Wednesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 439

Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,
and the greed that is idolatry.
Because of these the wrath of God is coming upon the disobedient.

In his book, Ideas Have Consequences, the American philosopher Richard Weaver railed against Nominalism despite his Protestant upbringing and beliefs. He recognized in American culture and society the tendency to minimize evil practices such as immorality, impurity, passion, and evil desires. 

Nominalists say that words mean only what we mean them to say; and Saint Paul's list of awful things may include healthy sexual practices misunderstood and suppressed by the irrational traditions of antiquated churches. Writing in mid-century, after the Second World War, Weaver deplored the commercialization of sex and the dumbing down of American discussion. Without the fundamentals (or "universals"), there can be no intelligent conversation.  

Nominalism denies the existence of universals (general concepts) and recognizes only the existence of particulars (individual things). Principles like truth, mercy, beauty, and love have no real existence to the Nominalist. God is an unproven theory; he is, at best, a useful idea for the discipline of children and simple-minded, illiterate adults. But, since no one has ever seen God, as the Bible says, there is no compelling reason to believe that he exists; much less, to believe in Him, Her, or It.

Nominalism is essentially a belief for those who are comfortable in this world with The Way Things Are. They have made their peace with the evils that afflict other people, and feel no obligation to correct injustice or to intervene with compassion and mercy. They shield themselves especially from those who have done wrong. Or been convicted of doing wrong. Or suspected of doing wrong (i.e. illegal immigrants.) 

"I'm okay!" they reply to the presence of unfortunate people, and to their pleas for justice. They might say, "If the playing field is tilted in my favor, then obviously it was meant to be." They smirk when they hear scriptural passages like. "Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly." They're quite comfortable with the earthly. 

The scriptures testify not only to the existence of God and the principles of justice, mercy, truth, and beauty; they recall the historic interventions of God's mercy in human history. Egypt may have their own reason for "forgetting" the origins of Israel in its troubled past; but no one can prove the story is not true.  

Faith in God accepts both the existence of God and his compassionate authority in our lives. We are glad to be judged and delivered from sin by a righteous God. We are grateful that God reveals our sins, and severely warns us about the sins of our society and world. We practice penance for the sins of our past and our present tendencies to sin. 

We have seen and remember the consequences of wrongdoing. They are not accidental or coincidence. We recognize the hand of God in our lives, and see his interventions often. 

Because we are troubled by the troubles of others, we pray with them and with the Son of Mary who suffered with them: 

Psalm 18: 7-20

In my distress I called out: LORD!

I cried out to my God.

From his temple he heard my voice;

my cry to him reached his ears.

The earth rocked and shook;

the foundations of the mountains trembled;

they shook as his wrath flared up.

Smoke rose from his nostrils,

a devouring fire from his mouth;

it kindled coals into flame.

He parted the heavens and came down,

a dark cloud under his feet.

Mounted on a cherub he flew,

borne along on the wings of the wind.

He made darkness his cloak around him;

his canopy, water-darkened storm clouds.

From the gleam before him, his clouds passed,

hail and coals of fire.

The LORD thundered from heaven;

the Most High made his voice resound.

He let fly his arrows and scattered them;

shot his lightning bolts and dispersed them.

Then the bed of the sea appeared;

the world’s foundations lay bare,

At your rebuke, O LORD,

at the storming breath of your nostrils.

He reached down from on high and seized me;

drew me out of the deep waters.

He rescued me from my mighty enemy,

from foes too powerful for me.

They attacked me on my day of distress,

but the LORD was my support.

He set me free in the open;

he rescued me because he loves me.