“It
is a great day to be a Catholic!”
I
haven’t personally heard him say this yet - perhaps you have - I think he’s
said it at more than one liturgy. But my
wife heard our new parochial vicar, Father Mike Buontello, proclaim this in a
homily at daily mass a couple weeks ago.
“It is a great day…to be a Catholic!”
Now
why would we say such a thing, much less why would we proclaim such a
thing?
The
answer - because it matters. It matters
that I am Catholic, that we are Catholics.
A
friend sent me an interesting article the other day, written by Deacon John
Beagan, a deacon who serves in a parish up near Boston, entitled “What’s
Missing in the New Evangelization?”
After reading it I decided this article could just as easily have been
entitled, “why aren’t our evangelization efforts working?” Or perhaps “why are
we failing to convince people that it matters to be Catholic?”
Bishop
Robert Barron asserts that for every one person joining the Church today, six
are leaving. And it is all too apparent,
we are an aging Church – where are the young people?
Deacon
John asserts that the Church is languishing these days because folks are pretty
well off - reasonably comfortable financially, and despite challenging and
traumatic events at times, life is pretty good.
He says that “basically, we live in a time and place where, practically
speaking, we don’t need God.”
The
Holy Father calls the Church a “field hospital for sinners,” but Deacon John
writes “When I look at my extended family members and friends who don’t go to
Mass, and people in the pews who don’t participate in parish life outside of
Mass, I don’t see wounded people in need of a Church hospital.”
He
observes that we are basically healthy and content and drifting away from our
Lord Jesus. Why? The reason he says - “people have been
infected by an increasingly steady stream of doubts and false beliefs.”
He
cites a questionnaire conducted of Catholics in his hometown just last year, a
questionnaire that reveals significant doubts among Catholics. Doubts that the Church is critical to our
relationship with God; doubts about the teaching authority of the Church;
doubts about Jesus’ moral teachings as taught by the Church; even doubts that
Scripture is the word of God.
Frankly,
it seems to me, we’ve largely been evangelized by this world. Modern media – television, movies, internet –
have been far more effective than we’d like to admit in evangelizing us to ways
of thinking that are far from God’s way.
And none of us are immune. How far
we’ve strayed in our beliefs about sexuality, economics, our responsibility to
the poor. To the point that the Church
is seen as irrelevant, often even among us pewsitters.
The
main false belief that has infected us, according to Deacon John, is the belief,
the presumption, that everyone goes to heaven.
Eulogies at funerals routinely become canonizations of the
deceased. This belief is, of course, not
scriptural, certainly not something the Lord Jesus taught us. His way, He said, is the narrow gate, and
those who enter it are few. The last
thing this world wants us to realize is that we are engaged in a battle -
between good and evil, God and Satan, over our eternal souls.
Which
brings me to this Gospel. Jesus asks
“Who do YOU say that I am,” Peter answers with the magnificent confession of
faith “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus confirms
this: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not
revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.”
Our
Blessed Lord, the Son of the living God, then invests in Peter His power. Upon you, Peter, I will build my Church, and
the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against her.
And
this is why it matters that we are Catholic – Jesus, who has just confirmed
that He is the Christ, hands to Peter the keys to His kingdom. Just as the Lord gave Eliakim the key to the
House of David in our first reading from Isaiah, making him the doorkeeper of
His household, so Jesus gives Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, giving
him and by extension the Church, the power to bind and loose – what you bind, I
will bind in heaven. What you loose, I will loose in heaven.
That
day our Lord invested in Peter, as head of the apostles, as the future earthly
head of His Church, the power of eternal salvation. The powr to carry on the mission of Jesus,
which is salvation! No, not everyone
goes to heaven, Our Lord makes clear. But the Church, likened to a ship, with
Peter as the original helmsman, is charged with the sacred responsibility and
power of safely carrying souls across the stormy sea. Across the stormy sea of
this world, a sea of disbelief, disorder, and downright evil, safely to our
goal, our heavenly homeland.
Sisters
and brothers, we are that Church that Our Lord promised to build on the rock of
Peter that day. We are that boat. It is right here, right back there in that
little room in the corner, that we experience in the person of the priest, the
power of Jesus to bind and loose – to forgive our sins and call us to ever
growing holiness. The only place, in
fact, where our serious sins may be remitted so that we may be reconciled to
God. And it is right here at this altar that we experience the most sublime
gift Our Lord left us – His sacred Body,
Blood, Soul and Divinity in Eucharist.
So
two thoughts to leave you with today –
First,
get in the boat. Humbly think with the
Church. Recall today’s collect, which
Father Joe just prayed on our behalf: “O
God, who cause the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose, grant
your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that, amid
the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where
true gladness is found.”
Lord, help me to love what you command and desire
what you promise. Incline my heart
according to your will, O God. Give me
the humility to realize that you came to save me, and left behind a Church and
her holy Sacraments to safely lead me to live with you eternally in that place
where true gladness is found.
Second, invite others to get in the boat. He wants us with Him forever, and He gave us
the great gift of our Catholic Faith to lead us there. When we realize what’s
at stake – our eternal lives, our eternal gladness – how can we not reach out
in love to invite others to get in the boat with us? The most
hateful thing we can do is to leave people far from God, wallowing in sin,
without hope.
Brothers
and sisters, this is the way Our Lord wants to use us in this world – indeed it
is our mission as Catholics, the mission Our Lord gave to our fathers and
mothers in faith 2,000 years ago, and the mission we took up at our baptism –
to go forth be His eternal life-saving presence in this world so increasingly
far from Him.
It
is indeed a great day to be a Catholic!
It is a great time
to be Catholic!
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