I am not Catholic, but have respect for some of my Catholic friends and consider them brothers and sisters in Christ. This homily was so good, I thought you might enjoy reading it too.
Following is the full text of a homily delivered by Bishop Daniel R. Jenky,
CSC, during a Mass on the grounds of the Erin Feis Irish festival in
downtown Peoria on Sunday, Aug. 24:
Rise up, stand with our God
I am about to say something that may seem a bit radical but which I am
afraid is quite true; namely, that the pervasive culture of 21st century
America is basically at war with Jesus Christ and living in direct
opposition to the truth of his Gospel and is aggressively hostile to his
Church.
The convinced secularists are actually a minority of Americans, yet from the
command posts of American culture -- such as the national media, the
entertainment industry, and most sadly at many colleges and universities --
they have managed to promote a moral code totally incompatible with the
moral code of Christianity.
Secularists either consciously or unconsciously reject all ideas of purpose
in human existence. They deny the uniqueness of humanity, and therefore
subvert the notion of any inherent human dignity as the norm for how we
relate to one another.
Following the lead of the great masters of religious suspicion -- Sigmund
Freud, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche -- they promote the idea that this
world has no intrinsic purpose or any significant meaning.
What they propose is an enormous reduction of human desire, because they
believe humanity's deeper dreams are absurd. They specifically reject the
possibility of ever fulfilling any of the transcendent hopes of the human
heart.
They oppose all obligations not freely and autonomously chosen, such as
those demanded by God or nature, or the good example of others, or one's own
given identity or gender, or derived from one's membership in a family, a
people, a culture or a religious tradition.
Secularists propose a humanity that is totally free from any given moral
convictions. According to this view all human choice should be determined
only according to personal preference.
Secularists have worked successfully to win acceptance for easy divorce,
premarital sex, cohabitation, out-of-wedlock birth, abortion and euthanasia.
Look at TV, look what is showing in the movies, and read the editorial pages
and even the so-called news stories.
This secularist world view stands in stark opposition to the Catholic world
view of what constitutes human freedom. Catholic Christianity strongly
asserts that true human freedom doesn't reside in doing anything we want,
any time we want to do it, but rather in the free human choice of moral
truths, community values, religious faith and social obligation. These
humane and communal loyalties are derived from a whole network of religious
commitments, political tradition, shared friendships and family ties.
Catholicism is convinced that there can be no absolute autonomous self apart
from our essential connection with a community, no personal freedom without
obligation to other people -- especially children and the elderly, the weak
and the defenseless. Absolute personal freedom without regard for the needs
of others, and a commitment to justice and service, always ends up as a kind
of bondage, a slavery to impulse to violence and degradation.
We have to decide. We must choose. We have to take a stand. Are we with the
Lord or are we going to fit right in to a pagan culture hostile to Jesus
Christ?
In today's First Reading we encounter mighty Joshua, the successor of the
great lawgiver Moses. Joshua had assembled all the tribes of Israel at the
Shrine of the Lord. He summoned their elders, their leaders, their judges
and their officers.
Joshua addressed all the people standing in ranks before the altar: If it
does not please you to serve the Lord your God, and instead you want to
serve the pagan gods of Canaan and embrace their immoral culture and live
like animals, then now is the time to decide one way or the other. As for me
and my household, we will serve the Lord.
In today's Gospel Jesus had just shared his great teaching about the
Eucharist, about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and many of the
people who had at first been enthusiastic now began to speak against him.
How can this man give us his flesh to eat? This is a hard saying. Who can
accept it?"
Even many of those who had been his disciples, according to the text of the
Gospel, returned to their former way of life. They abandoned Jesus Christ
whose every word was Spirit and Life, and would no longer be a part of his
company.
Jesus turned to his Apostles and directly challenged them. "Do you also want
to leave?" Now is the time to decide.
Peter, who sometimes got things wrong, on this occasion got it absolutely
right. He spoke up boldly in the name of the Twelve. "Master to whom shall
we go? You have the words of everlasting life. We have come to believe, we
are absolutely convinced that you are the Messiah the Holy One of God."
I would like to believe that this Erin Feis is more than just an annual
occasion to drink Guinness, listen to wonderful Irish music and eat Irish
soda bread. From the time of St. Patrick, the Irish people have been
Catholic. Even the Vikings could not destroy their rich and magnificent
culture of faith.
Oliver Cromwell and all his armies could not turn them into Presbyterians.
The harsh penal laws and cruel land laws of Great Britain, which for
centuries denied education, security and dignity to the Irish people, did
not succeed in weakening their unswerving loyalty to the faith and tradition
of the Roman Church.
Even a genocidal famine that reduced the total population of Ireland by at
least two thirds, aided and abetted by the policies of a royal government
that let the people starve while land owners exported grain for profit --
even in the face of that horrific injustice and brutality, the Irish people
would not and did not abandon their faith.
In this country the Irish dug the canals, built the railroads, fought
America's wars and resisted native hatred. With enormous effort and great
personal sacrifice, the Irish built their churches and schools, their
hospitals and seminaries, and passed on the faith of saints and scholars to
their children.
As an old Irish Catholic hymn celebrates: "For hundreds of years in sorrow
and tears, our faith has been with us, our shield and our staff." Will the
Irish of the 21st century in their daily practice abandon that True Faith
and that True Church their ancestors died for? Will American materialism and
gross pagan immorality, disguised as personal autonomy and moral neutrality,
finally succeed and win the hearts of the Irish, where Oliver Cromwell and
Great Britain failed?
At every Mass we stand before a reality infinitely more holy than the
ancient shrine at Shechem. The holy name of Jesus is actually a kind of
shortened version of the ancient Hebrew name Joshua. But the Lord Jesus
Christ is incomparably greater than Joshua of old. He is greater than the
patriarchs. He is greater than the judges and prophets. He is greater than
the sages and kings.
He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the Holy One of God as
confessed by the Apostle Peter. He is the Son of God and the High Priest of
his One True Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church.
And Jesus asks each and every one of us today: Are you with me or against
me? Are you in my company a confessing member of my Holy Church, or would
you prefer to sell me out to a world that is going straight to hell?
Are you ready and willing to defend the faith? Are you absolutely committed
with care and determination to pass that faith on undiminished to your
children and to your children's children?
Will you tolerate the holiest things of our religion on a daily basis being
mocked and ridiculed on TV in the press in the movies? What do you say, what
will you do, when commentators attack our saintly and heroic pope? What do
you say, what will you do, when even the Most Blessed and Glorious Mother of
God becomes a joke for comedians and sports writers?
Why is it, in this era of political correctness, that it is perfectly okay
to viciously attack Catholicism and nobody else? How can any politician
without any fear of consequence, de-certify our Catholic schools in Illinois
that do so much enormous good for the whole state and save taxpayers an
absolute fortune? And why do we as Catholics not stand up and fight, and
defend our faith? What will it take to finally get us mad?
So at this Erin Feis, Irish-American Catholics -- and Catholics of all
nationalities -- I urge you rise up and become more militant about what you
say you believe.
Like Joshua of old and our first pope the holy Apostle Peter, like St.
Patrick, St. Brigid, St. Columba and all the holy saints of Ireland, let us
all intentionally and deliberately stand with our God.
Speaking as the Bishop of Peoria, as for me and my household, we will serve
the Lord.
The readings to which he refers are Joshua 24:1-2a,15-17, 18b and the
Gospel John 6:60-69
Following is the full text of a homily delivered by Bishop Daniel R. Jenky,
CSC, during a Mass on the grounds of the Erin Feis Irish festival in
downtown Peoria on Sunday, Aug. 24:
Rise up, stand with our God
I am about to say something that may seem a bit radical but which I am
afraid is quite true; namely, that the pervasive culture of 21st century
America is basically at war with Jesus Christ and living in direct
opposition to the truth of his Gospel and is aggressively hostile to his
Church.
The convinced secularists are actually a minority of Americans, yet from the
command posts of American culture -- such as the national media, the
entertainment industry, and most sadly at many colleges and universities --
they have managed to promote a moral code totally incompatible with the
moral code of Christianity.
Secularists either consciously or unconsciously reject all ideas of purpose
in human existence. They deny the uniqueness of humanity, and therefore
subvert the notion of any inherent human dignity as the norm for how we
relate to one another.
Following the lead of the great masters of religious suspicion -- Sigmund
Freud, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche -- they promote the idea that this
world has no intrinsic purpose or any significant meaning.
What they propose is an enormous reduction of human desire, because they
believe humanity's deeper dreams are absurd. They specifically reject the
possibility of ever fulfilling any of the transcendent hopes of the human
heart.
They oppose all obligations not freely and autonomously chosen, such as
those demanded by God or nature, or the good example of others, or one's own
given identity or gender, or derived from one's membership in a family, a
people, a culture or a religious tradition.
Secularists propose a humanity that is totally free from any given moral
convictions. According to this view all human choice should be determined
only according to personal preference.
Secularists have worked successfully to win acceptance for easy divorce,
premarital sex, cohabitation, out-of-wedlock birth, abortion and euthanasia.
Look at TV, look what is showing in the movies, and read the editorial pages
and even the so-called news stories.
This secularist world view stands in stark opposition to the Catholic world
view of what constitutes human freedom. Catholic Christianity strongly
asserts that true human freedom doesn't reside in doing anything we want,
any time we want to do it, but rather in the free human choice of moral
truths, community values, religious faith and social obligation. These
humane and communal loyalties are derived from a whole network of religious
commitments, political tradition, shared friendships and family ties.
Catholicism is convinced that there can be no absolute autonomous self apart
from our essential connection with a community, no personal freedom without
obligation to other people -- especially children and the elderly, the weak
and the defenseless. Absolute personal freedom without regard for the needs
of others, and a commitment to justice and service, always ends up as a kind
of bondage, a slavery to impulse to violence and degradation.
We have to decide. We must choose. We have to take a stand. Are we with the
Lord or are we going to fit right in to a pagan culture hostile to Jesus
Christ?
In today's First Reading we encounter mighty Joshua, the successor of the
great lawgiver Moses. Joshua had assembled all the tribes of Israel at the
Shrine of the Lord. He summoned their elders, their leaders, their judges
and their officers.
Joshua addressed all the people standing in ranks before the altar: If it
does not please you to serve the Lord your God, and instead you want to
serve the pagan gods of Canaan and embrace their immoral culture and live
like animals, then now is the time to decide one way or the other. As for me
and my household, we will serve the Lord.
In today's Gospel Jesus had just shared his great teaching about the
Eucharist, about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and many of the
people who had at first been enthusiastic now began to speak against him.
How can this man give us his flesh to eat? This is a hard saying. Who can
accept it?"
Even many of those who had been his disciples, according to the text of the
Gospel, returned to their former way of life. They abandoned Jesus Christ
whose every word was Spirit and Life, and would no longer be a part of his
company.
Jesus turned to his Apostles and directly challenged them. "Do you also want
to leave?" Now is the time to decide.
Peter, who sometimes got things wrong, on this occasion got it absolutely
right. He spoke up boldly in the name of the Twelve. "Master to whom shall
we go? You have the words of everlasting life. We have come to believe, we
are absolutely convinced that you are the Messiah the Holy One of God."
I would like to believe that this Erin Feis is more than just an annual
occasion to drink Guinness, listen to wonderful Irish music and eat Irish
soda bread. From the time of St. Patrick, the Irish people have been
Catholic. Even the Vikings could not destroy their rich and magnificent
culture of faith.
Oliver Cromwell and all his armies could not turn them into Presbyterians.
The harsh penal laws and cruel land laws of Great Britain, which for
centuries denied education, security and dignity to the Irish people, did
not succeed in weakening their unswerving loyalty to the faith and tradition
of the Roman Church.
Even a genocidal famine that reduced the total population of Ireland by at
least two thirds, aided and abetted by the policies of a royal government
that let the people starve while land owners exported grain for profit --
even in the face of that horrific injustice and brutality, the Irish people
would not and did not abandon their faith.
In this country the Irish dug the canals, built the railroads, fought
America's wars and resisted native hatred. With enormous effort and great
personal sacrifice, the Irish built their churches and schools, their
hospitals and seminaries, and passed on the faith of saints and scholars to
their children.
As an old Irish Catholic hymn celebrates: "For hundreds of years in sorrow
and tears, our faith has been with us, our shield and our staff." Will the
Irish of the 21st century in their daily practice abandon that True Faith
and that True Church their ancestors died for? Will American materialism and
gross pagan immorality, disguised as personal autonomy and moral neutrality,
finally succeed and win the hearts of the Irish, where Oliver Cromwell and
Great Britain failed?
At every Mass we stand before a reality infinitely more holy than the
ancient shrine at Shechem. The holy name of Jesus is actually a kind of
shortened version of the ancient Hebrew name Joshua. But the Lord Jesus
Christ is incomparably greater than Joshua of old. He is greater than the
patriarchs. He is greater than the judges and prophets. He is greater than
the sages and kings.
He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the Holy One of God as
confessed by the Apostle Peter. He is the Son of God and the High Priest of
his One True Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church.
And Jesus asks each and every one of us today: Are you with me or against
me? Are you in my company a confessing member of my Holy Church, or would
you prefer to sell me out to a world that is going straight to hell?
Are you ready and willing to defend the faith? Are you absolutely committed
with care and determination to pass that faith on undiminished to your
children and to your children's children?
Will you tolerate the holiest things of our religion on a daily basis being
mocked and ridiculed on TV in the press in the movies? What do you say, what
will you do, when commentators attack our saintly and heroic pope? What do
you say, what will you do, when even the Most Blessed and Glorious Mother of
God becomes a joke for comedians and sports writers?
Why is it, in this era of political correctness, that it is perfectly okay
to viciously attack Catholicism and nobody else? How can any politician
without any fear of consequence, de-certify our Catholic schools in Illinois
that do so much enormous good for the whole state and save taxpayers an
absolute fortune? And why do we as Catholics not stand up and fight, and
defend our faith? What will it take to finally get us mad?
So at this Erin Feis, Irish-American Catholics -- and Catholics of all
nationalities -- I urge you rise up and become more militant about what you
say you believe.
Like Joshua of old and our first pope the holy Apostle Peter, like St.
Patrick, St. Brigid, St. Columba and all the holy saints of Ireland, let us
all intentionally and deliberately stand with our God.
Speaking as the Bishop of Peoria, as for me and my household, we will serve
the Lord.
The readings to which he refers are Joshua 24:1-2a,15-17, 18b and the
Gospel John 6:60-69
