29th Sunday - Ordinary Time

Mass Readings:

Reading I
Ex 17:8-13

In those days, Amalek came and waged war against Israel.
Moses, therefore, said to Joshua,
"Pick out certain men,
and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle.
I will be standing on top of the hill
with the staff of God in my hand."
So Joshua did as Moses told him:
he engaged Amalek in battle
after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur.
As long as Moses kept his hands raised up,
Israel had the better of the fight,
but when he let his hands rest,
Amalek had the better of the fight.
Moses' hands, however, grew tired;
so they put a rock in place for him to sit on.
Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands,
one on one side and one on the other,
so that his hands remained steady till sunset.
And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people
with the edge of the sword.

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 121:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8

R. (cf. 2) Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
I lift up my eyes toward the mountains;
whence shall help come to me?
My help is from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
May he not suffer your foot to slip;
may he slumber not who guards you:
indeed he neither slumbers nor sleeps,
the guardian of Israel.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The LORD is your guardian; the LORD is your shade;
he is beside you at your right hand.
The sun shall not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The LORD will guard you from all evil;
he will guard your life.
The LORD will guard your coming and your going,
both now and forever.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

Reading II
2 Tm 3:14--4:2

Beloved:
Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed,
because you know from whom you learned it,
and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures,
which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation
through faith in Christ Jesus.
All Scripture is inspired by God
and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
so that one who belongs to God may be competent,
equipped for every good work.

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus,
who will judge the living and the dead,
and by his appearing and his kingly power:
proclaim the word;
be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient;
convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.

Gospel
Lk 18:1-8

Jesus told his disciples a parable
about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.
He said, "There was a judge in a certain town
who neither feared God nor respected any human being.
And a widow in that town used to come to him and say,
'Render a just decision for me against my adversary.'
For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought,
'While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being,
because this widow keeps bothering me
I shall deliver a just decision for her
lest she finally come and strike me.'"
The Lord said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.
Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones
who call out to him day and night?
Will he be slow to answer them?
I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.
But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

 

HOMILY

The second reading is a pastoral letter from St. Paul to a new Bishop.  Paul is trying to help Timothy learn how to be a bishop.  There is a line of particular interest in this reading.

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingly power: proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.”

Well that got to me.  It is applicable to all Christians but especially to priests.  It is telling us that we have to – for the sake of your salvation and mine – I – have to preach the true teachings of our faith.  So that we can all remain faithful to what we have learned and believed.  Our salvation depends on it.  I love this parish.  I love all of you.  So convenient or inconvenient, I will not put your salvation or mine at risk.

These words of St. Paul stood up on the page for me when I read them earlier this week.  It was as if a big neon sign was flashing saying it is time to discuss a very difficult and sensitive topic – the upcoming elections.  Now don’t all get up and run out screaming.  This isn’t going to be my version of another campaign ad.

Talk about inconvenient.  I talk religion every day.  I must be foolish to think I should talk politics too.  I would much rather talk about the Cubs … well, no … maybe politics aren’t so bad after all.

Anyway – it couldn’t be any less pleasant or more inconvenient for you or for me, but it says right here in the second reading … I have to do it.  So let’s try to wade through this.

Let me set a couple of ground rules.  I absolutely will not talk about specific candidates.  After all there is only one perfect candidate (Christ) and He is not running for office.  But He will be coming back to judge how we have handled our responsibility, to see if we have lived according to our faith.

I absolutely will not talk about any particular party.  I will talk about the teachings of the Catholic Church around several issues.  That is what I have been charged with doing.  I will not tell you who to vote for – that is your sacred duty to decide.  I will try to help you understand some of the Catholic issues involved in this election – that is my sacred duty.

Before I go any farther, I want to ask you a favor.  As soon as we start talking about political issues, some of you will think I am supporting a political candidate or view and some of you will think I am opposing them.  We each look at politics through our own lenses and hear through our own filters before anything gets said.  I am asking you to put those lenses and filters away for a minute and lets try to use our Catholic lenses and filters.

Some of you may have seen the movie “A Man For All Seasons.”  It’s about King Henry the VIII and St. Thomas More.  If you remember, Thomas More was Chancellor of England when Henry the VIII wanted to re-marry.  Henry asked the pope for yet another annulment and the pope refused.  Finally, Henry broke away from the Church and started the Church of England.  He demanded an oath of loyalty from his officials, including Thomas.  That oath required Thomas to break from the Catholic Church.  Thomas had always been known for his loyalty to the king and to the Church.  Henry forced him to pit one against the other.  Thomas refused the oath choosing to remain Catholic and yet never rescinded his loyalty to the king.  King Henry had him executed.  Before his execution, Thomas said, “I die the kings good servant, but God’s first.”  Catholicism in England fell apart and many who tried to remain Catholic were executed.

In every election, we are looking for a way to be a good Catholic and a good American.  Some of us aren’t ready to stand up to the challenge to put those two together.  I hope we all prayerfully consider it because we are called to this challenge and it is expected of us.

We have a special privilege in this country for which we should all be grateful.  In parts of the world there is no peaceful change of power.  There is no right to vote.  In our country, we have the right, the duty, in fact, the sacred obligation to vote.  This is one of the more significant ways we have to influence the common good of all of us.  As Catholics we are obliged to work for the common good and voting is one of the ways we do this.

It would be easier to ignore many of the issues being tossed around in this campaign.  Frankly, some of them are even getting pretty tired.  I know sometimes, actually often, I just wish it would all be over.  But, as inconvenient as it is, we have to pay attention to what is going on and we have to form our Catholic consciences so that we are ready to cast a responsible vote.

There are seven key themes from Catholic social teaching that we have to consider.  They are listed in the pamphlet from the U.S. bishops entitled “The Challenge of Faithful Citizenship.”  They are;  1) Life and Dignity of the Human Person, 2) Call to Family, Community, and Participation, 3) Rights and Responsibilities, 4) Option for the Poor and Vulnerable, 5) Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers, 6) Solidarity, 7) Caring for God’s Creation.  All of these themes are very important.

Some are actually more important than others.  Some are considered non-negotiable.  We need to take a particular look at the first two themes on life and family to make a distinction in importance.  The “Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics” helps us with this.

This guide lists five non-negotiable issues.  They are;  1) Abortion, 2) Euthanasia, 3) Fetal Stem Cell Research, 4) Human Cloning, 5) What is sometimes called Homosexual “Marriage.”

As painful as it may sound, the horrors of war and capital punishment are not included in the non-negotiable issues.  The reason is that there are rare cases when war or capital punishment is justified.  We even saw an example in the first reading where God actually picked sides in a war.  If a person is attacked he has the right to defend himself.  If a country is attacked it has the right to defend itself.  A country also has the obligation to defend those among us who can’t defend themselves.  War is always horrible, but sometimes horribly necessary and just.

The Church also teaches that in a case where a society has no other way to protect itself from a violent criminal, capital punishment is appropriate.  However, as the pope says, it’s hard to imagine that ever being the case in our modern world.

War and capital punishment are extremely important issues.  We must work so that they, along with poverty and other offenses against creation can be eliminated.  But these five non-negotiable issues are especially important because they are always intrinsically evil.

The five non-negotiable issues are more important than the rest.  Caring for our environment is very important but not as important as defending life.  The bishops spelled this out about five years ago.

In the document “Living the Gospel of Life:  A Challenge to American Catholics” the U.S. Catholic Bishops said, “We cannot simultaneously commit ourselves to human rights and progress while eliminating or marginalizing the weakest among us.  Nor can we practice the Gospel of life only as a private piety.  American Catholics must live it vigorously and publicly, as a matter of national leadership and witness, or we will not live it at all. (20)”

To intentionally cast a vote in order to support abortion or one of the non-negotiable issues is “formal cooperation” in evil.  In other words, if I vote intending to support abortion, I am as guilty as if I did the abortion myself.  God takes the dignity of human life most seriously.

An intended abortion is the direct taking of an innocent life.  Now I know there are extremely difficult circumstances that push women to consider an abortion.  I also know from working with women who have had abortions that it is a lifetime project to get over the trauma they suffered.  The fact that many choose to have an abortion does not make it right.  The fact that we have gotten more comfortable with things like fetal stem cell research and cloning doesn’t make them any more right.

We have these problems because for about 40 years now, people have been putting faith aside and choosing what is more convenient.  We can’t separate our Catholic faith from our American duty.  We are each one person, both spiritual and political.  We can’t leave our faith outside the voting booth.  We must form our consciences to make responsible choices for the good of all of us.

In “Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics,” the bishops also said, “American Catholics have long sought to assimilate into U.S. cultural life.  But in assimilating, we have too often been digested.  We have been changed by our culture too much, and we have changed it not enough. (25)”

Remember St. Paul’s words today – “ Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it, and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Let’s not put faith aside when performing our civic responsibilities.  Jesus reminds us to stay alert to this with his last line in today’s Gospel.  “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”