The Second Sunday After The Epiphany

January 17, 2010

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 2:1-11

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

            At the recent climate conference in Copenhagen, there was much talk about what global warming alarmists now call man’s “carbon footprint.”  What this refers to is that man emits carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere.  Since carbon dioxide emissions contribute to global warming, the global warming crowd advocates that man reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that he emits into the atmosphere, or else the earth will become so hot over time as to prove uninhabitable.  This, in a nutshell, is the theory behind all the talk about global warming.

            So what is the solution?  How will man reduce his carbon footprint?   Many environmentalists speak of the need to burn fewer fossil fuels, since much of the carbon dioxide that is trapped in the atmosphere comes from burning things like coal, oil and natural gas.  From here, however, the logic of the environmentalists takes a perverse turn.  They reason that since man is responsible for the carbon emissions that supposedly are imperiling the planet, the world would be better off if there were fewer people living on this earth.  Now these environmentalists are not volunteering to die en mass to save the planet.  What they are saying is that you and I should have fewer children, that is, just one per couple.  If every couple had just one child—a one child policy for the whole world—we could cut the world’s population in half in a generation.  Never mind that untold human suffering that would result from this as economies around the globe collapsed from such a policy or in the implementation of such a policy.  Never mind that fertility rates already are dropping dramatically, especially in the West.  What I will concentrate on this morning is the environmentalists today have taken the place of Manicheans during the time of St. John the Evangelist.

            When St. John wrote the Gospel that we just heard, Manicheans already were disparaging marriage.  Manicheans held a dualistic view of the world, maintaining that an evil god had created the material world and a good god, the God represented by Jesus Christ, had created the spiritual realm.  So man was made up of a soul, which Manicheans called good, and a body which they called bad.  The point of life for Manicheans was to enable the soul to escape the body so that man could be freed from the material world.  Over time, they began to advocate suicide and murder to speed along the process of dying, but their primary tenet was the denial of the first commandment from God to Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful and multiply.”

            Manicheans held that the way to salvation was the extinction of man, and since children are the natural outcome of marriage, Manicheans disparaged marriage.  They insisted that their followers have no children at all, that one had a moral obligation not to marry and if already married, to remain celibate. They winked at every manner of fornication, but procreation they considered to be the unforgivable sin.  In this way, they sound very much life modern environmentalists indeed, and St. John the Evangelist has an answer for them both that is timeless and timely.

            St. John the Evangelist and Apostle, the disciple whom Jesus loved, and the man who cared for Mary until her assumption to heaven, gives us Jesus’ very first miracle, the famous incident when Jesus transformed water into wine.  And where did He do it?  At a wedding.

            The miracle thus has many implications, but the first is that marriage is good.  Jesus, the Son of God, had been born into an intact family, and here He was at a wedding, blessing by His presence not only the couple—who never are identified—but also the institution itself.  John was saying to the Manicheans, if you are right and marriage is bad, what was Jesus doing at a wedding?  Moreover, if marriage is so bad, why did Jesus perform his very first miracle at a wedding reception where scores of people had gathered to celebrate this union?

            Many people today are for marriage but are against children, but such a dichotomy did not exist in St. John’s day.  Even the Manicheans understood that the natural fruit of marriage is children, whereas modern man has become so enamored with contraception that we have severed this link in our collective mind, especially amongst our youth.  The link between marriage and children is so weak in the minds of our youth that a majority of them believe marriage between people of the same sex is possible!  Even the Manicheans were not this debased!  But I digress.

            My point is that St. John understood—and the Manicheans did, too—that when Jesus blessed marriage He blessed procreation, as well.  To bless marriage was to bless the commandment, “Be fruitful and multiply.”  Indeed, so close to the beginning of John’s Gospel this first miracle made clear that Jesus, as the Word of God, was the author of the commandment to be fruitful and multiply.  John was saying to the followers of Jesus Christ—contra the Manicheans—not only is your marriage a good thing, not only does Jesus bless your marriage, Jesus is the word of God and the Author of Life, and He wants you to be fruitful and multiply.  Our modern ears have a hard time hearing this, but this message would have been lost on no one reading this at Ephesus in 90 A.D.

            So why marriage and children?  Why would John begin the Gospel with this account of Jesus’ first miracle, promoting this beautiful institution and its fruits just as Jesus began His public ministry?  Very simply because John understood what the Manicheans and modern environmentalists do not—that life is a gift from God that we are obligated to share with others, that the light in this world of darkness is life, and Jesus is the one One who brings life to us not only in the age to come, but in this world also.  Jesus not only brings us salvation.  He was present at our conception, too, and is the One responsible for both our bodies and our souls.

            St. John understood that Manichean dualism was a mortal threat to the infant Church, and by God’s grace, he did all that he could through his teaching and his writing to counter this threat.  To the environmentalists today, we must say, “Human lives are not a threat and a burden to this earth on which we live.  Quite the contrary, this earth was made to sustain human life.  And if we are to find solutions to the problems that modern man faces, they will come by God’s grace from the people He has created.  Human beings are the most valuable material resource we have, so calling for the massive reduction of this most valuable resource is pure idiocy.  Human beings are not dispensable and disposable carbon emitters.  They are gifts from God, from the Word of God, and each of them has been endowed with unique gifts that can be used to benefit one’s fellow man.  Human beings are not the problem.  Rather, they are the solution to our problems. ” 

So, if we want more solutions, we ought to have more marriages and more children. God celebrates with us, just life at the wedding reception, when we decide to get married and to be fruitful and multiply.  He even provides the wine for the party!

The message here is that God uses the things of this world, our marriages, water and wine, His Body and Blood, to bring eternal life to those living in darkness.  And He wants us to use the things of this world to do the very same thing. These gifts are not to be shunned or treated with contempt.  They are to be shared in order that our neighbors may one day stand before the Throne of Grace also.

Because our members believe what I have just articulated, we will send a contingent to Washington, D.C. this week to march for life on the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.  Several big, beautiful families will be represented, and our presence there will witness to our hope for the future and our love for our fellow man, virtues sorely lacking among those who deliberately would kill children before they are born or disparage marriage because from marriages come children.  Pray with me that our big beautiful families will have the desired effect, that some modern Manicheans will be converted and they will set about marrying, being fruitful and multiplying, and sharing with the world the most beautiful thing they have to offer—life.