Pentecost

Dominica Pentecostes
4 & 5 June 2022

    This weekend we come to the climax and the conclusion of the holy season of Easter with the Solemnity of Pentecost, the fulfillment of Jesus’ resurrection promise to send the Holy Spirit.

   The Holy Spirit is called and known as the “spirit of truth” (cf. Jn. 14:16-17; Jn. 15:26-27; Jn. 16:12-13).  At his arrest and interrogation, the Lord said to Pilate “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth.  Every one who is of the truth hears my voice” (cf. Jn. 18:37).  Pilate famously asked, “What is truth?” (Jn. 18:38).  The Lord promised to send the Holy Spirit of truth, to be another Advocate to his disciples, for his Church, that the Church might be led into all truth and that the Church might be a sure guide of the teachings of the Lord.

   In this fallen world, the Father of lies has a certain dominion.  And thus, there is ample evidence throughout human history that man can reject truth, and has rejected truth, when it conflicts with the desires of his own fallen nature.  Our own time in history just might be among the most noteworthy examples of how man perverts the truth.  The observance of our Catholic life finds a counter-example to the trends of falsehood that surround us.  How the month of June begins is an excellent example.  On June 1, the Church recalls the holy example and martyr’s death of St. Justin.  He was beheaded in the year 165 under the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.  His martyrdom came after he refused to renounce his commitment to Jesus and after he explained to the pagan Roman authorities that true worship is owed and given to God alone, who is Jesus Christ, and that he would not submit to false worship by offering sacrifice to pagan gods.  St. Justin stood firm against the falsehood and the demands from his governing authorities.  He is one of the earliest examples we have of what the life and worship of the Church was like.  On June 3, the Church recalls St. Charles Lwanga and his companions, all martyrs of Uganda.  This group of young men, all in their teens and twenties were martyred much more recently in history, in the year 1886.  They were pages in the royal court where the king had absolute authority.  What was it about their Catholic faith that put them at odds with their king?  Principal among the problems was that their catholic faith and its moral requirements put them at odds with the king’s demands that the page boys participate in his unnatural vice, that the boys minister to him for his pleasure.  I assume you get the reference.  False worship, the worship of civil authority and its demands, and the practice of false and immoral sexuality mark the stories of the martyrs we recall at the head of June.  How providential, then, is the witness of our catholic faith because not a one of us can miss what June has become in our time due to man’s fallen pride.

   I realize that there is a chance that not everyone will like or agree with what I am saying today.  But what I am saying is what the Church teaches.  And it needs to be said in our confused world.  Furthermore, I believe I will be judged at the end of my life by whether I was silent in the face of cultural confusion and lies or whether I was faithful in being a witness to the truth, the truth guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.  Too many a person is silent in the face of lies.  And that tendency isn’t getting us anywhere that is good.  So often we remain silent when we are uncomfortable in polite company.  Too many a Christian is silent in the voting booth by choosing those who convey lies.  We are silent when we go along with the cultural elites and simply let them form our minds, and the minds of our children, in the media and in entertainment.  The Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, has been given by the Risen Lord to confirm us as bold witnesses to the truth.  That is still needed in our time too.  And being such a witness is a gift to the world so that it may come to know the Lord and, turning from falsehood and sin, might have the hope of salvation.  This is a service that the Church is supposed to give to the world.  Let’s not forget, this is a service that you and I are supposed to give to the world.  The Lord did not send us the Holy Spirit in vain!

   The recent news of the Archbishop of San Francisco and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi puts a spotlight on the cultural battle between truth and falsehood and the role of the Church.  Speaker Pelosi makes frequent public comment about her catholic faith.  She also is consistent in a manifest and obstinate support and promotion of abortion.  Those two things do not in any way go together.  After behind-the-scenes conversations between the Archbishop and the Speaker, spanning some very patient ten years, and seeing only that the Speaker has become more vocal in promoting abortion and even seeking to codify abortion in federal law, the Archbishop, as the chief shepherd of her soul in her home diocese and as the highest authority over the sacramental life there, made a twofold public declaration: That the Speaker (1) is not to present herself to receive Holy Communion, and, (2) if she were to present herself, the minister should not admit her to Holy Communion but should refuse that sacrament.  And, he said, this is to remain in place until such time as she publicly repudiates the scandal of her advocacy for abortion and until such time as she repairs the grave matter for her own soul by confessing this sin and receiving absolution.

   Now there are many things that would be worth highlighting in this episode, things that touch upon truth and how our culture adopts lies, and that touch upon our knowledge of the Catholic faith.  However, I will focus only on three lessons.

   First: Is this episode with the Archbishop and the Speaker something to celebrate?  We need to be careful here and to make some distinctions.  It is all too common that a self-professed catholic adopts personal behaviors and public positions in direct odds with the clear doctrine of the Church on a grave matter.  We do not take delight when anyone must incur a punishment for such sin and incongruity.  We can celebrate that, upon completing the demands of charity and justice with his attempts to help guide a soul, an archbishop has taken a courageous and difficult stand.  We can celebrate that the truth of catholic teaching on the dignity of unborn human life has been put in the spotlight.  Since receiving Holy Communion requires in advance that we live a moral life free from grave sin and observe a union with Christ and his Church, we can celebrate that sacrilege has been reduced in that a person in grave public sin has been instructed not to receive Holy Communion in that position.  But, let’s be clear, this is a sad episode and we do not want to appear to take delight in it.  It would have been nice, much nicer indeed, had a catholic politician been on the forefront of defending innocent life in the womb.  Perhaps, by God’s grace, in some way in the future this very action by the Archbishop might lead to that.

Second: This episode is an opportunity to teach on a very serious misunderstanding that exists about catholic moral teaching.  If you have followed this story, you have heard the response that goes something like this: “Well, the Church leaders are inconsistent in this because the Church is against the death penalty too and yet they don’t go after politicians who support that.”  Comments like that reveal a very serious lack of formation about the moral teaching on what is called intrinsic evil.  The notion of intrinsic evil means that certain matters are so disordered within themselves that there is never an application of that matter that will result in an acceptable moral good.  It’s like saying that some matters are so rotten at the very root that they will never produce a good.  Abortion, which is the direct, intentional killing of an innocent unborn human life is an intrinsic evil in our moral teaching.  It is never acceptable.  It is always wrong.  It is a grave evil.  It is, within itself, at the very root, by its very nature, a moral evil.  That is what it means to call something an intrinsic evil.  The death penalty on the other hand, while a serious matter, as all matters involving the dignity of life are serious, has never been classified as an intrinsic evil in our moral tradition.  Thus, it is important to take note here that immediately we have an important difference in the ranking of the life issues of abortion and the death penalty.  They are not issues of equal moral weight.  Yet, that is how they are often treated in common conversation.  This is often the sleight of hand that many a pro-abortion politician will use by questioning why the Church does not come down equally as hard on those who seem to be in favor of the death penalty.  Now why has the death penalty not been described as an intrinsic evil in our moral tradition?  Why, dare I say, it will never be declared that in our moral tradition?  It is because what the Scriptures, the Word of God, reveal to us that the death penalty can have a legitimate and just application and that the State does indeed have the authority to meet out such punishment.  That is why our moral teaching does not classify the death penalty as intrinsically evil and why it is not equal in gravity to abortion.  The death penalty is clearly quite different than abortion in that, at least in theory, the death penalty is punishment of the guilty.  Now, I want to be clear, I am not stating that a catholic should favor the death penalty.  I am in agreement with the Church’s more recent development here that where the State can both protect society by securely imprisoning a dangerous person, and, at the same time, reverencing that person’s human dignity (even that of the criminal), then the State ought to limit itself by not going to the length of the death penalty.  There are legitimate concerns about the application of the death penalty in that there can be wrongful convictions.  But notice, it is a far different thing to note the intrinsic evil of abortion and to note that the State does have the authority to punish with death but ought to put a restriction on itself.  This important distinction is lost in a good amount of public discussion on these topics.

   Third: This episode highlights often-misunderstood practice regarding reception of Holy Communion.  One TV personality in entertainment said that the Archbishop acted in a way that is not his job to tell Pelosi this because, the personality said, communion is the “bread of sinners”.  It is the bread of sinners, by which we mean the food of those many (most of us, right?) who are struggling with smaller or venial sins as we come forward at Mass, but who have confessed our more serious sins.  But supporting and promoting abortion is grave, not venial.  When we are in mortal sin we are actually spiritually dead.  And dead people do not eat.  So, the bread of sinners, yes.  The bread of dead people?  No!

   I have spent a good amount of time in this more topical sermon raising the falsehood and error that surrounds us in our society, often at the urging of government authority and the coercive power of media and entertainment.  We have our own experience, though inverted, of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel.  We use common language and words but they have been emptied of their proper meanings by the progressive agenda.  The falsehood and perversion is evident in words and phrases like “choice,” “reproductive health care,” “love is love,” “pride,” “gender affirming care.”  It is total babble and our culture is being turned into a desert wasteland.  But, we of catholic faith celebrate the Holy Spirit, a river of living water (cf. Jn. 7:37-39), who brings life to dry bones as the Prophet Ezekiel said (cf. Ezek. 37:1-14).  We have been given the Holy Spirit to lead us to all truth and to face situations and topics that the apostles at that first Pentecost never would have imagined.  More than that, we have been given the Holy Spirit to dwell within us and to animate our bold and charitable witness to Christ and to the truth.  At the end of each Holy Mass, having been filled with God’s Word that we listen to here, receiving grace through communal prayer, and having been nourished by the Holy Eucharist (assuming one is in a state of grace), then you are sent out into the world: Go forth, the Mass is ended.  You are sent out not to be silent, but to proclaim the Kingdom of God.  You have not been given a cowardly spirit, but one of courage.  And so filled with these gifts and the very Spirit of God, give the world what it needs: the Holy Spirit of truth!