March 12, 2023 † Third Sunday of Lent

father Tim's weekly homily

​“Jesus said, ‘. . . You people worship what you do not understand; the Jews worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews’”. 
​Jn 4:21

People worship what they do not understand. We can certainly see how these words of Christ apply for many people of our society today. In His own day Our Lord makes it clear that the Jews did worship what they understood. Notice that Our Lord, in visiting the Samaritans [Jn 4:5-42], far from being politically correct, boldly proclaims the superiority of the Jewish Faith and worship over and above that of the Samaritan. How intolerant! When in Samaria Our Lord did not simply do what the Samaritans do. Rather, He stood apart and made it clear that His own Jewish religion was the one truth about God. He did this at the same time as showing respect for the woman of Samaria, and indeed, going against the conventions of His day, in speaking to her and in using her water bucket. So, what we learn from Our Lord is a respectful disagreement and a holding onto the truth of the worship of God, as He says, “…we (Jews) understand what we worship.” The early Church learned from Christ’s example. They knew that if they were to hold onto and hand down (tradere-tradition) the Faith, they too had to stand apart from the culture around them. They learned from Our Lord a crucial distinction between those who understand, and those who do not understand what they worship. This is the lesson this Sunday: to see the difference between those who understand, and those who do not understand what they worship.
 
In the early Church of the Martyrs there were basically two groups of people: those who understood, who were called “Christians”; and those who did not understand, who were called “pagans”. The very term ‘pagan’ comes to us from the Latin pâgus, meaning literally “country-dweller”. This is because the “country-dwellers” or pagans did not know the worship of the true God because Christianity was spread as a civilized (civitas), urban religion. Those in the country (rusticus) had not yet been evangelized and given the Good News of Salvation. Hence, the term ‘pagan’ was the derogatory equivalent of today’s “hillbilly”. Those who either were not told, or did not accept the truth about God and therefore worshipped what they did not understand, were hillbillies! And even though the pagan hillbillies terribly outnumbered the Christians, the Christians conquered and converted the pagans into becoming Christians. The Christian martyrs did this by holding on to the true faith with the understanding that they knew The Truth about the worship of God. Faith-sharing for the early Christian did not mean sharing their personal subjective faith, but teaching The Faith of The Apostles!
 
In our own day what we see happening is that the pagans or ‘hillbillies’ are coming back with a vengeance! We don’t recognize them outwardly because they have all the modern amenities of technology. Today we may speak of the neo-pagan or “technological barbarians” [Philistine: a person who is guided by materialism and is usually disdainful of intellectual or artistic values.]. They are so immersed in secular technology, business, society life, sports, and recreation, that they simply have no time for God invitation [ Mt 22:1–6]. They not only do not know the truth about God, neither do they care to know the truth about God! These “technological barbarians” are all around us, and in fact the only way of recognizing them, of seeing the difference, is with the “eyes of faith”.  Only by learning, loving, and living our Catholic Faith can we see the difference of what a Christian is in the world. This is important to see because, far from Christians converting the pagans, what we see today is Christians reverting, devolving, [back] into paganism! This is because in a pluralistic society the stronger and more dominant idea and culture will persist especially when there is no resistance.
Many, if not most Christians today, have become so weak and watered down, almost to the point of not being recognizably Christian, that they are easily assimilated into the collective herd of the hillbillies. After all it’s fun and easy to be a hillbilly, no previous experience or cultural knowledge necessary. But we should not be deceived. Of these neo-pagans St. Paul would say: “Their god is their belly; their glory is in their ‘shame’. Their minds are occupied with earthly things. Their end is destruction.” [Philip 3:18]. The point of noting a distinction between ‘we’ and ‘they’ is, as St. Paul says: “Their end is destruction!”, while our end is eternal life with God. Do we really believe these words of St. Paul? Think about the story of the rich man and Lazarus in the Gospel [Lk 16:19]. The rich man goes to an eternal hell, not because he beat Lazarus, not because he killed Lazarus, neither did he even ridicule Lazarus, but simply because he ignored Lazarus! What do you think will happen then to those people who simply ignore God? It is said that the greatest deception the devil ever pulled was to make people think that he didn’t exist; the second greatest deception the devil ever pulled was getting people to believe that they must be completely as evil as Hitler to go to hell. All the while, all the devil has to do is make us tepid, lukewarm, for then The Holy Spirit rejects us. “Would that you were cold or hot!  So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth [Rev 3:15].”
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So, the question – with eternal consequences – for each of us is: ‘Am I becoming a pagan hillbilly?’ Have I already become one? Do I act like one, choose like one, vote like one? When I am around those who don’t know God, morality, or true worship, do I start to be like them? Am I being assimilated by the secular culture around me? Simply: Do I prefer secular technology, society life, sports, recreation and convenience to the extent that I no longer have quality time to learn, to love, and to live, my life with God? i.e., keeping holy The Lord’s Day.

The only alternative is to actively choose to follow the example of our Master, Jesus, Who respectfully disagreed with the “evil generation” [Mt 12:39] – as He Himself called it – in which He lived. There is a good choice to be made. The early Christian martyrs chose to “conquer” their pagan culture by knowing their faith, living their faith, and if necessary, dying for their faith. If ever we hope to take back our country, our culture, our people, and our family, we must start by living the truth about God as the martyrs did, by dying to self, and selfishness, and to pride, lust, anger, covetousness, envy, sloth, and greed. Martyr means ‘witness’; we must actively choose to give witness to our faith in public.
 
How do we start? Begin with the basics. Begin with your Sunday obligation to worship God in Spirit and in Truth, as Jesus says we must. In other words, we can start witnessing by our personal participation and relationship with Christ in the Holy Eucharist.  Also, speak up at Mass, say the responses out loud! Too many people come and whisper the responses, or don’t say anything throughout the entire Mass. How can you expect to act and speak up in public to give testimony to Christ, when you cannot speak out in your own Church? Think about your actions and responses at Mass. Why do you kneel? Are you kneeling to a piece of bread or a cup of wine? When I have a funeral or wedding with a mass, it is the pagans who do not kneel. They just sit there; AND they just sit there precisely because they DON’T KNOW what’s going on. More and more people don’t even know the Our Father! That’s why they’re pagan! But we are not pagan; we are Christians, and Christians of the very highest order – Catholics! We know the Truth, and the fullness thereof. The Holy Eucharist IS the worship of God in spirit and in truth precisely because Our Lord Himself has instituted it, and moreover, commanded (not suggested, commanded) us to fulfill the precept…
“DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME!”
 
This is where we can truly say that we know what we worship. The far-eastern religions do not have God Incarnate and His Divine Revelation among them. And of the Christian communities in the western world, only those who have the true Eucharist – the Catholics and the Orthodox Church Christians – really worship God in spirit and in truth, meaning the Holy Sacrifice of The Mass.
 
In conclusion, we can see that, as the gospel today shows us, by standing apart – that is, by contradicting – Our Lord converted the woman of Samaria, and perhaps the whole village. In fact, that is how Jesus and his Apostles converted virtually the whole world. Archbishop Fulton Sheen said that that the cross of Christ is a sign of contradiction. It contradicts the secular world’s highest hopes and ideals, which are to have the perfection of heaven here on earth. But there is no heaven on earth, there is only heaven in heaven because that is where God is.  Home is where the heart is; heaven is where God Is. Let us, therefore, follow Our Lord’s example as when He visited Samaria, and let us stand apart from the culture at large and worship God in Spirit and in Truth. We have no other viable alternative, for, “…indeed The Father seeks such people to worship Him. For “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth."
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