Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 134 

Where do the wars
and where do the conflicts among you come from? 
Is it not from your passions
that make war within your members? 

Twenty years ago, the United States decided that we must fight the "War on Terror." Having suffered the insult of Nine Eleven we should lead civilized nations in the struggle or, if necessary, go it alone. Al Qaeda's attack could not be addressed as a crime; the processes of justice are too cumbersome.  International police and international court are too slow and unreliable; they would not satisfy an outraged nation calling for revenge. 

Many people believed that we must fight terrorists abroad or they'll assail our nation, and even with that persuasive argument the nation conducted a frantic emergency inventory of our security forces and organized a new department with the chilling name of "Homeland Security." 

Nine-eleven was the worst terrorist attack in American history, but the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City was the second worse. It was carried out by homegrown nativists. And yet, despite that recent incident, we did not expect those forces to metastasize.

Saint James saw it clearly: 

Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members? 

Only a post-Christian America could forget that fairly standard doctrine of the Old and New Testaments. We call it Original Sin and we remember that no one is born innocent. All have inherited both the guilt of our race and concupiscence -- the predisposition to prefer sin to grace. Our Catholic faith practices that awareness with our Sacrament of Reconciliation and the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent. Our daily prayers include an examination of conscience to help us repent daily and turn back to the Gospel. 

There is still time to avoid a full blown civil war. We have seen its harbingers in the terrorist attacks on our schools, churches, shopping malls, military bases, and concert parks. We have seen its flagrant attack on the Capitol Building and the legislators, many of them complicit in the incident.   

We have only to turn back the Lord as our liturgy, tradition, and scriptures urge. 

We have sinned like our ancestors;
we have done wrong and are guilty. Psalm 106:6