HOMILY 13TH SUN



HOMILY 13TH SUN. YR B

“God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him.” (Wis. 2:23). These words are from our first reading, from the O.T. Book of Wisdom.

Yes, God made man his “in the image of his own nature.” This is a paraphrase from the first chapter of Genesis where we read the account of the creation of the human race. Here God speaks: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . God created man in his image, in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26-27).

Then in Chapter 2 of Genesis we read the account of the creation of Adam and Eve. God brought all the animals before Adam, but we are told that “none proved to be a suitable partner for the man” (Gen. 2:20). So God cast a deep sleep on Adam and from one of his ribs He built up a woman, and then brought her to the man.

This “taking of the rib” reveals that the woman is of the same nature as the man; Adam realizes this; when he sees Eve he says: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23). But – even though they are of the same flesh and bone, they are not identical; they are complementary, male and female.

Some say that after God created Adam, He said “Oops, I better try that again;” then created Eve, and got it right!

Here’s another thing to ponder on the male and female differences: Philosophers ask, If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Similarly, if a man says something and there is no woman around to hear it, is he still wrong? (You may give me your opinions after Mass.)

After Adam’s response at seeing Eve, we then read these beautiful words: “This is why a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). In these words we see that God – at the very beginning of the human race – instituted marriage.

Pope St. John Paul II, in his beautiful teaching called the “Theology of the Body,” says that the book of Genesis reveals to us a Judeo-Christian anthropology; i.e., it reveals to us the truth about who we are as human persons made in God’s image and likeness – in the image and likeness of the divine Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; it reveals that we are created to act like God, and to love like God.

God’s love is always totally self-giving, and totally life-giving. We see this in the three Persons of the Trinity themselves: God the Father eternally begets God the Son, and the total gift of self, in love, between Father and the Son is so perfect that their mutual love is another person, the Holy Spirit, who in theology is called the Fruit of love between the Father and the Son.

Because we are made in God’s image, human sexual love, by it very nature – i.e., by the way God made us – is ordered toward the creation of new human life, of another person made in God’s image. This is precisely why we read in Genesis, immediately after the phrase, “male and female he created them,” that God bestowed the original blessing on the human race: “God blessed them and said, ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it’” (Gen. 1:28).

In other words, authentic human love, marital love, between a man and woman, is to reflect divine love; therefore by its nature, by the very design of God, it is ordered toward the creation of new human life; and therefore God wills that marital love always the remain open to His potentially life-creating love; that every marital act remain open to the generation of new human life; and this is why any intentional act which would prevent new human life from being generated – like contraception or sterilization – is gravely sinful.

By God’s will and design, married couples must give themselves to each other totally – fertility and all – without holding anything back.

“Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth” with new human life, says the Lord. Why? Because life is good, life is beautiful; and God desires that heaven be popu-lated, that human beings share in His Trinitarian bond of love and life for eternity!

This is the very reason God made us! As we learned as children in our catechism, God made us to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this life, in order to happy with Him forever in heaven!

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision which mandates that all the states must recognize marriage between two people of the same sex, reveals that a majority of this nation’s highest court fails to see that both human sexuality and marriage are, by God’s will and design, founded on the complementarity of men and women: both physical complementarity (without which human sexuality is sterile and lifeless), and emotional complementarity (men and women are equal in dignity and value before God, but they are not the same emotionally and psychologically – vive la difference!, as the French say).

Many people in general have been blinded by the propaganda in our present age and, like the Supreme Court majority, fail to see the truth about the meaning and purpose of marriage. Just a few weeks back a majority of the people of once-Catholic Ireland voted in a referendum to allow marriage between people of the same sex.

When people are imbued with a contraceptive mentality and see no purpose to sexual activity other than pleasure, they are unable to see the disordered nature of homosexual activity.

Why is it that the acceptance of one form of immorality leads to the acceptance of another? Because all these truths are inter-connected in God’s plan for love, life, marriage and the family. The acceptance of so-called same-sex “marriage” – which is really the acceptance of homosexual sodomy – is in fact the contraceptive mentality come home to roost: If the purpose of sex is for pleasure only, and it has no intrinsic link to the generation of new human life, then there are no moral boundaries, and anything goes!

The common opinion we hear from so many people today is that, “As long as people love each other, they should be able to marry whomever they wish.” Well, this principle opens the door to polygamy as well: If somebody loves three, or five, or 10 people, that person should be allowed to marry them?

This recent Supreme Court decision is going to have dire consequences for people of faith. We are going to lose more and more of our religious liberty, and we will be persecuted. During oral arguments in this case, Justice Samuel Alito – who opposes same-sex marriage – asked the government attorney, Donald Verrilli, if a religious school should lose its tax-exempt status for refusing to accommodate same-sex marriage. Verrilli responded: “I don’t deny that . . . it is going to be an issue.”

Accreditation by a federal agency is required for colleges. The accrediting agency could very easily deny accreditation to Catholic colleges for perceived “discrimination” for refusing to hire teachers in same-sex relationships.

And what about those who work in government? What will happen to a judge who refuses to perform a “wedding” ceremony for a same-sex couple; or a county clerk who refuses to issue a “marriage license” to such a couple? As Catholics we must refuse to cooperate with this evil.

The early Christians were thrown to the lions for refusing to put a pinch of incense into a fire to honor a pagan god; they could have done so without believing in the pagan god, but refused to cause public scandal out of fidelity to Christ.

Publicly cooperating with the evil of same-sex marriage is far worse scandal. Will Catholics who work in public office have enough courage to risk even losing their jobs, rather than be unfaithful to Christ and His teaching?

Friday, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, released a statement on behalf of our bishops, which says:

“Regardless of what a narrow majority of the Supreme Court may declare at this moment in history, the nature of the human person and marriage remains unchanged and unchangeable. Just as Roe v. Wade did not settle the question of abortion over forty years ago, Obergefell v. Hodges does not settle the question of marriage today.

“Neither decision is rooted in the truth, and as a result, both will eventually fail.

“Today the Court is wrong again. It is profoundly immoral and unjust for the government to declare that two people of the same sex can constitute a marriage.

“The unique meaning of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is inscribed in our bodies as male and female. The protection of this meaning is a crit-ical dimension of the “integral ecology” that Pope Francis has called us to promote.

“Mandating marriage redefinition across the country is a tragic error that harms the common good and most vulnerable among us, especially children. The law has a duty to support every child’s basic right to be raised, where possible, by his or her married mother and father in a stable home. 

“Jesus Christ, with great love, taught unambiguously that from the beginning marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman. As Catholic bishops, we follow our Lord and will continue to teach and to act according to this truth.”

I am afraid that we have sunk lower than the pagans. The ancient Greeks and Romans tolerated homosexual practices, but never took “pride” in such depravity – they recognized it as disordered behavior and not in keeping with the Natural Law; moreover, the ancient pagans never recognized “marriage” between two people of the same sex. They knew what people and cultures from time immemorial have known: that marriage is between a man and a woman.

We as a people, like the Irish, claim to be Christians, having been baptized, sanctified and justified in the Blood of Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 6:11; Rev. 7:14); moreover, we have had the fullness of the truth revealed to us by Jesus, Our Lord. How far we have departed from God’s law, and from Natural Law that God has written in our hearts, the rule of right reason! There is a famous saying in Latin, “Corrputio optimi, pessima” (“The corruption of the best, is the worst”). This describes us, as a nation.

We must pray for our country – pray, as Archbishop Kurtz goes on to say, that

“the unchanging truth about marriage, rooted in the immutable nature of the human person and confirmed by divine revelation, . . . will once again prevail in our society.” And he says we must “love all our neighbors, even those who hate us or would punish us for our faith and moral convictions.” Hate the sin, love the sinner!

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