Homily of Pope Francis - 17th March 2023
“Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ” (Phil 3:7). That is what Saint Paul tells us in the first reading. And if we ask ourselves what were those things that he no longer considered important in his life, and was even content to lose in order to find Christ, we realize that they were not material riches, but a fund of “religious” assets. Paul was devout and zealous, just and dutiful (cf. vv. 5-6). Yet, this very religiosity, which could have seemed a source of pride and merit, proved to be an impediment for him. Paul goes on to say: “I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (v. 8). Everything that had given him a certain prestige, a certain fame...; “forget it: for me, Christ is more important”.
People who are extremely rich in their own minds, and proud of their religious accomplishments, consider themselves better than others – how frequently does this happen in a parish: “I’m from Catholic Action; I’m going to help the priest; I do the collection... it’s all about me, me, me”; how often people believe themselves better than others; each of us, in our hearts, should reflect on whether this has ever happened – they feel satisfied that they cut a good figure. They feel comfortable, but they have no room for God because they feel no need for him. And many times “good Catholics”, those who feel upright because they go the parish, go to Mass on Sunday and boast of being righteous, say: “No, I don’t need anything, the Lord has saved me”. What has happened? They have replaced God with their own ego, and although they recite prayers and perform works of piety, they never really engage in dialogue with the Lord. They perform monologues in place of dialogue and prayer. Scripture tells us that only “the prayer of the humble pierces the clouds” (Sir 35:1), because only those who are poor in spirit, and conscious of their need of salvation and forgiveness, come into the presence of God; they come before him without vaunting their merits, without pretense or presumption. Because they possess nothing, they find everything, because they find the Lord.
Jesus offers us this teaching in the parable that we have just heard (cf. Lk 18:9-14). It is the story of two men, a Pharisee and a tax collector, who both go to the Temple to pray, but only one reaches the heart of God. Even before they do anything, their physical attitude is eloquent: the Gospel tells us that the Pharisee prayed, “standing by himself” right at the front, while the tax collector, “standing far off, would not even look up to heaven” (v. 13), out of shame. Let us reflect for a moment on these attitudes.
The Pharisee stood by himself. He is sure of himself, standing proudly erect, like someone to be respected for his accomplishments, like a model. With this attitude, he prays to God, but in fact he celebrates himself. I go to the Temple, I observe the Law, I give alms… Formally, his prayer is perfect; publicly, he appears pious and devout, but instead of opening his heart to God, he masks his weaknesses in hypocrisy. How often we make a façade of our lives. This Pharisee does not await the Lord’s salvation as a free gift, but practically demands it as a reward for his merits. “I’ve completed my tasks, now I demand my prize”. This man strides right up to the altar of God and takes his place in the front row, but he ends by going too far and puts himself before God!
The tax collector, on the other hand, stands far off. He doesn’t push himself to the front; he stays at the back. Yet that distance, which expresses his sinfulness before the holiness of God, enables him to experience the loving and merciful embrace of the Father. God could come to him precisely because, by standing far off, he had made room for him. He doesn’t speak about himself, he addresses God and asks for forgiveness. How true this is, also with regard to our relationships in our families, in society, and in the Church! True dialogue takes place when we are able to preserve a certain space between ourselves and others, a healthy space that allows each to breathe without being sucked in or overwhelmed. Only then, can dialogue and encounter bridge the distance and create closeness. That happens in the life of the tax collector: standing at the back of the Temple, he recognizes the truth of how he, a sinner, stands before God. “Far off”, and in this way making it possible for God to draw near to him.
Brothers, sisters, let us remember this: the Lord comes to us when we step back from our presumptuous ego. Let us reflect: Am I conceited? Do I think I’m better than others? Do I look at someone with a little contempt? “I thank you, Lord, because you have saved me and I’m not like those people who understand nothing; I go to church, I attend Mass; I am married, married in church, whereas they are divorced sinners…”: is your heart like this? That is the way to perdition. Yet to get closer to God, we must say to the Lord: “I am the first of sinners, and if I have not fallen into the worst filth it is because your mercy has taken me by the hand. Thanks to you, Lord, I am alive; thanks to you, Lord, I have not destroyed myself with sin”. God can bridge the distance whenever, with honesty and sincerity, we bring our weaknesses before him. He holds out his hand and lifts us up whenever we realize we are “hitting rock bottom” and we turn back to him with a sincere heart. That is how God is. He is waiting for us, deep down, for in Jesus he chose to “descend to the depths” because he is unafraid to descend even to our inner abysses, to touch the wounds of our flesh, to embrace our poverty, to accept our failures in life and the mistakes we make through weakness and negligence, and all of us have done so. There, deep down, God waits for us, and he waits for us especially in the sacrament of Penance, when, with much humility, we go to ask forgiveness, as we do today. God is waiting for us there.
Brothers and sisters, today let each of us make an examination of conscience, because the Pharisee and the tax collector both dwell deep within us. Let us not hide behind the hypocrisy of appearances, but entrust to the Lord’s mercy our darkness, our mistakes. Let us think about our wretchedness, our mistakes, even those that we feel unable to share because of shame, which is alright, but with God they must show themselves. When we go to confession, we stand “far off”, at the back, like the tax collector, in order to acknowledge the distance between God’s dream for our lives and the reality of who we are each day: poor sinners. At that moment, the Lord draws near to us; he bridges the distance and sets us back on our feet. At that moment, when we realize that we are naked, he clothes us with the festal garment. That is, and that must be, the meaning of the sacrament of Reconciliation: a festal encounter that heals the heart and leaves us with inner peace. Not a human tribunal to approach with dread, but a divine embrace in which to find consolation.
One of the most beautiful aspects of how God welcomes us is his tender embrace. If we read of when the prodigal son returns home (cf. Lk 15:20-22) and begins to speak, the father does not allow him to speak, he embraces him so he is unable to speak. A merciful embrace. Here, I address my brother confessors: please, brothers, forgive everything, always forgive, without pressing too much on people’s consciences; let them speak about themselves and welcome them like Jesus, with the caress of your gaze, with silent understanding. Please, the sacrament of Penance is not for torturing but for giving peace. Forgive everything, as God will forgive you everything. Everything, everything, everything.
In this season of Lent, with contrite hearts let us quietly say, like the tax collector, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (v. 13). Let us do so together: God, be merciful to me, a sinner! God, when I forget you or I neglect you, when I prefer my words and those of the world to your own word, when I presume to be righteous and look down on others, when I gossip about others, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! When I care nothing for those all around me, when I’m indifferent to the poor and the suffering, the weak and the outcast, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! For my sins against life, for my bad example that mars the lovely face of Mother Church, for my sins against creation, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! For my falsehoods, my duplicity, my lack of honesty and integrity, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! For my hidden sins, which no one knows, for the ways in which I have unconsciously wronged others, and for the good I could have done and yet failed to do, God, be merciful to me, a sinner!
In silence, let us repeat these words for a few moments, with a repentant and trusting heart: God, be merciful to me, a sinner! And in this act of repentance and trust, let us open our hearts to the joy of an even greater gift: the mercy of God.
it’s all about me, me, me”; how often people believe themselves better than others
ReplyDeleteVery true. I've been saying this for ages, it's nice to see His Holiness catching up with me. The church and the world would be a much better place if everyone just listened to me 💅
Did you miss the bit on humility ...
DeleteNo, I was just thinking how wonderful it you be if everyone were as humble as I am.
DeleteFrancis has always taken this attitude of eschewing "religiosity", but I'm not convinced he's ever really understood humility. I first started to sour on him when I watched this clip from some years back
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4QCkK4aTyY
On it's face, it appears to show a humility previously lacking in pontiffs, but viscerally, I knew there was something wrong with what he was doing. It took me a while to articulate it, but basically, it's a false -- or, more charitably, mistaken -- humility. These pilgrims are kneeling before the supreme pontiff, not Jorge Borgoglio, and I'm not at all certain he gets this. They came to kiss the pope's ring, not Jorge's. He doesn't seem to understand the difference. Tell me if I'm wrong.
Maybe listen to the 'message' and don't judge the man?
DeleteHe is right about religiosity, though. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart; not flawless Mass attendance and two kids in the choir.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/eIlGTLed0gg
ReplyDeleteA little off-topic (though not completely. It has relevance to the stat of the Catholic Church). Michael Voris interviews Calvin Robinson.
Here is another recent CM article concerning Calvin being 'cancelled' from joining the Ordinariate's choir because some of its members objected to his views. This quote from Calvin is interesting:
DeletePeople say to me all the time, "Why haven't you swum the Tiber?" But how could I? If I was to join the Ordinariate today and I said something that someone who's woke didn't like, would my ordinary back me up or tell me to be quiet? The evidence speaks for itself.
I find Calvin a conflicted figure. I think he has made the same mistake as leftist Christians and conflated Christianity and political activism. If one 'swims the Tiber', it is because one believes that Christ is truly and fully present in the Catholic Church, not because one believes that one's ordinary would give one carte blanche to push one's politics. The role of an ordained minister is to administer the sacraments, preach the gospel and bring souls to Christ; it isn't to fight the 'culture war' or denounce the 'heresy' of wokeism. If Calvin wants to organise rallies against drag queens and present TV shows, he'd perhaps have been better off doing so as a layman, as Gavin Ashenden is.
Good points ....
DeleteWhat do you make of this:
DeleteWhen thinking about homosexual culture, if you are someone given to stereotyping, you may well have noticed that a good many of the church singers in London are — as a friend of mine so sweetly puts it — "not of the marrying kind." There is something about music and liturgy, art and dressing up, that appears to disproportionally attract gay men. We can reasonably assume that also applies to the singers at Warwick Street.
I think it's an unnecessary swipe... It's true that the Anglo Catholic wing of the CofE had a fair number of priests who had same sex partners. I think that's partly because, at least recently, the Anglo Catholics tended to be more liberal. As it draws from that pool, I wouldn't be surprised - and I've heard it said - that a fair proportion of those clergy who went to the Ordinariate were homosexual.
DeleteThere's some evidence that creatively inclined people - artists, musicians, etc. - tend to have personality types that incline towards seeking out new experiences and therefore tend to be more sexually 'adventurous'. But I think the 'it attracts homosexuals because they like music and dressing up' trope is a bit reductionist and tired, and a surprising comment coming from CM: the TLM is hardly known for its restraint in the ritual and vestment department.
Its founder, in 2016, made this statement:
Delete“I will now reveal that for most of my years in my thirties, confused about my own sexuality, I lived a life of live-in relationships with homosexual men."
Here's a critique of the approach of CM.
DeleteOne might equally argue that CM is a critique of the semi-apostate form of Catholicism represented by this article.
DeleteI don't know anything about the wider works of the author of the critique piece, but I tend to agree with what she's written here. I think there's more power in her testimony of being someone comfortable with her same sex attraction who abandoned it for the sake of her faith, than of Voris' position which effectively amounts to telling people that they're not really gay and to snap out of of it. If Voris does has that history himself, I'm surprised he doesn't share his own testimony more often; I think he would be more effective that way.
DeleteThe desert fathers saw their asceticism as continuing to walk in the way of the martyrs in a time when Christianity had become tolerated enough that physical martyrdom was rarer. I think that the West has become allergic to the concept and is hooked on 'offering sacrifices that cost nothing' (see how watered down the Eucharistic fast and Friday abstinence etc., have become). Celibacy is a form of martyrdom, but the Church seems unwilling to ask anybody to give up anything and, where it does (e.g., in the priesthood), it implies that this is a loss, rather than a joy (if a struggle) - hardly an attitude that encourages same sex attracted people to give up activities they enjoy. It would also help if the Church confirmed the validity of the single state, instead of treating single adults as suspect weirdos because they aren't married with twenty kids. The Church further needs to distance itself from the secular practice of speaking about sexuality as though it defines one's identity. The critique article does this: 'I'm a queer Canadian girl...'. No - you are a woman who happens to be Canadian and gay. Our primary identity lies in Christ, not in our genital preferences.
Lastly, there's the huge (and I wonder if it's currently insurmountable) hurdle that Church teachings on sexuality often amount to 'do as I say, not as I do'. It's perfectly valid for a homosexual man to ask why he can't have a consensual relationship with another adult man, given the lack of sexual continence of so many clerics.
CM, IMO, would do well to look to the great saints who challenged false teaching and corruption in the Church, like Ss. Francis and Dominic, for example. They returned to evangelical (in the correct sense of the word) values, holy living and preaching the truth. What they didn't do was spend all their time swimming in the gutter, compiling relentlessly negative stories about what the 'other side' were doing wrong for the edification of their listeners. I think there is something voyeuristic about CM et al.: the ecclesiastical equivalent of rubberneckers gawking at a motorway pileup, giving an ego boost to its readers - thank you, God, that I'm not like those sinners. I think CM's hysterical nature preaches only to its own choir, and I wonder how many people think 'if this is what traditional Catholicism is like, you can keep it'?
She left the Catholic Church in 2018.
DeleteMany of her diagnoses are correct, it seems to be complicated by her difficulties in an abusive marriage emerging at the same time as the abuse scandal and being unable to separate the two. I can empathise to some degree; I'd never set foot in a 'Bible believing' church again after some of my experiences with the kind of people who go there.
DeleteI hope she finds some peace, but I think she'll be in for a rude awakening if she doesn't think that there's systemic abuse in the Anglican hierarchy as well. She says her faith is still Catholic, but Anglicanism isn't a branch of the apostolic church, no matter how much one might wish it to be.
HJ also hopes she finds some peace too. Sadly, her story is all too familiar these days.
DeleteThere’s a rather long-winded account of her reasons for leaving the Catholic Church here.
In a nutshell, she doesn’t accept the male priesthood, the Eucharist, sacramental Confession or the exclusivity of the exclusive nature of the Catholic or Orthodox Churches.
That's very sad reading, and very confused. 'The abuse scandal meant I could no longer buy the hierarchy's arguments about an all male priesthood' is simply a non sequitur. And 'you're allowed to believe in transubstantiation in the Anglican Church, so I'm not bothered about the Eucharist' - yes, you can believe whatever you want in the Anglican Church: wait until you come across a priest who takes the unconsumed consecrated bread home and has it for lunch with jam and butter!
DeleteHer reasons seem to speak more of personal issues than theological ones to me (and explains the repeated focus on sex and gender in her writings) - much like that 'I don't like calling God "Father" because my own father was abusive'. But you need to face those internal struggles, and Anglicanism allows you to hide from them by offering a myriad pick n mix 'expressions of church'. That's spiritually unhealthy.
This is a good perspective:
DeleteFlannery O’Connor, the southern muse, explained this in a letter to someone who criticized the Church, in his generation: “All your dissatisfaction with the Church seems to me to come from an incomplete understanding of sin. This will perhaps surprise you because you are very conscious of the sins of Catholics.”
On priests, she expounds, “the hidden love that makes a man, in spite of his intellectual limitations, his neuroticism, his own lack of strength, give up his life to the service of God’s people, however bumblingly he may go about it.”
It is easy enough to find things that are big and need some change, in our humble opinion, but which cannot be changed, from our humble station.
And it easily becomes a form of lust, as the complainer derives a perverse pleasure from enumerating the many faults throughout Church, priests, and lay Catholics, eagerly piling them into a very human commination. It becomes an “expense of spirit in a waste of shame.”
“It’s our business to try to change the external faults of the Church – the vulgarity, the lack of scholarship, the lack of honesty – wherever we find them and however we can,” Miss O’Connor declared. We carry these faults with our pain, our suffering; and this is what we were after all called to do. Our Founder is crucified by all Catholics.
He did not carry the banner of reform and revolution, however. His detestation was restricted to sin, and his scheme for amendment restricted to holiness.
O’Connor: “To expect too much is a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness. Charity is hard and endures.”
I'm a little confused that Mx O'Connor is speaking about the priests in his generation at the start but becomes a Miss halfway through.
DeleteThis is correct, and there's much wisdom in knowing what one can change and what one can't; expecting perfection is a recipe for disappointment. I do wonder, though, if a failure of pastoral care and catechesis is contributing to the amount of disillusioned people leaving the Church. There's a lot of people going through crises of faith alone, unnoticed by anyone else or a priest who's took busy dashing from mass to mass and only does confession by appointment.
*too busy, not took busy 🙄
DeleteOut of Christian charity for my neuroses, y'all should really chip in and upgrade the blog to one with an edit button.
Flannery O’Connor is a woman. The 'He' referred to is Christ.
DeleteYes, the sense of a Catholic community centred on a priest and pastoral/spiritual guidance is no longer evident.
I don't understand....
DeleteFlannery O’Connor, the southern muse, explained this in a letter to someone who criticized the Church, in his generation:
If the 'he' is Christ, how is she writing to someone in the first century?
Are you confusing the author of the article with the quotes?
DeleteI'm just generally confused 😂
DeleteI think it's just a strangely structured sentence. I presume that the 'he' here is the critic of the church, and O'Connor wrote a letter to him?
Would some kind soul living north of the border care to explain what’s going on up there? Has the SNP really got one foot in the grave, or is that just Labour voters’ wishful thinking?
ReplyDelete10,000 foot view (and it's a bit more complicated, but however...) The SNP became the Establishment party in Scotland in 2010. Once that happened, every grifting "rights" group fastened themselves on to the party, along with the career politicians. These two entities then formed a self-sustaining cycle within the SNP -- the "rights" grifters demanded more and more "rights", and the career politicians gave them to them, all on the taxpayers tab. At that level, it's not significantly different to what's happening in England, it's just being done by a party other than the Tories or Labour.
DeleteIt gets complicated when you take the national issue into account. The grifters and the careerists don't actually give one infinitesimal damn about Scottish independence. If anything, they're against it because, in the case of the grifters, it would put a border between them and England, thus hampering the spread of their disease (not that England is not already infected anyway) and in the case of the careerists, it would be an impediment to that fine old Scottish tradition of getting your backside doon the road to London. The problem is that the SNP membership was always a conviction party. There was, historically, never any advantage to being SNP, so the people who made the party up were in it for the right reasons of belief in their cause. You may not yourself agree with that cause, but you could never accuse them of self-advancement. Until 2010, that is. With no real experience of power, the party was wide open for a takeover, and they went down faster than the Twin Towers. Sturgeon may have predated this herself, but she's been an activist since she was 16 years old. Her employment history is limited, except for...let us call it "an unfulfilling interlude" practicing law. If you want to know more about this, go on line. We don't want to get Jack sued, ahem...She had neither the wisdom or the experience to even recognize what was happening, never mind stop it.
The situation was amped up again by the referendum. It was lost (or won, depending on your viewpoint), but it made the concept of independence a serious and salient option in Scotland. You have to understand that it had simply never been that before. Yes, the SNP had been around for years, but they were a kind of cranks' party for oddballs who walked around Edinburgh in Kilts and ghillie brogues and insisted on addressing German tourists in braw Scots. Now they were a serious political force and their ideology -- independence -- was mainstream. And having brought the party this far, they expected action. What they got were unisex toilets and eavesdroppers laws demanding people report their families for private conversations around the dinner table which constituted "hate speech". It was never going to end well, and when Alex Salmond got stitched up and Craig Murray got sent down, the clansmen started down from the hielands and battle was joined.
So yes, I think the SNP is going to collapse at the next election. Whether this leads to a return of the equally corrupt and far more cynical Labour Party is anybody's guess. There could be a splintering, with no obvious advantage to any party, or there might even be a surge to Alex Salmond's new party, Alba, which has already attracted all the serious, committed, door-knocking independence activists. I just don't know. And nor does anyone else.
Thank you, @Bell. That's very enlightening. As for the three candidates for the party leadership, the only material difference between them that I can detect from this distance is that one of them is a Christian and the other two aren't. That says something about the "values" and "rights" side but nothing at all about the independence side, does it?
DeleteAs Bell points out, HJ is isn't sure independence is the candidates top priority.
DeleteWhichever of the three wins the election, the SNP is going to drop the idea of a second referendum, is that it?
ReplyDeleteA second referendum isn't a runner. The ACTUAL nationalist are now talking about using the elections as a de facto plebiscite.
ReplyDelete