Sermon, 15th Sunday after Pentecost | By Fr. Richard G. Cipolla, Ph.D., D. Phil.(Oxon.)
Fr. Cipolla is Chairman of the Classics Department at Brunswick School in Greenwich, CT, and parochial vicar of St. Mary’s, Norwalk, CT
And as he drew near the gate of the town, behold, a dead man
was bing carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a
large gathering from the town was with her.
This was a funeral procession: the dead young man being carried on a bier
and the weeping mother by his side and the friends of the family accompanying
the body and the mother. They were
processing solemnly through the gates of the city to bury this young man before
sundown, as was, as is the custom of the Jews.
And when Jesus sees this he knows that this is a funeral procession and
the young man on the bier is dead and his mother is weeping as she walks. And the Lord sees her, has compassion and
said to her: Do not weep. And He went up and touched the stretcher and the
bearers stood still. And He said: Young man I say to thee, arise. And he who was dead, sat up, and began to
speak. And Jesus gave him to his mother.
Jesus happened to be there at the gate and he recognized what this was,
a funeral procession, and he saw the young man’s mother weeping and he had
compassion on her, and the Lord of creation, the giver of life, touches the
bier—this physical touch, so important, for He is the Lord of creation—and the
speaks—so important for it is through Him, the Word of God, that all things
were made—and the young man is returned to life and to his mother.
This is one of Jesus’ greatest miracles, the miracle of
bringing a dead man back to life. And like all of Jesus’ miracles, it is a
sign, a sign of who Jesus is. It is not a resurrection as was his own. It is an
act of compassion by the one who is life itself. This young man, like Lazarus, will eventually
die. But this act of our Lord points to that act of bringing to life eternal
that is the resurrection. The Church
fathers have much to say about this miracle. They allegorize it and
spiritualize it in wonderful ways, but in the end it always points to the life
giving power of the God-man, Jesus Christ. Of course, the miracle is no accident, but it
is true that Jesus happened to be entering the gate of the town of Naim at that
time. But it is also important that he
recognized what he was seeing: a funeral procession. And it is because he recognized this, he was
moved with compassion and performed this miracle.
But what if someone does not recognize a funeral procession,
does not realize that what is going on here concerns death and grief? This is the gospel for the feast of St
Monica, mother of St. Augustine. We just
celebrated a triduum of this feast in this parish with the Sodality of Saint
Monica whose ministry is to pray for fallen away Catholics, a ministry whose
focus grows every day. St Monica prayed
and wept for her son for over thirty years that he would turn his back on the
immoral life that he was leading, a life that was deliberately shrouded in
untruth at the deepest level. And St
Augustine did not see that he was in a funeral procession, that he was lying
dead on the bier and that his mother was weeping over him because he refused
the life giving grace of Christ and his Church.
He did not recognize the funeral procession. He thought he was in a
procession of self-fulfillment, both sexually and intellectually. It is only when the scales fall from his
eyes, when he is pierced by the grace of the Lord, that he sees that he lies on
that bier dead from sin, and that the
only one who can save him and bring him to life is the Lord Jesus, who has
compassion on him and touches his bier and brings him to life. And it is then that he is restored to life
and becomes on of the great saints of the Church.
But it is not only individuals who do not recognize a
funeral procession, a funeral procession that concerns them deeply. Last week was the celebration of the 50th
anniversary of the March on Washington, at which Dr. Martin Luther King
delivered his I have a dream speech that had such a deep impact on how this
country thinks about race and not only thinks but how real changes came about
that transformed in a real way, at least in the realm of law, the reality of
black Americans. The 50th
anniversary celebration of this event included gay rights as an extension of
the civil rights movement of fifty years ago.
That it did so without blinking shows how far, in a negative sense, we
have come since 1963. The moral crusade
led by Martin Luther King was founded firmly and explicitly on the biblical
understand of the human being as made in the image of God and as a child of
God; and on the injunction of Jesus to love one other as he has loved us. Racism is not evil merely because it treats
others unfairly and hurts people. It is evil because it is against the moral
law of God and of his revelation to us. This is something given, not thought
out, something to be accepted and made one’s own, not something to be figured
out on the basis of changing understandings of relationships. What our culture does not see is that the
march for freedom and equality and justice of fifty years ago has been turned
into a funeral procession, and the body lying on the bier is our culture. When rights are divorced from the moral law
whose grounding is in God, then that culture lies dead on the bier. But contemporary culture cannot recognize a
funeral procession. It confuses it with a march for rights, for a culture
without God cannot conceive of the Lord of creation coming up to the bier and
touching it and making it alive once more.
For no longer are there references to the words of the Prophets who
dreamed dreams inspired by God. There are only the empty platitudes of “God
bless you” that mean nothing since God has been relegated to the unreality of
Mt Olympus, there to reign in meaningless majesty.
What does it mean when red lines are drawn on what purports
to be moral issues like use of chemical weapons to kill one’s own citizens? What is the basis for this appeal to moral
authority? Is the basis our revulsion
when we see photographs of the dead and dying?
Is this reduced to emotional reaction?
How can this red line be drawn at this particular time when the abortion
of children is seen as a right and goes on unabated and is the law of the
land? How can this red line be drawn in
the dramatic and moralistic way it has been in the past week when our culture
is increasingly driven by the pleasure principle that banishes moral
judgment? The enemy laughs at such moral
posturing with no objective basis. The
American public replies with weariness at the thought of another foreign war.
All the time not recognizing the funeral procession of this very culture that
lies on the bier.
But it is not only this country that no longer recognizes a
funeral procession when confronted. It is also the Catholic Church. The Church does not want to be seen as
old-fashioned, a relic of a repressive past.
The Church fears that she is seen an unwilling to be a part of the present scene, the new
way of looking at things. She fears to be seen as unwilling to hold hands with
everyone else as we march to a peaceable kingdom where every one is doing his
own thing as long as it does not hurt anyone else. The fact is that many Catholics cannot
recognize a funeral procession because of the very thought of a funeral procession
that involves the reality of death has been neutralized and abolished by the
liturgical practice of the Church for the past 50 years. And yet this funeral procession has been
going on for quite a long time now. Why
is it that the member of the Supreme Court who was one of the chief supporters
of the Roe vs Wade decision was a practicing Catholic? Look at the makeup of today’s Supreme Court.
There are six Catholics on the Court. This is a development that would make the
Protestant founders of this country shudder. One would have thought that in the
matter of moral issues that have a clear teaching in the Church the Court would
rule on the side and basis of that teaching, teaching that is founded on
natural law and Christian revelation.
That this has not happened is obvious.
Now this is not merely a matter of separating one’s religious beliefs
from the supposed objectivity of make a decision based on the Constitution and
on precedent. What we see here is the
failure of the Church in this country to teach her people how to live a
Catholic life and how to build a Catholic culture within a liberal democracy.
Some may say that this is impossible. That is another conversation and
sermon. But the fact is that the Church
is reaping the harvest of cultural indifference, the harvest of a sentimental
attitude towards the world, forgetting the intrinsic relationship between sin
and death, and forgiveness and love.
Pope Benedict’s
resignation will always be a painful mystery to those of us who love him and
who love the Church. But for me, it is a
symbol of the state of the Church, of a sickness unto death. It is the Church
who is being carried on that bier in today’s gospel. And it is Our Lady who
weeps as the Mother of the Church. And most Catholics do not even realize that
this is a funeral procession and so cannot be there for the touch of the only
One who can save us. Because they do not
join in the procession, they cannot be touched by the Savior who is moved with
compassion for his Bride and who comes and does come and will come to touch the
bier, the one who by his touch can save and therefore give life. And he who was dead sat up and began to
speak. And He gave him to his mother. But a great fear seized upon all, and
they began to glorify God. May that fear seize us and all Catholics, and may we
all give glory to God.
