anger or calls for vengeance. Why? B/c these
are the favored weapons of Pride. We fight with humility and mercy,
undercutting the power of Pride to tempt us to betray Christ and his
Church. We also fight using fidelity, following Christ faithfully, who
alone has the words of eternal life.
Make
no mistake about what's going on in the Church right now: this
is a war, a spiritual war.
And it's nothing new. It's the same war we have been fighting since
the serpent tempted Eve. The principal combatants are the same. The
weapons are the same. The causalities are the same. This war is
fought cosmically, terrestrially, nationally; within each diocese and
parish of the Church; within every family, every marriage, and within
each and every one of us. And it's a war over a choice: to
whom do you, do we belong?
Whom do you serve? When Jesus asks the Twelve – “Do you also want to leave?” –
he's asking them to choose. He's asking them to surrender themselves
to the Father's living Word, or to walk away and resume their former
way of life. He's asking us that same question, and the spiritual war
we are fighting is about how we will answer. How we will answer as a
Church, as a diocese, as a parish, and as individual members of his
Body.
Jesus
tells us the truth. The truth about how we are saved from our sins.
How we are fed with his Body and Blood. How we are to be witnesses to
the Father's mercy. He tells us the truth about how we are to live
with one another so that we might grow in holiness. He himself is the
Way, the Truth, and the Life, and he asks us to choose: follow
or walk away. Can you
say: “Master, to whom shall I go? You have the words of eternal
life. I have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy
One of God”? If so, then your path is clear – follow Christ.
Use his weapons to fight the battle: Repent. Forgive. Seek justice. Grow in holiness.
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