Monday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 497

Many in Israel were determined and resolved in their hearts not to eat anything unclean; they preferred to die rather than to be defiled with unclean food or to profane the holy covenant; and they did die. Terrible affliction was upon Israel.

The four Books of Maccabees (the first two are canonical) begin with a situation both terrible and familiar. Exodus begins with the same note of unbearable suffering in a hopeless predicament:

...the Egyptians reduced the Israelites to cruel slavery, making life bitter for them with hard labor, at mortar and brick and all kinds of field work—cruelly oppressed in all their labor.

There is also heroism in both stories. The Hebrew midwives ignored the Pharaoh's command to kill the infant boys; and in a similar predicament more than a thousand years later, 

"...many in Israel were determined and resolved in their hearts not to eat anything unclean; they preferred to die rather than to be defiled."

The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

In these stories, God's chosen people are hated, ostracized, and persecuted in their own homes. The social, economic, and political situations may be entirely different, but distress is the same. They have no choice but to endure and to wait for God to act. 

If we read these stories today with little reflection, we might suppose they have nothing to do with us. There is no government-sponsored repression of any religious sects except those which engage in criminal activity.  

But there was in biblical Egypt and Israel the same pressure to forget the LORD and conform to a dominant, alien culture. Their pagan rulers, like our American culture, dismissed faith in God as passe, unrealistic, and unnecessary. And, like Catholics in America, we read of some Jews buckling under the pressure in Egypt and occupied Israel.  

Maccabees tells us that "many children of Israel were in favor of (the alien king's) religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath." Many American Catholics have had abortions; suppose that they should divorce if their marriage doesn't "work out okay;" and prefer sexualized entertainment. 

Catholics today, struggling to practice their own faith and teach their children the ancient doctrines, are confronted at every turn with skepticism and dismissal. Profoundly distracted by the demands of careers and basic survival in an increasingly complex society, they have little time or energy to invest in the practice of faith, much less to study its doctrines and traditions. 

But Catholics also suppose they know little about the Bible when, in fact, most of our religion is deeply informed by scripture. Kneeling, genuflecting, bowing one's head, and striking one's chest during prayer reflect our biblical roots. Incense, candles, sacred songs and readings, priesthood, Baptism, and Eucharist, and pilgrimages -- to name a few -- are found in scripture because we were doing those things when we wrote the Bible! 

The reformers of the Second Vatican Council never intended to open the flood gates to banality, but many of our traditions have succumbed to the skepticism of the secular city. Many Catholics cannot explain why we do those things. They cannot respond to a rationalism that wants everything explained in plain English. If a twelve year old child cannot understand it, it's too complex.  

But the Holy Spirit does not surrender God's people to an all consuming conformity. There are many things we despise because our God reminds us of what is human. Our faith hates divorce; it denounces abortion, and shuns racism. As a Church, we sacrifice for the love of others and the love of God. We don't live for ourselves. Nor do we know where God is leading us. But we're sure it will not be to a culture where diversity, equity, and inclusion are the only values. If we are deemed outlandish by our neighbors, we remember that we are a people set apart and sent to judge the earth and its inhuman values.