Ordinary of the Mass
Latin Mass Text-3rd Sunday
English Mass Text-3rd Sunday
“Live as free
men, yet not using your freedom as a cloak for malice.”
In today's Gospel we read our Lord's
words to His apostles shortly before His resurrection and ascension into
heaven. In a “little while” they would see Him no longer, for in about
forty days He would be taken up bodily into heaven. And then, a “little
while” later they would see Him again. The second “little while” would be
each one's entire remaining lifespan. That might seem like a “great while”
to most of us—but in the eternal scheme of things a lifetime is but a
fleeting moment.
Indeed, when compared with eternity,
no amount of time on earth is significant. But yet, it does seem very
significant to those of us who live out our lives. Life can seem very long
indeed particularly if we are beset with family problems, economic troubles,
or physical infirmities. Paradoxically, our years may seem to to vanish
one after another, while the hours and the days are excruciatingly slow.
Life is short, but the effort of getting through it makes the days seem
long.
Saint Peter's first epistle, from
which we read a brief passage this morning, speaks to the way in which a
Catholic should deal with his days on earth. The opening verse of the
epistle puts some perspective on what it means to be a Catholic. He
addresses it to “men chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, consecrated by the Spirit to a life of obedience to Jesus Christ and
purification with His blood.”
Today's selection from James deals
with the way in which Catholics can live in a largely non-Catholic society.
As such it should be of great interest to us. We are “strangers and
pilgrims” just like the people to whom Saint James wrote nearly two thousand
years ago. In a very real sense, we Catholics live in exile during
our time on earth—for if we are living as we should, we will be very
different from most of those around us.
Saint Peter suggests, first of all ,
that must be on our best behavior, “refrain[ing] yourselves from carnal
desires, which war against the soul. Obviously, we shouldn’t want to do
anything that would harm our own soul, but this is even more important if we
are surrounded by pagans. Make no mistake, the pagans in our society know
the high standards of morality to which the Catholic Church holds us—nothing
could be more embarrassing (for us and for the Church) than for us to be
caught breaking those laws of morality. The pagan considers Catholic
morality not just difficult, but impossible and unnecessary. This is why
the pagan news media constantly calls for the Church to relax God’s moral
law—which, of course, is not possible. The media seeks
approval for immoral behavior. The pagan is very
pleased to see one of us fall from grace, for that gives him the excuse to
dismiss the entire Catholic Church as hypocritical.
God wants all souls to be saved, but
for this to be possible, all souls must become passably holy. Very few
people in the pagan world are open to learning the truths of the Catholic
Faith, or even to learn why they are true. Often the best we can do to
attract someone to the Church is to provide good example. And the very
worst thing we can do is to give bad example. When we do, we are
failing to be the soldiers of Christ, which we are by virtue of
the Sacrament of Confirmation.
Saint Peter also tells us to be
respectful of authority. No one likes the foreigner who comes to town and
refuses to learn the language, spits on the flag, and mocks the national
culture. Both Saint Peter (in this epistle) and Saint Paul (in Romans 13)
urge obedience to authorities because they are “sent for the punishment
of evildoers, and for the praise of the good.”
“For he is God' s minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that
doth evil.”
Neither Peter nor Paul is advocating
blind obedience or submission to evil. Indeed, we are told to obey the
authorities because they function in opposition to evil. Peter and Paul are
presuming that the authorities constitute a legitimate government—one in
which the laws are made in accord with God’s Natural Law. The laws may
still seem onerous, but as long as they are moral, they are to be obeyed.
If it is at all morally possible, a Catholic must be a good citizen of the
place in which he lives. Sometimes this is not possible, and we must resist
immoral laws just as the early Christians refused to sacrifice to the false
gods or to worship the Emperor. But even the early Christians took every
opportunity to assure the authorities that they were good citizens—that they
were better citizens because of their Catholic Faith.
I should also point out that the
Roman government at the time of Christ did not allow for much of any citizen
participation. We, on the other hand, live in a republic, which gives each
citizen the opportunity to suggest the improvement of laws. Not only should
we vote, but we should also express our concerns to our elected officials.
If you have never written to your congressman or senator, you have no
justification to complain that a law is onerous or immoral. We are the
voice of the innocent.
All men and women are created by God
with the freedom to do what they “ought”—that is to say that they are free
acquire property that supports their livelihood, free to form a family, free
to cooperate with others, They may never consider themselves free to
infringe the rights and freedoms of others. Above all, God created us with
the right to do the things necessary to please Him in this world, and to
earn the eternal reward of happiness with him in Heaven.
As Saint Peter wrote, we are “chosen
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, consecrated by the Spirit
to a life of obedience to Jesus Christ and purification with His blood.”
“Live as free
men, yet not using your freedom as a cloak for malice.”
