Homily for Thursday
33d Week of Ordinary Time
Nov. 18, 2021
1 Macc 2: 15-29
Christian Brothers, St.
Joseph Residence, New Rochelle, N.Y.
“God forbid that we should
forsake the law and the commandments” (1 Macc 2: 21).
As we’ve been hearing this week, King Antiochus of Syria was trying to impose on Israel a completely Greek culture, including Greek polytheism and worship. Some of the Jews resisted to the point of rebellion and civil war in defense of their traditions and religion.
In our own time, similar
efforts are being made thruout Western culture to impose a pagan religion,
which some might call “progressivism”; in the U.S. we also have to face “woke”
culture. Political, media,
entertainment, and academic elites lay this upon us. (In other countries, there are different but
always non-Christian impositions.) Their
secular religion doesn’t worship Zeus or Athena or whatever gods Antiochus
favored, but the gods of wealth, nationalism, ethnocentrism, libertinism,
abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, and the stifling of dissenting opinions.
Lately I’ve read of a new
college being founded that will stress the free exchange of ideas, unlike many
of our most elite universities, where only politically correct opinions are
permitted.[1]
We’re not called to arms
like Mattathias and his sons in their revolt against Antiochus. We are called to stand fast for truth. In next Sunday’s gospel, we’ll hear Jesus
tell Pilate: “For this I was born and
for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to
my voice” (John 18:37).
I read a news story this
morning about a public school student in New Hampshire who’s been suspended
because in a private conversation off campus he asserted that there are only 2
genders.[2] He’s fighting back like the Maccabees, but
with a lawsuit.
Wherever, however we can,
we must defend the truth: God is the
lord of creation, every human being has inborn dignity, and every human being
is called to a life of integrity and to chastity. (How much trouble could the Church have
avoided in the last 50 years thru faithful lives of chastity!) The goods of the earth belong to everyone,
and not only to the 1%, and they must be shared.
Some of this is decidedly
not politically correct. But it does
represent zeal for the law and the covenant, zeal for our Lord Jesus Christ.
[1] Anemona Hartocollis, “They Say Colleges Are Censorious. So They Are Starting a New One.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/us/ut-austin-free-speech.html?searchResultPosition=3
[2] CNA Staff, “Catholic teenager suspended
for saying there are only two genders sues school district,” 11/18/21: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/249629/a-catholic-teenager-who-was-reportedly-suspended-for-saying-that-there-are-only-two-genders-is-suing-his-new-hampshire-public-school-district
No comments:
Post a Comment