The Fifth Sunday of Easter

April 20, 2008

Homily for the Anglican Usage Mass

of the

St. Thomas More Society

celebrated at

St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church , 1013 Wood Street

Scranton, PA

John 14:1-12

Acts 6:1-7

            In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen

            Since Pope Benedict arrived in the United States early last week, we have been reminded several times of the abuse of children perpetrated by members of the clergy, the scandal that shook the Church six years ago and continues to affect her even today.  What is particularly interesting is that the person reminding us has been the Holy Father himself.  Not for a moment has Pope Benedict shrunk from addressing the Church and our nation concerning this black mark against our beloved Church.  He has named the sin and talks freely about it, going so far as to meet privately with victims of former priests.

            Our lesson from Acts today reminds us that scandal has been a part of the Church’s history from the beginning and so can help us understand why the Holy Father is not afraid to mention something we might wish to forget.  Acts describes a conflict between the widows who spoke Hebrew and the widows who spoke Greek.  It seems the Greek-speaking widows were not receiving the same amount of charity as were the Hebrew-speaking widows.  To stratify the Church in such a way would have implied that God prefers one group over another, or one language over another, and thus greatly would have inhibited evangelism.

            So the Apostles addressed the problem head-on.  Recognizing that their role was not simply to work in the Church’s soup kitchen and that they were called to evangelism, the Apostles ordained the first deacons.  Moreover, they were all taken from the “Greek-speaking” community.  The results were stunning!  The word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and “a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.”  These priests, of course, were the men who daily offered up the sacrifices in the Jewish Temple according to the Law of Moses.  In other words, leaders in the Jewish community and religion were becoming Christians in large numbers.

            We can glean several lessons from this happy outcome, the Church’s first internal housecleaning.  First, problems within the Church cannot be allowed to fester.  Real leadership consists of confronting problems and seeking solutions that enable the better fulfillment of the Church’s mission.  The fact that St. Luke did not shy away from describing this incident in the life of the early Church shows that the Apostles were not men to sweep problems under the rug and hope they would go away.  Much pain could have been avoided in our country if the bishops had sought solutions to clergy sexual abuse decades ago rather than ignoring the magnitude of the problem for so long.  Now that the problem has been addressed and a plan implemented, we can be certain that the Lord will bless our efforts to solve the problem.

            Second, addressing problems enhances the Church’s ability to evangelize.  Popular wisdom would say that conflict within the Church repulses our neighbors because Christians appear to be people who cannot get along with each other.  But in the aftermath of the problem described in today’s lesson, the Church grew in numbers, and some of the leaders among the Jews actually converted to Christianity.  That is, mature people understand that every institution will have problems.  How those problems are handled makes all the difference in the world.  The Apostles did not punish the Greek-speaking Christians for complaining, but responded charitably to the victims.  This kindness so impressed the Hebrew-speaking priests of the Temple that a “great many” of them became Christians.  Far from hurting the Church, the willingness to take responsibility and respond generously to victims of clergy sex abuse will enable the Church to be better evangelists.  Despite the scandal, outsiders will see that the Church is being true to its principles, that she is practicing what she preaches.  This spirit of charity towards those who have been wronged will issue in more and more converts to Catholicism.

            Third, scandal has a cleansing effect upon the life of the Church.  The Church was rewarded with her first martyr as a result of the conflict over the daily distribution.  St. Stephen was ordained a deacon, took to good works and preaching with passion, and received the crown of glory for his witness.  God raised up Stephen to help address the Church’s problems, and Stephen’s witness ended up bringing even more people into the Church.  So the Lord worked even through what appeared to be a terrible conflict.

            It is yet too soon to see all the good that the Lord will bring out of the clergy sex abuse scandal, but the initial signs are good.  The vocations coming into the Church are men committed to the faith and obedient to the Holy Father.  The seminaries have been required to submit to an examination in order to seek out the problem at its root.  And, along the same lines, the Holy Father has been very clear that men with deep-seated homosexual tendencies are under no circumstances to be ordained to the priesthood.  Reform is taking place, just as the Church renewed herself five centuries ago after the scandal of the sale of indulgences and the gross immorality of many in the clergy.  We can expect that the Church will come out of this trial stronger, just as she did in the wake of the Protestant Revolution.  From the problems in the Church, the Lord works miracles and builds up the Body of Christ.

            Jesus says in our Gospel today that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father but by Him.  He calls on us to believe this, to believe His words, and that if we have difficulty believing His words, believe them for the sake of the works He does.  Indeed, there are two ways that we can view the Church.  We can concentrate on those members who cause her scandal, who bring disrepute upon her.  Or we can look to those men and women through whom God is working to renew the Church even as we speak.  That is, we can believe the words of Jesus for the sake of the works He is doing even now.

            Mature people recognize that the sins and foibles of members of the Church do not in any way change the truth of what the Church stands for.  Whatever the devil does, Jesus is still the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and in the good works and growth that follow every terrible scandal, the Lord proves to us that He is true to His word.  We can believe in the Church because it must be Jesus doing all this good.  The Lord knows well that on our own we mess it up!  So, His power is made perfect in our weakness.  We cause the scandal, and He builds up the Church.  It is no wonder Pope Benedict is not afraid to point out our failings and his shame.