Homily for 32d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
32d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Nov. 12, 1989

2 Macc 7: 1-2, 9-14
Holy Cross, Fairfield, Conn.

This Sunday (Nov. 10) I celebrated Mass for Boy Scouts in Putnam Valley, N.Y.  Here’s a 30-year-old homily on the same readings.

Heroes are very important to us.  We admire them, hold them up as examples, celebrate holidays in their honor.  We can think of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Connecticut’s Nathan Hale, firemen and police officers.  Yesterday was Veteran’s Day, and we honored all those who have served in the armed forces.  About a week ago a new monument was dedicated in Montgomery, Ala., honoring all those who worked for civil rights during the ’50s and ’60s, especially those who died in the cause.

What makes people like these heroes?  They risk danger.  They risk their health and their lives to do what’s right or to serve their fellow citizens.  They are moved to action by a powerful love.

Martyrdom of the Seven Maccabees (Antonio Ciseri, 1863)

The Old Testament reading presented some Jewish heroes to us: 7 brothers and their mother who died for what they believed.  A wicked king was trying to force all the Jews to abandon their religion and worship the pagan gods of the Greeks.  Many Jews suffered torture and death rather than deny the true God and his special love for them.

The apostles and many thousands of the early Christians were killed because they wouldn’t renounce their belief in Christ or disobey his commands.  Today people are still tortured and killed for following Christ, for opposing injustice: in South Africa, in El Salvador, in Red China.  Today, here in the U.S., people are arrested, fined, and jailed for defending unborn human life.

Heroes take a stand for what they believe.  Anybody can follow the crowd.  It’s heroic to oppose the crowd, or to lead the crowd, out of deep conviction, out of love for truth, for justice, for human dignity, for Jesus Christ, who described himself as “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

Sometimes we, too, like those Jewish heroes, like Jesus, like the Christian martyrs, have to stand up for what’s right.  We probably won’t be killed for it—tho civil rights martyrs of the 60s remind us that we could be.  But we could risk unpopularity or ridicule by defending someone whose skin is a different color or who speaks a different language or who has a physical handicap.  We could risk unpopularity by maintaining that unborn babies are human beings, persons entitled to life, liberty and a chance to pursue happiness.

We take a stand when we speak the truth when it’s easy to lie, when we obey instead of doing something that’s fun but forbidden, when we pay attention in school even tho others like to fool around.  When people pressure us to do something that’s wrong—to shoplift, to cheat on a test, to smoke, to see a dirty movie—it’s heroic to say no and risk being called a nerd.

But in the end, people remember only heroes, the Washingtons and M.L. Kings.  No one remembers the wishy-washy people, the wimps who only followed the crowd, who didn’t care what’s right or wrong, who had no thing, no person, no value to live for, or die for, except themselves.

Maybe a lot of people don’t care whether they’re remembered or not.  Some people say it’s better to be a live coward than a dead lion.  But the mother and the 7 heroic brothers remind us of something far more important: they told the wicked king:  “You’re depriving us of this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to live again forever” (2 Macc 7:9).  Thanks to God’s eternal love for us and, especially, thanks to Jesus Christ, we live in the hope of real immortality: resurrection and eternal life.  When we stand up for what’s right and good, we’re volunteering for life, a life already won for us by our Savior Jesus Christ.