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XX Sunday in
Ordinary Time 8/14/22 – © All Rights Reserved by Rev. Fr. Arthur F. Rojas ©
As an undergraduate at the
University of Virginia more than 30 years ago, one of my favorite courses was
on the history of the Catholic Church of the United States. Having read works by historians such as Jay
P. Dolan and Fr. Gerald P. Fogarty, S.J. and considering other
sources,
I
discerned that as Catholics had moved to the suburbs out of a largely urban
presence in the mid-to-late twentieth century, we Catholic Americans had
started to assimilate too easily into a society whose foundations were
neither Catholic then and are no longer recognizably Christian today. There will be those who will point out exceptional
figures who challenged prevailing attitudes such as Dorothy Day, Archbishop
Joseph Rummel, who fought racial injustice in New Orleans to the point
of excommunicating defiantly racist Catholic public figures, the author Flannery
O’Connor, Nellie Gray and the largely Catholic founders of the
pro-life movement in New York and much of the United States, the evangelist
Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Auxiliary Bishop Austin Vaughn of New
York, Msgr. Philip Reilly of Brooklyn, Fr, Augustus Tolton,
Fr. John Hardon, Mother Angelica (E.W.T.N.), or to some people: César
Chavez, the Berrigan brothers, or Sr. Helen Prejean, C.S.J. However, survey after survey finds
that we Catholic Americans have forfeited our “salt and light” (Mt 5:13-16)
as we largely adopt prevailing postures on contemporary issues and even
attitudes towards manners, beauty, and modesty, let alone death and the
supernatural. Moreover, widespread
complacency and poor awareness of our own history and identity as Catholics
in America lead many of us to regard fervor as fanatical, reverence as
retrograde, and to mistrust true prophecy as rabble-rousing, especially
in the age of cancel culture.
Sadly, we tend to value a false “niceness” or “tolerance”,
papering over conflicts or ignoring our crying need for conversion as persons
and as a society, over Christ’s call to conversion and those who would
challenge us out of our comfort zone towards greater holiness in this life. Then as now, we Catholic Americans are not
comfortable with our Church being prophetic to ourselves, let alone the
greater society!
In light of the readings today in
the Ordinary Form, Our Lord Himself (Luke 12:49-53) speaks trenchantly of His
message compelling people to choose for Him or against Him, in other
words “division”! Jesus came to
set the Earth on fire because it was His ardent love of His
Father’s plan for our salvation and for you and me that led Him to endure the
Passion and Crucifixion for our sins.
Although moderation is virtuous at certain times, Christ’s call
to holiness is radical - some may call it “extreme” - in that it seeks
to transform you and me from the roots of our being. Indeed, “radical” is from “radix”, the
Latin word for root. The holy
prophet Jeremiah is recalled in Jer 38:4-6, 8-10 as conveying what the
people needed to hear from God, even if local princes loathed the
message and sought to silence Jeremiah.
In Hebrews 12:1-4, we are told of the radical holiness of the saints,
the “cloud of witnesses,” as examples for us to follow Jesus, “the leader and
perfecter of faith.” Echoing the Pope
Emeritus Benedict XVI, you and I were not created for comfort, but for
greatness. How prophetic these
words are in a world that exalts comfort and convenience! Through the prayers of Our Lady assumed into
Heaven (whom is celebrated on Aug. 15), may we heed the call to conversion
made by Christ through the prophets of our day.
May we Catholic Americans then become worthy messengers of God’s call
to others around us.
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