Migrant and Refugee Sunday (Mass of All Nations)
- It is easy to live our faith in the wrong way. To attend Mass and the sacraments without the deeper commitment to faith in Jesus Christ and a Catholic set of values and world-view.
- We might be regular at Church but insensitive to the injustice of the economy and blind to poor and disadvantaged people.
- If we think that faith is only a matter of observing certain practices; saying specific prayers and learning particular doctrines, then we miss something.
- This would make faith external; a matter of looking good and saying all the right things. On the other hand, faith is not independent of its practice as an increasing number of people seem to think.
- There was a time when being Catholic was a little too external, defined against Protestantism and shaped by our acts rather than our intentions.
- We insisted in laws like fasting; Mass was an obligation and prayers were routinised.
- When we did not see others doing this we made judgments about their faith; we did not forgive infidelity to partners but excessive drinking was human weakness.
- Today, when we see religious observance declining, we could think that faith too is of the past; a diminished form of believing and not quite rational.
- But we know that the heart has its reasons and only God knows the human person.
- We should not think that external things are unimportant.
- It is an odd proposition that ‘outside’ things are of no consequence to us. Much of the technology, media and entertainment, including television and internet, do us harm by exposing us to trash and humanly degrading material.
- Some even think that there should be no rules to guide younger people in the direction of what is good and builds human integrity and happiness.
- It seems sensible and reasonable to insist on celebrating the Mass and the sacraments; knowing scripture and attending to the Commandments.
- It is true that we should respect the Church and its practices but we do so without absolutising one particular era in Church life.
- We cannot: “put aside the commandment of God to cling to human conditions.”
- Pope Francis is a reformer who speaks with a new directness.
- When he speaks about change in our Church, especially on matters of divorce, remarriage and sexuality, he is not talking about changing Church teaching but the procedures and practices. These are two different things.
- Nothing is “off the table” according to the Pope and “let’s not start with the (existing) rules but let’s start with where people’s lives are at”.
- This is all in the service of the gospel of mercy. Let the love and compassion of Christ be our mainstay.
- If we have shifted the starting point then it is not the laws and rules. It is where people are and how to show through the mercy of Christ.
- We too must be open to this mercy. We can avoid the Pharisee and embrace the Christ. We can love the law of God and live it without becoming embedded in practices, even attitudes, that judge and denigrate others.