Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XV per Annum C
10 July 2022

 The Book of Deuteronomy, from which comes today’s first reading, chronicles the desert wanderings of God’s people.  God had drawn near to them and given them His law but they had disobeyed.  And so, in punishment they are made to wander in the desert.  That wandering was a punishment for a rebellious generation who would not be permitted to enter the Promised Land.  The wandering was also a preparation for the next generation to be ready to be obedient and to be identified by adherence to God’s Law.  Thus, as the punishment comes to an end and a new generation of God’s people is ready to cross into the Promised Land, Moses re-states God’s Law to them a second time.  Moses restates God’s Law because the next generation must understand that to belong to God and to be His people is to be marked by the way of life of His commands.  Moses tells the people that God’s ways are not too mysterious or remote for them.  In other words, God has come near.  His ways and commands are in accord with our wellbeing.  His ways are made for us and for our good.  Fast forward centuries when Jesus says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Mt. 11:28-30)…  That’s what the Lord means.  His ways are not harmful to us.  Just like a yoke must be crafted well to guide an ox without causing friction and physical harm, so God’s ways are made for us.  In today’s passage from Deuteronomy, Moses is telling the people that moral living according to God’s ways is not too complicated.  It can be understood and grasped by us.

 Yet, it can feel difficult to obey God’s commands.  Every one of us has some area of moral life that is a struggle, something that continues to be a difficulty.  This common human experience is due to our fallen nature.  That giving up our disobedient and rebellious ways and conforming ourselves to God’s ways is challenging is not a sign that God’s ways are too remote for us.  Rather, it is a sign that our fallen nature deceives us and makes us inclined to choose what is the easiest path for us, the one that seems lucrative or satisfying or fulfilling, or simply the path that requires less effort and work.  In our time, the awareness and acceptance is disintegrating of a common natural moral law that unites all of us who share one human nature, because we come from the same Creator and origin of moral law.  And thus, it can seem somehow as if God’s commands really are remote and mysterious and too far out of our reach. Just as a physical muscle weakens and atrophies from lack of use, so our moral muscle weakens and atrophies when we refuse discipline and choose to be complacent about sin in our lives.  If we are not actively seeking to convert and change patterns of sin, then not only do we give in to sin more, but in time even our very ability to grasp moral truth becomes more and more clouded.  And as this process transpires we replace the moral authority of God expressed in nature and in revelation with something else.  Something that seems more within our reach.  And what is that?  Well, often it is ourselves.  We often choose ourselves as the authority and the reference point for morality.  Our ways, the ways of our fallen nature, seem nearer and easier to grasp.  And many a person does grasp at that.  And when you consider the number of human beings on the planet, you can see how quickly a common morality disintegrates and divides, atomizing into multiple and competing moral authorities.  And the result is that the only authority is me and my truth.

 There is sickness in fallen humanity, a sickness that can grasp each of us and lead us to place ourselves at the center of moral authority.  Now, that is not the happiest of messages.  But it is important to grasp as a foundational truth of our human struggle in this valley of tears, as we call it in the Salve Regina.  Another way to say this, is that we cannot adequately appreciate the good news of the doctrine of grace and redemption, and the call to conversion, if we do not first acknowledge the foundation of Original Sin.  You and I are sinners.  But we are loved by God and called to life with Him.  We need medicine and a physician.  And we need to cooperate with the ways the Lord offers to heal us.  There is an obvious ethical lesson in the Gospel parable of the Good Samaritan.  It is a call to love one’s neighbor.  And love is not only words, but also deeds.  Yet, for my purposes today I want to draw your attention to an interesting interpretation among several Church Fathers going back to the second century by which the parable was seen to have an allegorical value in that the Good Samaritan was seen to represent Jesus and the man who fell victim to robbers represents humanity suffering under sin.  For example, St. Irenaeus says that human nature “had fallen in with robbers, but he [the Lord] had pity on it and bound its wounds.”  Origen writes, “The man who was going down is Adam…. The Samaritan is Christ…. He carries the half-dead man, and brings him to … the Church.”  St. Augustine, son of our parish patroness writes, “The whole human race, you see, is that man who was lying in the road, left there by bandits half dead, who was ignored by the passing priest and Levite, while the passing Samaritan stopped by him to take care of him and help him…. In this Samaritan the Lord Jesus Christ wanted us to understand himself.”  St. Augustine adds, “Robbers have left you half-dead on the road; but you’ve been found lying there by the passing and kindly Samaritan.  Wine and oil have been poured into you, you have received the sacrament of the Only-begotten Son; you have been lifted on his mule, you have believed that Christ became flesh; you have been brought to the inn, you are being cured in the Church” (cf. The Gospel of Luke, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, sidebar “Jesus the Good Samaritan,” Pablo T. Gadenz , p.213).

 There is a sickness in our fallen human nature.  God’s commands are part of the medicine.  And His ways are not too far or mysterious.  But if we are not careful and disciplined in conversion, not only do we fail by sin but soon even our ability to see the truth of morality is clouded.  Jesus, the Good Samaritan, is himself the measure of what our charity should be.  I say this as a preface and warning for some of the abundant sickness we see in our world today.  We have to be on guard lest we become our own worst enemy, sinking to the lowest common moral denominator.  I hope this doesn’t seem unfair to use as an example, but a recent trip to California gave me some vivid images of what is possible in our sick humanity when man replaces the common moral law from God with man’s own desires.

On the day the Supreme Court decision overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion decision was released, I was on a plane bound for a conference in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Talk about flying into the mouth of the lion!  In the Bay Area it was not uncommon to see handmade posters in the windows of houses with the message “Shame on SCOTUS.”  One piece of spray-painted graffiti read, “Abortion is good; Abolish guns.”  Driving along one highway some protestors had assembled on an overpass holding poster board reading, “My body, my choice.”  To give you a sense of some of the hostility in the area, one morning at breakfast with a couple priests, we noticed two men in the outdoor seating area.  They had a large dog and as we stood to leave, one of the priests approached the two patrons and began to say, “I love your dog.”  One of the men began waving the priest away and said, “Move along.”  The priest thought the man was trying to prevent the dog from being startled, which caused the man to say, “No, not the dog.  We don’t like you.  Move along.”  The most noteworthy experience was the group of 30 protestors who showed up outside the church where the Archbishop of San Francisco was celebrating Mass for the conference.  I guess wherever the Archbishop goes protestors find their way to disrupt things.  Among some ugly things and cheap accusations, the protestors were chanting, “We rebuke you, Catholic Church,” and “Abortion on the Demand, without apology.”  Over and over: “Abortion on Demand, without apology.”   Think about that.  That is really sick.  As if abortion is as inconsequential as going to CVS for aspirin or to 7-Eleven for an icee.

 The dynamic nature of our gift of freedom and the call to live moral life in God contains within it the power to become saints reigning together with God or to become degenerate practitioners of the worst evils.  God’s ways are not too mysterious.  He has come near, taking on our flesh, to show us our dignity and to open the path for healing and eternal life.  We have to cooperate and discipline our unruly nature.  God loves each of those people I saw in California and the thousands more they represent, just as He loves each of us and all creation.  Those and so many other souls who are locked in secular ideology and who stand in opposition to Judeo-Christian moral truth, are loved by God too.  His ways are not too far for them to grasp, but they need living examples of such obedience.  God has given His law on stone tablets once in history.  But our world needs living tablets, like us (disciples), to show the way to live God’s commands.  May we find a renewed drive to combat our sins and to live in the healing that our Good Samaritan offers us.  And may our way of life help to serve as light so that a very wounded world and troubled souls can find the medicine of eternal life.