Friday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 411

Moses said to the people:

"Ask now of the days of old, before your time,

ever since God created man upon the earth;

ask from one end of the sky to the other:

Did anything so great ever happen before?

Was it ever heard of?

Our Mass readings today offer an opening passage from the Book of Deuteronomy, and Moses' command that we should read, study, and contemplate the signs and wonders which God has performed on our behalf. At this point in our story, the history might have felt rather new. These men and women remembered very well their slavery, their flight from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea and the destruction of the world's most powerful army. They should have remembered also -- though they might prefer to forget -- their fearful reaction to the reports of their spies and their reluctant obedience which led to defeat. That humiliation and their true repentance was followed by a string of miraculous victories against Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan. They had witnessed God's indomitable protection within their own lifetimes.

Perhaps they had also recovered their ancient past: the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his twelve sons. During their worst moments, ignorant of their history and identity, some had betrayed their own people, siding with the powerful rather than the faithful. The pharaoh attempted to use their own Hebrew midwives against them and they had resisted. However, when Moses defended a Hebrew against an Egyptian overseer, he was threatened with betrayal by a fellow Hebrew.

So today we hear Moses' command to ponder our past and the history of God's mercy. If you forget your past you lose your identity. The story must include both the wonderful works and the facts of our infidelity. We dare not whitewash the tombs of our ancestors, nor forget our particular betrayals. Any glossing of the truth is unacceptable and frankly dangerous.

With that deep awareness of history we are ready to hear the next command:

This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart,

that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on earth below,

and that there is no other.

You must keep his statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you today,

that you and your children after you may prosper,

and that you may have long life on the land

which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever.

The wonders God has wrought mean little to the so-called righteous. Needing neither forgiveness nor salvation, they take their advantages for granted. If they count anything it's not their blessings but their complaints.

The Church of recent memory has been sharply reminded that we are not only the Church Triumphant, Church Militant, and Church Suffering, we are also the Church Piccant. That is, sinful. Without that realization we cannot appreciate God's mercy and Moses' rhetorical challenge -- "Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of?" -- falls on deaf ears. 

The secular world, with its inquisitive and ever-suspicious news media, has challenged all religious institutions to acknowledge and admit our sins. If the Protestant Reformation failed it was due to the Roman Catholic Church's unwillingness to institutionalize a corporate practice of penance. She offered the sacrament of penance ("Confession") to individuals but could not admit or atone for the sinful practices of parishes, dioceses and the entire Church. Segregated churches maintained their practices of white supremacy. Warring congregations prayed for the annihilation of their Christian enemies. Charitable donations were collected but only as a sop for unacknowledged guilt. Nothing of our systemic sinfulness was said during the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent. 

Without the context of guilt, God's mighty deeds mean nothing. But when we own our guilt as Church, freely acknowledging our unworthiness, we experience God's splendid graciousness. The Lord owes the Church nothing and yet gives her everything, even his only begotten Son unto death, death on a cross. The Gospel of Salvation begins with our pathetic helplessness before Original Sin and our willingness to be saved.