Memorial of Saint Monica

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/082712.cfm

Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the Kingdom of heaven before men. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.



The opening words of today's gospel remind me of a remark by Andrew Greeley, during a friendlier age of the church: "Despite the best efforts of its priests, the Catholic Church continues to grow in the United States."  I've not heard many quotable remarks from him lately but sometimes a bit of humor out of the past can help the situation.


Today's readings describe two opposite models of leadership. In the first reading we hear the Saint praising his disciples and thanking God for their fidelity. Whatever his faults, and he had a few, Saint Paul loved people. He had a heart as big as the whole Church and he passed many long, lonely hours in several jails thinking about his wonderful friends. Like every true Christian, he endured  physical suffering and personal anxieties by pondering the mighty works of God, and he saw God performing miracles among formerly listless, despondent people.

Eventually Saint Francis would distill Saint Paul's formula and offer it to an international Church which had lost its taste for the Holy Spirit's  intoxicating drink. As Saint Paul had learned to endure both ease and deprivation, as he could make the most of both success and failure, Saint Francis would invite his disciples to walk in the "very footsteps" of Jesus' poverty.

Clearly this was a path the "scribes and Pharisees" and many of today's Christians never considered. In the name of  "doing good" they "do very well indeed." They go so far as to point to their big churches, palatial homes and boat-sized cars and exhibit them as signs of God's blessings.

Their "gospel of success" cannot fathom Saint Paul's encouraging words:

Accordingly, we ourselves boast of you in the churches of Godregarding your endurance and faith in all your persecutionsand the afflictions you endure.This is evidence of the just judgment of God,so that you may be considered worthy of the Kingdom of Godfor which you are suffering.

Americans ordinarily regard poverty, grief, illness and ostracism as signs of God's disapproval. Saint Paul's vision was precisely the opposite.

If nothing else Jesus, Saint Paul and Saint Francis would teach us through these readings not to judge our own success or failure. As Mother Theresa taught, "God does not call us to success but to fidelity." Faith itself puts no faith in this world's standards. It prefers the darkness of not knowing whether our efforts have succeeded or failed as we wait for the Kingdom of Heaven to appear.