Exactly three years ago, Pope Benedict authorized the
canonizations and beatifications of several holy souls.
One, you may never have heard of. His name is Father Giuseppe Puglisi. He was a Sicilian Priest who was killed by
the Sicilian Mafia in 1993. He was
gunned down on the steps of his church for condemning organized crime and
trying to rally his flock to take a stand against evil in his community. At his
Beatification in Sicily, Pope Francis said that Blessed Father Giuseppe was ‘an
exemplary priest and a martyr’ and joined the newly beatified martyr in
condemning organized crime.
Three years ago, Pope Benedict also called for the
beatification of 158 men and women who were martyred during the Spanish Civil
War between the years 1936 and 1939 for opposing fascist and anti-Catholic
dictatorship in their country. Pope
Francis Beatified 522 more Spanish Martyrs in Spain a few months later. These holy souls are among the thousands of
lay people, priests, and nuns were martyred for opposing the anti-Catholic fascism
in their country.
Three years ago, Pope Benedict also decreed that an American
be recognized as venerable. Venerable is
a title given to men and women of heroic virtue in their path towards becoming
canonized saints. Many of you have definitely
heard of this holy archbishop, author, and radio and television evangelist, who
is now known as Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.
Millions of people heard him on radio, watched him on
television, and attended his many lectures on the Catholic faith. He had a gift for distilling complicated
Catholic teaching and presenting them to a broad audience with humor while
still boldly challenging us to take our faith more seriously.
He brought the Catholic message into the public sphere. Not just Catholics watched his show, but
Protestants and Jews. Atheists were converted by hearing the
Venerable Archbishops’s words of hope.
You can still see reruns of his television show “Life is
Worth Living” on EWTN, read his autobiography, or any of his many wonderful
books on topics theological and spiritual.
I thought of Archbishop Sheen as I read today’s second
reading: As you excel in every respect, in faith, discourse, knowledge, and all
earnestness…may you excel also in the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty
you might become rich.”
Archbishop Sheen surely excelled in faith, discourse,
knowledge, and earnestness. He graduated
from Theological School in Louvaine Belgium with the highest honors, and taught
at Catholic University in Washington, and through his intellectual gifts made
the faith intelligible to millions.
But that isn’t why he people are declaring him a saint. He also had heroic dedication to the poor and
suffering. There is a story about his
visit to a leper colony. As he passed
among the lepers, he saw a man whose hand had withered, and Sheen recoiled in
disgust. Sheen quickly realized what he
had done and said, “I was a leper for turning away from you. “ So he took the man’s withered hand, placed a
crucifix in it and said in all honesty, “I am honored and grateful to be in
your presence.” And Sheen then went to
every leper in the colony, and gave each one a crucifix personally.
Sheen’s secretaries would tell stories about how he would
take in the homeless of Rochester and feed them at his table and would often take
off his jacket and give it them as he passed them on the streets.
I also thought about Father Puglisi, the Spanish martyrs,
and Venerable Fulton Sheen, after the sad news of the Supreme Court
yesterday. For the saints and martyrs
and holy Bishops, remind us that the teachings of the Church are not antiquated
or in error but rather provide a vibrant thriving message that is indispensable
for civilization.
We need like Archbishop Sheen to continue to explain with
clarity and patience the Church’s teaching, not only on marriage of course, but
in all of its aspects. We need, like
Father Puglisi, stand up for that faith, even when we might be persecuted for
it. God willing we never experience
anything like the Anti-Catholic regime in Spain, but we must look to those
thousands of martyrs, to find our own courage, in remaining faithful to the
Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Not all of us are called to be official catechists of the
Church or to visit leper colonies like Fulton Sheen, but all of us are baptized
in service of the kingdom of God—spreading the Gospel even when it is
inconvenient, when it is not politically advantageous to do so, when we might
be persecuted for it.
There was a priest was complaining to his spiritual director
that every time that he sat down to pray, or do some theological reading, he
would be bothered, by a call to visit the sick in the hospital, or attend to a
squabble among his parishioners, or to an administrative task. And his spiritual director said, Father, you
were ordained to be bothered.
Similarly, each of us are baptized to be bothered. Is there a person starving who needs food? We
were baptized to feed them. Is there a
person who is starving for the truth? We
were baptized to instruct them.
If we are to be saints, we each need to be open to be
bothered: bothered out of our comfort, out of our routine, out of the coziness
of carefree living. We should be
bothered by attempts of government leaders and special interest groups to
violate our religious freedom. We should
be bothered by the starving around the world.
We should be bothered by the lonely widow, or the drunk, or the
cohabitating unmarried couple, or the prevalence of pornography one click away
on the internet.
Could that Sicilian Priest, Father Puglisi avoided martyrdom
if we would not have been bothered to speak out against the theft, murder,
prostitution, and drug trafficking of the local mafia. Sure, he might still be
alive today. He could have retired and
moved to Tuscany.
Could those thousands of priests, nuns, lay men and women
avoided martyrdom if they would have kept silent about the abuses in their
government? No doubt.
Could Archbishop Sheen have been a successful teacher had he
never stepped into a leper colony? Oh,
definitely.
But we are called by Jesus to be saints to t dedicated to
charity towards our neighbor, in Africa, Asia, inner city Cleveland.
In the Gospel today, people rebuked Jairus for bothering
Jesus about his dying daughter. Jesus
ignored their comments and went to Jairus’ daughter personally. The saints, like Jesus, want to be
troubled. Jesus wants us to bring our
needs to him. He may not answer them in
the way we want. But God is not bothered
by our prayers. There are prayers he
wishes to answer through our persistence in asking for them. When it seems like
our prayers are not being answered, we must have faith that God is answering
them in a way that is much better than we can imagine.
May this Eucharist today help us to be attentive to the work
of God, that we too might become saints for the glory of God and salvation of
souls.
No comments:
Post a Comment