Homily: Monday - 28th Week in OT 2016 - "Greatest single cause of atheism..."

Oftentimes, people who don’t believe in God or in Christ claim that they would be converted if God just gave them a sign. Similarly, in the Gospel today, Jesus claims that the people were seeking a sign. In Matthew’s Gospel, the Pharisees confront Jesus, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”

Now, at this point in the Gospel, Jesus has offered countless healings, exorcisms, and other miracles to show to anyone with the inclination to believe that he in fact was God. Jesus calls them a “wicked generation for seeking a sign”—likely because they weren’t really seeking the truth about Jesus, they were more interested in seeking to validate their own narrow view.

Many modern atheists fall into this same trap: they became so focused on validating their atheism, they miss the truth when it is clearly presented to them.

The philosopher Blaise Pascal said: “There is enough light for those who desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition...In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't."

In other words, proof for the existence of God is all around us, if you are looking for it. We can observe the beauty in creation, the harmony, the intelligence behind creation’s design. We can look to the human soul and observe our hunger and thirst for truth, justice, love and reason that those desires were placed in the heart by God.

But Pascal was also saying that the Atheist can also point to the darkness, the violence, the greed, the chaos and reason that God does not exist.

Perhaps, the job of the Christian is to bombard the unbelievers with light—to show them the face of God through our patience, and kindness, and charity, and faith. If their eyes and hearts have become so accustomed to darkness, we must help them to become accustomed to the light.

St. John Paul offered some very challenging words, "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyles. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

Some challenging words to the members of Christ’s body, that unbelief in the world isn’t because people don’t find Christianity rational, but that they don’t see Christians giving witness to Christ by the way they treat others. 

So our call today, like every day is to seek to embody the teachings and Spirit of our Master: to allow him to convert souls through us, to bring souls to the light through our lives of charity and mercy for the glory of God and salvation of souls.