 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Categories |
| Monthly Archives
|
Writings of the Bishop
6th Sunday B Ordinary Time St. Agnes Church, Naples
February 2012
Posted in Selected Homilies/Addresses
I. Introduction – Jesus the Healer
A. The voice of Scripture, that is, the voice of Christ,
speaks to us this morning of sickness and healing.
In the Book of Leviticus, the Lord tells Moses and Aaron
how the community is to proceed when one of its members is afflicted with leprosy.
Such a person is to be declared “unclean” by the priests
and isolated from everyone else.
People so afflicted were also expected to identify themselves as “unclean”, –
giving everyone due warning not to have any contact with them.
It was, one might say, an early form of medical isolation to prevent contagion.
B. This helps us understand how stunning it was
that a leper would approach Jesus and say, “if you wish, you can make me clean.”
It was even more stunning that Jesus would touch the leper,
a touch that cleansed him,
setting this man free from that dread disease and ending his isolation.
Jesus asked him to tell no one but rather to go to the priests to be declared “clean.”
But the healed man was so overjoyed that he couldn’t restrain himself
from telling everyone what Jesus had done for him.
II. Miracles Do Happen
A. If you have ever been to Lourdes or Fatima or St. Anne de Beaupre,
then you know that miracles continue to happen today:
miracles of grace and miracles of nature.
In these holy shrines and in many other circumstances,
people experience a wondrous healing of body, mind, and soul
the explanation for which eludes contemporary medical know-how.
Maybe it’s happened to you or to someone in your family or to a friend.
The healing touch of the Lord Jesus is still being extended today
so that all of us might be made clean and whole.
B. The Lord’s healing presence is extended to us in a special way
through the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, which is administered
when we are seriously ill or beset with a chronic illness or advancing in years.
How many times I have had the grace of visiting the sick
and sharing with them this beautiful sacrament of healing and reconciliation
by which our sufferings are joined to redemptive sufferings of the Lord Himself.
Often, it is not only the person who is sick and suffering who is touched by Christ
but also family members, some of whom may no longer practice their faith.
The Lord still has his way of cleansing and healing us
and ending our isolation from his Body, the Church.
C. There is yet another way in which the Lord’s healing presence continues among us,
and that is through a network of Catholic hospitals and clinics
in the United States and throughout the world.
About one-sixth of all hospitals in the United States are Catholic hospitals.
Indeed, Catholic health care can be found in some of the poorest places on earth.
Catholic hospitals and clinics are among the finest medical institutions anywhere
but they are not merely a business or an industry.
Rather they are beautiful expressions of our faith and communion with the Lord Jesus,
the Divine Physician, who binds up our wounds and heals all of our ills.
D. The same is true of Catholic Charities in dioceses across the world;
it’s true of Catholic Relief Services which reaches out to those suffering
in the wake of disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti or the tsunami in Indonesia.
The same can be said of Migration and Refugee Services
which helps victims of human trafficking whose needs are so desperate.
These Catholic organizations do the corporal works of mercy on a grand scale
and in so doing they show us the face of Christ and make his love palpable.
While we’re at it, let’s also remember
that our Catholic schools – at every level – extend the ministry of Christ the teacher.
Hospitals, clinics, Catholic social service agencies, schools, universities -
all these flow from our discipleship and are intimately tied
to what we believe, how we worship, and how we are to live.
They exercise a powerful humanizing influence on society
not only because they are excellent but, above all,
because they extend the look of love and the healing touch of Jesus in our world.
Brothers and sisters, for all our challenges, we should be proud to be Catholic!
III. The Current Controversy
A. If anything good might come out of the current controversy and confusion
over the Health and Human Services mandate and its revision, last Friday, it’s this:
It is a moment for the whole culture to understand
that the Church’s mission consists not only in the spiritual works of mercy
but also in the corporal works of mercy –
writ small in thousands of acts of personal kindness,
and writ large in the Church’s massive ministries of healing, charity and education.
B. Because these ministries flow in a rather direct way from our faith in Jesus
and indeed from his real presence among us in the Most Holy Eucharist,
we cannot allow any earthly power to define or limit the Church’s mission
nor can we allow any earthly power to involve the Church in violating its teachings,
even when those teachings are counter-cultural and unpopular.
How blessed we are to live in nation
that has life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as its founding principles
and freedom of religion, speech, and assembly protected by the Bill of Rights.
To be sure, religious liberty is under assault in places like Egypt and Iraq
where many Christians – Coptic and Chaldeans – have been killed or driven out.
But religious liberty is also challenged here at home and has been under challenge
for quite some time in bad laws, bad judicial decisions, and bad administrative rules.
The HHS mandate requiring churches to include in their health insurance plans
abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception
was a particularly egregious affront to religious liberty.
The Administration modified the mandate on Friday morning
without prior consultation of the bishops and we still don’t yet have much in writing.
As far as we understand them, however, the modifications don’t solve the problem.
The mandate itself remains and constitutes an intrusion of government
in the internal life not only of the Catholic Church but also of many religious groups.
It needs to be rescinded and we, as citizens and believers,
must defend religious liberty as the first of our freedoms.
The new rules don’t address the concerns of self-insured religious organizations –
and many if not most dioceses and other Catholic organizations are self-insured.
If, under the renew rules, it is the insurer
that is to provide the objectionable services, and the Church itself is the insurer – well, you can see, our problem isn’t solved.
And is it really the case that nobody pays for these services?
We’ve all been around the block! Someone always pays!
Let’s also not forget private employers and individuals with conscientious objections;
the Administration’s new rules do nothing to protect their religious and civil liberties.
C. Both our faith and our freedom are too precious to be protected by regulations –
which, as we have seen, can be changed by the stroke of a pen.
For that reason, we need to continue pushing the Congress to pass
and the President to sign into law the Respect of Conscience Act.
It provides a much more secure basis for our freedom
to follow Christ by engaging in his works of healing and teaching
not merely as a secular occupation but as an extension of his redeeming love –
his love present and active in our midst, doing immeasurably more
than we could ever ask or imagine.
May God bless us and keep us always in his love!
« More of the Bishop's Writings | ^ Back to Top of Page ^