A Homily for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

+ There is much about which rightly to complain in respect of the current situation in the Church and in the world. The recent pandemic raised issues of the state’s ability to curtail basic human freedoms. The war in the Ukraine, which has seemingly now become an accepted ‘fact of life’, has the potential rapidly to escalate in Europe if not beyond. Politics in post-Christian democracies seem to become more and more extreme whilst basic human rights—most especially the right to life—have long since been left behind.
 
As the world leaves Christ further and further behind the Church has embarked upon a seemingly endless path of self-referential “synodality”: her mission to preach the Gospel to all nations seems to have been paused, or even to have been discarded because it is seen as politically incorrect.
 
In the meanwhile, the German bishops agitate for changes to Catholic faith and morals that are simply inadmissible. The Flemish bishops have defied a ruling of the Holy See last year by approving a blessing for unions of people of the same sex. Formal heresy and schism seem to be on the horizon, if they are not here already.
 
An atheist in favour of abortion has been appointed to the Pontifical Academy for Life in an apparent desire to dialogue with the devil within the very walls of the Vatican. The erosion of the sanctity of marriage and the Blessed Eucharist continues in the light of the supposedly ‘pastoral’ provision to admit remarried persons to Holy Communion. The spread of the cancer of syncretism is furthered by the signing of declarations at world meetings of religious leaders that do not affirm Our Lord Jesus Christ, “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (Jn 14:6) as the unique Saviour of Mankind. Good bishops who have worked long and hard to promote initiatives in their dioceses, rather than being content to manage their decline, are censured or removed whilst the vocations they have fostered are endangered, if not lost.
 
Young, vibrant and fruitful communities who celebrate the older rites of the Church are marginalised if not closed down because of a gerontic incapacity on the part of authority either to comprehend or to embrace and rejoice in the true evangelical good they propagate, in an ideological pursuit of a ‘liturgical correctness’ which, in truth, amounts to an idolisation of the tastes and enthusiasms of their own youth in a display of the very rigidity and lack of inclusivity and openness they themselves so frequently decry.
 
(As we offer this Mass let us thank God for the freedom integrally so to do—a freedom that is not without its price—and carry with us to the altar those many faithful whose ability to do so has been restricted or removed: here in France one thinks in particular of the faithful in Le Mans, in Strasbourg, in the diocese of Bellay-Ars, and of those in Chicago, Washington DC and Arlington, Virginia in the USA, amongst others around the world.)
 
All of this can tempt us to think that our times are apocalyptic, that the end of the world is at hand. How can it get any worse? Surely Almighty God must act and vindicate His justice!
 
But we must recognise that this is a temptation—the ultimate temptation to self-pity. Whilst we must be ready for the end, it is not for us to know the day, nor the hour, of the return of the Son of Man (cf. Mt 24). Occupying ourselves with speculation about this is an insidious trick of the devil that distracts us from that which is our duty every day we are given by God to live on this earth.
 
What, then, is our duty? The Church teaches us clearly and succinctly in the Epistle of this Holy Mass:
 
“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
 
Be we monks, clerics, religious or lay men or women, in these evil days the Word of God speaks to us eloquently through these words of St Paul. We may not be able to influence the paths taken by authorities in the Church and in the world (if we can, it is our God-given duty to do so for the good). But we can each take the injunctions of St Paul to heart in the given circumstances of our particular vocation, consuming ourselves not with worry about impending doom, but “in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all [our hearts].” For if we do this, God’s grace can take root in us and give us the graces of perseverance, fortitude, courage, etc. that we need in order, in God’s Providence, to bring about good where evil seeks to triumph.
 
If we read and re-read this Epistle in the coming week, if we ponder it in silence and prayer and allow God’s Word to penetrate, fill and encourage us through it, no matter what distress arrives we shall know that peace amidst the thorns that will enable us “always and for everything [to give] thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father”—just as we do at the altar this morning, and every morning, as we offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. +