Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Bad News...
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| Father Robert Behnke |
Quinquagesima Sunday March 6, 2011
During the past week, the world in general and Christian believers in particular, are having to endure a particularly large amount of bad news. And it all seems, if not pleasant, but rather appropriate, seeing what we hear Our Lord tell …the twelve… on this Quinquagesima Sunday–the Sunday before the start of Quadragesima:...all things…will be accomplished….He will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and scourged and spit upon; and after they have scourged Him, they will put Him to death…. We know, because we are believers, that this week’s bad news, and in fact all that the Christian believer knows to be bad news, is responsible for the suffering of Our Lord, since Our Lord’s life and death transcend any one moment of time, and mere earthly history; the passion and death of Our Lord reaches into the realm of the transcendent, the supernatural. Each sin, every offense, each insult to the dignity of human life created in the image and likeness of God-and so, for example, in our own time, particularly each murder of the unborn, murders the world diminishes by calling them something less-choice, or reproductive freedom, or even just abortion, as if abortion were something other than murder-each sin ever committed caused Our Lord’s suffering and death. In grade school, Sister taught us that each of our sins was a hammer pound of the nails in the hands and feet of Our Lord on the cross.
So this past week’s bad news includes the decision of the President of the United States appropriating to himself the competence and the authority of the judiciary by declaring the Defense of Marriage Act to be indefensible because it is unconstitutional, despite that, thus far, every time the issue of marriage between two persons of the same gender has been placed before the voters, the substance of the DOMA has been upheld by the public – thus far 31 times. This fact is ignored by the administration as its definition of marriage continues to evolve. The continuing violence in Libya Evanston , at Northwestern University
One piece of bad news you may have missed comes out of Great Britain
But in what is certainly the most violently bad news incident of the past week, Shahbaz Bhatti, a lay Catholic who served as Pakistan’s federal minister for religious minorities-the only Christian in an otherwise all-Moslem presidential cabinet-was assassinated on March 2nd while traveling to work. He was 42. The gunman who ambushed Bhatti's car and shot down the government leader left a note saying that Bhatti was killed …for speaking out against the blasphemy law…. The assassin claimed credit for the killing in the name of Tehrik-e-Taliban, a coalition of Islamic extremist groups. Mr. Bhatti had received multiple death threats when he questioned the death sentence for blasphemy handed down in the case of Asia Bibi, a Christian housewife whose friends insist that she was convicted on false charges. Three weeks before his assassination, Bhatti had predicted that his reappointment as cabinet minister would …create some protests and resentment by many Islamic extremists. But my struggle will continue, despite the difficulties and threats that I have received. My only aim is to defend fundamental rights, religious freedom and the life of Christians and other religious minorities. I am prepared for any sacrifice for this mission, which I carry out with the spirit of a servant of God…. Many Pakistanis, as well as others, are calling Mr. Bhatti …a martyr….
So there we are, faced squarely with proof of the truth of Our Lord’s prophecy regarding His deliverance: His being …mocked…and scourged…and spit upon….and His being….put to death…. Our Lord’s words to Saul who becomes Paul become verified once again: …I am Jesus, Whom thou art persecuting…. For many years, many practicing Catholics who hold fairly traditional values have been quite reticent to assert themselves in the public square, even as the social order was disintegrating all around them, because each new assault on the natural law has been undertaken in the name of either privacy or freedom for some particular group. The argument has been, and still is, that this or that change-in policy, in education, in law or in rights-doesn’t prevent Catholics or any one individual from living how they want to live; it just ensures that those who make different decisions are not penalized. So (the argument runs) if contraceptive promiscuity is rampant, it doesn’t mean that Catholics have to live that way. If abortion is legal and “safe,” it doesn’t mean any Catholic has to abort. And now, if homosexuals are allowed to “marry,” it doesn’t mean that Catholics can no longer honor marriage in the traditional way. Despite a significant unease at the growing social pressure to accept these evils, a pressure which comes close to brainwashing when applied to children in schools, many believing Catholics have been reluctant to insist that their own moral vision be enshrined in law for the simple reason that this is portrayed as penalizing those with a different point of view. But, ask that married Christian couple in Great Britain
The Gospel, the Catholic Faith, Our Lord’s own suffering and death, demand recognition that the worldviews which are today clashing are mutually exclusive. It is true that good naturally tends to restrict evil, but the opposite is also true. Evil always tends to restrict and even eliminate good, and, unlike good, evil makes no allowance for either principle or prudence, even under the guise of tolerance and inclusiveness (Does all this not sound like the wickedness and snares of someone we know? Is the world not yet familiar with his work?). When I was growing up (saying those words makes me feel terribly ancient), those who wished to live promiscuously, to abort their children, or to engage in a publicly-sanctioned homosexual lifestyle would have argued that they were discriminated against. How is it then that people with Christian beliefs are not seen as the victims of unjust discrimination when they cannot take advantage of most TV or movies today without being subjected to a continuous cheapening of human sexuality, when they have no choice but to permit themselves and their children to be constantly pushed to accept legalized murder, when the taxes they pay are used to support activities that are definitively immoral, and when they cannot even express themselves freely on moral issues without the risk of being indicted for hate-speech? A little over ten or so years ago, homosexual partners would not have been considered as fit parents by most adoption agencies. Now it is those who regard homosexual acts as immoral who are rejected. In many aspects of our public life in Western nations, we have become second class citizens, increasingly forced to assent to false moral propositions in order to be welcomed in elite circles, to be served by government-associated agencies, or to be at peace in government-mandated educational programs.
Pope St. Gregory I-Gregorius Magnus-Pope St. Gregory the Great-who died in 604 A.D.,-who composed and selected the texts for the Mass of Quinquagesima Sunday, as well as those for Septuagesima and Sexagesima-teaches about today’s Gospel that the man born blind represents the whole human race. Our Lord has come to heal, to cure that blindness-the blindness of the whole world; He does so by being …mocked and scourged and spit upon….by being…put to death…. But perceptive listeners and readers may have noted that, in my reading and repeating those words of today’s Gospel earlier in this homily, I cut short the ending:...and on the third day He will rise again…. Though, for even these three Sundays before Lent begins the vestments are purple, and will remain so through all of Lent, the Latin names of these three pre-Lenten Sundays-Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima-as well as the Latin name for Lent itself-Quadragesima-all refer to Our Lord’s final words-His definitively final word:…on the third day He will rise again. In her sacred liturgy, the Church is marking and counting-seventy, sixty, fifty, forty days-before Easter. Easter! The promise, hope, the guarantee of Our Lord’s resurrection gives meaning to His suffering and death; it is what makes it possible for us to live in these crazy times, in this presently secularizing world, with eyes wide open but still with both firm purpose and serene hope. It is what makes it possible for us not to shudder in fearful cowardice before the power of Satan, but to stand straight and tall in defense of the truth of Christ Jesus and His Church-a truth and a Church which is Catholic-meaning a Church which is universal-meant for everyone: the universal truth that the pope is the earthly father of the whole human family, true for everyone, not just true for Catholics; the universal truth that this and every celebration of the Blessed Eucharist brings upon the altar the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus, true God and true Man – true for everyone, not just true for Catholics; the truth that each abortion is a murder of a human being created in the image and likeness of God-true for everyone, not just true for Catholics; the truth that anyone who dies in the state of mortal sin will spend eternity in hell-true for everyone, not just true for Catholics; the truth that sexual activity between two persons of the same gender is nothing but mutual self-abuse-true for everyone, not just true for Catholics. And the truth that…Come to me just as you are, and stay with me just as you are…this is an invitation not from Jesus Our Lord, but a wily lure from Satan. St. Paul
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