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The word “orphan” isn’t used very much these days. When I was
growing up, however, the word was used quite a bit more than it is
today because there was an orphanage located nearby to the town
where I grew up. As we all know, an “orphan” is a child whose
parents have died or deserted their child. The Greek root of the
word, orphanos, means “one who is deprived” or “bereft,”
indicating that a child without parents has been deprived or left
bereft of something very valuable and important in life.
Orphaned, it is easy to understand how difficult it would be―as
today’s
Psalm Response noted―to
“cry out to God with joy.”
I’ve had only one experience in my life of children being left
orphans. It involved the girl from next store, Carol Freitag, who
as a teenager, used to baby-sit my sister and myself. When Carol
and her husband got married, they didn’t have enough money to go on
a honeymoon, so they decided to celebrate their 10th wedding
anniversary by finally taking their honeymoon, a two weeks’ vacation
in Hawaii. Carol’s mom and dad provided the babysitting for Carol
and her husband’s four children, aged two to eight.
As the events were related to me, a couple of days into their
“honeymoon,” Carol and her husband rented a Jeep to take a spiraling
ride up a steep mountainside to view an active volcano. Evidently,
the weather was perfect: a glorious, sun-drenched, 80 degree,
perfectly blue-skied day. Near the top of the mountain, Carol and
her husband enjoyed a picnic lunch and then collected some lava
rocks to bring home for their children. Gathering everything up and
placing it all in the back of the Jeep, the couple started their
spiraling descent back down the mountain. As would be expected, the
Jeep started picking up speed. But, the brakes unexpectedly
failed. At the next curve, the Jeep burst through what was labeled
a “protective barrier” and plunged over and then down the
mountainside—tumbling down front over back and then side over
side—until the Jeep came to rest upside down on the road below.
Tragically, Carol and her husband—strapped into their seats by
their seatbelts—were crushed to death.
Within an instant, their four children were orphans. Every kids’
nightmare became a reality. At that moment, there surely was
little that could make those children
“cry out to God with joy.”
Yet, orphans that they were, those four children
didn’t end up being sent to an orphanage. Why? Because their grandparents―well
into their 60s and nearing retirement―decided to raise their four grandchildren.
The kids’
parents could never be brought back, but their grandparents―putting
the needs of their grandchildren ahead of their own plans for a
comfortable retirement―gave these orphans a reason
to “cry out to God
with joy.”
In today’s gospel, Jesus said, “I will not leave you orphans….”
Interestingly, although the word is used more than forty times in
the Bible, this is the only time the word appears in the gospels.
In using the word “orphan,” however, Jesus was referring to its use
by Jewish lawyers—the word “paraclete”—which translates into the
English word “advocate.” A “paraclete” is an individual who assists
the defense team in a criminal case by offering evidence or
testimony to vindicate the accused. In effect, Jesus was telling
his disciples, “I will not leave you orphans—standing out there
alone and by yourselves when you are falsely accused—but will
provide you an Advocate who will be with you always. It is the
Advocate who will defend you.” Who is this advocate? “The Spirit
of truth,” Jesus said, “who will remain with you always.”
Jesus has left us, but he hasn’t left us as orphans to fend for
ourselves. Instead, Jesus has sent an Advocate, the Spirit of truth
who, Jesus promised, will be with us always.
Well, that’s all very nice, isn’t it? We have an Advocate—the
Spirit of truth—who will defend us. End of homily. Time to get on
with Mass.
But, hold on there! Wait just one minute....
“To save us from what?” we should be asking ourselves.
As disciples, we need an Advocate who will offer evidence or
testimony that will vindicate us when we are falsely accused of
criminal wrongdoing, that is, for bearing witness to the gospel by
proclaiming the truth to those who don’t want to hear it and, when
they do, will endeavor with all of their might to silence us, just
as happened to Jesus.
Last Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI concluded his pastoral visit to the
United States by delivering a homily at New York City’s Yankee
Stadium. Yes, there were many who traveled to New York to see the
Pontiff and there were millions more who watched him on television,
myself included. There were millions who listened to the Pope
preach his homily. Yes, some heard what the Holy Father had to
say. Yet, there were also others who dismissed his words as well as
some who wished that Pope Benedict would just shut up.
What truth was the Holy Father trying to convey to his
audience of U.S. Catholics in that homily?
Pope Benedict spoke directly to any of us who believe that faith and
life exist side-by-side as if in two separate and distinct
compartments. Who are those people? They include:
·
Catholic politicians who believe that faith must be separated from
positions on public policy matters.
·
Catholic educators in public schools who believe faith must be left
at the doors to the schoolhouse.
·
Catholic physicians and nurses who believe faith and medical
practice don’t mix.
·
Catholic business professionals who separate faith from business
practice.
·
Catholic lawyers who ply their trade irrespective of what faith
demands.
·
Catholic husbands and wives who separate Church teaching about
marriage and divorce from their relationships.
·
Young Catholics who are afraid to speak the truths that faith
teaches to their peers.
What did Pope Benedict have to say to all of these Catholics?
Benedict positioned his teaching within the context of how we pray
the Our Father, reminding us that we oftentimes all-too-glibly say,
“Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” The Holy Father
said:
Praying fervently for the coming of the Kingdom…means….overcoming
every separation between faith and life, and countering false
gospels of freedom and happiness...It means working to enrich
American society and culture with the beauty and truth of the
Gospel, and never losing sight of that great hope which gives
meaning and value to all the other hopes which inspire our lives….
Dear friends, only God in his providence knows what works his grace
has yet to bring forth in your lives and in the life of the Church
in the United States….empowered by his Holy Spirit, let us work with
renewed zeal for the spread of his Kingdom.
Jesus has not left us deprived or bereft of something very valuable
and important in life, like weak and vulnerable orphans. No, Jesus
has given us the Advocate—the Spirit of truth—to intercede on our
behalf, not in the distant heavens but right here on earth, smack
dab in the midst of our day-to-day, mundane existence. This Spirit
of truth acts as our Advocate—our counsel for the defense—when we
get into trouble as Catholics for testifying to the truths our faith
teaches by bringing them to bear in our day-to-day, mundane affairs.
What a different society and culture America would be if the nation’s
Catholics not only listened but heard deeply—in the depths of their
hearts and souls—what Pope Benedict was teaching last Sunday in his
homily at Yankee Stadium. Here’s
what we know would be happening:
·
Catholic politicians would be challenging public policy to reflect
Church teaching.
·
Catholic educators in public schools would be including moral
lessons as well as intellectual lessons in their classes.
·
Catholic physicians and nurses would be introducing Catholic
principals into medical practice.
·
Catholic business professionals would be using Christian moral
principles to evaluate their business practices.
·
Catholic lawyers would be seeking justice for all.
·
Catholic husbands and wives would be witnessing to the sacred
dignity and permanence of conjugal love.
·
Young Catholics would be challenging their peers to live virtuously.
Were Catholics to bring their faith into the daily lives in these
and so many other ways―as
“the salt of the earth” about which Jesus taught―the
transformation would be palpable.
As
today’s
Psalm Response noted,
“All the
earth (would) cry out to God with joy!”
Sure, we will suffer when we take what in our society and culture
today views to be “the road less traveled.” But, as St. Peter
taught in today’s epistle:
Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who ask you for a
reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence,
keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those
who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to
shame.
We’d all be happier were it easy to be Roman Catholics in the United
States of America. But, for a garden’s
variety of
reasons―chief
among them the hegemony exercised upon us and our fellow citizens by
the false truths asserted by secularism, consumerism, and
materialism―it’s
not easy at all to be Roman Catholic citizens of the United States.
Yet, Jesus has promised the Advocate―the
Spirit of truth―so
that we will have the “right stuff,” as Pope Benedict XVI taught us
last week, not only as we pray “Your will be done on earth as it is
in heaven” but also as we make that our daily bread and engage in
the work of evangelizing our society and culture to reflect better
the truths of the gospel. Only in this way will
“all the earth cry
out to God with joy.”
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HOMILY
