HOMILETICS FAILURE

HOMILETICS FAILURE

To whom do faithful Catholics turn for counsel and comfort when they are branded as flakes and failures for professing “all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God”? We turn, of course, to our priests for bold re-assurance. Instead, too often, we are told to conform ourselves to the way of the world, rather than conform our wills to Christ who is Truth (cf. Rom. 12:2, Col 3:2). A priest yearning for popularity and novelty will have no concern for unpopular teaching, even if it is the truth which sets us free (John 12:43, Gal. 1:10., 1 Thess. 2:4).

Too often, in fact, we do know the truth, and it makes us flee: if we know what is right, then we have to act as though the truth actually matters in our lives (cf. James 4:17). “If you don’t behave as you believe,” Bishop Fulton J. Sheen taught, “you will end by believing as you behave.” Such warnings are altogether too rare today. If faith comes from hearing (Rom. 10:17), some must believe we are deaf, for we hear so little about our duty “to infuse a Christian spirit into the mentality, customs, laws, and structures of the community in which [we live]” (Apostolicam Actuositatem, 13). We run from the teaching that “the Catholic Church is by the will of Christ the teacher of truth” (Dignitatis Humanae, 14), lest we actually have to do something, politically or socially, in line with that commission.

And when our pride consumes us, and when we sin, where, then, do we turn? We turn to our priests for admonition, direction, and forgiveness. So often, though, as Scripture, again, warns us: “Their preaching deceived you by never exposing your sin. They made you think you did not need to repent” (Lam. 2:14).

Scripture starkly tells us about the priests Nadab and Abihu, whose liturgical improvisations—departures, we might say, from “reading the black and doing the red”—caused the Lord to send fire, resulting in their deaths (Lev. 10:1-3). Traditionally attributed to St. John Chrysostom is this warning: “The road to hell is paved with the skulls of erring priests, with bishops as their signposts.” By the same token, Ezekiel carefully cautions all of us that, if we do not warn sinners to change their ways, we too will be held liable (33:7-9).

In the Army, I learned that “The commander is responsible for all that his command does or fails to do.” That concept applies as well to the parish priest, whose life is (or should be) dedicated to the salvation of the souls in his parish. There will be times, then, for priestly “tough love.” The Baltimore Catechism, for instance, listed “admonish the sinner” as the first of the Spiritual Works of Mercy (question #192). The current Catechism, though, has bowdlerized the word admonish, preferring the euphemism advising (#2447).

We return, then, to Father White’s point that people must not be given “a blank check so they can live in … disregard for the Church’s teaching.” This is equivalent to being given a serpent when we ask our father (or our priest) for a fish (Luke 11:11). Father White weakens a bit in suggesting that the disciplinary facet of the Church is “undoubtedly illiberal,” but immediately recovers in wisely and plainly telling us that “it is a sign of the seriousness with which the Church takes the truth of Christ, as well as the concern she has for the salvation of souls.”

Thus does St. Paul, after an exhortation to preach the word “in season and out of season,” ring the tocsin against the “itching ears” of those who will “accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings and will wander away from the truth” (2 Tim. 4:2-4). The truth must not be made to conform to the fads and fashions of the day but, rather, be exalted in order to call home those prodigal sons and daughters yet to come to their senses (cf. John 16:33).

It is time—past time, in fact—for parrhesia, meaning “boldness in speaking,” willingness to proclaim settled, established, irreformable Catholic truth (as in Acts 2:29, 4:13, 29, 31; and 28:31) as our Lord taught a hostile world (cf. John 7:7 and 18:20). Boldness in proclaiming the word from the housetops (Matt. 10:27, Luke 12:3) may result in smaller collections; it may not be well received by everyone (John 6:41, 66), but it is the path toward the salvation of souls. Isn’t that, finally, all that matters?