Thursday, October 26, 2023

Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

(Romans 6:19-23; Luke 12:49-53)

Dorothy Day lived a radical life.  In her twenties she supported socialism as a remedy to poverty while having various love affairs.  After having a child with a live-in lover, she felt a need for God.  She became a strict, observant Catholic with a heartful love of the poor.  She saw Christ in them and treated them accordingly.  Day’s live illustrates the teaching of St. Paul in today’s first reading.

Paul addresses himself to the former pagans of the church community in Rome.  He reminds them of the licentious living they left behind to follow Christ.  He assures them that the reversal in their lifestyle will be more than release from shame.  “The wages of sin is death,” he famously writes, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”

In many places people have returned to heathenism.  Children at tender ages are following Internet porn.  It is plague more widespread and in ways crueler than poverty.  As Dorothy Day did, we should speak up for disciplined lives given to the Lord, not carnal desire.  We must convey to all the joy of knowing Christ and the hope of eternal life as our destiny.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

(Romans 6:19-23; Luke 12:49-53)

The ancient city of Pompeii was buried under a river of volcanic lava in 79 A.D.  Then in the late 1800s, it was uncovered to give a three-dimensional snapshot of life in the Roman Empire.  The view is not always edifying.  One house has a statuette of a boy lifting his phallus with the opening of the gate to salute a visitor.  Perhaps even more than people today, Romans were obsessed with sex.  For this reason St. Paul, writing not long before Pompeii disappeared, comments to the Romans on sexual license.

In general Paul’s letters indicate that many people became Christians as a way out of sexual enslavement.  Christianity provides a support group to help people cope with an oversexed environment. It also promises the grace of the Holy Spirit to pursue a virtuous life.  Paul emphasizes in today’s reading another reason to forego extramarital sex.  He writes that the effect of sexual sin is death in contrast to eternal life Christianity offers.

Sex, like all creation, is a natural good for which we should thank God.  However, it has been corrupted through sin so that it now appears as much a threat as a benefit.  For this reason we need to be careful about our dealings with it.  We should not think of sexual intimacy as inherently impure or sinful. Yet we cannot declare it good outside marriage.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Memorial of Saint John Paul II, pope          

(Romans 6:19-23; Luke 12:49-53)

One of St. John Paul II’s legacies will surely be his Theology of the Body.  Presented as a series of meditations for his Wednesday public audiences, the doctrine explains human sexuality.  Rather than the betrayal of self with sin that St. Paul writes in the first reading, John Paul finds sexuality achieving the human purpose.  It demonstrates not only fulfillment of God’s will but also the human way of imitating God’s loving.

Paul recognizes that humans have misappropriated sexuality.  Rather than using their bodies as a means of self-giving, humans have allowed them to become instruments of self-seeking pleasure.  The result has been, as Paul points out, disillusionment ending in disgrace and ultimately death.  But Paul is not fatalistic.  He knows that Christ has overcome the reign of sin.  Because of this victory of their brother, all humans can live free of carnal domination.

We must make an effort to overcome the selfish inclination.  Christ’s grace has enabled us to use sexuality rightly.  When we do, sexuality is not devoid of pleasure.  Rather the pleasure is ordered to our true goal in life, a loving union with God.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

(Romans 6:19-23; Luke 12:49-53)

The man was involved in the numbers racket; that is, in collecting small bets on the final numbers of the daily stock market trading.  As Al Capone is supposed to have said, “That’s where the money is.”  And the man made much of it and spent it on liquor, dope, and other vices.  Now he was dying alone in a rundown rental room.  As today’s reading from St. Paul’s Romans poignantly says, “…the wages of sin is death.”

St. Paul has especially in mind the fact that sinful humanity will always die.  Reflecting on Genesis, Paul concludes that the curse of Adam is a tendency to sin that ensnarls every human being and leads to his or her downfall.  That is everyone except Jesus (and by special dispensation his Immaculate Mother).  He not only transcended enslavement to sin but boosted his followers out of their entrapment.  Trusting in Jesus as Lord, humans can now overcome the tendency to love creatures more than the Creator – what sin is all about.

We need to hold ourselves close to Jesus – desperately. Heeding his warnings and following his example, we actually become freer, happier people.  We become, in other words, beneficiaries of the gift of eternal life.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

(Romans 6:19-23; Luke 12:49-53)

The ancient city of Pompeii was buried under a river of volcanic lava in 79 A.D. and left unseen for 1700 years. When it was uncovered, the world had a snapshot of life in the Roman Empire. One house, by no means extraordinary, has a statuette of a boy lifting his phallus with the opening of the gate to salute the visitor. Perhaps even more than people today, Romans were obsessed with sex. For this reason St. Paul, writing not long before ancient Pompeii was buried, can address the perniciousness of sexual license.

Paul’s letters and, to some extent, the gospels leave the impression that many early Christians were and found Christianity as a way out of sexual enslavement. Christianity not only provides a support group to help one overcome lascivious desires but also the grace of the Holy Spirit to pursue a virtuous life. Paul emphasizes in today’s reading another reason to forego immoral sexual actions. He writes that the outcome of sexual sin is death in contrast to eternal life which Christian discipleship offers.

Sex, like all creation, is a natural good for which we give God thanks and praise. It has been corrupted, however, through sin with universal enslaving potential. For these reasons we are cautious about our approach to sex. We should not think of intimate sexual relations as inherently foul or dirty, yet we cannot proclaim it as a good outside marriage.

Homilette for Thursday, October 22, 2009

Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

(Romans 6:19-23; Luke 12:49-53)

Sex scandals at high levels this summer provoked a controversy regarding marriage. After the revelations of extramarital affairs involving a U.S. senator and the governor of a southern state, people have asked what marriage is for. Is its purpose the personal fulfilment of the individuals involved? Or, more traditionally, is it the procreation and education of children? With its tellingly high divorce rate, American society seems to want individual satisfaction from marriage most of all. The Church teaches differently. She says that along with the mutual sanctification of the couple in love, marriage is about bringing up children who will glorify God and benefit society.

In the first reading today, St. Paul asks his Roman Christian readers a similar question. He notes that previously they followed the licentious customs of the society around them. What good did that do for you? Paul asks. In other words, he wants to know if the fleeting pleasure of promiscuity is worth the cost of death which he rightly associates with sin. Until Christ some might have rationalized that, yes, it was worth it. But with Jesus’ resurrection from the dead another answer is in order. Now that we will gain eternal life by associating ourselves with Christ, we want to reject sin and to put our faith in him.