Perhaps my
all time, most favorite storyteller is the great Catholic short story writer,
Flannery O’Connor. Setting her stories in the genteel post-bellum
South, O’Connor oftentimes presented some very harsh ironies that
challenge her readers to ponder our Catholic belief that God is
ultimately “in charge” of our lives. O’Connor’s protagonists—like
so many of us—spend much of their time acting like they are in
charge of their lives. Then, just when each of O’Connor’s
protagonists seemingly achieves success, a tragedy of stupendous
proportions ensues. The reality, O’Connor suggests, is that her
protagonists are actually living out a delusion, namely, that they
are in charge of their lives.
In one short
story O’Connor entitled “Revelation,” the main character, Mrs.
Turpin, has spent her entire life enjoying the respect and status
due her an upper class, Southern socialite.
One day while
resting in a comfortable chair, Mrs. Turpin has a vision of the end
of the world. In the vision, she sees all of those people she has
called “trashy folks” entering heaven’s gates. And, as if that
wasn’t bad enough, all of those trashy folks are “shouting and
clapping and leaping like frogs,” Mrs. Turpin remarks to herself.
Hardly the manners of the landed, Southern gentry! “Just think of
it,” Mrs. Turpin says, shaking her head to and fro and sneering,
“the riffraff are getting into heaven first!”
To Mrs. Turpin’s
comfort, she then sees all of her “respectable” friends and
acquaintances approaching heaven’s gates. She notes how these
people do so “with great dignity, accountable as they always had
been for good order and common sense and
respectable behavior. They alone were on key,” Mrs. Turpin
noted with delight.
However, that’s when the narrator interjects:
Yet Mrs. Turpin could
see
by their shocked and altered faces
that even their virtues
were being burned away.
While
all of those
“trashy folks”
may have been “riffraff,” at least they were genuine human beings.
In
contrast, all of Mrs. Turpin’s
pseudo-sophisticates were hallow and pretentious, always sporting a
false veneer for others to see, to respect, and to honor.
Sin is not a
pretty reality and the simple truth is that many of us find sin very
difficult to consider, especially when if we must contemplate our
own sin. While last week’s readings told us that “God’s thoughts
are not our thoughts nor are God’s ways our ways,” today’s readings
challenge us to consider God’s thoughts and ways, especially when it
comes to one sin that we really don’t like to consider, namely, the
hypocrisy—like Mrs. Turpin’s—that threatens to destroy the little
good we struggle so hard to achieve. As Mrs. Turpin’s attitude
towards the “riffraff” and “trashy folks” indicates, “The Lord’s way
isn’t fair” and, in her short and incisive, yet blunt and revealing
statement, Mrs. Turpin’s hypocrisy shines forth in all of its
brilliance. We ourselves may not say “The Lord’s way isn’t fair,”
but we are very likely to believe that we deserve more of God’s
blessings
despite our pretensions than those others who don’t appear to even
try.
Like the elder
son in today’s gospel who said he’d do what his father had asked but
didn’t, Mrs. Turpin did everything expected and did it all
perfectly, just as Hyacinth Bucket (oops, I mean “Bou-quet”) always
tried to do in the 1990s BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances.
But, unfortunately, all of those genteel Southern manners didn’t
characterize who Mrs. Turpin really was in the depths of her
character nor did all of her appearances characterize who Hyacinth
Bucket really was. No, all of that was nothing more than a
deceptive ruse by which Mrs. Turpin and Hyacinth Bucket sought to
gain respect and to be honored by those who the two women wanted to
respect and honor them. For all of their charm and manners, Mrs.
Turpin and Hyacinth Bucket were nothing but hypocritical frauds.
Everything they did was based on a calculation about how
sophisticated and important people would be impressed and react
favorably. That’s why Mrs. Turpin and Hyacinth Bucket—whose
social appearances were just that, appearances—estimated themselves
so favorably and loathed everyone whose behavior they deemed
unacceptable.
Jesus intended
today’s gospel parable about the Pharisees, tax collectors, and
prostitutes to direct the thoughts of his disciples’ thoughts to a
similar reality, namely, the hypocrisy of the Jewish religious
leaders whose piety—like Mrs. Turpin’s social graces and Hyacinth
Bucket’s social appearances—make them appear virtuous and holy when,
in reality, they resembled a mausoleum. Beautiful in dress and
manner on the outside and using beautiful words to express grand
religious thoughts and sentiments, the Pharisees were rotten on the
inside—nothing
more than maggot fodder—because
their arrogance, pride, and self-righteous attitude led the
Pharisees to conclude that they were the most religious of all Jews,
especially when the Pharisees compared themselves to the tax
collectors and prostitutes. No one could be as terrible as those
men and women were! And God knew it as well!
Their arrogance,
pride, and self-righteous attitude made the Pharisees closed-minded
and hard of heart which, in turn, made it impossible for the
Pharisees to see their own sins. But, as their arrogance, pride,
and self-righteous attitude infected how they viewed others, the
Pharisees judged others as inferior and looked down on anyone who
was not as “holy” as the Pharisees imagined themselves to be. The
Pharisees even criticized Jesus for spending time with those “trashy
people,” sinners like the tax collectors and prostitutes. Why would
any prophet spend time with people who publicly rejected God’s law?
The important
point we need to consider is that our Catholic faith is not simply a
matter of saying “Yes” with our mouths and keeping up social and
religious appearances by pretending to be Catholic in word and in
action. As Jesus teaches about the Pharisees, we can fulfill all of
the external criteria by which other people will judge us to be
“faithful Catholics” yet we can fail miserably in that endeavor.
Instead, being a Catholic means living that “Yes” to Jesus’
invitation to discipleship from the depths of the heart by
recognizing in Scripture and Church teaching the internal reality of
who we must be and how we must live our lives each and every day.
This attitude—in
contrast to that displayed by Mrs. Turpin, Hyacinth Bucket, and the
Pharisees as well—requires changing how we think. We are not to
judge others but, in looking upon others, to judge ourselves. We
are not to blame others for their hypocrisy, but to see in their
hypocrisy the fact of our own hypocrisy. We are not to spout pious
platitudes, but to put our faith into action, evangelizing others by
our inspiring witness to the gospel that makes others ask themselves
of us:
Why is she like
this?
Why does she live this way?
What inspires her?
Why is she in our midst?
There are many
people in our midst whose lives reflect this gospel ideal and whose
witness to the gospel and our Catholic faith raise those very
questions.
Three years ago
at Villanova University’s alumni medallion ceremony, a Hollywood
actress was honored with a medallion. At the time, she played a
role on ER. But, what most people didn’t know is that she also was
donating her time, talent, and treasure to the poor, the homeless,
and the lost. An Augustinian priest and campus minister at
Villanova by the name of Ray Jackson—who devoted himself to the
cause of social justice before he died prematurely of
cancer—inspired this alumnus during her undergraduate years. Even
as an actress, she co-founded a non-profit arts and education
program for children in Harlem named “The Dream Yard Project For
Kids.” She has traveled to Africa where she has spoken with
children and gathered material for a book examining the values of
children from different cultures. The name of this actress? Maria
Bello. And, she’s from our parish!
As I listened to
Maria’s acceptance speech, I asked:
Why is she like
this?
Why does she live this way?
What inspires her?
Why is she in our midst?
A former
Superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Archdiocese of Newark,
New Jersey, once remarked to me: “The miracle of Catholic education
is not that the schools still operate but that despite such poor
wages and the reluctance on the part of the larger Catholic
community to sacrifice for better wages for these people, many women
and men love our children enough to devote themselves to the hard
work of providing the moral and intellectual formation our children
need to be disciples in our complex and changing culture.”
Yes, that is a
miracle. And, as I meet those dedicated women and men in our
nation’s Catholic schools, I ask:
Why are they like
this?
Why do they live this way?
What inspires them?
Why are they in our midst?
Then, there are
those countless numbers of parents who look at the shipwreck of the
culture in which they try to raise their kids and devote themselves
to struggle each and every day to give witness to their children of
the primacy of love of God and of neighbor. Judging from what their
children say, these parents are just awful! They steadfastly
refuse to allow their children to have everything and anything they
want; these parents have dinner together with their children almost
every day of the week; these parents are “strict,” even requiring
their children to do chores around the house, to finish homework
before watching television, playing outside, and participating in an
Internet chat room; these parents require personal discipline on the
part of their children and impose a strict curfew, even for their
teenagers. As I look around and see these valiant disciples, I ask:
Why are they like
this?
Why do they live this way?
What inspires them?
Why are they in our midst?
In every
generation and in our own as well, the challenge never changes. As
disciples, our challenge is to allow God to change our minds and our
hearts so that we might not be like the arrogant, prideful, and
self-righteous Mrs. Turpin, Hyacinth Bucket, and all of those
Pharisees. As this change of mind and heart occurs, we conform
ourselves ever more to Jesus, who
Though he was in the
form of God
did not deem equality with God
something to be grasped at.
But, rather, emptied himself
and took the form of a slave
being born in the likeness of men.
It was thus that he humbled himself
obediently accepting death
even death on a cross.
As St. Paul
noted of the virtue of humility in his letter to the Philippians,
“Do nothing out of selfishness…humbly regard others as more
important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own
interests, but also for those of others.” In this sense, humility
isn’t something others can enforce upon us. Even God can’t make us
humble! Instead, humility comes from deep within, reflecting the
choice we make to live by a particular attitude and as we allow that
attitude to mold the content and quality of our character. That’s
how the choice manifests itself in what we say and do.
Contrast this
attitude with that of the Pharisees who despised the tax collectors
and the prostitutes. Certainly, the tax collectors and prostitutes
were sinners. But, like Mrs. Turpin and Hyacinth Bucket, the
Pharisees were more worried about maintaining their position of
prestige and honor within the Jewish community than they were about
what holiness required: announcing the Good News of God’s
forgiveness to sinners.
After hearing
Jesus announce the Good News, it was the sinners—like the tax
collectors and prostitutes who had said “No” to God—who became
believers. Meanwhile, it was the holy ones who had publicly said
“Yes” to God and paraded around as God’s holy ones—the Pharisees—who
became the sinners. The tax collectors and sins weren’t
the ones who
rejected Jesus, his saving word, and had him put to death. No,
it was the Pharisees who demanded that Jesus be executed as a
criminal.
At
times, we may find ourselves being Pharisaical, that is, prideful,
arrogant, and self-righteous, especially as we stand in judgment of
others and condemn their behavior. If we but cast our glance upon
Jesus nailed to the Cross, however, we can learn how, through his
humility, Jesus’ words and actions call us to embrace the virtue of
humility and to empty ourselves of our arrogance, pride, and
self-righteous attitude.
Say
all we want about loving God and neighbor, all of this talk is cheap
if our Catholic words are not followed up by Catholic action.
Jesus’
teaching about the tax collectors and prostitutes is intended to
comfort those of us who are afflicted by sin and to afflict those
who are comfortable thinking that we are “holy.”
As
we learned this morning from the gospel of Matthew, the taxpayers
and prostitutes took Jesus’ word to heart and allowed it to shape
their attitude and character. So, it’s not where we start that
counts, it’s where we finish that counts. Now is the time to
decide. The journey to holiness begins when we humbly admit our
sins of arrogance, pride, and self-righteousness arrogance and allow
love of God and neighbor to shape how look upon others.
A brief commercial
break...
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