The Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 29, 2007
Homily for the Anglican Usage Mass
of the
St. Thomas More Society
Scranton, PA
John 10:27-30
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
I have heard it said that a poorly catechized Catholic is a future Protestant. The Protestants themselves seem to believe it. Just yesterday my wife saw the Jehovah’s Witnesses canvassing our neighborhood, and now that summer approaches we will begin to see the Mormons riding around town on their bicycles, going door to door. When I was down in Texas I learned that Pentecostal churches are not averse to having on their property statues of the Blessed Mother, and that they call the prayer vigil the day before a funeral the Rosaries. These are just a few examples of how Protestant denominations engage in sheep stealing, and we could come up with more, but I bring it up because of the passage in today’s Gospel, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). When so many Catholics wind up in Protestant communities, we must ask why they did not hear the voice of Jesus and follow him.
The first thing we can frankly state is this: people do not hear voices they do not recognize. If you don’t believe me, do this experiment. Go with someone you love to a place where there are crowds of people, all of whom are talking. A baseball game is a good place to hear this sort of cacophony, or even a concert before the opening act. Then take time to consciously recognize how you block out all the background noise, which are actually other people’s voices. The only voice you actually hear is the voice of your loved one. And hear that voice first because you recognize it. You’ll even hear it from a distance if he calls to you because you have become separated. Near or far you hear the one voice that matters. If a person has not taken the time to learn the voice of Jesus, or his teachers have not taught him how that voice sounds, he will not hear Jesus when our Lord speaks amidst all the other competing voices.
The other reason you can hear your loved one’s voice above the din of thousands of other voices is that you are focused, sometimes even straining, to hear that voice. The voice of Jesus is a demanding voice, and only the Catholic Church makes the reality of what Jesus expects so very, very clear. When people stop listening to a voice they don’t want to hear, because that voice is saying things that are challenging, they will fall prey to the voices that seduce rather than speak the truth. To hear the voice of Jesus we must sometimes strain, both because the din is so loud, and because our sinful nature makes us inclined to shut out words we don’t like to hear. We must therefore strain to remain focused on Jesus, both above the din of other voices and in resistance to the voice inside us that tells us to take the easy road every time.
Clearly then we must be intentional about hearing the voice of Jesus in order that we may follow it. Just as surely as our children need constant exposure to our voice in order that they will recognize it without thinking, so we need constant exposure to the voice of Jesus if we are to hear him when he calls us. Just because we have been confirmed, just because we have been reconciled to the Church, just because we have made our profession of faith, does not mean we no longer need to work at recognizing the voice of Jesus. The education we require must continue beyond our initiation into the Church, and applies to cradle Catholics as well as converts.
This necessary continued catechism explains, I believe, why we have begun to receive requests for me to speak in various places across the country. We’ve even received one request for me to speak in Canada. Pastors who make these requests desire to strengthen for their flocks a familiarity with the voice of Jesus, and they can do that by inviting someone in who heard that voice and followed where it led. In order that we can facilitate these requests, anticipating that we will receive more, we will have no morning Daily Mass on Wednesdays once we move into St. Anthony Church. The Wednesday Daily Mass will be in the evening, one advantage being that I can help others who are a few hours away, even staying overnight, while at the same time not neglecting the needs of my flock here in Scranton. I can say Mass five days a week, and still share our story with those outside the Diocese of Scranton who want to hear it.
As these requests come in I have learned a corollary to the adage that a poorly catechized Catholic is a future Protestant. That corollary is this: a well-catechized Anglican is a future Catholic. Over and over as people contact me I hear a story very similar to our own. Raised in the Episcopal Church these people came to know and love Jesus. The words of the Book of Common Prayer formed their faith, and they can point to specific Anglican clergymen who had a major impact on their lives. Because they were catechized so well, because their formation in the faith was so good, the dissonance between what they learned and what is being taught now is all the greater. These people that contact us realize that what they learned as young people and what the Episcopal Church stands for today cannot be reconciled. They recognize the voice of Jesus, they aren’t hearing it in the Episcopal Church any more, and they are straining to hear that voice again.
That is, the very fact that these Episcopalians were catechized so well as young people makes their conversion to Catholicism that much more likely. What was true for us we must take for granted will be true for others. The voice that we came to know years ago in the Episcopal Church is the same voice that called us home beginning in 2004. His voice could no longer be heard where we were. The din had become too loud, more akin to a rock concert than to a baseball game. So we had to leave that venue and go to where that voice could still be heard.
Now we are being asked to serve as instruments of God’s grace in order that others may hear again the voice they first learned as Episcopalians. Other people fulfilled that role for us: Joe Blake gave me his own copy of the Book of Divine Worship, Fr. Hawkins, who was here last Saturday, spent hours on the phone with me describing the Pastoral Provision Process, Msgr. Quinn introduced me to Bishop Martino. Bishop Martino appointed Fr. Connor to be our catechetical instructor. And sure enough we began to hear again the voice we had come to know decades before, and what that voice was calling us to do became clearer and clearer. As people reach out to us, what they are doing is straining to hear the voice they know well but no longer hear in those who are supposed to be their leaders.
Pray that our voices may be consonant with Jesus’ own, that the people he is calling home may hear our Lord in all we say and all we do.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.