Last week we heard from the 1st chapter of the letter of James. James challenged us to be doers of God’s word, not just hearers, to not just passively receive our faith, but to put it into action. Our reading last week ended by saying that a pure, undefiled religion is one that cares for the least in society, for the widow and the orphan. We will continue to hear from James in our 2nd readings throughout the month of September. From today’s reading from James, we get the sense that the Early Church struggled with some of the same issues we face in our modern world. The prominent, well-to-do members of the Early Church could be judgmental; they wanted to exclude the poor and the marginalized from their Christian communities. As most of you know, as a missionary I got into the practice of traveling on the Greyhound bus when I needed to travel a long distance. When I was a seminarian in Milwaukee, I would travel during the Christmas holiday and spring break to Winnipeg, Canada to visit friends up there; that trip would take about a day and a half. One year, I arrived back in downtown Milwaukee at 4:30 am after my Christmas break in Winnipeg. I walked from the downtown bus station to a bus stop on the street in order to take one of the early morning transit buses out to the seminary in the suburbs. Here I was, standing downtown at the bus stop with my backpack with my big winter coat on. I guess I looked a bit grubby. The next thing I knew, a van pulled up offering me a paper bag with a couple of sandwiches in it, wanting to escort me to a homeless shelter where I could get warm and get off the streets. They thought I was a homeless person standing around downtown in the early morning hours with nowhere to go. At least they wanted to help me rather than arrest me for being a vagrant. If we believe that this is God’s Church and not our own personal Church, if we believe in God’s love and mercy and salvation for all, we have to really live out that ideal rather than just saying that we believe it. We here at St Jude want to be a welcoming parish to all; hopefully that is reflection in our liturgies and our ministries. In his writing and public speeches, Pope Francis has challenged us to be a Church that is welcoming and inviting to all, a Church that reaches out to the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized in a very intentional way.
Isaiah tells us to be strong and to fear not, good words of advice in a rapidly changing world where we can be frightened very easily . I recently saw a quote from the famous Catholic author Flannery O’Connor that said: Often, human nature vigorously resists God’s grace because his grace changes us and change is painful. There was a big change in the life of the deaf mute in today’s Gospel when Jesus touched his ears and his tongue, yelling up to the heavens: ““Ephphatha!” “Be opened!” This mute wanted change in his life: to be able to talk and to hear, to be a part of his community in the fullest sense possible. The mute’s friends brought him to Jesus, encouraging the mute to be open to change and be open to Jesus’ healing presence. After this healing, his ears were not only opened to hear, but they were opened to the reality of Jesus in his life, to the reality of the salvation and redemption that Jesus offered.
How can we be more open and more intentional on our journey? We have already started our religious education program for children and youth. We start our program for adults next week. We are so blessed to have so many teachers and assistants who are willing to be there for us, to help us learn the foundations of our faith. We want to encourage our adults to enter our adult faith formation groups that will be held during the Sunday School hour. I think that often Catholics think of adult faith formation as an afterthought, as being less important to the catechesis of children and youth. However, according to our US Bishops, that is definitely not the case. Back in 1999, the US Bishops issued a document entitled: Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us: A Pastoral Plan for Adult Faith Formation in the United States. In it, they state that “Adult faith formation, by which people consciously grow in the life of Christ through experience, reflection, prayer, and study," must be “the central task in [our] catechetical enterprise,” becoming “the axis around which revolves the catechesis of childhood and adolescence as well as that of old age.” (OHWB #5). Wow, what a strong statement. And if we practiced what that document says, our adult faith formation programs would be flourishing and bursting at the seams, just like they do in Protestant churches.
We will start this year’s adult faith formation with Gus Lloyd’s apologetics program. Apologetics is perhaps a misunderstood concept in our modern Church. In apologetics, we strive to learn more about our faith and learn how to articulate what we believe not only so we grow in our understanding of our Catholic faith, but also so we can answer questions that others ask us about what we believe as Catholics and to enter into a healthy dialogue with those from other faith traditions. Our apologetics classes will start on September 16, next weekend.
We are also going to have a come and see meeting for our RCIA program on October 2. RCIA stands for the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. This program is for those who want to enter the Church or for non-Catholics who want to learn more about our faith.
In the spirit of James’ message of not being exclusive in our community of faith, of Jesus’ call of opening up the life of the deaf mute, I recall the following statement from our Good Leaders, Good Shepherds leadership program we had in our Diocese several years ago: “Authentic Catholics in the 21st century not only accept responsibility for their own faith journey; they also contribute to the journeys of others. They are unselfish in their efforts, charitable in their pursuits, and giving of their time.” Let us be open to the way our Lord is calling out to us today in his Holy Word, not only in our own journey of faith, but in the journeys of our brothers and sisters.
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