Thursday, December 18, 2014

Thursday of the Third Week of Advent

(Jeremiah 23:5-8; Matthew 1:18-25)

Philosophers talk about the “pie rule” as a means to insure justice between two people.  They say that if one person is allowed to cut a pie and the other to choose the piece she wants, the pie will almost assuredly be cut into perfect halves.  This may be a way to achieve equality, but does it secure real justice?  Is justice not a matter of everyone having enough to secure his welfare?  Universal welfare is what Scripture means as justice, and the readings today provide examples.

In the first reading Jeremiah looks forward to a king whose name will include the word justice.  He will bring security to all Israel.  The gospel shows how Joseph is rightly called just by being unwilling to expose Mary, the mother of Jesus, to shame.  This refusal probably cost him the woman’s dowry according to Jewish custom.  Justice then is more than equality or a fair share.  It involves making sacrifice for the good of all.  Jesus is the just one who gives himself up to death on a cross so that the world may know God’s love.

We speak of being justified as if it were only the blotting out of our sins.  But it is much more.  When Jesus justifies us through his death and resurrection by the grace of the Holy Spirit, he offers us the opportunity to reflect his justice.  To be sure it requires the development of virtue – no easy task.  But it results in advantage for all around us and in our sharing in Jesus’ eternal glory.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Wednesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Amos 5:14-15.21-24; Matthew 8:28-34)

The words of the "Pledge of Allegiance," which many Americans will proudly recite today, end with an appeal for liberty and justice. It’s important to keep in mind that the United States has enshrined both virtues. Fairness in its laws is as much a part of the American heritage as the freedom which its founders risked life and fortune to attain. The prophet Amos pleads for a similar justice in the first reading today.

Amos lives in the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II of Israel, the northern kingdom. Unfortunately, not everyone is thriving. The poor are often swindled of the little they have while the wealthy luxuriate. The story of Ahab and the poor man Naboth provides a sterling example although it occurred some seventy-five years before Amos comes on the scene. The prophet cannot help but speak out against the inequities. In a phrase echoed by Dr. Martin Luther King, he implores, “...let justice surge like water, and goodness like an unfailing stream.”

As long as people cling to individual privileges and claim rights that ignore responsibility, the justice to which Amos appeals will be wanting. Jesus provides the key to the only adequate response. He died so that we might live in true freedom and complete justice. By modeling his self-sacrifice for others, Catholic Americans can assist their nation attain the ideals it espouses.

Monday, August , 2010

Monday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Ezekiel 1:2-5.24-28c; Matthew 17:22-27)

Justice is the virtue by which we give to others their due. It is essential for harmonious social life. Love is the virtue by which we join ourselves spiritually if not physically to others. Family life would be inconceivable without it. Both virtues have natural and supernatural dimensions. Natural justice, for example, assures that we compensate properly those who work for us. Supernatural justice moves us to secure the rights of all people, whether or not we owe them anything personally. Pursuing supernatural justice, which is bestowed only through God’s grace, we merit everlasting life.

Parents, of course, love their children. Because they naturally identify their children’s welfare with their own, they make it a priority. Supernatural love moves people to identify with and to seek the good for God and others, beyond family and friends. We see supernatural love operative in the lives of the saints like Katherine Ann Drexel who spent her fortune and her life on the construction of missions for poor minorities in the United States.

The gospel today presents a negative instance of natural justice and a positive instance of supernatural love. Jesus instructs Peter that justice does not require him to pay the temple tax because he is the son of God for whom the temple was constructed. However, because supernatural love moves him not to give scandal to tax collectors, Jesus provides for the paying of the tax. In paying the tax voluntarily, Jesus demonstrates in a rather banal way that he is indeed of divine origin.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

(I Kings 21:17-29; Matthew 5:43-48)

“It’s not fair,” we may protest, “King Ahab deserves to be exiled for killing Naboth, not exonerated for robing himself in sackcloth.” God’s mercy always seems to come after and trump His justice. But surely we see things backwards here. God always intends to bring about justice by showing mercy. As long as we show contrition for our sins, God will forgive us. But God’s mercy must not be taken for granted as if we may plot the resumption of a sinful act. Contrition presupposes the will not to sin again.

The child’s dilemma challenges this perspective. A child comes to Confession forever with the same sins – disobeying her parents or fighting with his brother, among other peccadilloes. Are these sins then forgiven? Or, perhaps, they are not sins in the first place? Of course, typically they do not comprise what we know as mortal sins, but nevertheless they should be fairly considered and dutifully given penance. Taken seriously, the girl here will grow in consciousness to realize the benefit of her parents’ judgment and the possibility of following it. Likewise, the boy will become aware of his brother's and, indeed, every human being’s dignity and not abuse it.

Homilette for Friday, August 29, 2008

Memorial of the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist

(Mark 6:17-29)

This curious sidebar in Mark’s gospel describing the martyrdom of John the Baptist resolves what happened to one of the first century’s greatest religious leaders. It also anticipates Jesus’ death.

John was an enormously popular religious prophet whom evidently even Jesus followed for awhile. His being executed like a dog shows how state power can wantonly lay aside human rights. More than the other evangelists Mark will describe Jesus’ death as similarly outrageous and gruesome. The Jewish leaders have false witnesses testify against Jesus. Pilate hardly gives him a hearing at all. And Jesus hangs on the cross for a full six agonizing hours in this gospel.

“Where is justice?” we want to cry out. It is with God, and He has introduced it into the world with the paschal mystery of Jesus. Just as Jesus’ brutal death ended in the glory of the resurrection so the lives of those who believe in him will be saved. For now we move under Jesus’ mandate to fortify the mechanisms of justice in our society. We also pray that when injustice strikes despites our efforts to keep it at bay, its victims will respond with the love of enemy which Jesus emphasized.

Homilette for March 11, 2008

Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

(Dn 13:1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62; John 8:1-11)

In the famous “mercy speech” of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice the heroine Portia tells the spiteful Shylock that “earthly power thus then show likest God’s when mercy tempers justice.” Thomas Aquinas also assures us that mercy and justice run simultaneously in every judgment of God. Thus, we should not see mercy as the undoing of justice. Quite the contrary, mercy comprises a necessary dimension of justice because out of mercy justice achieves its end -- the rehabilitation of criminal defect.

In the gospel today Jesus manifests God’s justice when he shows mercy to the woman caught in adultery. He has already corrected society of its corrupt fascination with sexual crimes by reminding the people they too have sin on their shoes. Now he must change the adulteress’s heart lest she think that she may sin wantonly and get away with it. His judgment is as firm as it is clement, “`Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.’”

Jesus shows himself a judge wiser than the sagacious Daniel in the trial of Susannah’s persecutors. His unfathomable wisdom indicates that he is the Messiah, the One God promised to send to save His people. In these last two weeks of Lent we want to contemplate how Jesus’ carries out this salvific mission. We should note his patience, his fortitude, and most of all his unswerving commitment to the will of His Father.

Homilette for Wednesday, August 29, 2007

The Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist

(Mark 6)

This curious sidebar in Mark’s gospel describing the martyrdom of John the Baptist resolves what happened to one of the first century’s greatest religious leaders. It also anticipates Jesus’ death.

John was an enormously popular religious prophet whom evidently even Jesus followed for awhile. His being executed without trial and like a dog shows how state power can lay aside human rights with little more consideration than for a paper cup. More than the other evangelists Mark will describe Jesus death as similarly gruesome and unjust. The Jewish leaders have false witnesses testify against Jesus. Pilate will hardly give him a hearing at all. And Jesus hangs on the cross for a full six agonizing hours in this gospel.

“Where is justice?” we want to cry out. It is with God, and He has introduced it into the world with the paschal mystery of Jesus. Just as Jesus’ brutal death ended in the glory of the resurrection so the lives of those who believe in him will be saved. For now we move under Jesus’ inspiration to fortify our society’s mechanisms of justice. We also pray that when injustice strikes despites our efforts to keep it at bay, its victims will be also inspired to respond with the love of enemy which Jesus taught.

Homily for Sunday, March 25, 2007

Sunday, V LENT, Cycle C

(John 8)

It was a regular Sunday morning. People filled the cathedral for mass. After reading the gospel the preacher began his homily. All of a sudden there was a furor in the front of the church. Someone started shouting as he neared the pulpit. Gun in hand, he demanded a hearing. The scene is not much different in the gospel today. The scribes and Pharisees interrupt Jesus’ teaching with what corresponds to a loaded pistol.

Into the midst of the assembly before Jesus the scribes and Pharisees parade a forlorn woman. She has been caught in the act of adultery. The passage does not describe how she looks, but it takes little imagination to see her as partially dressed. In any case, she is likely flush with shame. She has been exposed to a large crowd who look on her with contempt. Even if the people do not see naked flesh, they ridicule her for being caught in sin. We should be able to appreciate the hell the woman is experiencing. Most of us have probably had the nightmare of being exposed in a similar way.

Hopefully, if we were in the Temple area with Jesus that morning, we would have looked away. The scribes and Pharisees, however, take no note of the woman’s feelings. They don’t even care about her sin. They are using her to attack Jesus. They will mount a two step assault. First, they will cite the Scriptures: “...in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.” Then, expecting Jesus to have a contradictory judgment, they will seal his fate with the question: “What do you say?” It is the devil’s strategy of turning Scripture on its head. The Law proposes to form a righteous people. Here its supposed defenders show themselves as anything but righteous as they seek to undermine a just man.

Jesus, however, remains as composed as an iceberg in the Artic winter. In modesty, he bends to the ground and turns his head away. Then he demonstrates how divine mercy tempers justice. He challenges the whole crowd, “Let the one among you who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Significantly, Jesus does not make an excuse for adultery. He does not argue that the woman might need the money if she is a prostitute. Nor does he inquire about her partner in crime as if that would remove her guilt. No, he confronts everyone present – including us – with his or her own sinfulness. When we face our own guilt, we recognize a need for leniency. Pope John Paul II cast a cold eye on the death penalty for this reason. Seeing how abortion has eroded the sanctity of life, he pleaded for an end to capital punishment which calls into question the sanctity of the criminal’s life.

The pope’s declaration twelve years ago has been a moment of illumination for the world. It has enabled pro-choice advocates to see the cruelty of giving a woman the option of killing her own flesh and blood. And it has opened the eyes of pro-life proponents to admit that their field of concern needs stretching. We see this same enlightenment taking place as everyone leaves the Temple area -- scribe, Pharisee, and Jesus listener. Jesus has touched all with his plea for mercy. No one merits the right to cast a stone.

Alone with the woman Jesus can finally look at her. His eyes are void of judgment and filled with compassion. She has committed a grave sin which cannot be ignored. But she has already suffered the stiff punishment of shame in front of the crowd. To be forgiven she must also display what the Church calls firm purpose of amendment. “Go, and from now on do not sin any more,” he gently tells her. She will avoid the sin in the future. After Jesus narrowly saves her from a brutal death, how can she fall again? Unfortunately, we often forget that Christ has similarly rescued us. In confession we likely think of Jesus more as a traffic cop than a savior. He seems to stop us, ticket us, and tell us to speed no more. We depart ready to exceed the speed limit as soon as he is out of sight. But Christ has died a more gruesome death than stoning to save us from the punishment our sins deserve. How can we sin any more? No, we want to avoid sin. More than that, we want to become just and merciful like Jesus.

A striking incident occurs only in the Passion according to Luke which we will read at Mass next Sunday. Just after Jesus dies on the cross, “all the people...return(ed) home beating their breasts” (Lk 23:48). Scribes, Pharisees, and Jesus listeners show remorse for Jesus’ death. Just so, we face our guilt at Mass by striking our breasts at the Confiteor. We must cast a cold eye on our sins. They undermine our righteousness. They merit for us a brutal death. Now is the time to plead that mercy temper justice. Now is the time to plead for mercy.