Loving in ways people don't want to be loved

A Homily for the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist
Given at St. Patrick's Church in Wareham
On Sunday, June 24th
By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd

Last week in the Gospel we heard about the Kingdom of God Being like a small seed which is tiny when planted, aut spreads out growing roots and branches in all directions.

 In my short homily, I spoke about how like a seed the truth of God’s love for us REQUIRES that our faith which might start out small, MUST GROW, spreading into every aspect of our life, if it is to stay alive.

 Today is the Feast of the birth of St. John the Baptist, and as we continue our reflection on religious freedom, we see how, the seed of faith: the love that God has for us; requires a response: namely that we learn to love God.  And as I have said so often before, LOVE, isn’t a gushy feeling, LOVE is an action. It is doing what is good for the beloved.

 Ironically enough, since God doesn't need anything from us doing what is good for God really means doing what is good for us. As Jesus says, “if you love me you will keep my commandment’s.” You know, the ones that He came to fulfill not abolish!!! Because God loves us and promises us that if we love Him, and keep His commandments we will find true happiness, which is all God desire’s from us—to enjoy His goodness!

Strangely enough, it is sometimes hard to do what is in our own best interest, namely following the commandment’s of God. This is because, as St. Paul tells us, sin is a type of slavery, which enslaves us to doing the things we don’t want to do and failing to do the things that we want to do.

 Let’s think about this in the light of some of the controversial positions that the world wants the Church to be silent about.

The church is pro-life, and challenges every Christian to follow Jesus’ Gospel of Life.

Wow, that’s controversial!!! The Church believes that every life, young and old, strong or weak Is good, and has a purpose in God’s plan. Isn’t this what every body wants to believe? In fact isn't this the basis of a free society based on the rule of law, the belief in the dignity of every human person? No healthy person grows up thinking that I want to harm human life; how many young girls do you think grow up thinking, when I grow up I want to kill my unborn child? No one CHOOSES abortion, rather we are coerced into it, enslaved to the culture of death by countless choices, that are in opposition to God’s will and plan.

Another controversial part of the Gospel is divorce. The Church is pro-marriage and has been since Jesus insisted that this was a central part of God’s plan for our happiness. Again, isn’t that controversial, the idea that divorce is bad and hurts everyone touched by it and so ought to be avoided like the plague! How many little boys grow up thinking: when I grow up I want to abandon my family, and break the hearts of my children and wife? How many people grow up wanting to have their ability to trust, and the ability of all those touched by this tragedy to trust, run over by the monster truck of marital infidelity, separation, and the betray of a life long promise?

Of course at the root of both of these sins, against life and marriage, Is the sin against our human sexuality, but that’s an issue for another homily…

Sin is a slavery that one little choice after another leads us into until we are destroying communities and ruining and perhaps even ending lives. Fundamentally, our faith is about setting people free from this slavery. This freedom is more important, according to the Gospel than freedom from physical bondage. 

Often non-Christian’s criticize this tenant of our faith by pointing to the letter of St. Paul to Philemon, in which Paul writes to a Catholic slave-holder, about a run-away slave who Paul is sending back to slavery. Paul enjoins the slave Onesmus, who by the way Paul says he loves like a son, to be obedient to his master, Philemon as he would be to Christ. Even though slavery in the first century had nothing to do with race many point to this and say that St. Paul is endorsing racial slavery.

Without getting into the intricacies of one of the most interesting and often overlooked letters in the New Testament, it is important to understand that Paul is not endorsing ANYTHING except the idea that we shouldn’t sin even to achieve a just result. Simply put, the ENDs never justify the MEANS. Paul is insisting that slavery to sin, is worse than physical bondage, or illness, or poverty, or any other physical evil… And he has a lot of credibility in saying that, since he was imprisoned several times for preaching the Gospel. This is after all the central message of the cross.

You know when the world see’s the Church preaching Jesus, in our own little corner of the world, they are ok with that. When it hears us preaching His love and therefore encouraging things such as: the education of children, care for the sick, feeding the poor, clothing the naked, caring for widows and orphan’s, comforting the mentally ill, or all those things that for two millennia the Church has pioneered, it says: well isn’t that nice. But if the seed of our faith is this the truth that God loves us and wants us to be Happy not just physically and in this world, but spiritually and in eternal life how can we fail to share this good news with our brothers and sisters? How can stop at just the physical needs of our neighbors and ignore His spiritual needs? Some times people need to be loved in ways they don't want to be loved--they need to be called to conversion.  In fact we have a phrase for it--TOUGH LOVE

Our faith, like the mustard seed, must touch every aspect of our life, even those we might prefer be left alone, and if we love God and our neighbors, we must in turn plant the seed of faith in other people’s lives, even when the ground seems rocky or unwelcoming.

This is the example that St. John the Baptism sets for us. John went into the wilderness not to feed the hungry, or shelter the poor, or cloth the naked, but to teach the ignorant, calling all of us sinner’s back to repentance. In fact, by going into the wilderness where he had nothing, and relying totally on the providence of God, He reminds us that “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God”

St. John show’s us that our Christian faith can’t JUST take on those socially acceptable forms of Charity, that the world wishes that we would stick to St. John couldn’t limit his faith to the wilderness, as many want us to do today, rather he had to bring his message of repentance even to the seats of power. Eventually it cost St. John everything, and you know what, one day it might cost everything too, everything save the most important thing, the love of our God And the eternal paradise that comes with that love.

We MUST challenge the SINNER, not because we hate them, and not because we are judgeing their souls in place of God, but because we want them to repent and believe in the Gospel, and thereby experience the Love and Peace and Happiness promised by our Lord.

Sin, makes us slaves, repentance sets us free! On this Feast of St. John let’s renew our commitment to work for freedom from sin, freedom from sin in our own lives, and freedom from sin in our communities, country, and world.

St. John the Baptist, pray for us!

Freedom

Homily Given for the Feast of Corpus Christ
Given at St. Patrick's Church in Wareham
On Sunday, June 10th, 2012
By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd, STL

Freedom—we American’s often think that we have a monopoly on it

Or at least the best expression of it here in the US.

But although we often use the word,

I am not sure we take the time to think about what it real means

today on this feast of Corpus Christi
a feast which celebrates the ultimate act of freedom,

the ultimate act of love, the total gift of self,

I would like to consider freedom.

You see freedom is really at the core of Christianity,

As St. Paul says, for freedom Christ has set us free.

In the beginning the whole drama of our Faith begins

With God so loving His creation that He respects human freedom

Even when that freedom becomes un-human,

Separating Man from God.

You know it’s funny how often I hear the question,:

“Well, why did God let us do it, why did he let us sin,

when He knew it would result in suffering and death?”

This usually from the same person who thinks it is a horrible imposition

On their freedom to ask them to come to Mass on Sunday’s

Encourage them to keep the commandment’s
and insist that they respect our Faith, even if they don’t practice it.

Freedom is at the heart of creation, it is what set’s mankind apart

From all the other animals.

St. Augustine writes that it is freedom that makes us in the image of God

And how we use it, that makes us in, or mares, His likeness in us!

And it’s important to understand, that Freedom,

a central theme in God’s creation in Genesis

and in Christ’s redemption of creation in the Gospel,

is not a matter of being at liberty to do WHATEVER YOU WANT

     rather it’s the ability to do what we must,

to do that which gives us our dignity, makes us most human,

and makes us unto the likeness of the living God.

At the beginning of the American experiment

the Church was a bit weary of the American expression of freedom.

Particularly what we call the first Amendment,

precisely because many thought it was a misunderstanding of freedom.

The first amendment of course does not establish

separation of Church and State, as many will suggest.

Rather it says: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, 

So while the constitution insists that the Congress not establish a Church,

it also guarantees our ability and RIGHT to practice our faith publically,

even when it is not the majority religion or faith.

This was idea was a bit strange to many thinkers in the early 19^th century

As established Christian Church’s had been the norm for 1600 years

since just after the death of the Roman Emperor Constantine.

Before that, religious toleration, which was practiced sporadically

meant practicing your religion alongside others,
essentially mixing all the different religions of the people together

regardless of the compatibility or truth of these religions.

Religious toleration in America,

was seen by many Catholic thinkers as pagan, for this reason,

because it seemed to them that freedom of religion

implicitly suggested that it didn’t matter what faith you were

it didn’t matter if you were

Catholic, Baptist, or Unitarian, Jewish or nothing at all

So long as you didn’t make waves for the State…

As Catholic’s we know that this cannot be true,

Since Jesus Himself says I am the WAY,

making no provision for another way!

There can be only one truth, and “the truth will set you free.”

However, it’s the connection of freedom of religion with speech,

That show’s the true intent of our founders

Speech in the 18^th century was about argument and debate in search of truth.

And so the right to speech doesn’t protect obscenity

but the quest for truth,

The right to free speech was placed next to the right to free practice of religion because both are a search for truth.


From the beginning humans were made free by our creator,
free so that we could freely choose to love God.

This freedom corresponds with our duty,

To know, love, and serve God—and it is this duty

which makes us human, and gives us human dignity!!!

Because of this duty, man can speak of a natural right.
which simply means that no one can morally interfere with

A human’s freedom to do his duty to God or his neighbor in love,
because that duty is at the core of human dignity. 

Freedom of religion, stems not from the unimportance of religion,

from tolerance, the agreement to agree to disagree,

but from our duty to seek the Truth,

and the immorality of compelling someone to accept a “truth”,

which in all honesty, they don’t believe.

You see it makes no sense to talk about “rights”

to things that are not fundamental to our humanity
to things like health care, or education, or even marriage,
as these things can, and in the history of the world,
have been done without.  

But things like Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,

things like love, and the pursuit of truth

these are essential to what it means to be human

Government can and does limit our liberty in many ways,

but morally it shouldn’t limit our freedom

in a way that attacks human dignity, because to do so

places the state at war with not just you or I, but with humanity.

I meditate on freedom, on this feast of Corpus Christi,

Because it is perfect freedom, in the FACE OF,

state and religious tyranny, that we see

when we look at the Blessed Sacrament.

It is the freedom to love, and to do God’s will come what may.

This freedom is at the heart of the our Faith, and must be imitated!

It’s for this reason, that today, in the face of so many

State sponsored attacks on freedom, that we Catholic’s must stand up.

For the state to prohibit an action

that is universally accepted to be wrong
is the states rightful purview,

but for the state to REQUIRE people of faith

to violate their conscience, to do something, support something,

or pay for something that is at best morally ambiguous,

and at worse morally evil—is wrong!

And puts the state on the wrong side of human freedom and human dignity!

We used to acknowledge and respect this in America.

Respecting the right of conscientious objectors not to fight,

And doctors, nurses, and pharmacists not to treat people

In ways they believed immoral,

But for some time more and more of our politicians

Have felt the need to push their beliefs, their religion,

though granted not a religion based on the worship of God,

on others, more and more placing them, and their human dignity,

at odds with the state.

These same politicians use language like freedom of worship,

rather than the constitutional terminology of freedom of religion

to push religious people, who desire to be faithful to the God

who they worship out of the public sphere.

As people of faith, we cannot let that happen.

We render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar’s,

but our Faith requires that we use our Freedom to put our faith into action.

Over the next few weeks I will be focusing my homilies

On the various attacks on human freedom,

That sadly are happening right here in our country.

It’s important to see, as we think about each one,

how each is really about truth,

about a proposition which if true demands a response in love.

It’s also important to see that in an area where people disagree about truth,

Not because there is no truth but because it’s sometimes hard to find

The Government is in no position to determine truth

Taking away this fundamental duty of the human person

To seek the truth, and put it into action.

This is why we have rights, this is why we have freedoms,

They come from our creator,

and like Christ who offers us His Body and Blood today
and all the martyrs who shed their blood for the truth,

we must defend it today.

Seen and Unseen

Homily for the Feast of Pentecost
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Given at St. Patrick's Church
By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd, STL

 “I believe in one God the Father almighty maker of heaven and earth of all things visible and invisible.”

 We say these words every week on Sunday professing our belief in an unseen world. and for centuries this belief was a foregone conclusion to Christians and non-Christians alike. People felt in their heart a longing, a longing for the perfect, a longing for stability, a longing for the unchangeable and eternal, and this longing they reasoned, suggested that there was something in us and in the world, that could not be seen or touched or tasted but which would satisfy the deepest longings of the Human heart. 

Today, distracted by so much busy-ness, by so many material marvels that entertain us and keep us occupied, that help us forget the reality of death and suffering, people often forget that desire, that yearning, for something better than this world. Even many Christians, have a backwards understanding of heaven, thinking that it is just a re-hashing of this world, except that no one will suffer, and everyone will be a millionaire. Often it takes the reality of suffering and sacrifice, to remind us again, that our heart longs for something better than this passing world.  AND… This blindness is not a new thing. Jesus speaks of it over and over again in the scriptures. Jesus cures the blind so often in the Gospels not because there are an inordinate number blind Jews in Israel, but because He is speaking to all mankind, telling us all that there is so much more to be seen and thought of than just what our eyes can see.

 Faith is difficult, because it demands that we who are blind Act as if we can see. Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine yourself walking now down Main Street, here in Wareham, with all the construction going on. Scary isn’t it. Just because you can’t see the holes in the side walk and the men working, and the heavy equipment, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

 In the Gospel of John, our Lord says, “These words are Spirit and Truth and the Spirit gives life” Our Lord was talking on that day about the Eucharist, The gift of Jesus’ flesh and blood, which He says IS TRUE FOOD AND TRUE DRINK! Like the whole of our faith, this teaching then and now is difficult!  Back then many of those following Jesus abandoned Him, because He taught this absurd notion that “We must Eat His Flesh and Drink His Blood.” And He was given every opportunity to clarify Himself to say no, I was just kidding, I was meant it symbolically, But He didn’t, in fact He re-enforced the REALITY of the Eucharist By saying, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you shall not have life within you.”

 As Catholics we TRULY BELIEVE that HE IS REALLY PRESENT That the bread and wine, which we offer God, Is transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, So that after the prayer of Consecration, when the priest lifts First the body, and then the blood, of the Lord, Although it may look like bread, there is no bread there, but TRULY it is His flesh, and although the chalice make look like its filled with simple wine, in truth it is His blood. The Great Angelic Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, called this mystery Transubstantiation. Saying that although the accidents were those of bread and wine the substance was His body and blood. Another way of saying this is that the appearance is that of bread and wine, while the reality is His body and blood.

 Initially that is a hard concept to grasp, isn’t it, since usually things are what they seem to be. But then again, all you need to do is look in your car’s mirrors and read: “objects in the mirror are closer than they appear to be,” to realize this. Or think of the Sun and Moon. During the course of the day it often appears as if the Sun moves across the sky, and at night as we drive home in our car I am sure we have all pondered why the moon seems to follow our car. When we look up at that same night sky it appears as if we are seeing stars and planets and galaxies. When in reality, astronomers will tell us, that that light took thousands and perhaps even millions of years to get here, and today that heavenly body, might no longer be there.

I am sure all of us have heard and even used the phrase “things are not what they appear to be,” and that is what our Faith is about, Spirit and Truth, which gives life! Our faith is full of unseen realities: At the core of it is a belief in the unseen God. A belief that He is actually a Trinity of persons A belief that He loves us, and became Man. A belief in the reality of Jesus’ miracles, And the reality of His Sacrifice, A belief in His resurrection and in the promise of Heaven, and danger of Hell. As St. Thomas wrote in His famous song of Eucharistic praise: “Faith for all defects supplying, when the feeble senses fail.” It is the Spirit that gives life! And today Jesus send’s His Spirit on the Church to teach us all things, and help us see, if only in a partial way, for now, the reality of the unseen world.

 The Spirit gives us blind sinners the courage to live as if we could see. and challenges us to act on realities unseen, but very real. It is the Spirit that gives us the strength, to fight our passions, Living according to God’s law, focused on going to heaven, Rather than on the pleasures of this world, which seem so good, so natural for us to seek. It is the Spirit that gives us the ability even to sacrifice everything With Christ on the Cross, for the things of Heaven. The Spirit that allows us to see the perfection of Christ’s Church Despite the imperfection of its Priests, religious, and laity. and to see the beauty of our neighbors even through the camouflage of their sins And on this weekend, when so many of our second graders will make their first holy communion it is the Spirit which gives us the ability to kneel in adoration before the Eucharist aware that what looks like bread, is actually the Body of the Lord, which has been Sacrifice, and what looks like wine, is actually His Blood.  Whether we open our mouth to be fed by the Lord like a little child is fed by a loving parent. Or we raise our hands, brought together to make a throne for us to receive the king of the world, The Spirit allows us to see that Jesus is giving Himself to us, so that we can be strengthened to give ourselves for others! To live in this world, but not to be of it!

 Eucharistic devotion is so important to the life of a Christian because in receiving the Lord and adoring Him, a little piece of that unseen world, the reality that is more real than what we can see is incorporated into our hearts. We receive Him so that we can see how much we have to be thankful for so that we can understand what He gave to us and now asks of us, and so that He can remain with us always, even unto the end of the age. Today we have the opportunity to receive the Lord, if our hearts are free from all sin, and open to His goodness. But it is important to remember that receiving Him is not enough. St. Paul warns against those who receive Him unworthily, with no desire to see the spiritual reality and truth, and be transformed by it. If we would see, we must ask the Holy Spirit to fall down upon us: by regularly confessing our sins, by living lives of prayer, and by acting as if we can see. One of the most powerful ways of doing this is Eucharistic Adoration, When we take some time out of our busy day, out of the material world To focus on the unseen world.

 In two weeks time the Church will celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, often called Corpus Christi. In honor of the Feast day there will be many different events and devotions going on in our Parish and around the Diocese. Particularly, here at St. Patrick’s we will celebrate our annual forty hour devotion, as the Blessed Sacrament remains exposed for Adoration for 40 hours straight on the Altar of our Church. The unseen reality of Jesus’ love and gift for us will be here to be adored all day and all night, So that no one will have an excuse that they were too busy. Today I would challenge all of you hear to consider Individually or as a family spending an hour of Eucharistic Adoration with the Lord, to help you deepen the spirits gift of sight which is poured upon the Church each Pentecost.