Homily for July 16th, 2014: Luke 10:21-24.
Jesus breaks
out in a spontaneous hymn of praise to his heavenly Father. “I give praise to
you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these
things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to the childlike.”
The wise and learned are those who fail to respond to Jesus, because they feel
no need for God. The childlike are Jesus’ disciples: their hearts and minds are
open to the Lord.
Who are the
wise and learned today? They teach in our elite universities; they run the
great foundations, with names like Ford, Rockefeller, and Gates. They dominate Hollywood and the media.
With few exceptions they consider the killing of unborn children whose birth
might be an inconvenience to be a wonderful advance in humanity’s ascent from
ignorance and superstition to enlightenment and freedom. They charge those of
us who consider abortion for any reason a crime and a grave sin with waging a
“war on women.” If there is a war, it is not on women. It is a war on selfish,
irresponsible men, who put the pursuit of personal pleasure at the center of
their lives and take no responsibility for the consequences apart from offering
the woman they have used a supposed cheap fix which will leave her with months,
years, and in not a few cases decades of regret and guilt.
Today’s wise and learned look down
with patronizing scorn, disbelief, and hatred on those who insist that life is
precious at every stage: in the womb, but also in old age, when Grandma’s mind
has gone ahead of her, and her meaningful life is over. When we contend that
marriage is the union of one man and one woman; and that re-defining marriage
is an injustice to children, who have a right to a father and a mother, they
denounce us as bigots, homophobes, and enemies of equality.
Who, on the
other hand, are today’s childlike? We
are! We pray in this Mass that our merciful and loving Lord may keep us
always so: aware that God cannot be mocked; that when we violate his laws, we
always pay a price; yes, and aware too that we can never make it on our own;
that we are dependent every day, every hour, and every minute on the One who
came to show us what the invisible God is like; who always walks with us on the
journey of life; and who is waiting for each one of us at the end of the road –
to welcome us home!
No comments:
Post a Comment