Our journey of faith can have joys and struggles, accomplishments and failures, We can take a wrong turn on our path through life at times. We can cause our loved ones pain and hurt. As disciples of Christ, we are called to live by the values of our faith and to love God and love our neighbor, but sometimes we miss the mark. We have God’s grace that helps us meet our challenges, but we stumble sometimes in our human weaknesses.
The Israelites often complained to God about things. They complained a lot to God about their seemingly endless journey through the desert to the promised land in their Exodus journey. In our reading today from Ezekiel, the Jews look out at the world, and the do not think the ways of the Lord are very fair. They do not think it is fair that God punishes the virtuous man who falls into sin, but then is merciful to the wicked man who repents. The Israelites think they have their act together and know what is best. However, they don’t see things the way God sees things. God in his forgiveness offers us a chance to repent and to change our ways. Those who repent and turn to God can have life, no matter what their sinful past may have been.
I want to tell you a story about a man named Jacques Fesch. He grew up in Belgium, living a life of luxury with his father’s wealth. He traveled extensively. He raced horses, sailboats, and sports cars. He never held a job for very long. At the age of 24, he had fathered two children, neither of whom he supported. He had defected from the army and numerous jobs. In the hopes of changing Fesch’s ways, his father cut off his financial support. With his life a mess, he decided to steal enough money to sail to the South Pacific. In 1954, a robbery went bad. While being pursued by the police, Fesch shot and killed a police officer. He was sentenced to death and sent to prison. He was executed in France on October 1, 1957. But that is not the entire story.
Fesch was executed because in the eyes of society, he represented a danger to social stability, whether that was true or not. He was executed because most people believed a man who killed a police officer could never change his life. His murder had to be met with justice through society’s laws. An eye for an eye, right? The Catholic Church teaches that the death penalty is wrong, but there are exceptions in rare occasions. In situations of absolute necessity, taking a life might be just. If a killer cannot be contained or controlled or reformed, it would be just for the state to take his life to protect society. According to St John Paul II, this situation exists in a country with no law and order, with no stability at all, where keeping someone in prison would not be feasible. But that was not the situation in France when Jacques Fesch was put to death. That is not the situation in modern America today. An execution is an act of violence. That is not the way of God. It is the way of man. Violence does not solve problems. It goes against Christ telling us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. It was wrong for Jacques Fesch to kill that police officer. But it also was wrong for the country of France to put him to death. St John Paul II famously stated that in many ways, we live in a modern culture of death, not a culture of life.
When Jacques Fesch arrived at the prison, he mocked the Catholic faith and mocked his Catholic lawyer. But his lawyer prayed for Fesch and never gave up on him. He visited him regularly and cared for him. In the love of his lawyer, Jacques Fesch encountered the love of Christ. He repented for his sins and rejoiced in God’s mercy. The love and mercy of God that he found in his Catholic faith transformed his life. He became a witness of his faith to others. His fellow prisoners and the guards said that in prison he committed his life to the virtue of charity.
In 1987, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, the Archbishop of Paris, opened an official investigation into his life. Fesch was granted the title Servant of God in 1993 when his cause was officially opened in Rome. Jacques Fesch, who killed a police officer in cold blood, may one day be proclaimed a saint because of the conversion of his heart. The Catholic faith that he found renewed his life.
When we serve our brothers in prison, when serve a meal to a homeless person on the streets, or when we serve as a missionary in an inner-city neighborhood torn apart by poverty or violence or gang warfare, it is not some romanticized or quaint act of kindness. We serve God and serve our neighbor on the most basic level. We can miss the mark and commit terrible sins in our lives. The ways of God can seem unfair to us. We can feel that we are treated unfairly. But, in our Catholic faith, we believe in transformation, repentance, and forgiveness. We trust in the power of the Lord to transform people and to save lives.
