topleft05.jpg (18208 bytes)HOMILY
 Solemnity of Pentecost (C)
30 May 04


 

Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day we call “the Church’s birthday.”  What we celebrate, however, isn’t the birth of the Church as an historical event frozen in time nor of the beginnings of an institution.  Instead, we celebrate the birth of the Church within its members across the Christian centuries, including you and me gathered here today.  To experience this—that is, experience the Holy Spirit—to accept its challenges, and to respond to them is what we call “religion.”

Unfortunately, however, in our culture, in our society, and even in our homes, that’s not how many—and, perhaps, many of us here today—think about this Solemnity which is the birthday of our religion.

If you’ve not been on either side in this particular argument, I’m sure you either observed it or, at a minimum at least, heard of it.  The argument goes something along these lines:

Teenager:  (angrily) I don’t want to go to Mass.  It’s so boring.  I don’t get anything out of it.

Dad:   (in a tone of exasperation) Look, nobody wants to go to Mass. You don’t want to go to Mass.  Mom doesn’t want to go to Mass.  I don’t want to go to Mass.  But as long as you are living under my roof and eating the food I work so hard to provide our family, you are going to Mass whether you like it or not.  I don’t want to hear one more word about it!  That’s it…end of argument.  And, don’t even think about giving me that sulking, unhappy look in the rear view mirror when we’re driving to church.


You’ve been there or seen that, haven’t you?  I’ve been there and seen that, too.  As I look out at the congregation from my vantage point week after week, I see many teenagers who look like prisoners in a straightjacket just waiting to be untied.  And, I also see those sulking, unhappy, “glacial glare” looks…but not through a rear view mirror!

While this teenager and father may have different attitudes about the obligation we Roman Catholics have to attend Mass on Sunday, it’s important to note that they share very similar views about religion.  Both view religion as the imposition of unpleasant duties upon people along with the obligation to fulfill these duties because of an unstated threat of eternal damnation.

Surveying many of the world’s religions, however, the obligations we Roman Catholics bear really are pretty minimal.  In fact, there’s only five “obligations”!  These five principal duties include: attending Mass on Sundays, holydays of obligation, and resting from servile labor on those days; confessing sins at least once a year; receiving Holy Communion at least during the season of Easter; and, providing for the needs of the Church (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #241-243).

[When I looked up the precepts of the Church in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I was surprised to find only five, however.  I thought I remembered memorizing six of them when I was in elementary school, the sixth being to follow the laws of the Church regarding marriage.  Interestingly, that one isn’t included in the Catechism where the precepts of the Church are listed, #241-243.  I’m sure that it’s in the Catechism somewhere but it’s not there.]

Where the teenager and father differ is in their individual responses to the obligation to attend Mass on Sunday.  While the teenager doesn’t want to bear this burden because the teen perceives little or no value in it, the father is willing to bear this burden because he hopes that, by doing so, he’ll earn some future reward.

Today, so many people believe that religion is about obligations and duties.  And they can be sorted into at least four different groups.

One group—like the father in the argument described—really don’t like religious obligations.  However, these people are fearful that if they don’t abide by the rules of the “game,” they will suffer eternal negative consequences for neglecting their religious obligations.  So, they opt to fulfill only the minimal requirements of membership, which is precisely what those five duties specify.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes:

The precepts of the Church are set in the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life. The obligatory character of these positive laws decreed by the pastoral authorities is meant to guarantee to the faithful the very necessary minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth in love of God and neighbor.  (#241)


A second group—like the teenager described earlier wishes to—opts out from observing these obligations.  The members of this group are firm in one of perhaps two beliefs.  Some believe these obligations are basically meaningless if one lives a good and decent life.  Others believe that, since these obligations are “man made,” God doesn’t really care much about them either.  Both members of this second group succinctly state their beliefs by asking this question: “After all, is God really going to send basically good people to Hell because they didn’t go to Mass on Sunday?”

Then, there’s a third group.  These people like to pick and choose between the religious obligations they like and those they don’t.  These people have come to be called “cafeteria Catholics,” a phrase painting the caricature of Catholics who walk up and down the aisles of Catholic teaching and law and accept only those teachings or laws which they believe apply to them based solely upon their personal preferences.  If cafeteria Catholics don’t like something, they bypass it firm in their belief that being Roman Catholic isn’t a “package deal” but more of a “custom tailored suit.”  According to members of this group, one is a Catholic “in good standing” precisely because one makes “reasonable” choices even if they contradict Church teaching.

All three groups stand united in their opposition to a fourth group, what might be called “unthinking” Catholics.  These are the people who buy into the package deal and accept at face value what the Church teaches and requires.  What is really bothersome about these people, insofar as the members of the other three groups are concerned, is that they don’t think for themselves or take the risk of making a reasonable choice for fear of contradicting Church teaching or law.  The members of these three groups look upon their unthinking brethren with suspicion because the brethren seem so sure that they belong to the true Church and its teaching and laws offer the keys that will infallibly unlock the doors to eternal life.

In contrast to the approach of these four groups, what religion really is about—and what we celebrate on the Solemnity of Pentecost—are not obligations, laws, reasonable choices, or accepting things on blind faith.  Instead, we celebrate a community of people and, in particular, a community whose members have come over the centuries to share similar perspectives in response to the important questions that we human beings normally confront in our daily lives.  Questions like:

·       Who am I and what is the purpose of my life?

·       Is there a God?  And, if there is, what does this mean about living my life between the time I bear responsibility for my decisions and when I die?

·       Despite my best intentions, why do I sometimes fail to be the best person I know that I can be?

·       What do I need to know about the world I live in so that I can live the fullest human existence possible?

·       How are my body and soul—my sexuality and spirituality—related?

·       What true and abiding principles can guide me to make prudent and wise decisions whether those involve rather mundane things (like a choice of school or career) or very important matters (like the choice of a vocation, a decision to turn down extraordinary means to extend my life or the life of someone I love, how best to use my talents in an ethical way, to admit failure)?

·       What will happen when I die?


Religion concerns these kinds of existential questions by bequeathing the answers that a community of people has discovered through the centuries of collective experience.  That is, by reflecting upon their mistakes and tragedies which have destroyed lives, these answers—emerging as real people with real faces have reflected thoughtfully on their real lives—have stood the test of time.  These answers are universally valid for all people, in all times, and in all places because they are “true” answers and are far too important and valuable for any one or all of us to neglect.

Oftentimes, however, it’s only when tragedy strikes that people begin to ask these questions with any serious intention of seeking answers to them.  It takes the death of a spouse, a friend, or a child for us to confront these very important questions.  And, sadly, it’s at times like these that we ask the question which betrays a guilty soul not the soul of someone who seeks the truth: “Why has God done this to me?”

What the members of those four groups neglect and evidences itself in their viewpoints is that religion exists to challenge people like you and me to take a critical view of their lives, their work, and their world.  Religion is not something “experienced” as if religion is a form of entertainment and I am a paid clown whose purpose is to entertain you weekly and make you feel good.  Nor is religion a set of answers people memorize as if religion provides answers to a catechism test that infallibly unlocks the doors to eternal life.  No, religion is an intellectual exercise.  It challenges human beings to think deeply and penetratingly about the issues and problems confronting them in the daily realities of their lives.  Religion provides true principles so that human beings can make prudent and wise decisions about these issues and problems.

Think I’m crazy?

Just this past week, Pope John Paul II met with the bishops of Indianapolis, Chicago, and Milwaukee for their five-yearly visit to Rome where they discussed with the Pope the status of the Church in their archdioceses and dioceses.  They didn’t talk directly about increasing attendance at Mass, how many American Catholics are rejecting Church teaching and leaving the Church, or the scandalous behavior of some priests, bishops, and one cardinal.  Instead, what they talked about involved true religion, what the Pope has called “The New Evangelization.”

Following their discussions, the Pope said to the bishops:

The word of God must not be chained….This will require a profound renewal of the missionary and prophetic sense of the whole People of God…to speak courageously and with a united voice in addressing the great moral and spiritual issues confronting the men and women of our time.

The Church in the United States….is called to respond to the profound religious needs and aspirations of a society [that is] increasingly in danger of forgetting its spiritual roots and yielding to a purely materialistic and soulless vision of the world.  Taking up this challenge, however, will require a realistic and comprehensive reading of the "signs of the times," in order to develop a persuasive presentation of the Catholic faith and [to] prepare young people especially to dialogue with their contemporaries about the Christian message and its relevance to the building of a more just, humane and peaceful world.  Now is above all the hour of the lay faithful…to carry forward the Church's prophetic mission by evangelizing the various spheres of family, social, professional and cultural life.


Not to be overlooked in what the Holy Father said to the American bishops this past week was his specific challenge to young people.  Rather than viewing religion as a burdensome series of obligations, the Holy Father challenged has challenged you, our young people, to engage in dialogue with their contemporaries about the Christian message and its relevance to the building of a more just, humane and peaceful world.  In this sense, young people—even those whose parents dragged them to church today—are the hope of the Church.  You have a mission to proclaim the Good News of salvation.

That’s where the father and the daughter both have it wrong.  They just don’t “get it.”  Religion isn’t about obligations which provide nothing more than minimal standards for inclusion.  Nor is religion about matters disconnected from daily life.  No, religion is about utilizing the collective wisdom of the ages found in the Church to respond courageously to the many difficult and controversial moral and spiritual challenges confronting us today.

Being Roman Catholic, then, is more than meeting one’s minimal obligations.  It’s really about thinking about today’s moral and spiritual challenges as the Church does in order to make an informed decision about how that applies to our lives, our work, and our world.  Then, of course, we must respond to these challenges by evangelizing and catechizing others about the truth held and taught by the Roman Catholic Church.  That is what religion is really about.

Just as the Holy Spirit broke through the doors and walls of that place where the disciples were gathered in Jerusalem on that First Pentecost Sunday and came to rest on each one of them, so too the Holy Spirit breaks through the doors and walls of the places where Jesus’ disciples gather today and comes to rest upon each and every one of them.  Furthermore, just as the Holy Spirit sent the first disciples forth to proclaim the Good News of salvation to the ends of the earth, so too the Holy Spirit sends us forth to build up the Body of Christ.

Each of us must make a personal decision about how we will respond to the Holy Spirit.  For Roman Catholics, the Holy Spirit first entered our souls at Baptism and we then committed ourselves to follow the pathway of our religion at Confirmation.  Through weekly Mass, at a minimum, we encounter God and He strengthens.  In the Liturgy of the Word, God speaks to our souls and, in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, God nourishes our souls.  Participating in these sacraments, we make a conscious choice to be and reaffirm our membership in the Body of Christ, not because we “pick and choose” what we like but because we “get it” as the Church teaches it.  That is, we experience the Holy Spirit transforming us and enabling us to see ourselves, our lives, our work, and our world as God does.

Today we celebrate not the birth of the Church as an event frozen in time, but the birth of the Church within its members, you and me gathered here today on this Pentecost Sunday.  To believe this and to accept this is to be changed forever.

Like any birthday, then, today is a day to reflect.

Is religion nothing more than obligations which I find burdensome?  Is religion something for old people and utterly disconnected from my daily life?  To the degree any of us responds affirmatively to these questions, we have closed our hearts to the Holy Spirit.  It’s time to think about what that says and means and, perhaps, to repent.

Do I use the collective wisdom bequeathed over the centuries to help me when I make important decisions about my life, my work, and my world?  Do I connect what I do here in church on Sunday with what takes place in my daily life?  To the degree any of us does, we participate in the birthday of the Church—the Solemnity of Pentecost—not as an event in history or something “out there,” but as something “in here” which connects us to “out there.”  What makes this connection is the presence of the Holy Spirit who endows us with all we need, as Pope John Paul II said this week, to build a more just, humane and peaceful world as we evangelize the members of our families, our society, and our professions and culture as well.

 

 

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