A Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent

+ Qui non est mecum, contra me est: et qui non colligit mecum, dispergit. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. These words, with which Our Blessed Lord concludes the dispute about His power to exorcise demons, and which the Church addresses to each of us on this third Sunday of Lent, leave little room to maneuver, as it were. They demand clarity on our part. Am I for Jesus Christ? Or am I against Him?
                                                                                               
These questions are quite stark—almost rude. But we must remember that they arise from Our Lord’s own unequivocal words: He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. The shallow comfort of defaulting into abstention is not on offer. The refuge of a so-called ‘diplomatic neutrality’ is not an option. Am I for Jesus Christ? Or am I against Him? I must stand with Him or be found to be against Him.
 
And these questions resound all the more clearly as our Lenten disciplines strip away the worldly comforts with which we so often anesthetise ourselves. (Or they should: perhaps we need to re-start them, or even start them once and for all? It is not too late!) For whether it be our busyness, even with good things, or be it our pursuit of our own wills and pleasures—legitimately or otherwise—the brusque reality that I must choose to stand with and for Our Lord Jesus Christ in the varied realities of my daily life, or be counted as standing against Him, often escapes us.
 
But there is no escaping this reality. We either face up to it now and deal with its implications or we shall face up to it on the day of our judgement at the end of our lives on earth. The choice is ours.
 
In placing this fundamental choice before us in Lent, the Church is calling us, her children, to that conversion of life that is necessary in each one of us so that we shall indeed stand with and for Christ. She is calling each one of us to the conversion that each of us must undergo—perhaps even radically—so that the day of judgement shall not find us amongst those who do not stand with Christ but are scattered without hope of salvation.
 
This requires a radical honesty on our part. It requires that we ask ourselves the difficult and stark questions that are necessary in respect of our own Christian vocation and discipleship—questions which often lurk at the back of our consciences but which, perhaps, are never allowed fully to come to the fore.
 
We know of the Church’s requirement (the “Paschal precept”) that we receive Holy Communion worthily at least once a year between Ash Wednesday and Trinity Sunday, and that we confess all grave (mortal) sins also at least once a year. This minimum requirement assumes the necessary examination of conscience. If we are not in the habit of making an examination of conscience regularly (and even if we are) the Holy Gospel of this Mass and the questions that it places before us—Am I for Jesus Christ? Or am I against Him?—shall assist us greatly.

Of course, these questions are not about some vague so-called “fundamental option” that I may of may not think I have. They are about whether, in the detailed daily circumstances of my life and vocation, in larger questions as well as in smaller ones, I stand with Christ or against Him. They are about whether, in respect of my own life’s vocation, I am prepared to take the steps necessary to stand with Christ, or whether I shall continue to hide from His call behind the various excuses and other options (even seemingly good ones) that the devil proffers in its place.
 
Indeed, these questions challenge the Church of our day, as the news coming out of Germany in recent days makes painfully clear. Will the Church stand with Christ and the Truth, or is she to dissemble into national or other groups with their own edition of the Catechism, edited according to their preferred ideologies? The fact that this question could even be asked should give us cause for very grave and urgent concern. It should move us to offer much prayer and fasting for the bishops concerned, and in particular for the Successor of St Peter, whose vocation it is to promote, protect and preserve the unity of the Church in faithful adherence to the Truth revealed by Christ.
 
Qui non est mecum, contra me est: et qui non colligit mecum, dispergit. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.
 
My dear brothers and sisters, through our Lenten disciplines let us earnestly beg Almighty God for the grace courageously to stand with Christ and the Truth He revealed, handed on in Tradition by the teaching of the One Church He founded. Where necessary, let us not delay in seeking the cleansing and healing that are offered to us in the Sacrament of Confession, so that we may be able to stand with Christ at His altar and worthily receive Him in Holy Communion and, nourished thus by His Body and Blood, receive the grace and strength to persevere in faithful and fruitful witness to Him. For our godless world—and the increasingly divided Church—has desperate need of the witness we are called to give. Let us not scatter in fear: let us stand with Christ in faith and with courage! +