Homily for the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
23 June 2013
23 June 2013
Brothers
and sisters, please do not take what I’m about to say the wrong way: We are a bunch of lazy bums. And
when I say “we”, I’m talking about the society we find ourselves living in.
Our
society wants everything now. Hungry for a “midnight snack”? Just run to
McDonald’s or Wendy’s. Need some milk in the middle of the night? Just hop in
the car and go to Giant Eagle or Sheetz. While convenience in-and-of-itself is
not a bad thing, it can lead us down the road of impatience and selfishness.
Our
Lord, in today’s Gospel, gives to us the two-fold plan for being His disciple.
First, we need to believe that Jesus is “the Christ of God”, just as Peter
proclaimed. This is the first step because, if we can’t do this, anything else
we try to do as Christians will surely fail.
The
second step is to deny ourselves, pick up our crosses, and follow the Lord. We
have to be able and willing to follow Christ in this fashion. We must freely
choose to journey to Jerusalem with Jesus. We must stop choosing to be a part
of our lazy society, demanding things “now”, and choose, in all honesty, the
more difficult path.
Our
society’s set-mind on convenience for the sake of convenience has led us to a
point at which even our morality becomes convenient for the sake of
convenience. The mentality becomes, “I don’t want to fight the battle over
[abortion, ‘gay marriage’, euthanasia, the HHS mandate, artificial
contraception, cohabitation, etc.]. Let people do what they think is best for
them, and all will turn out right in the end.” It is this mentality, my
friends, which rejects the Cross for convenience, that enables evil to take the
place of good, in which evil is called “good”, and society, because of its
laziness, begins to recognize these evils as good.
When
we are choosing convenience over the Cross, then we are affirming the thought
of Abraham Lincoln, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to
speak and remove all doubt.” Choosing convenience over the Cross means that,
hands-down, the Devil is winning in our society, for we don’t put our faith in
action. We must speak up! We must not remain silent! We must pick up our
crosses – as individuals and as a society – and follow Christ! This is the only
way that we will attain the glory of the Kingdom of God. Edmund Burke reminds
us, “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
My friends: DO
SOMETHING FOR THE SAKE OF THE CROSS!
We
are responsible to bring Christ to the world by the fact of our baptism. If we
choose to do nothing, then we allow convenience and evil to rule our lives, our
nation, and our world. If we choose the Cross – which is the more difficult
choice -, we allow Christ’s gifts of life, love and peace to permeate our
decisions, and allow the glory of God to shine forth in our lives, our nation
and our world.
Beginning
last Friday, and lasting until July fourth, the Church throughout the United
States is observing the second annual Fortnight
for Freedom, helping people come to understand that the right for religious
liberty is, as it has been said, “our most cherished freedom.” This is one of
those moments in which we choose either convenience or the Cross. This is one
of those moments in which we must choose to stand up for our right to truly
live our faith beyond these four walls, to live our faith in the public square,
allowing that faith to be the compass which guides our lives. And we do so not
for the sake of our own convenience or the convenience of others, but because the
Cross of Christ and Christian charity impels us to do so.
It’s
up to us to decide whether we want to live a life of mere societal convenience
or of charity rooted in the Cross. We must remember that without the sacrifice
of the Cross, there can be no glory of the Resurrection. If there’s no Good
Friday in our lives, there can be no Easter Sunday. If there’s no journey to
Jerusalem, there can be no entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. William Penn, the
founder of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, sums this up succinctly when he
says: “No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no
crown.”
And
so, as disciples of Jesus Christ, are you, am I going to choose a life of
convenience? Or are we going to choose the Cross? Are we to choose the life of
pride, selfishness and ego, of sin and destruction? Or are we choosing a life
that is lived for others, sacrificed for others, for the sake of the glory of
God?
Convenience
or the Cross – the choice is there for each one of us. Do something for the
sake of the Cross!
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Enjoy the journey . . .
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