topleft05.jpg (18208 bytes)HOMILY
The Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (B)
20 August 06


 

Watch carefully how you live,
not as foolish persons but as wise,
making the most of the opportunity.
Therefore do not continue in ignorance,
but try to understand the Lord’s will.
(Ephesians 5:15-16)
 

One summer during my teenage years, I purchased and read the 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon’s book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  In the era b.a.c. (before air conditioning), reading any book during the hot, humid, sultry days of August was a challenge but Gibbon presented a fascinating rendition about how a once-great empire came to be crushed by a semi-literate army of barbarians.  The quote I best remember is found in Chapter 38, where Gibbon noted:

The rise of a city, which swelled into an empire, may deserve, as a singular prodigy, the reflection of a philosophic mind.  But the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness.  Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.  The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long.
 

Many of the world history textbooks we all studied during our elementary and secondary Social Studies courses adopted Gibbons’ rationale to instruct us about the fall of Rome.  You may remember the three most prominent reasons.  First, the Romans were ignorant of the extent of the dangers facing the Empire as well as the number of its enemies.  Second, Rome purchased the union of the Empire by taking away freedom and excising the military spirit from the conquered peoples; and the servile provinces, destitute of life and motion, expected their safety from the mercenary troops and governors.  However, these took their orders from a distant imperial court which, as the Empire expanded, could not and did not respond either efficiently or effectively.  With very little they could do, Roman provincial governors could only watch on as the safety and security of the territories and populations they administered were threatened by barbarian invaders.  Third, cold and poverty as well as a life of danger and fatigue fortified the strength and courage of the oppressed against their oppressors.

That is why, Gibbon argued, as the citizens of Rome grew increasingly prosperous, fat, complacent and self-indulgent over the course of decades and centuries, they failed to realize how the Huns were developing into a more fierce, mercenary people and with the capacity to conquer the Empire that had subdued and conquered the Huns only a few centuries previously.  And, sure enough, the Huns—the “barbarians” as the Romans referred to them—confronted their politically and morally bankrupt overlords in 476 after sweeping down through the European continent, across the Alps and Apennines, and into Rome, sacking the once-glorious and impenetrable capital of the Empire.  Its once-proud citizens feared for their lives and, leaving everything behind to be plundered, ran in every direction to avoid being put to death.

To put this all into a context we can understand in this generation, go back to the events of 9/11.  When the barbarians turned those three airplanes into missiles and slammed into the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, two proud symbols of our nation’s wealth and might were reduced to ashes.  Not only were thousands of our fellow citizens callously murdered but also remember the hundreds and thousands of people you saw who left everything behind and were running away from the scene of the crimes to save their lives.  “Barbaric” we call the heinous crimes perpetrated by those who plotted and carried out their “missions.”  That is how ordinary Romans reacted when the capital of their Empire was besieged by the Huns.

Many have used Gibbon’s analysis to explain where they see our nation headed if, as citizens, we allow our prosperity to cause us to become fat, complacent, and indulgent.  “Don’t be foolish,” see what’s going on in our society and culture, they argue, as the barbarians slowly but surely take the necessary steps to destroy life as we know it.  Invoking Gibbon’s terms, should we choose to remain foolish, it won’t be but a few decades before there will be any distinguishable difference between us and the barbarians already among us, perhaps the lone exception being their interest in exterminating us and what they view as our “perverse” and “decadent” culture.

Having studied a bit of ancient history over the years, I happened upon an article this week which the author introduced by stating, “On August 6, 2006, Rome was sacked.”  Of course, this piqued my interest because I thought Rome was sacked in 476 by Odoacer when he deposed the last sitting Emperor!  As the author of the article, Elizabeth Lev, continued:

This time it wasn’t by Visigoths running rampant though the streets, or by mercenary soldiers murdering and plundering.  But the same blasphemous spirit that drove the Landsknechte to stable their horses in the Sistine Chapel permeated the city once more.
 

So, who sacked Rome exactly two weeks ago today?

Why, it was Madonna!  No, not Mary, the Mother of Jesus, but the pop singer, Madonna Louise Ciccone.  The occasion was her only concert in Italy.  As the author of the article noted:

Like many barbarians of old, [Madonna] showed no respect for religious traditions.  In fact, she exploited the history of sacrifice and mocked the most sacred imagery of Christianity to provide hype for her show.  During her number “Live to Tell,” Madonna staged a “crucifixion” of herself wearing a crown of thorns on a mirrored cross.  As background video, she mixed footage of Benedict XVI together with Mussolini and Hitler.
 

It is very well known that Madonna utilizes Christian imagery and Catholic symbols to shock the public in an orchestrated effort to boost sales of her concert tickets, CDs, and videos.  Hailed for her “art,” Madonna mocks the most important images of Christianity.  While such outrageous and rebellious behavior might be tolerated in a recalcitrant teenager, the fact is that Madonna is 47 years old and a mother!

While all of this is pretty sad to see in any human being—and especially one raised Catholic in Detroit, Michigan—what was very sad about Madonna’s “sack of modern Rome” had nothing to do with Madonna because my purpose is not to pick on Louise Ciccone but very much to do with the regular, ordinary people of Rome, people who in their day are very much like you and me in our day.  In the city where the apostles, saints, and martyrs were persecuted and put to death simply because they professed their Christian faith, on August 6, 2006, the people of Rome allowed the memory of the apostles, saints, and martyrs to be mocked…without any criticism.

Take, Francesco Totti, for example, who attended Madonna’s concert.  For those who don’t know Totti, he is a soccer “megastar.”  More importantly, and to his credit, Totti has made much of his Catholic faith even making public vows at the shrine of Divino Amore.  Yet, while still basking in the glory of the Italian World Cup victory and having just witnessed Madonna’s anti-Christian and anti-Roman Catholic antics—which included wearing a rosary around her neck and flaunting the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary—Totti didn’t express one word of offense or outrage.  Neither did he express embarrassment for having attended the concert nor regret at its contents.

How long will it be before it is impossible to tell the barbarians from the citizens?

Then, too, what about all of those ordinary folk who purchased tickets to Madonna’s concert as well as her CDs and videos that mock Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church?  Despite what those 70,000+ people who attended Madonna’s concert in Rome may believe, spending money in this way isn’t morally neutral or harmless.  In fact, doing so promotes the idea that faith and religion belong in the private sphere and shouldn’t be displayed in the public sphere or, more accurately, used to challenge barbaric behavior.

Stop for just one minute and consider what these priorities say: Catholics who attend pop concerts like Madonna’s in all likelihood contribute more money to Madonna’s coffers for tickets and to purchase other Madonna paraphernalia than they contribute to the support of the Church.  Only one corporation, PepsiCo, has drawn a line in the sand by canceling its sponsorship of Madonna’s video, “Like a Prayer” because of its blasphemous content.   Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Christians and Catholics pour their money into Madonna’s coffers.  Looking at how we spend our money, does the outlay of real cash say we worship God or the goddess Muse named “Entertainment”?

How long will it be before there’s no discernable difference between the barbarians and citizens?

On Aug. 6, 2006, Rome was sacked.  This time, however, instead of leaving everything behind and running in every direction to avoid the barbarians, 70,000+ Romans joined right in with the partying.  As Edward Gibbons noted on the sack of Rome in 476, “instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long.”  What is truly sad about this “modern sack of Rome” by Madonna Louise Ciccone is that a megastar celebrity like Francesco Totti didn’t speak up for his faith against the tide of popular culture and neither did those 70,000+ Romans—people like you and me—who profess themselves to be Christian or Catholic.

This raises a very important question: Why are so many people afraid to express their disappointment, resentment, or outrage against the foolishness called “popular culture” that has secularism, consumerism, and materialism—the culture of death not God’s wisdom—as its animating and guiding spirit?  Or, is it worse?  Namely, the degradation of the sacred and the holy stirs no religious sentiments in the masses because religion is something done in Church on Sundays and/or the privacy of the home.

In today’s epistle, St. Paul told the Ephesians:

Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of the opportunity.  Therefore do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand the Lord’s will.  (Ephesians 5:15-16)
 

One thing St. Paul didn’t tell the Ephesians is that fools don’t know that they are living foolishly!  Quite the contrary, fools believe they are living perfectly fine lives.  With a dismissive “Thank you very much,” they chide their critics.  It isn’t until fools are shown the folly of their ways—how their choices didn’t foster the kind of life that the fools believed would result from their choices—that fools are presented the opportunity to grow in wisdom.  They then have a choice: to choose to be wise by rejecting their foolishness or to be stupid by rejecting wisdom.  [Remember: “ignorance” is “to not know” what is wise whereas “stupidity” is “to not listen” to wisdom.]

But, as St. Paul also notes, being wise alone isn’t sufficient.  We need to understand the Lord’s will and by this St. Paul doesn’t mean wearing a wrist band emblazoned with “WWJD” (that is, the question “What would Jesus do”?).   No, to understand the Lord’s will we first have to know the Lord—by meeting him in Scripture and partaking of his Body and Blood in the Eucharist.  Meeting the Lord in Scripture, we learn from him and allow his teaching to nourish and to strengthen us in holiness so that we see the secular world for what it truly is and respond to it by witnessing to our faith…providing the foolish that opportunity to choose to be wise.  This isn’t “worldly wisdom,” however, but “radical wisdom” because this it goes right after the “jugular vein” of the foolishness evident in secularism, materialism, and consumerism.  Meeting the Lord in the Eucharist, we allow his divine life to strengthen and nourish us so that we become the Body and Blood of Christ alive and active in today’s secular world.  The Eucharist—not “mere bread” but the “bread of life”—provides the courage—the wherewithal—for us to engage people who have allowed the bread of the secular world to transform them into fools.  In this sense, then, evangelization is the sacred mission God has entrusted to us to present everyone who lives in the secular world those very opportunities St. Paul speaks about so that they might make the choice to grow in radical wisdom!

Pop culture and its “saints” are part of the secular world and it is into this very world God sends us.  Our mission is to evangelize this secular world so that its members may experience something more life-giving and life-redeeming than the bread which the goddess, Entertainment, serves up to the foolish masses in the form of mere bread which nourishes and strengthens them on secularism, consumerism, and materialism.

Obviously, responsibility for our Christian faith and Catholic religion doesn’t simply involve “going to church” and receiving the bread of life which Jesus Christ offers.  Responsibility for our Christian faith and Catholic religion also requires partaking of this bread so that it changes us into the Body and Blood of Christ.  Then, like Jesus whom the Father sent into the secular world for its salvation, our words and actions will have a positive spiritual impact upon our secular culture and its salvation.  It’s very easy to go to Holy Communion—even Madonna used to, so does Francesco Totti and, I suspect, many of those 70,000+ Romans.  But, it’s an entirely different matter to allow Holy Communion—the Body and Blood of Christ—to change us to be Christ alive and at work in the secular world of our day!

When all is said and done, the Day of Judgment will arrive.  I don’t believe the question will be “How many times did you go to Mass and Holy Communion on Sunday?” (or, stated in the negative, “How many times did you miss Mass and Holy Communion on Sunday?”).  No, I believe the question will be: “When did you offer the foolish—the spiritually starving—the bread of life that affected the salvation of the world?”

 

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