Fortnight for Freedom

The following was my Sunday homily on June 30, 2013:

Jesus is making it unmistakably clear that nothing is more important or more compelling than our participation in the Kingdom of God, but very often, we hesitate.  Elisha hesitated in the account we heard in our first reading.  Other people hesitate in the Gospel we just heard from St. Luke.  One guy in the gospel wants to go and bury his father.  This seems like a good thing. It’s a corporal work of mercy to bury the dead.  But evidently, it will delay his participation in the Kingdom of God and that participation is much more urgent.  Another guy wants to say goodbye to his family at home.  This seems like a good thing.  It’s even socially considerate to let them know so they don’t wonder what happened to him.  But this delays his participation in the Kingdom of God.  Hopefully we are picking up on the urgency.

Jesus talks about the Kingdom more than any other subject in the Gospels.  And we can see from today’s Gospel that not even the world’s most sacred values are more important than our participation in the Kingdom of God.  Is the Kingdom our ultimate concern? Or is it something else like wealth? Pleasure? Power? Being liked by others?  Or are we ready today to get fully engaged in participating in the Kingdom of God? 

You may have noticed some “Preserve Religious Freedom” signs in the church yard.  Our bishops have recently been pointing out that the Kingdom of God is starting to take second place to the earthly kingdom here in our country.  The bishops of our country have led us into the midst of the second Fortnight for Freedom which will continue until we celebrate the anniversary of our independence this coming Thursday.  This is a great opportunity for us to remind ourselves from exactly what we were gaining independence.  Wasn’t it a tyrannical government that did not allow people to live their lives in accord with the beliefs they held sacred?  So the new nation, the United States of America, put in its bill of rights the freedom of religion.  Notice that it is not merely the freedom to worship.  It is the freedom to put beliefs into practice every minute of every day, not just for an hour on Sunday.  The bishops have been pointing out that these are the freedoms that are currently under attack by our own government.  It is not O.K. that our government is forcing people to pay for things that are objectively immoral.

Archbishop Schnurr has given all priests permission to use different Mass prayers today.  This is a big deal, not something that is done willie nillie.  We are permitted to use the “Mass for the Nation”, or the “Mass for Persecuted Christians”.  Every Sunday is a solemnity and the Mass prayers may not be changed without the bishop’s permission.  Sometimes the reason is so great that permission is given. So we can see the gravity of the state in which we find ourselves. 

It is very likely that the subject of “freedom” will be discussed at family gatherings this coming week over the Independence Day holiday.  St. Paul talks about freedom in his letter to the Galatians that we just heard:  “For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.”  We would be fools to allow ourselves to repeat history and become enslaved to anyone except almighty God himself. 

This is a timely topic in the wake of this week's Supreme Court decisions.  It is disappointing, but I am not surprised because we have the exact government we deserve.  We have the exact government we have put in place.  Our culture is in need of a major conversion.  When the people are sanctified the government will be sanctified.  In Daytime Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours today we pray Psalm 118 which reminds us “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.”  But we have placed too much trust in the human princes that govern.  Human beings will always fall short.  And they have fallen short this week by failing to defend marriage as the unbreakable union of one man and one woman.