Fourth Sunday After Pentecost

June 8, 2008

Homily for the Anglican Useage Mass

of the

St. Thomas More Society

celebrated at

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

Scranton, PA

Matthew 9:9-13

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

            The precepts of the Church which can be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church teach us that we have several obligations we must fulfill if we are to grow in our love of God and neighbor and thus be able to serve as a sponsor for Holy Baptism or Confirmation.  These obligations include going to Mass each Sunday and on Holy Days of Obligation; giving a portion of our income towards the material needs of the Church; receiving Holy Communion at least once a year; and if we commit a mortal sin, receiving absolution from a priest before receiving Holy Communion.

            We can regard the precepts of the Church one of two ways.  We can see them simply as obligations, as the bare minimum of what is required for us to do to call ourselves good Catholics.  Or we can regard each precept as an opportunity for growth in our love of God and in service to our fellow man.  How we approach the precepts of the Church will tell us whether we are akin to the Pharisees whom Jesus rebuked in today’s Gospel or if we are following in the footsteps of Jesus Himself.

            In His rebuke to the Pharisees, Jesus tells them that God desires mercy and not sacrifice.  As Catholics we understand mercy to be a sacrifice; so we must know what sort of sacrifice Jesus was talking about in order to understand how those two terms could be set against each other.

            The sacrifice of which Jesus speaks was the sacrifices made by the priests of the Jewish Temple.  In the Temple, day after day, animal and grain sacrifices of penitence and thanksgiving were offered to God by the Jewish people through the Levitical priesthood. These sacrifices were to be offered with broken and contrite hearts in reparation for the sins the Jews had committed as well as in genuine gratitude for all the blessings God had bestowed upon His chosen people, the Jews.

            However, one sees immediately that the ritual requirements of the sacrifices could easily be met without the Jews having the requisite contrition or gratitude.  That is, the Jews could go through the motions without meaning what they were doing in order that the bare minimum requirement was met.  They could sacrifice animals for their sins and give up grain in thanksgiving, yet be neither sorry nor grateful.

            This sort of sacrifice is the type that Jesus condemns and tells the Pharisees that God does not want.  What God desires is that the sacrifices be seen not as an obligation but as the starting point for showing others the mercy God has shown them.

            This contrast between obligation and opportunity comes up in our lives all the time.  And the people to whom we’re called to show mercy might not have done anything wrong.  For example, last week my sister-in-law’s grandmother died and she dutifully flew out to Minnesota to be with her family.  She debated about whether she should simply fulfill her obligation to be present at the funeral so she could get back sooner to care for my brother and their children, or if she should stay a few days longer to be with her mom, who had just lost her mother.  The requirements of the law—so to speak—would have been met had she simply gone to the funeral.  Yet she decided to stay in Minnesota an entire week because such a sacrifice is more reflective of the love she has for her parents, as well as the sorrow she feels over the magnitude of her family’s loss.  In other words, her grandmother’s death presented far more than an obligation.  It also presented an opportunity for my sister-in-law to demonstrate in a concrete way her readiness to be present with her parents in their time of trial.  Her sacrifice was an opportunity for mercy to those who were hurting.

            Jesus had an obligation to call sinners to repentance which He fulfilled by calling Matthew out of the tax office.  But Jesus did more than simply tell Matthew what was right.  He treated His obligation as an opportunity and showed Matthew what was right by eating with him and his fellow tax collectors.  His obligation was the starting point from which He was able to show mercy to Matthew and others who were in need of a physician to heal their ailing souls.  Actual fulfillment of God’s will was not enough.  He also had to show sinners how much God loved them.

            This, then, is how we ought to approach the precepts of the Church.  Going to Mass is not simply an obligation we must meet, but an opportunity to encounter our risen Lord in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, by which we receive the strength to share the Gospel with others.  Giving our money to the Church is not simply an obligation we fulfill so we can be baptized, married and buried by a priest.  Giving our money is the means by which we participate in the evangelization of the world through corporal works of mercy such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and visiting those who are sick or in prison. The precepts, then, are not the sum total of what it means to be a Catholic, but the staring point from which a life of showing mercy begins.

            The difference between obligation and opportunity is just this:  obligations are not only the minimum—they are fulfilled in fear that if we do not, we will not get what we want or need.  Fulfilling our obligations is to do something for oneself.  An opportunity, on the other hand, is offered out of love for God and one’s fellow man with the attendant concern that if we do not show such mercy, the souls of our neighbors may well be lost.  Opportunities for ministry, thus, are of God, for they reflect the same love Jesus had for those who are far from God and the salvation He desires for them.

            If we want to improve our spiritual lives and those of our neighbors, if we want to be effective in reaching out to those in need of God’s love, we must ever make this distinction with regard to the Church:  our Catholic faith is not an obligation we undertake so that we won’t go to hell—it is the opportunity to proclaim God’s love in Jesus Christ through word and deed so that the tax collectors of our day have the chance to make it to heaven.