“How shall they believe Him, of Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher?”  (Romans 10.14)

If they are not in the homes, in the playgrounds, in the work places of Catholics — at any opportunity at all that presents itself — then they have ceased to be. They are no longer among us. “But we hear the Priest every Sunday give a homily!”, you retort. Indeed, I reply. You hear much about “what I think Jesus means” ... and not what the Church teaches us that Jesus means. I am not interested in hearing what a given priest “believes Jesus is saying” — but I am deeply interested in hearing what Jesus actually says Himself, what the Holy Catholic Church teaches us that He means ...  which is to say, what Christ means!

This is often quite different from what “Father Bill” believes Christ is really saying — apart from Christ's own words that appear oddly clear to us without an involuted explanation involving things too often only remotely or imaginatively tangent to the actual Gospel Reading. It’s show time. Time for the priest to display his talent for finding humor in the most solemn utterances of Christ — and bring laughter, rather than the occasion of grace, to the congregation. “Oh”, we ooze, “that Father Bill is such a rascal! Look at the gleam in his eye!.”
 

The Third Rail called Sin

This, of course, presumes that he attempts at all to invoke the meaning (real or imagined) of the Gospel passage just read. So often, too often, most often, it is overlooked entirely in favor of a rise from the audience ... I mean, congregation. “Let’s see how clever I can be, how entertaining, how funny, and they will love me! I will then prove myself to be a good priest, for I brought them something far greater than the Sacraments, even greater than Jesus Christ Himself in the Holy Eucharist — I brought them laughter ... and even “spiced it up a bit” to show them that I’m no different from them. Sure, I’ll throw in the obligatory, “love each other”, “you are the light of the world”, and very clearly “God’s chosen ones” — but I’ll stay clear of the third rail called sin. What if I trouble someone’s conscience?! The basket would be empty in a month! — and who will be left for me to tickle pink? Where would I get my “positive feed-back fix for the week?” This is serious stuff.
 

The alter Christus — altered and tailored to fit

We used to know “Father Coughlin” and “Bishop Sheen”. Remember? Probably not. Why? Because the priest no longer sees himself, nor (consequently) do we see him, as an “alter Christus”, literally, “another Christ” in the world, which his ordination to the Priesthood made him. We have opted, instead for the leveling of Christ in the person of His priest to  the lowest democratic and common denominator: a mere man. They are just, “one the guys” (sorry, girls) and so we now have “Father Dick” and, here in Boston, even “Cardinal Sean”. We are all on an intimate first-name basis with our priests, bishops, and cardinals. Try that with your own Senator or even your local Representative or Mayor. Why is this? “It's just so ... cool!” Our cardinals, bishops, priests — in order to “really reach us, to understand us on a human level” — have de-Christifed themselves, thrown off that out-dated vestige and aura of an alter Christus — “another Christ” — so that they can be “just another guy”. And somehow that desacralizatiion will make us more likely to be holy when we are in contact with them ... Right. 
 

“Them goddam Yankees”

In repudiating being “Christ-like” they no longer call us in our own vocations to be Christ-like either. We are called to be just “one of the guys” (“C'mon, Fadda ... it’s Miller Time! Let’s crack open a frosty and root for the Red Sox. Them goddam Yankees ain’t no good no how — jus’ like you said in your last homily ... and the one before that.” Sanctity is the World Series and the Parousia is the Sox in the finals — and Heaven?  ... the Boston Patriots in the Superbowl. “Fadda Bill” is definitely one of the guys. And none of the “guys” is anything like Christ. It’s circular ad infinitum. Saint Peter who was crucified upside down in Rome or Saint Paul beheaded in the same place? Home-schooling kids stuff.  Okay, that was a cheap shot. The kids are head and shoulders over “the guys” — you know, Fadda Bill, Cardinal Sean, ... and the “other Christs” who left His company to become “just one of the other guys” so that, in a way beyond comprehension, the other guys can get to Heaven, too. Maybe even before the 6th inning. “Pass me another frosty, would you Fadda?”

So, What has this to do with Preaching and being Catholic?

Well, this really brings us back to Saint Paul: “How shall they believe Him, of Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher?”  (Romans 10.14)

Indeed. Where are our priorities as Catholics?

With Christ

That is where they should be. At least in the eyes of Christ, the Gospel, and the Church. We have hundreds of organizations preaching social justice, immigration reform, global warming — but no one is preaching the Gospel! Even those to whom it has been entrusted have tossed it off as an archaic embarrassment. So who ... WHO will preach the Gospel? Most often not your priest. And your bishop is busy with environmental matters and photo ops ³.

Out-Sourcing Lent

As of this writing it is the holy season of Lent 2011. What rich soil in which to harvest souls! So much that is deep and holy; so many parables of our Blessed Lord to which even the most homiletically-challenged priests can advert in calling us to the serious business of holiness, of self-denial instead of “self-affirmation”, of conversion from sin. It is the venue preeminent for preachers! As Christ told us with the greatest urgency, “The fields are white to harvest!” ⁴ How, then, do our parishes, our priests, our “parish councils” respond to this plea from Christ Himself? Let us take one fairly common example, in this case St. Patrick “Faith Community” in Stoneham, Massachusetts. The theme? The “Lenten Mission” which is ... :

“Chicken Soup for the Soul”
 

St. Patrick parish in Stoneham, MA has hired a “motivational speaker” (to the tune of a $5000 - $12,000 speaker fee, according to the motivational speakers’ Premier Speakers Bureau  — and which comes from your collection basket). Apparently the pastor does not feel himself equal to so grave a challenge as to call souls to Christ himself, so he ... well, “outsourced it.” And with delight, according to the bulletin:

“First lay person and the first woman” — how ... avant garde, how “progressive”, of St. Patrick’s! Surely they are on the very cusp of things to come! Such a distinction for a mere drop in the bucket! Only $5,000-$12,000. Money well and wisely spent, to be sure. Prevailing wisdom in contemporary Catholicism appears every bit as edified as it's counterpart in classical antiquity where, 2,400 years ago, Socrates famously took issue with the Sophists of his day who “sold” wisdom for a fee, for a living, but this is Stoneham, not Athens, and what is being sold is not wisdom but contemporary Catholic teaching through outsourcing the Lenten Mission to “professional speakers”, for a staggering fee. So what will the parishioners of St. Patrick’s get for their money (it is their money, after all, spent by others who apparently can produce nothing compelling on their own)?

In that order. Welcome to Lent at St. Patrick’s in Stoneham, a small and sad iteration of the spiritual bankruptcy and malaise that afflicts the Church in America at large.

Now, back to the business of the real meaning of Lent, and the call to conversion and sanctification — in a word to the business of the salvation of souls, apart from the putative values of Chicken Soup. Who will call others — lapsed Catholics, non-Catholics, unbelievers, to Christ? — excluding, of course, “professional speakers" who will do so ... for a fee (“Freely you have received”, our Blessed Lord said, “Freely give”. Remember? Matthew 10.8)

Who is left?

You!  “Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine”, Saint Paul tells us ¹.  “But I'll b

shunned! My friends will flee me! My boss will fire me! I may even end up in jail if I do it in public or on government property!”

But that — THAT IS THE COST OF BEING CATHOLIC! It is the cost of faithfulness to Jesus Christ, His Church, and the Gospel:

“Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” ²

How, then, shall we summarize this sad state of affairs? If you do not preach the Gospel, in season and out of season, and at great cost — no one will.

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¹  2 St. Timothy 42
²  St. Matthew 28.19-20
³ https://www.cardinalseansblog.org/
  “Mirror, mirror on the wall ...”  Number of photographs of  “Cardinal Sean” himself on his own June 2010 “blog”: 37 to date (12 June 2010) ... and 18 more days of photo-ops to go!  May? A modest 47. There was, of course, a time when Christ used to be “the point” and the “center of attention”. But that alluring mirror  that “Cardinal Sean” seems ever to hold before himself — and us — appears to suggest to him that he is much more “photogenic” than Jesus, especially on the Cross. But that is what “blogs” are about, right? Promoting oneself ... not another. And certainly not “Jesus Christ crucified” whom Saint Paul incessantly preached (1 Corinthians 1.23).
⁴ St. John 4.35
 

Editor
Boston Catholic Journal

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