Homily: Monday of the 2nd Week of Easter - From Indifference to Boldness

In Dante’s Divine Comedy, Dante, the pilgrim travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven.  He sees the eternal fate of those hardened sinners in hell, those who did not repent.  He travels through the purifying fires of purgatory, and finally glimpses the sweet rewards of those in heaven.

Near the beginning of the journey, after passing through the gates of hell, the first place to which Dante comes is a place called Acheron, which is a sort of ante-chamber before entering Hell proper.  Acheron isn’t filled with the murderers and adulterers and betrayers that he encounters later in his journey; rather, Acheron is filled with those who were apathetic to the spiritual life, the lukewarm, the apathetic.

Putting them in this sort of ante-chamber, Dante is saying that neither hell nor heaven wants them, because they are so lukewarm, and their fate is to be blown about forever like tumbleweed.

Better to be blown about like tumbleweed than to suffer some of the more awful tortures Dante devises for the more spiritually corrupt, but these souls are forever deprived of the sight of God in heaven. 

Now, Dante had a pretty harsh view of those who lack a commitment to pursuing goodness, but spiritual indifference does plague our world.

At the end of our first reading, Peter and John and the disciples in prayer are filled with holy boldness for spreading the Gospel.  They are filled with the transforming power of the Resurrection to become fearless preachers, willing to undergo persecution, even death, for the person and message of Jesus. 

So many of our modern Catholics have fallen into a sad indifference towards the Gospel, and are blown about like tumbleweed by the currents of culture.  When we are more committed to video games and sports games and tv shows than to matters of faith, there is a problem.

Hence, the Church’s call in modern times for all committed Catholics to be emboldened in faith and to engage in a new evangelization, to rouse the spiritually apathetic to a renewed commitment to the Gospel.

Through the celebration of these Easter mysteries may we be roused out of any spiritual apathy that we may engage more fully in the work of the Gospel for the glory of God and salvation of souls.