After twenty three years in St Matthew’s, which is over two thousand homilies, even I have got used to some of my own favourite sayings, one of which is that something or other ‘takes us to the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.’ But today’s readings, I would suggest, take us, not only to the heart of what it is to follow Jesus, but to the heart of what it is to be a human being, regardless of what we believe or don’t believe. And it’s about making moral choices. Alone among the creatures on the earth, human beings have choices to make. In the Genesis account of creation God looks at everything he has made and sees that it is good. The exception is man and woman, and the reason is simple. ‘Good’ in the Genesis sense, means finished. The work of creation, in other words, is over. But with man and woman this isn’t true. We are not born finished. The process of becoming who we are goes on all through our lives and at the heart of this process lies an amazing truth. And it is that we, unlike every other creature, become who we choose to be. And therein lies the drama of human existence.
We see it this morning in the book of Deureronomy, a passage which is almost identical to one from the same book which we hear each year at the beginning of Lent. Today, Moses, as the people are about to enter the promised land, sets before them a blessing and a curse. In the other version he sets before them life and prosperity, death and disaster and invites them to choose life so that they may live in the land the Lord will give them. Their whole future is in the balance at this point and the outcome lies in their own hands. It will be what they choose to make it. And we see it in the second reading where St Paul tells the people of Rome that they cannot be justified by just doing what the Jewish law tells them. Salvation comes through faith in Jesus, a choice that is open to everyone, Jew or Gentile. And in the Gospel, Jesus tells us that it’s not those who say ‘Lord Lord’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do his Father’s will. But we do what we choose to do. Our destiny is in our own hands. We can choose the heaven God offers or we can create our own hell.
But, of course, it was not always like that. Making choices is something we learn to do as we grow older. When we were children other people made our choices for us and it is only with the coming of maturity that we begin the difficult task of learning to make them for ourselves. Sadly, however, it doesn’t always happen. There’s nothing automatic about maturity. It’s possible to live our whole lives and never come to it, remaining instead children in adult bodies, doing what others do, believing what others believe, running with the crowd and allowing our positions on every subject to be shaped by forces outside ourselves, like TV and the media. And for men and women of faith, the need to move beyond this childishness and come to maturity has never been greater. In an age of a thousand versions of the truth – another of my favourite sayings – it’s crucial that we learn to stand on our own two feet and make serious personal moral choices about all kinds of things: what values we are going to live by; what it is we really believe about God; how are we going to live as sexual beings in the modern world; what are we going to do about our carbon footprint; how we organize and use our financial resources in a world where millions live in poverty; where we stand on what people call the work-life balance and so on. The list is endless and it’s by addressing such issues and making personal moral decisions about them that we shape the people we end up being
But, belonging as we do to the Catholic Church, we have inherited a problem. In response to the Reformation and its rejection of traditional Church authority, Catholicism has gone through several centuries when the emphasis has been, not on personal choice, but on doing what we were told. ‘Don’t you bother making decisions,’ was the basic message. ‘That’s dangerous. We will tell you what to think and what to do,’ a system that is falling apart before our eyes in this world with a thousand versions of the truth and where the individual is king. And so men and women of faith are having to rediscover a much older tradition which, from the early Middle Ages, has taught us that conscience, not law, is the ultimate norm of morality. Allied to a re-discovery of the whole notion of discerning God’s will for ourselves as individuals, the Spirit is slowly but surely equipping us for a century in which, as I have been saying to you since 1985, only those with personal faith will survive in the Church. Personal faith at this time is the rock Jesus speaks of. Even if storms come it will not fall. Law and what others say is the sand which gives way as soon as pressure is applied, the results of which are all around us.
For some, of course, such talk sounds like an excuse for just doing what we like. But nothing could be further from the truth. To discern God’s unique will for ourselves is not about doing what we like. It’s about the imitation of Jesus and is far more demanding than any law could ever be. Law is satisfied with the minimum, discernment asks everything of us, one of the painful things being that others will not always understand what we do. The call to life-long commitment in marriage, for example, is God-given, but, in the world of personal discernment, there will be situations where, despite what the law says, an individual may decide to end a relationship, not because it’s the easy or selfish thing to do, but because in particular circumstances it’s the right thing to do. And since we cannot discern God’s will for others – only for ourselves – it’s not for us to judge. I have known many priests who have left over the years, often after much prayer and discernment, and have no doubt that many of them did the right thing and suffered for it.
To live in a world of personal faith where conscience and prayerful discernment guide us rather than law isn’t easy. It requires maturity and courage. But above all, it requires tremendous faith and trust in God.
BIDDING PRAYERS
In his infinite love and wisdom, God, the creator of everything that is, has taken the enormous risk of giving to human beings the gift of freedom. Made in the image and likeness of God and called to share in his own divine life, we are free to reject everything that God offers. Love cannot be forced. It is freely given and has to be freely received. And so we pray for a deep sense of the enormous mystery we are engaged in all through our lives……..Lord hear us
After centuries of living according to Law we are suddenly face with a world which sees things in a very different way. Millions have rejected traditonal moral principles, resulting in a much more permissive society where there are few objective guidelines and the individual is encouraged, or even forced, to make up the rules as he or she goes along. And so we ask God to guide us at this time so that we can develop a way of speaking about morality adapted to the age in which we live………...Lord hear us
It goes without saying that those most affected by the chaotic moral climate in which we live are the young. Born into a world which they themselves did not shape, many have no memory, even, of a time when clear moral guidance from society was both expected and accepted. Many things that those of us who are older once took for granted they have never even heard of. And so we ask God to guide the young at this time and protect them from the many moral dangers they face…………..Lord hear us
Sadly, a failure to understand the meaning of both conscience and the concept of discerning God’s will for ourselves as individuals has also contributed to the moral confusion of our time. At their best, they lead us to a way of responding to God that is infinitely more profound than any law. But they can also be used and abused to justify the doing, not of God’s will, but our own. And so we ask God to lead us to the greater moral maturity required for people living in the 21st century….…Lord hear us
In words that every church-going person should reflect on often, Jesus tells us today that it is not those who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of his Father. And so religious actions which do not bear fruit in Christ-like living are worth nothing, no matter how pious or holy they may appear. And so we pray for the grace to really understand this…………………..Lord hear us
On 25th July 1968, Pope Paul VI published his encyclical letter Humanae Vitae. Thus began a period of great turmoil in the Church which some here will have lived through and experienced the pain of. But at the heart of this pain was the issue we have reflected on today. The Pope spoke about law and conscience to a Church which had been taught only about law and so did not understand the language of conscience and personal discernment. And so, all these years later, we ask God to heal those who were hurt so much by what happened at that time…………..Lord hear us
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment