6 October 2013
Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
We Catholics in America have long faced a dilemma: how to be faithful to Our God, our Faith – often our ancestral Faith – while being good citizens of a country which has tended toward some remarkable, not entirely friendly claims. From the start of the New England colonies, a strong current in our culture has seen itself as a “new Jerusalem,” leaving behind the fallen old world. Yes. But the problem for us is that at the heart of the “old world” of Europe was our Catholic Faith.
It is clear that beginning with Vatican II, the Church has attempted to take most seriously the critique which recent centuries have made of the Catholic tradition, and the Church has celebrated much that is good in the American form of government, though never accepting that this is the “new Jerusalem.” But perhaps because we are so wealthy, we have tended to identify the Kingdom of God with the American Way of Life, and this is something no earthly country can claim. Indeed, perhaps all earthly countries in the end are more like Babylon then Jerusalem.
The prophets of Israel lived in and around rich, powerful empires – yet they did not shrink from seeing the “destruction and violence” that were before them. No matter how good our life on earth, it is as nothing compared with what God has prepared for those who love Him. When we believe, we become tiny “mustard seeds” in a vast forest of trees that claim greatness. Yet this small faith “overcomes the world.” If we persevere in our faithfulness to the God who is other than this world, and its claims, we will be rewarded with that “vision that still has its time.” The vision of God’s Light revealed on the face of Christ, Risen, who transcends all earthly kingdoms.