Homily for the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Faith Opens The Door, Love Keeps You In The House

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Today, we explore an incredibly important issue that has continued to divide Christians, which is the relationship between faith and works. It all started with the 16th century Augustinian monk,  Martin Luther, who tried so hard to assure himself of salvation. As a good monk, he did everything that was expected of him. He attended daily Masses, frequently went to confession, engaged in works of charity and practiced pious and spiritual activities. He indulged in all those religious and spiritual activities just to assure himself of salvation. Sadly, as much as he did them, the less assured he was of his salvation. Often after confessing his sins in great detail and receiving absolution, he would return moments later to the confessional convinced he was overlooking something. His famous line was  “If ever a monk got to heaven by his monkishness, I was that monk.” One day, Luther had an experience that drastically changed his life and eventually changed the world. All this time, the young monk had lived scrupulously agonizing about his own salvation. But one day, a familiar text in the Bible hit him hard with new power. That text is Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 1 verse 17 which says, “The just man shall live by faith.” Martin Luther knew this text very well. He had been lecturing on Saint Paul. But on this particular occasion, something happened to him. It was like a revelation to him. He just realized that the key to salvation is not work, not monkishness, not scrupulosity, not rigidity but faith. What guarantees salvation is not the accomplishment of the pious, rather the simple confidence of the sinner in God who offers his grace in Jesus Christ. This new insight, this new revelation gave Luther the certitude and peace he had long for for a very long time. Once Luther grasped this, he began to find the principle everywhere in Scripture, especially in Saint Paul. Equipped with this insight, Luther called for Reformation within the Church. 

Though Luther’s insight is thrilling and fascinating, there are certain texts in the New Testament that contradict it, and Luther knew it.  Some of these texts are found in the Letter of Saint James that we’ve been reading. For James, salvation is not a matter of faith alone but includes good works also. In today’s second reading, James says, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (James 2:14) For James, faith without good works is incapable of making someone spiritually healthy in the presence of God. More to it, James says, “Faith itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). Now, how do we reconcile these seemingly contradictory positions in the Bible? The Bible speaks about the primacy of grace, which means God’s activity and initiative always come first. And our response to God’s activity and initiative always follows. God is always the first to show his hands, and after showing his hands, he gives us the grace to open our own hands to grab his. The grabbing of God’s hands is faith. In the words of one of the greatest theologians in the Catholic Church, Saint Thomas Aquinas, “Faith is the door to spiritual life; it is the sine qua of a relationship with God.” The Bible says that “Without faith it is impossible to please God, for anyone who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). The moment you find yourself in the position of compelling God to act simply because you think you deserve it and earn it, you are ipso facto in the wrong attitude towards God. When you begin your spiritual life from the standpoint of “because of my accomplishment, my efforts, I deserve to compel God to love me and reward me,” you are ipso facto in a wrong relationship with God. We cannot change God. We cannot manipulate God. The Psalmist understands this so well, and that’s why he says, “Our God is in heaven and he does whatever he wills” (Psalm 115:3). You are in a very bad spiritual place if you think, no matter who you are, you can manipulate the Almighty God. So, begin your spiritual life with this stubborn fact: God is God and I am not. After that, journey with God with that very reality. 

Now, what is the Catholic Church’s official reaction to Reformation? First, the Church agrees with Luther that no one can earn and merit justification. Salvation or justification is a gift. Everything begins with divine grace and then a grateful consent to divine outreach, which we call faith. Grace comes first. But the Catholic Church rejects Luther’s theology of “Sola Fidei,” that is “By faith alone.” We believe that salvation is a gift of God’s love. Because love is what God is. We also believe that faith is the opening of the door as Aquinas said. Without faith, you cannot go in. But after going in, love is required to live in the house. The Psalmist captures this so well when it says, “But I, through the abundance of your mercy, will enter into your house” (Psalm 5:8). This means I can enter into God’s house because of God’s inexhaustible love and grace. This is the primacy of grace, God’s initiatives. But after that, God intensely desires that we live in his house through the path of love. Why is love so required? Because it is the rule of living in God’s house and God’s presence. So, the Catholic response to “Sola Fidei” is “Fides caritate perfecta” “faith perfected by love.” Another way of putting it is “Fides caritate formata” which means “faith formed by love.” We agree with Luther that grace comes first. We are saved by grace, but then, the rule of living the saved life and in God’s house is love. While we were still sinners Christ died for us— that’s the primacy of grace. Accepting that Christ died for us is faith. For this faith to be perfected, we must live in love. That’s what James meant when he said, “Faith without works is utterly dead.” Faith in God that does not express itself in love is simply worthless. If you have faith, you have opened the door, but if you don’t have love, you have not started to live in that house— God’s house. It is the same Saint Paul that says we are justified by grace through faith that also says “You have to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” It is the same Saint Paul who said, “If I have faith enough to move a mountain but have not love, I am nothing.” No one celebrated faith more than Saint Paul, and that’s what Luther later found out in his spiritual awakening, but Paul also says that if I have faith to move a mountain but have not love, I am nothing. Let’s not forget the words of the Psalmist that “The salvation of the just comes from the Lord” (Psalm 37:39).

Homily for the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Whose Job Is It To Take Care Of The Poor?

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, September 8, 2024

A few years ago, a Catholic priest in Nigeria did something totally startling and downrightly dramatic. He wanted to see how his parishioners would respond to an impoverished man begging for charity. One Sunday morning, this priest dressed up in torn and worn-out clothing he collected during the week, put some dirt on his head and face as a way of disguising himself and then sat in front of his church begging. Aside from a sign in his hands that reads, “Help the poor” he also adopted a sorrowful tone of voice as he pleads, “Please, help me. I am hungry and homeless.” The priest made sure he sat outside of the main entrance to the church before people started to come to Mass. As he sat there begging, a few people who entered the church gave him money, while the rest, the vast majority of the people, wondered why a beggar was allowed to sit there and beg. Eventually, the priest who disguised as a destitute was harshly ordered to leave. When he hesitated and continued to beg for help, some men came, picked him up and threw him out of the church compound. And they made sure he didn’t come back. To make the long story short, the priest eventually made his way back to the rectory and dressed up for Mass. By the way, this whole drama was captured on video by a young man who was hired by the priest. During his homily, the priest stood before his parishioners and said something like “Brothers and sisters, I am that poor beggar at the door that was thrown out of the church premises.” And that was his entire homily. The silence that followed was deafening. 

In today’s second reading (James 2:1-5), St. James sharply criticizes Christians who discriminate against the poor just as the disguised priest in the story was treated by his parishioners. In Catholic social teaching, there is something called “preferential option for the poor.” It is a principle which is littered throughout the Bible that encourages all people and particularly Christians to prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable in society. It says that priority should be given to the well-being of the poor and the powerless in our society. Now, before you frown, “option for the poor” is not a slogan that pits one group against another. Instead it is a way to recognize and always remember that the deprivation of the poor affects not only the poor but the whole community and the whole society. What does this entail? Here in our country, hundreds of billions of dollars are yearly budgeted for military purposes. While this is necessary, the Catholic Church urges our leaders to also prioritize production that meets social needs. The Church also encourages everyone to help the poor, to think about the poor and to follow Jesus’ example and teaching. Jesus taught that feeding the hungry, welcoming strangers, and caring for the sick are ways to look after him. The Church has always seen almsgiving, which means all kinds of charity to the poor, as an essential part of the Gospel, not an extra or a specialization for a few. 

How are the poor discriminated against? One of the ways we discriminate against the poor is not always very obvious. It is rather subtle and subdued. We do this not so much by commission as St. James says in our second reading for today, but by omission. We do this by ignoring the poor, deliberately avoiding the poor, not paying attention to their existence and their needs and by convincing ourselves that there is nothing we can do to help them. We give reasons why they are poor, which is always their fault. Another way we discriminate against the poor is giving undue and disproportionate attention to the well-off. In some Christian churches, some individuals are assigned to particularly attend to the rich who come to church. The pastor caters to them, pays particular attention to them and regularly recognizes them individually in the assembly. Meanwhile the not so rich members who ensure that the church is tidy are hardly recognized. Finally, another way we discriminate against the poor is by ignoring the spiritually poor and their spiritual needs. We forget that some of the poorest people in our society are actually people with good and comfortable houses, good jobs, and fat bank accounts. But by our very calculations, they are truly rich, materially rich. But by God’s calculations, they are the poorest among us. 

Now, what is the Catholic Church’s position on this matter? Everybody, from the leadership of the Church to the man and woman in the pews, should care for the needs of everybody. If the spiritually alert among us are materially poor, the Church must preach and promote causes that lift them up. And if the materially wealthy among us are spiritually poor, the Church must speak the truth to them. From the lips of Jesus we hear, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). The materially poor and spiritually poor need our charity, and the foremost and greatest act of charity we can give, the great St. Thomas Aquinas writes, is to lead our neighbor to the truth. In reality, everyone is poor, either materially poor or spiritually poor. As such, everyone needs to be led to Christ Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Speak the truth in love and practice charity with clarity!

And may God give you peace!