Homily
for January 27, 2008
Liturgical Year A- Cycle II
3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. John Carney Topic:
One, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church
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Reading II 1 Cor 1:10-13, 17 I urge you,
brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, and that there be
no divisions among you, but that you be
united in the same mind and in the same purpose. For it has been
reported to me
about you, my brothers and sisters, by Chloe’s people, that there are
rivalries
among you. I mean that each of you is saying, “I belong to Paul,” or “I
belong
to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Is
Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you
baptized in the name of Paul? For Christ did not send me to baptize but
to
preach the gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that
the
cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One of the things that I notice when I
am reading the
scriptures is how relevant they remain to us today. That’s true
not only of the Gospels but also
the Letters of the New Testament, especially Paul’s writings. I
really commend to you, what are known as
the Pastoral Letters: the letters from Peter and John. They were
speaking to the people of their
day, but they could be talking to us.
Societies change, cultures change, and politics change, but the human
condition doesn’t change. Therefore, the
message that we read in these letters is really a timeless message that
needs
very little translation into the current era. The second reading today is from the
First Letter of Paul
to the Corinthians. Paul had founded the
Christian community in the city of Corinth, about the year 51 AD,
during his
second missionary journey. Corinth was
an interesting city. In one way, it was
very ancient. In another way, it was
quite new because the Romans had destroyed it in about 150 BC and it
had been
rebuilt. It was a city of great
commerce, of great prosperity, of great politics, of great sin.
It was a growing community, and it was very
diverse. There were large numbers of
people from many nations, especially large numbers of Greeks, Romans
and
Jews. Prior to Paul’s missionary work in
Corinth, many of the Jews had been kicked out of Rome and they settled
in
Corinth. That’s the community that Paul
first evangelized. He didn’t have much
luck with them, so he went out then to the Gentile community. He
founded a church that was growing,
prosperous, and very much alive.
However, five years later on his third missionary journey, while at
Ephasis, he received some letters indicating there were real problems
in the
church in Corinth. He wrote this letter
that you heard part of today. It was
written about 56 AD. First, he gives them this beautiful
introduction. The introduction we use at Mass was taken
from Paul’s introduction, “The grace and peace, the love of God, and
the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
You couldn’t say it better 2000 years ago, and you can’t say it better
today. Then, after the introduction, he
commends them on the strengths in their community. They had many
great strengths. This was a very vital and vibrant
church. Then he gets down to
business. You heard him. He said, “Cloe’s people have
reported to
me.” This is the church he’s founded, so
he’s their father. He doesn’t reprimand
them so much as he brings to their attention their problems.
There were many problems, and here are a few
of them. Some people in the church of
Corinth were identifying themselves into factions, they were beginning
to break
down from the Catholic Church into the church of Apollos, the church of
Sephas
(or Peter, who had visited there himself), or the church of Paul, or
the church
of whomever else. They were beginning to
follow the best looking, most charismatic leader. If that was the
case today, this church would
be empty. Paul sees it as a big
problem. He sees the beginning of the
Catholic Church being splintered into groups based on an attraction of
the
minister, not on the attraction of Christ.
He calls them on that. In fact,
some elements of this church in Corinth began to say, “Well, we’re
special and
we have the fullness of the secrets, a superior wisdom.” That is
known as Gnosticism, and it existed
then and it exists now as well. Paul also brought their attention to
the fact that they
were misusing some of their gifts. There
were people in Corinth, Christians, who had the gift of speaking in
tongues and
interpretation of tongues. That is truly
a gift of the Holy Spirit. If you list
the gifts, it is the last one. All gifts
are important, so we don’t want to denigrate it. It was
happening, though, that those people
who had these special spiritual gifts were saying they were more
important than
being charitable. Therefore, the values
of the church of Corinth were being skewed.
There was no leadership in the church to address problem members.
He gives one example. There was one member of the church in
Corinth
who was in an illicit sexual relationship with his father’s wife,
meaning his
stepmother. Paul says, “You people are
doing nothing about it. You all know
this. This guy claims to be a member of
our community, and he is living this open lifestyle that is against
Christ.” It
was considered an incestuous relationship at that time. Paul
calls them on that. As a matter of fact, what Paul says they
should do to this member, if I said Paul’s words to you now, a number
of you
would say, “You’re so judgmental!” but that was Saint Paul. We
come and we have this nice little, “don’t
upset anyone” kind of view of everything today.
Paul would not last 10 minutes as a preacher in today’s Catholic Church. In addition, there were liturgical
abuses. They used to meet in each other’s homes for
the Holy Eucharist. In fact, there are
some documents dating back to the year 110, the document known as the
Didache
in Greek that describes the Mass that we celebrate more or less the
same
today. They were excluding the poor, and
the Eucharist in some cases was turning into a party, people were
getting
drunk, and they weren’t dressed appropriately.
Paul calls them on those abuses.
Some of the people were continuing to participate in the Pagan rites
that they inherited from their parents.
So, that’s the letter of Paul.
Not to say that he loved them.
He’s their father, but he’s kind of chewing them out. He’s
warning them that they’re falling away
from Christ and he calls them back to Christ.
He sets them straight. The key is
that there must be one church, united in Christ Jesus and Him crucified.
What he means by that is that we are united
in Christ Jesus. Not because of some sophisticated
philosophy or some body of doctrine or teaching. We are attached
to Jesus through an act of
faith, and that Jesus is He who was born, suffered, died and rose again.
Not a philosopher. Not an academician. But the Savior, and
the Son of God. Others were appealing to the people because
of their brilliance. He said to forget
the brilliance, look at Christ, and look at Christ crucified. He
says what we believe as Christians, is a
stumbling block to the Jews. How could
God die? Foolishness to the Gentiles, as
well. Those of you who had catechism back in
the 50’s and 60’s
might have remembered we taught the Marks of The Church. Maybe we
are still teaching that, I think we
are. The church is one, holy, catholic
and apostolic. If it’s not those four
things, it’s not real. It’s something
less than it’s supposed to be. Those are
like the copyright marks on a product, One, Holy, Catholic and
Apostolic. The church has to be one. In Ephesians, Paul
says, “there is one Lord,
one faith, and one baptism.” Jesus tells
us in John’s Gospel, “I pray that they are one, Father, as you and I
are
one.” We must be one, or we are not the
true Church. Secondly, we must be holy. That
doesn’t mean that the church isn’t
comprised of sinners. However, it does
mean that the church does have what is necessary for each of us to be
holy. It has the Sacraments, it has
Christ, and it has the truth. One, holy and catholic.
That means universal. At the 9
o’clock Mass, there was a black man from Africa preaching from this
ambo. Father Andrew joined us from Zimbabwe, and he
didn’t have to take a course on the “American Liturgy,” on the
“American
Doctrine.” He knows. I could go to Zimbabwe and have the
same
experience. I celebrated a funeral Mass
for a wonderful woman yesterday in Santa Clara Pueblo. The Pueblo
Indians have a different culture
than I do, although the Irish and the Indians have something in common.
However, I was totally at home in this
church. There was probably 300 people
there, and maybe there were 3 non-Indians.
However, they are Catholic, I am Catholic, we are catholic, and we are
universal, regardless of race, language, or culture. To be the
Church, we need to be The Church. Finally, apostolic.
That’s very important. It brings
all these other marks together. That
means we are from the apostles. You
heard Jesus today in the Gospel. The
first thing he did, He got the twelve around, and we know they weren’t
perfect. One betrayed Him, one doubted
Him, two argued over Him, two were ambitious.
The first Bishops. The first
twelve. We are one, holy, catholic and
apostolic church. How is that unity brought about and
maintained? First, that unity is not a
spiritual unity only. It of course is
that but the Church is unified, the Church is one in a real, physical,
tangible
way. We are one. We are body and soul, but we are body.
Therefore, we are one real thing. We are structure. It is a
structure that was built by Christ
that assures unity and order, like the body.
In a rather lengthy description, which I won’t use, in Ephesians,
chapter 4, Paul compares the Church to the body – different parts,
different
functions, and different capabilities.
That’s what we are. We are one
body. There must be leadership in the body
or there will be
anarchy. We all know what anarchy
is. It’s nothing. It’s madness.
Everything dissolves. Violence
ensues. Do you know where the word
anarchy comes from? It’s from the Greek
word “anarchia,” which means “lack of a leader.” Isn’t it true
that any organization that
doesn’t have a leader will fail? Can you
imagine an organization without a leader?
Imagine our police department without Wayne Torpy, or another person,
wearing the four stars. I don’t know how
many police officers we have.
Fifty? Sixty? Seventy? Imagine if they all did their own
thing: “Here’s a badge and go. Here’s a car.
Just, you know, do what ever you think you need to do. No
accountability. No rules.
Just go out there and be a cop, or fireman.” Imagine a high
school without a
principal. I know what some of you kids
think. . . It won’t work. Imagine our nation without a
president. Don’t start!
That poor man has been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in the
last eight years! It is obvious we need
leaders, right? Is the church
different? Of course, it’s not. Yet there are many
Christians, and even some
Catholics that suggest to you that we don’t need leadership. Let
me tell you what’s right and wrong. That’s very prevalent.
We have a leader, the Holy Father and the
Magisterium of our Church. The
Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God-- it serves it. I
don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want
to be the Pope. That poor man. They speak for the church
and they speak for
Christ. The Pope speaks for Christ, for
Jesus Christ, from the day of Peter until today. Raymond Flynn, the three-time mayor of
Boston and
President Clinton’s Ambassador to the Vatican, said, “The teachings of
the
Church are not liberal nor conservative, not Democrat or Republican.
They are rooted in the truth.” Paul’s letters to the people of
Corinth, I
think are to the people of the United States.
I attended a hearing for a pro-life bill Tuesday, at the State
Capital. Three people got up and said,
“I’m Catholic but . . .” One was a Republican, one was a Democrat, and
one was
a witness. Why did they say, “I’m
Catholic, but. . .”? They gave
testimony and voted against the Church’s teaching on the Sanctity of
Life. The Bishop was sitting in the room with them. Nothing
will happen. But why did they have to say, “I’m Catholic,
but. . .”? I guarantee you, I just know,
I’d bet you anything that none of those three have read the documents
that are
signed by the Holy Father concerning the issue they were talking about.
They don’t even know the Catholic
position! But they are quick to say,
“I’m Catholic, but. . .” One
representative from the State asked a physician what an embryo was.
I thought, you know, he’s kind of fishing
here. He didn’t know! An elected representative! I’m
serious!
“But, I’m Catholic.” At least
have the decency to shut up if you don’t know anything.
Certainly, don’t claim your Catholicism and
go against it, and then expect to be welcomed back into the assembly,
“Oh, good
to see you! Come on in!” That’s what Paul’s talking about.
Right now, I’m pressing some of your buttons,
some of you. Save your letters to me. Send them to the
Archbishop. He needs some more. One, holy, catholic and apostolic
church. It must mean something. Our Bishop, he was there
for the Right to
Life March, and walked every step, and lead us.
I was so proud of Archbishop Michael Sheehan this past week. I
was so happy to walk behind him. God bless him, and continue to
bless him. I’m all worked up here.
The world got along great before I was born, and it will go along just
fine when I am gone. Paul said this to the people of
Corinth, and he says it
to the people of Los Alamos.
Listen. Paul said this.
“I
urge you,
brothers and sisters in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of
you
agree in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you.
That you be united in the same mind, and in
the same purpose.”
We make that prayer today, to the
Father, through the
Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
Amen.