Friday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 339

What good is it, my brothers and sisters,
if someone says he has faith but does not have works?   
Can that faith save him?
If a brother or sister has nothing to wear
and has no food for the day,
and one of you says to them,
“Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,”
but you do not give them the necessities of the body,
what good is it?
So also faith of itself,
if it does not have works, is dead.

The sequel to Cervantes' Don Quixote opened new territory in fiction that has remained largely unexplored. The first novel, appearing in 1605, described the misadventures of a silly old man and his squire, Sancho Panza. Quixote, having read too many romances of dragons, wizards, and fairy princesses, finally went over the edge and decided to be a knight errant, in quest of adventure, fame, and glory. Mounted on a broken old nag with a shaving bowl for a helmet, he attacked shepherds in defense of their sheep, and prison guards to free convicted criminals. 

The second volume, published ten years later, introduced characters who had read the first book, laughed at its foolishness, and wanted to meet Quixote and his sidekick. In this sequel the two are mystified to learn their story has been publicized, but they don't mind the fame. They had set out to  attain glory and had somehow attained it!

To this day, many people like Quixote and his credulous companion don't get the difference between fiction and reality. They are entertained by Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Frodo, and others without quite realizing these adventures don't happen in the real world. Recently a mob of Sancho Panzas, cheered on by a latter day Don Quixote, attacked the nation's Capitol. They bought into romantic fiction without understanding there never was and never will be a Superman, Batman, or Harry Potter. They want to believe that you can be all that you can be, if you build it they will come, and that wishing on a star can make all the difference. Some of the adults dressed in fairy tale clothes and marched like a children's crusade against the "Evil Empire." 

As absurd as it was, the debacle of January 6, 2021 is not untypical of Americans. Many buy into determinism, the belief that the future must follow a predictable path to Manifest Destiny. According to Star Trek, for instance, the 25th century universe will have no poverty. This miraculous future will not be attained by grace because Trekkies know nothing of Original Sin or Grace. Rather, it's predetermined by a historical, dialectic process, a Marxist notion endorsed by communists and capitalists. What must happen will happen. We need not worry about today's poor; they'll soon disappear.

Despite its sources in our very real and historically verifiable world, they read the Bible as if it were also fictitious stories. Mordor, Hogwarts, the Last Frontier, Jerusalem: all are found on their map of Never Never Land. Safely removed from the real world, they admire Jesus's teachings as clever and memorable teachings, like the magical incantations of Gandalf. 

But turn the other cheek? Sell everything and give to the poor? Forgive seventy times seven times? You shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect? Not in the real world. And certainly not in my world. As Saint James says, they believe but their faith has no works. 

They cannot imagine that Jesus lived, died, and was raised from the dead in our world. It's only a fiction for them, an endearing story about somewhere over the rainbow. They do not believe life or God demands real sacrifices of time, effort, money, or life. Or that giving anything less is sinful. 

Thomas Merton taught that God does not hear the prayers of those who do not exist. When we stop pretending that everything will be okay if you just believe, when we pray from our abject helplessness, and trust God to direct our lives in this world, we will know the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Christ.