19 January 2003

A detail from a painting by Giovanni Cimabue, in the lower level of the Basilica at Assisi.

The National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi in San Francisco

Homilies from the National Shrine
of Saint Francis of Assisi

THE SECOND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME
19 JANUARY 2003

[1 Samuel 3:3b–10, 19; 1 Corinthians 6:13c–15a, 17–20; John 1:35–42]

THERE ARE TOO MANY things to preach on today. In the world at the present time there is a very strong theme of peace. Yesterday, the Church began the Church Unity Octave, celebrated every year, on the eight days before the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, which will take place next Saturday. So we celebrate today with a profound sense of the urgent need for a direction toward Christian unity. We also celebrate life itself today, as a result of President Bush having called for a day in this country to be reunited around the theme of life. Then, on Wednesday, we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court decisions regarding abortion. By the time you put it all together, there are several themes, all of which are, in one fashion or another, reflected in the three readings for today.

The first and the third reading—the Samuel and Gospel readings—deal with the question of life, the question of a call, the question of a response to God. And Saint Paul, deeply and interestingly enough in today’s reading selection, is talking about the way in which we treat ourselves, and the way in which we behave in response to the call God is giving us, particularly in respect to the questions about life. Now, how do we approach all of this?

It seems to me that such great diversity in our land over so many different topics should be thought of as a challenge to try to bring people together. We are saying, this week, that we want to pray to try to bring Christian people together in a closer bond. We are saying we are trying to bring the world together in a closer bond of peace. We are saying we are trying to unify our country so that we can have a more focused direction in which to respect the issues of both life and peace.

And then I think of our situation here at the National Shrine, and I realize that we probably have a similar problem with unity here. After meeting with the Archbishop on Friday, I realized that he was going in one direction, his advisors were going in a different direction, the Friars were going in yet another direction, the people associated with our music program were going in a particular direction, and the rest of you here were moving in another fifth direction. And so I am thinking to myself, “Self, you must be going crazy because you have all of these people going in so many different directions. How in heaven’s name can you manage to bring all of these people together?” And it is really very difficult.

And why is it difficult? Because there are specific personal issues, needs, goals, wants, and desires that everyone has. Depending on how you set your priorities, you will set your goals and your values in response.

Let me just take an example. This is a classic example that I have taught in classrooms for years. I ask the question, “Why is it that the pro-choice and the pro-life people will never come together? Why is it that they can never see eye-to-eye?” The answer points to a basic fact that nobody talks about. For pro-choice people, the quality of life is a more important principle than life itself. For pro-life people, the principle of life itself is more important than the quality of life. And as soon as you start with those two principle issues in different order, you will come to two very different sets of conclusions.

Until we, as a Christian community throughout the world (and by that I mean the very broad Christian community) can order our priorities and our values in the same way, it will be very hard to generate unity. Until we can get the citizens of our country to order their priorities and their directions in the same way, it is going to be very hard to achieve unity. Until we are able to bring the many people associated with the Shrine together in some sort of focused set of values and priorities, it is going to be very hard to have unity. This is a reality. And in some cases, it is a reality because we are not listening to God. And I tread on very, very thin ice here because I have to ask myself a question. “First of all, am I listening to God the way I should?”

In the first reading for today, Samuel gets up three times and goes to Eli. And three times, Eli says, “I didn’t call you.” The problem was that Samuel didn’t recognize that God was calling him. Now, if we are the same way, if we are being called but are not understanding or not responding to God’s call—if we don’t really understand what the calling of God really is for us—we will get up to respond, but not to the right person or in the right way. That is essentially what Eli had to tell Samuel: The next time you are called, make sure you say, “Lord, your servant is listening.”

The question is, are we being called but not listening? And I don’t know, necessarily, how to make people understand that, since we will always be struggling to figure out what we need to accomplish. But the bottom line is that each of us is meant to do whatever we have to do in order to fulfill our call at Baptism, and that means doing whatever we have to do in order to be able to enter into heaven to achieve eternal life with God. That is what our ultimate call is all about.

For us, then, the struggle—and it has been a struggle—is to find the way to understand, as clearly as we can, what God is trying to call us to do. And I think part of the problem here is that we as a Church have not been as clear as we need to be about where we are going and how to get there. As we, here at the National Shrine, have engaged in discussion about the nature of our preaching and the various topics for lectures, we have discovered that the question becomes, “What is it that the Christian Community—and more specifically, the Catholic community—needs to reflect on?” And we have talked about the fact that doctrinal content has been missing from so much of the preaching of the last forty years. When I started into some serious doctrinal reflection over the Christmas season, it was as though it was something brand new.

And so I think we have to understand and acknowledge what we believe. We pray the Creed^[1] every week, and we affirm our faith^[2] whenever we pray the Rosary. The Creed is a very simple summary that is not particularly elaborate, nor does it go into great detail about what we are to believe. It is something that grew into the life of the Church long before the Reformation. It is something that everyone agreed upon. But as time went on, we found ourselves arguing over practical consequences of doctrine. And as we get so involved in arguments and discussions, we forget what the Faith is all about. And we forget what our responsibility is all about.

Now, I don’t know that I am necessarily the one to help everyone find a clear response to God, but it seems to me that fidelity to the Faith is the way we have to go. And that fidelity has to be based on an understanding of what our doctrine is all about. If I were to point out what Saint Paul said in the reading today—and point to many of the other things that Paul said in his various letters about the behavior of people—I am certain I would get myself into a lot of trouble, because Paul had a lot to say about the way in which we treat one another and behave towards one another in terms of relationships, in terms of sexuality, and in terms of respect.

Let me take you on a little tangent for a moment. Recently I talked to a lady who works as a counselor. She was complaining to me about one problem of her work: that she is forever trying to get people to understand the spiritual dimension of their lives. And in trying to do that, she finds herself frustrated because frequently that spiritual dimension is not there. She gave me an example. She was dealing with a couple who have one child. The wife is now pregnant with the second child. Her husband is upset because she is now pregnant with another child, but he refuses to participate in being responsible for the spacing of the children.^[3] In the course of the session, the counselor finally said to him, “What do you think your relationship is to your wife?” And his response was, “I’m her boss.” Now, what do you think about that relationship? It’s the sort of thing that is far more prevalent in our society than we realize; many people aren’t concerned about engaging in a relationship in which they share a life and support one another.

And it is that very thing that Paul is talking about in today’s second reading. We are not meant to be egocentric, selfish individuals around whom the world revolves—and yet that is exactly the thinking that causes problems today. It is that thinking that has got us into so much trouble—and continues to get us into so much trouble—in terms of the issues we have here before us today, whether it be Christian unity, peace, or life versus abortion.

You must be clear in your own mind about where it is you are going and the way in which you need to respond to God. Until you are clear in your own mind, you cannot be a catalyst, a prophet, a challenge, or a supporter in any relationship. You simply cannot be! The one thing we need to do as a Church—as a community that we call Church, as a structure that we call Church, as people who are ordained priests, and as people who have a priestly role through Baptism—the one thing we have to do is know clearly what God wants us to do and put ourselves at service to one another, at the service of the community, and at the service of society. And then, and only then, will we come to unity, to love, to peace, and to oneness with our God.

It is a remarkable challenge that too frequently you do not realize. I don’t want to be harsh. I want to be clear. I hope I have been, because my role is to lead us all into deep consideration about what God is asking us to do and what our relationship to God must be.

God bless you!

Friar Victor Abegg, OFM Conv.
THE NATIONAL SHRINE OF SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI
Pax Christi et bonum

1. You can read the Nicene Creed in both English and Latin on our page Musical Parts of the Mass.

2. You can read the Apostle’s Creed in both English and Latin on our page The Franciscan Crown and the Rosary.

3. See the Catechism of the Catholic Church § 2368 and § 2370: “For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. . . . Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. . . . In contrast, every action which . . . proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil.”