18th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Aug. 5, 2018
Eph 4: 17, 20-24Visitation Convent, Georgetown, D.C.
“I
declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles
do” (Eph 4: 17).
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| http://linesandprecepts.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/why_wicca_not_celtic_paganism.jpg |
Closer
to home, what shall we say about the gun violence that explodes because someone
has a grievance, real or imagined, or that takes place daily on the streets of
Chicago (much worse than here in D.C.)?
Closer
yet, the sad saga of Abp. McCarrick is the story of a priest who lived part of
his life “as the pagans do”—assuming the credibility of what we’ve been
hearing, and evidently Pope Francis so assumes.
Polls,
such as those of the Pew Research Center, show over and over that as many as
89% of Catholics see nothing morally wrong with contraception; only half of
self-described Catholics consider abortion to be morally wrong; only 35% say
that homosexual behavior is wrong.
The
latest Pew polling, out last week, concerns Americans’ church attendance.[1] It reports that 28% of those who don’t go to
services regularly (church, synagog, mosque, temple, etc.) don’t go because
they’re non-believers. Whatever their
personal lives may be like, and they could be virtuous—they’re pagans. 37% don’t go to church because, they say,
they have other ways of practicing their faith; further poll questions reveal,
however, that their “other ways” aren’t very evident; they’re less involved in
community, charitable, or social groups than churchgoers, tho more than
non-believers are. For practical
purposes, these are semi-pagans.
In
our reading from St. Paul, the lectionary skips 2 verses in which he briefly
describes the Gentiles: darkened in
understanding, alienated from God’s life because of their ignorance, hard of
heart, callous, licentious, practicing every kind of impurity to excess
(4:18-19). Some of his descriptions in
other letters are even more explicit.
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| https://halloweduk.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/christian-sin.jpg |
Beyond
that, we’ve degraded our human dignity in multiple ways, most nefariously by
murdering our unborn, and in many places our sick and elderly as well; by
creating human life in labs in order to destroy it as a means—they hope!—of
curing diseases; by creating human life in labs like a manufactured product. Let me read you a paragraph from medical
ethicist Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk’s current online column in the Boston Archdiocese’s Pilot:
We
encounter Promethean temptations today in the expanding fields of reproductive
medicine and infertility. We may be drawn to the idea of “manufacturing”
children through in vitro fertilization and related forms of assisted
reproductive technologies. By producing and manipulating our children in laboratory
glassware, however, we cross a critical line and sever our obedience to the
Giver of Life. We assume the role of masters over, rather than recipients of,
our own offspring. We allow our children to be mistreated as so many embryonic
tokens -- with some being frozen in liquid nitrogen and others being discarded
as biomedical waste. We take on the seemingly divine role of creating another
human being and reigning supreme over his or her destiny.[2]
We’ve
also degraded our human dignity by treating refugees like criminals; by
scattering the ashes of the dead like fertilizer on our fields or fish food on
the ocean; by discriminating against those who are different in skin color,
religion, national origin, gender, or age.
All
of this degradation of humanity is pagan behavior.
As
already noted, many American Catholics think most of these behaviors are OK, if
you believe polls about our acceptance of contraception, premarital sex,
homosexuality, divorce and remarriage, even abortion—besides small numbers who
indulge in racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, or other discriminatory attitudes
and behaviors.
St.
Paul tells the Ephesians, “That’s not how you learned Christ” (4:20). Then he adds quickly, “assuming that you have
heard of him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus” (4:21), with the
consequence “that you should put away the old self of your former way of life,
corrupted thru deceitful desires” (4:22), viz., their pagan way of life. Paul himself had preached the Gospel at
Ephesus.
And
there’s the rub regarding American Catholics as indicated by the polling
numbers: a great number have never “learned
Christ”; never been catechized in what we believe or how Jesus’ followers are
supposed to live. Too many parents, too
many CCD programs, too many religion classes fell grossly short in their
responsibilities. It’s also been said
that a great many baptized Catholics were never really evangelized, i.e.,
converted to belief in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, as our
evangelical brethren like to phrase it.
How else can you explain a 75% absentee rate on Sundays, week after
week?
Even
churchgoers may be showing up out of a sense of obligation or for social
reasons; in other words, not out of conviction—not out of having heard and
believed in the Good News of Jesus.
They’re not so different from the crowds who chased after Jesus, seeking
a miracle, a healing, some free food, without recognizing in him the Son of God
who feeds us with the bread of God’s love and eternal life (cf. John 6:24-35).
Saying
you’re Catholic doesn’t mean you are in fact a disciple of the Lord, that
you’ve been “renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new self,
created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth” (4:23-24). That’s why we have errant priests,
politicians who vote for abortion, laity who spout hatred for Muslims,
immigrants, gays, and so on.
I’m
not calling for a great conversion in the sisters, except insofar as the Lord
calls all of us to daily conversion, as we do at the beginning of every
Mass. I know our lay friends are here
out of conviction and not just for coffee and donuts later.
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| St. Paul (Bartolomeo Montagna) |
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