TEXT: Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 27, 2024
October 29, 2024 Father De Celles Homily
30th Sunday Ordinary Time
October 27, 2024
Homily by Fr. John De Celles
St. Raymond of Peñafort Catholic Church
Springfield, VA
Today’s Gospel tells us the story of the blind man, Bartimaeus,
whose faith leads Jesus to cure him.
Of course, this story shows the mercy of Jesus in physically curing the blind.
But it also reminds us of something even greater.
Once Jesus cures him physically,
Bartimaeus’ faith leads him to see Jesus spiritually, with the eyes of faith: “Immediately he…followed Him on the way.”
Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks nowadays, many Catholics,
who suffer from spiritual blindness.
They can’t see Jesus for who He truly is:
God the Son, who not only died on the Cross to save us,
but who also taught us that there is a Christian way of living
we must follow to be saved.
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Sixty-two years ago this month, in October 1962, all the Catholic bishops of the world
came together in Rome discuss what Jesus taught
and how to live that Christian life in the modern world.
It was called the 2nd Vatican Council, or Vatican II,
and it was a huge watershed moment in the Church.
Unlike the current synod in Rome,
which is a meeting of only a few invited bishops, priests, and laity,
the council of all the bishops with the pope
had actual authority in governing and teaching
in the name of Christ and His Church.
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Now, if you know anything about me, you know that the two theologians
who have most formed my understanding of the faith
are the incomparable Pope Benedict XVI
and, of course, the Great Pope St. John Paul II,
whose feast we celebrated just this last Tuesday
These are men who were not simply good popes,
but brilliant and faithful theologians.
No one understood or explained Vatican II better than the men who became Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict.
They were actually active participants at the council,
John Paul as the young archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla,
and Benedict as a young priest-theologian prodigy, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger.
Ratzinger, or Benedict, in particular,
was one of the truly bright lights and theological leaders at the council.
But very soon after the council, both Wojtyla and Ratzinger noticed a problem.
The council called for Catholics to engage in a dialogue with the modern world so that we could figure out the best way to teach all mankind the fullness of the Catholic Faith.
But what Wojtyla and Ratzinger saw
was too many Catholics, even priests and bishops,
simply adopting the values of the world rather than teaching the world.
We need to remember that the Council was convened from 1962 to 1965
and was being implemented over the next decade or so.
In other words, this all happened during the greatest upheaval in societal values in centuries,
generically called “the SIXTIES.”
And all too many Catholics, misunderstanding the council and the Church,
began to see things not with the eyes of faith in Christ and His Church,
but with the eyes of a secular culture that embraced
the values of “if it feels good, do it,”
and lifestyles glorifying “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.”
As a result, as if suffering the side-effects of bad drugs,
many Catholics continue to suffer from theological hallucinations,
seeing doctrines that weren’t really there;
the funny smoke of secular values blurs their vision,
and eventually they fall into spiritual, religious and moral blindness.
So, both Wojtyla and Ratzinger set about to call Catholics to see clearly again–to shout with Bartimaeus, “Master, I want to see.” And in seeing with the eyes of faith, the faithful could follow Christ on his way.
In the meantime, too many of us are still blinded to the truth.
You hear Catholics say,
“Well, that’s what the Church teaches,
but I have to follow my own conscience.”
Actually, that’s partly correct: The Church teaches,
“You must follow your conscience.”
But, what do we mean by “conscience”?
Those of worldly values have a notion of conscience
that’s not too different from “if it feels good do it.”
Some might say it’s sort of your “gut feeling.”
This is not what the Catholic Church means by “conscience.”
It’s not simply our gut feeling or what we wish were right or wrong.
Rather, conscience is our last best judgment of reason
about what we ought to do in a particular case.
That means I take in all the facts,
and then I take what I know about right and wrong,
and use my reason to intelligently judge
what I ought to do.
For example, if someone cuts me off in traffic,
my feelings might tell me, like a little voice in my head,
“You ought to shout an obscenity at him.”
That’s not my conscience.
If I take a moment and think, my reason says, “You know that’s wrong!”
That’s my conscience.
Now, what this makes clear
is that the conscience relies on reason and knowledge.
Therefore, we have a duty to
learn how to exercise reason (to think logically)
and to fill our minds with valuable and usable knowledge
—especially knowledge of what is right and wrong.
We call that the “proper formation of conscience.”
The problem is too many times we allow the secular world to form our conscience.
We like to think we think independently, but come on…
Have you ever noticed how you all dress basically the same?
Even rebellious teens who claim they’re not conforming
dress like other rebellious teens.
So, how should we form our conscience?
For a person who believes in Jesus Christ, this must involve
seeing Him for who He is.
And recognizing He taught us to follow a particular way of life,
a teaching He entrusted to the popes and bishops
to protect and hand down to every generation of Christians.
So when I say “I’m a Catholic,”
that should mean I believe in everything the Church teaches
to be definitely true.
If that’s what I believe to be true,
then reason tells me that the teachings of Christ and His Church
have to be right at the center of my conscience.
So, any time I as a Catholic, purposefully or negligently,
decide not to follow the way clearly laid out by Christ and His Church,
and instead to follow the way of the world,
I am, by definition, either one of two things:
NO longer truly a Catholic and follower of Christ,
or not following my conscience.
Period.
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But even if we accept that we must follow the way of Christ,
there’s a second problem that came to the surface
after Vatican II and the Sixties:
There were questions about what the Church actually teaches.
Again, influenced by the warped Sixties values, many have tried
to teach a very worldly form of Christianity for the last five decades.
Love was largely reduced to feelings,
and charity was reduced to physical or financial wellbeing.
Certainly, these things are important,
but they are not the heart of the Gospel,
nor do they give us principles to guide us on the way of the Lord Jesus.
And so, Pope John Paul II and Benedict
called us to not cling to the secular culture that grew out of the Sixties,
but to cling the same truth the Church has continued to teach
from the year 30 AD
to the year 1962 AD
to the year 2024 AD.
They called us to take off the dark glasses of secularism,
and seek the grace of Christ to see with the eyes of faith.
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One important area where there is so much confusion
is in the area of doctrine called “Social Justice.”
In particular, many today will argue that the Catholic Church teaches
that we have a special duty to take care of the poor.
That’s very true.
But a lot of folks leave out the fact that the Church also
condemns envy, class warfare, burdensome taxes, and socialism;
further, it upholds the right to property
and specifically defends capitalism, rightly understood.
Some remind that us the Church says everyone has a right to basic education.
Again, that’s true.
But some forget that the Church also rejects
big government bureaucratic solutions to problems
and teaches that we should always, whenever possible,
leave it to families, the foundation of society,
to organize solutions to problems.
This is also part of the foundation of the principle of subsidiarity.
Many rightly remind us that the Church calls us to welcome immigrants.
They forget, though, that the Church also
Teaches that the right to immigrate is not absolute.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church,
edited by Ratzinger and promulgated by John Paul II, teaches:
“Political authorities…
may make the exercise of the right to immigrate
subject to various juridical conditions [i.e., “laws”]….
Immigrants are obliged to…obey its laws.”
___
There is a social justice doctrine in the Church,
but it is not a secular notion of justice;
it is a well-defined and nuanced doctrine
rooted in the long tradition of Catholic moral teaching.
There are often lots of different ways to legitimately achieve this justice
—whether it’s by so called “conservative” or “liberal” approaches.
Most importantly, social justice doctrine is founded on basic Christian principles.
When Catholics form their consciences and make moral choices,
they must follow these Catholic principles
—not their gut feelings or ideological talking points.
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The very first of these principles (of social justice)
Is, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
From this principle flows two other basic principles:
“Honor you mother and father,”
and “Thou shall not commit adultery.”
Marriage is the foundation of all society, so if we have no justice in the family—
if family, as God defines it, is warped or corrupted–
there can be no justice in society.
So, anyone who tries to corrupt family,
either by supporting deviant sexual lifestyles or redefining “marriage,”
violates the most basic principles of social justice.
The principle to “love your neighbor” also leads to a second basic principle:
“Thou shall not kill,” or
“You shall not intentionally kill innocent human life.”
This has to be right at the center of the Catholic conscience.
Friends, unborn babies are “innocent human life” par excellence.
Accordingly, the popes continually remind us that our first act of social justice must be to protect the lives of unborn babies.
You have no rights at all if you’re not alive, or if you don’t have the right to be alive.
If you think it’s okay to deny his right to life,
what good does it do to prohibit discrimination against a person
or to guarantee his access to health care, education, or whatever?
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Now, of course, what I just gave you are the 4th, 5th and 6th commandments.
These really do form the most basic principles for moral decisions
—of forming our consciences.
Secondary and tertiary principles are important,
but only when you apply these first principles consistently.
Unfortunately, this understanding of conscience
is rejected by most Catholics in America today.
One excellent, or terrible, example of this is our President, Joe Biden.
Now, I’m not in the habit of calling out individual Catholics by name,
but Mr. Biden has been publicly using his Catholicism
to woo Catholic supporters,
while at the same time publicly undermining Catholic teaching:
He embraces the redefinition of marriage, so called “gay marriage.”
He emphatically supports the right to abortion.
He denies the rights of parents to take care of their children’s education and their bodily and mental health.
And he attacks the conscience of all faithful Catholics
And our religious liberty,
as he tries to force Catholic employers to provide health insurance
to employees to pay for contraception, abortion-inducing drugs,
and sterilization.
All this shows a sad state of affairs not only in America,
but points to the same problem throughout the Catholic Church today.
It points to the reason Pope Benedict calls us to renew our faith in Christ
by learning and living out what that faith entails.
It explains why Catholics and priests have been, more and more,
trying to guide their flock to a true understanding of their moral obligations, whether in simple decisions of day-to-day life
or in the life-changing decisions like voting.
And it explains why we say that some candidates and their parties
are not fit for office
because they reject the most basic requirements of justice by supporting abortion and “gay marriage,”
denying the rights of parents,
and denying religious liberty and freedom of conscience
to faithful Catholics.
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Today, the Gospel reminds us of Christ’s healing grace
that gives sight to the blind Bartimaeus.
As we now enter more deeply into this Holy Mass
and see our merciful Lord before us in the Most Blessed Sacrament,
let us beg Him to grant us the grace to learn and understand
the moral teachings of His Church,
especially in the light of the clear, copious, and profound writings
of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
And let us pray for the faith and courage
to re-form our consciences according to those teachings
so we may follow Jesus along His way.
And let us cry out with Bartimaeus, with all sincerity and truth:
“Master, I want to see.”