Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Hosea
11:1-4a.8e-9; Matthew 10:16-23)
A number of
years ago director Martin Scorsese made a movie of Shusaku Endo’s disturbing novel
Silence. The book and movie
tell the story of a Jesuit missionary in seventeenth century Japan. In order to dissuade native Catholics from
suffering horrific torture, the missionary himself denies Christ. The situation is taken from Jesuit annals,
but not the plot. In the annals the
missionary did not apostatize. Rather he
too underwent the torture!
The
Silence was making
the case for doing evil to produce a greater good. This kind of morality has always been
condemned by the Church. As today’s
gospel indicates, Christ knows that those who believe in him will experience
persecution. He tells them to be both
shrewd and simple. They do not have to invite hostility by, for example, declaring
openly their beliefs. But they should
never deny those beliefs when pressed.
Still, he states categorically that those who endure in the faith will
be saved.
Justifying the
doing of evil to achieve good is a particularly modern endeavor. We have all heard how some try to justify
telling a lie to avoid being bothered by unwanted callers. As seen in the passage, Jesus condones
shrewdness in such situations. We can
tell inquirers that it is not their business to know if the head of the house
is at home. But we should never lie
about it.
