Homily for 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the

18th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Aug. 2, 2020

Rom 8: 35, 37-39

Holy Name of Jesus, Valhalla, N.Y.

“What will separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom 8: 35).

We’re about halfway thru our 13 weeks of readings from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, and are in our 5th consecutive week reflecting on ch. 8.  Having reminded us of God’s abundant love for us revealed in Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon us, Paul now asks whether there are any limits to the reach of God’s love:  “What will separate us from the love of Christ?”, or more accurately, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”

Paul proposes hypothetical possibilities, human and natural and supernatural, and he asserts that no “creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8:39).  God’s love for us is absolute and all-conquering, no matter how limited may be our perception of it.  It surpasses plagues, natural disasters, human malice, even the power of Satan.  Even in a time of pandemic, Christ continues to offer us the forgiveness of sin and a part in his own victory over death.

The cross reveals the depths of God’s love for us in Christ.  In Romans ch. 6, in our reading for the 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Rom 6:3-4,8-11), Paul reminded us that when we were baptized we were baptized into the death of Christ, descending into his grave as we descended into the baptismal waters—in the early Church Baptism was always by immersion—and then rising with Christ to a new, godly life.  That—a new, godly life—was the commitment we made in Baptism, and now as we follow Christ, “we conquer overwhelmingly thru him” (8:37).

When we have to deal with evil in the world, it’s important for us to remember that Christ conquers.  A great many of our brother and sister Christians are suffering persecution and even death in China, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, and other places.  They cling to Christ, certain that nothing and no one “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8:39).  These brave disciples of our Lord Jesus are doing what tens of thousands of others did in the 20th century at the hands of Nazis, Communists, military dictators, death squads, and others.

Don’t think that persecution and oppression occur only in such situations.  In contemporary Western culture, the principalities that rule our politics, our schools, and our media pressure believers and sometimes mandate that believers separate from Christ, seeking to compel his followers to put their consciences aside and cooperate with abortion (nurses can be fired, doctors have their practices limited); cooperate with funding contraception (which the Little Sisters of the Poor and some others have resisted up to the Supreme Court); cooperate by signaling their approval of deviant sexual practices such as “gay marriage” and transgenderism—which Pope Francis has clearly and often denounced as a false ideology.

For example, a hate crime bill that’s before the Scottish parliament could lead to censorship of Catholic teaching by criminalizing what the Bible and the Catholic catechism teach regarding sexuality.  Such censorship has happened repeatedly on college campuses, even supposedly Catholic colleges like Marquette University.  In social media, it’s called “cancel culture,” intimidating someone with an unpopular, politically incorrect opinion, into shutting up.  And you know that in our country Christian bakers, florists, and photographers have been taken to court for refusing to be involved with homosexual weddings.

Just as Christians in the 1st century, St. Paul’s time, had to be ready to stand up for Christ against the power of the Roman Empire, 

Prisoners' barracks, Dachau (Wikipedia)

and 80 years ago more than 1,000 priests and religious perished at Dachau in the Nazi persecution, we too have to be ready to stand with Christ in defense of the truth of how God has created us in his own image, created us male and female, created us with a dignity that can’t be taken away from us by any law or politically correct trend, regardless of our race, age, national origin, state of health, or any other condition—from the moment of our conception until our natural death.  In fact, our own Declaration of Independence says that our life and liberty and “unalienable rights” with which our Creator has endowed us.  Further, as Christians we know that God has created us for an eternity enjoying his love and friendship “in Christ Jesus our Lord.”