“He
that is not with me, is against me;
and he that gathereth not with
me, scattereth.”
[Ordinary of the Mass]
[English Mass Text]
[Latin Mass Text]
[Lenten Observance]
Before
saying anything else, it is appropriate to say that our Lord was in
no way belittling His Blessed Mother when He appeared to contradict
the woman who declared her blessed, saying “rather, blessed
are they who hear the word of God, and keep it.”
More than just the woman in the crowd, we have angelic
testimony that Mary is “blessed ...among women.”
What our Lord was saying was directed at the lawyers and the
pharisees who continually tried to interfere with His ministry.
Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was a true descendent of Abraham, as
were the scribes and the pharisees—some even claimed descent
from King David, as did Mary and Jesus. What our Lord was
saying to the woman in the crowd was that mere blood relationship to
Him was inadequate to confer God's blessing. Mary was “blessed”
because she had heard the word of God and kept it—the scribes
and the pharisees were not “blessed” because thy chose to
refute the Incarnate Word of God, as well as the words of His
preaching. Indeed, on hearing the word of God through the
Archangel Gabriel, Mary gave her “fiat,” her total
assent, to what God proposed, and became Mother and Temple of the
Word of God by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost.
Mary is truly “blessed,” while those who contradict
the words of her Son are surely condemned.
But.
let us spend a moment in reflecting on the rest of Saint Luke's
Gospel that we read this morning. Our Lord was accused
by these scribes and pharisees of using the power of the Devil to
free a speechless man from the power of the Devil. It doesn't
take much to see the absurdity of such a claim. And it doesn't
take much to see the common sense in our Lord's statement that “He
that is not with me, is against me; and he that gathereth not with
me, scattereth.” What is surprising is how frequently
Catholic people forget these most obvious revelations.
“We
are in the world, even if we are not of the world,” so we have
to earn a living, we have to live in peace with our neighbors, and we
have responsibilities in civil society. These people around us
may not be Christians, but that doesn't change the nature of our
responsibilities. Nonetheless, all of our responsibilities in
the world ought to be carried out with the intention of “hearing
the word of God and keeping it.”
If
we must earn our living among pagans, that is not an excuse to be
a pagan. Indeed, one of our foremost concerns must be to
provide good Christian example to the pagans and the heretics with
whom we must associate. If their language is bad … if
their morals are bad … if they are dishonest … if they
fail to honor God and His Blessed Mother—then, all the more, we
must be their opposite—with good morals, language, honesty, and
devotion.
Our
children ought to receive a Catholic education. Ideally, this
would mean home schooling for most families, but that may not be
possible for all. If children must be enrolled in the
government schools, that means taking a real interest in what they
are taught, and making sure that they receive the “Catholic
angle” on all of it—that means more than just supervising
homework—perhaps requiring a lot of dinner table discussion,
conferences with teachers, and involvement in things like the PTA.
It may even mean making one's self heard by the principal or
the school board. Make sure that your children have the
opportunity to learn their catechisms, and upper grade books—read
the Bible and the lives of the saints with them at bedtime. Don't
assume that a “Catholic school” is actually Catholic, or
that it will fill all of these needs.
Not
all of our neighbors will be Catholics, but it certainly makes sense
to cultivate our friendships with those who are—preferably with
those who are sincere in the Faith, and not with Modernists, and not
with those for whom “Catholicism” is merely a label that
fails to indicate what is within. Our church should be,
primarily, the place where we come to worship God, and not a social
club—we ought to recognize the rights of those who want to
spend time in prayer both before and after Mass—but,
nonetheless, our fellow parishioners ought to be numbered among our
friends. There ought to be a concern for each others' physical
and spiritual wellbeing, and a desire to be helpful to whomever needs
help.
Our
civic responsibilities are similar. While not everyone is of
the House of the Faith, we can be sure to support people in public
life with whom we share the Natural Moral Law. The Babylonian
pagans of Hammurabi's time (nearly 2,000 years before Christ) were
able to hammer out a pretty fair understanding of the Moral Law, even
without the benefit of divine revelation—we ought to expect and
demand every bit as much from the Republicans and Democrats and
others in our midst!
It
is a grave error to think that good people can “dialogue”
with evil people, or that there can ever be rapprochemant
between truth and falsity, or good and evil. Some things are
flat out wrong, and with such things there is no place for so-called
“bipartisanship,” cooperation, compromise, or “dialogue”
between right and wrong.
In
matters of the Catholic Faith there is no room for compromise. There
is something of a danger in admiring the “noble pagan.”
There are people who appear to be good and do good, even though
they lack the Catholic Faith, or any faith at all. Support them
in doing good, but don't even think about emulating them in what they
lack. Moselems and some Protestants may be our allies in the
right to life, but we would be utterly wrong pattern our spiritual
affairs after them—likewise, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jewish
people—it is we, who have heard the word of God and keep it,
who must be the example for them.
It
makes no sense to think that one can “cast out devils by the
Devil.” Nor any sense to think that we can ignore the
word of God like the scribes and pharisees. The Blessed Virgin
is indeed “blessed” because she gave her “fiat”
to the Word and the words of God. We too can be “blessed,”
but only if we do likewise.
“He
that is not with me, is against me;
and he that gathereth not with
me, scattereth.”
NOTES:
