Cry Leper

When I was a child I had severe eczema which, mixed with the dry rough skin inherited from my father, was quite a sight to behold.  When the eczema broke out, normal schoolyard antics added to the fun: my nickname was ‘scaly’, and sometimes ‘leper’.  Some kids would not want to touch or stand close to me refusing to hold hands with me when we lined up to walk, and the more inquisitive asking (at a distance) how contagious I was! Mob mentality, even for pre-teens, was alive and well. Since some decided that I was not perfect, and that I did not deserve to be in a group with them: I was not wanted. They mostly did not have it in the power to eject me (I came from a tight family), so they shunned me instead.

My school mates (if I can called them that) who chose to call me ‘leper’, did not think for a minute that I had leprosy. They wanted to convey to me that I did not fit in. In Jesus time this been honed down to a fine art over centuries: leper was the cry towards the hated and despised. We all know that keeping a group together is always better when there is a common enemy. The purity laws proscribed against Samaritans and other non-Semites as well as against the sick, giving divine reasons for illnesses and separation.

It was part of Jesus’ mission to challenge and question the law, to get to the bottom of what it was protecting or attacking. The original purity laws developed for the protection of the Jewish people, but by Jesus’ time they were being used to control people: much of the spirit of the law had disappeared. Jesus reached out to the despised of society and drew them into his life: there were none that were excluded. However, Jesus did not declare a free for all: he thoughtfully submitted himself to the law, as in the gospel he asked the leper to go to the Jewish Priest and offer the sacrifice proscribed for healing. The freedom Jesus offers is supported by an identifiable ethical system.

Jesus calls us to question, to reach out and the transform within this system, which is the moral and social justice teaching of the church, given to us in the apostolic teaching and then honed in response to human situations over the last two thousand years. Backed by this, Jesus challenges us not to go along with the mob, but to think, to make decisions and know why they had been made.

Last night I flicked don the ABC to catch a snippet of "Tonight in Gordon Street" in which the presenter was lauding Gay Marriage: he even had a couple in the audience who, in his words” can’t get legally married yet, but we can TV marry them.”  He did this to great applause. It was classic set up of mob mentality, and I think if I had been there I probably would have kept my opposition quiet for fear of being attacked. Like so many other issues, that of marriage is about protection of rights: last night no one was shouting about the right of a child to have a mother and father.  Yet those there last night seemed full of opinion and short on theory.

Soon you and I will be called to comment on this and other issues. Are we ready with fact and ethics?

Homily, Our Lady Queen of Peace Cathedral, 12th February 2012 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year b

The Mystery of Demons and Evil

I grew up in a world that needed to know and understand everything. When I was at University, mysteries were something awaiting the discovery of science. There was nothing that would not be explained in the very near future by the systematic scientific action of humans.

I smile when I think of how naïve I was; how conceited and proud and proud I could be that a human could understand the universe and all that of creation. As I matured I realised the extent of the unknown and humankind had been on a quest to increase understanding of creation. I started to realise that many things in life would remain mysteries; no matter how much I would like it to be otherwise.

Evil is one of those mysteries. Why is there evil in the world when God created us out of love? On the surface we can say that it is about free will. If we were buffeted against natural and human evil, we would not be free, and therefore never able to choose for or against God. Only in a world where we have the freedom to affect destiny can we be said to be free.

And this evil, where does it come from? Well most of it comes from you and me, and it is given life and power the more we make bad or selfish decisions. Each time we choose badly, we restrict our freedom. We make the world a worse place instead of making it the perfect society God infused it to become. Conversely, each time we make a good decision our freedom is increased and the world made a better place.

In the Gospel, the demons, the personification of evil, ask Jesus: have you come to destroy us? You bet he has! His ministry is to destroy all that leads to death, and the demons in the Gospel know that, and speak up out of desperation. It is funny, but some treat this as a fairy story, but for those who know themselves and what humans are capable of, this is no light matter. As Catholics we don't talk about the devil or demons much. We prefer to talk about the power of God's love, which is greater than anything. However, the devil does exist and possession, if rare, is real, just as the Gospel teaches. 

The great saints of the church, when they became very holy, often lamented their sinfulness. I used to think this was a false piety, but now I understand that as they became more spiritually attuned, they could see clearly and could see the ramifications of their actions. They could see the hurt that actions we often regard as innocuous can sustain. The saints, like the demons in the Gospel, have a spiritual insight that they can share. Obviously the difference is that the saints bear witness to the truth, and the demons to falsehood.

This is not meant to confuse us, but to call us to a deeper appreciation of the spiritual in our lives.  We do not have to grope in the darkness for answers, for there is a well-trodden path that guides us through the great mysteries of life.

Firstly, we look, we discern and we evaluate.

Secondly we trust, not in our own fallible judgement, but in the collective wisdom God has given to the Church by which she has been sustained and guided.

Thirdly, we embrace the freedom that belongs to the children of God, by daily rejecting evil so that we can, live in the freedom of God’s children,  for that is our baptism calling.

By being open, humble, and living out our baptismal calling, we will become comfortable with the mysteries that surround us, but we will increasingly become aware of the  presence of God which sustains us and draws us upward and onward.

Homily OLQP 29th Jnaury 2012, 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Avoiding a Life of Quiet Desperation

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. 

So wrote the American author Henry David Thoreau right at the beginning of his work ‘Walden’ in 1850. He wrote in the quiet of a forest, next to water. He sought to understand the whys of life, and not just live the drudgery of existence. Later on in the work he wrote: 

This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. The Book of Job calls us to look at our existence and see if it is life giving. Is a man’s life on earth nothing but pressed service, his time? He asks.

Thoreau and Job ask the same question: What are we doing with our life? For we who are at Mass tonight, these are reasonable questions. Socrates, the Greek philosopher has acknowledged centuries before Christ that: An unexamined life is not worth living. No surprise there either, since at the beginning of Mass we examined our conscience, declared a need for God’s mercy and guidance, and then prayed the Confiteor.  

We gather to celebrate our faith, to pray, to challenge ourselves and be challenged, inspired and raised up by the word of God and the sacrament of the Eucharist. Everything about our celebration calls us to live the life that we have been called to live. St Paul says that he must live it, as it is his duty to share the gospel. We may not phrase the imperative in the same way as Paul, but we would all agree with his passion and thrust. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well and one hundred per cent of our effort. Living our lives at home, at work, at school, in the community are worth doing with purpose, direction and faith, never letting a chance go by!  None of us are called to drift along, to be carried by the tide or to bump along at the bottom.  However, we all know people who do, and sometimes we are those people. When we do that we are not being authentic to our calling or life and we are leading lives ‘of quiet desperation’. This is not the vocation of a Christian.

In the gospel, Jesus was confronted by crowds who were leading lives of quiet desperation. They were drifting, looking for a wonder worker to save them. After they had heard of his cure of Simon’s mother in law they pursued him, looking for a quick fix. This was the original something for nothing deal, or so they thought. Jesus escaped with his disciples, and in doing so taught them a salient lesson: no amount of miracles will cure and heal a person if there is not a change of heart. Changes of heart take place in silence and openness. These conditions were plainly missing from the group pursuing him.

The prayer after communion often sums up the liturgy. Listen to it carefully today when it asks God that: we who are made one in Christ may joyfully bear fruit for the salvation of the world. If that prayer is granted, we will never be found to be leading an unfulfilled life of quiet desperation.

Homily OLQP Broome Sunday 5th Feb 2012, Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B