14 th SUNDAY ORDINARY - YEAR "C" 4 July 2010 Isaiah 66:10-14c; Gal 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, FAMILY & FREEDOM

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1 1 14 th SUNDAY ORDINARY - YEAR "C" 4 July 2010 Isaiah 66:10-14c; Gal 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, FAMILY & FREEDOM If you don t accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are going to hell! We have all heard that statement. The reason you haven t heard that in a Catholic Church is that it is not Catholic teaching. It may shock you to learn that Catholic teaching says you do not have to be Catholic, Christian, or even theist to go to heaven. We Catholics interpret scripture, especially Romans, to mean that salvation for all comes freely through Jesus but we don t earn it by stroking Jesus ego since He doesn t need that. Although we have free will to reject His love! As Catholics we believe that all we must do is love and seek the fullness of truth, which is explained a few verses further in Luke s Gospel today when Jesus was asked what one must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus said: You shall love." Note that does not include telling people that they are going to hell! But before we get too smug, that was not always the belief. During the 12 th and 13 th Century crusades and even longer inquisition, the logic -- or illogic -- was that if you couldn t evangelize by converting someone, you might as well kill them since they were going to hell anyway. In today s Gospel Jesus sends out 72 of His disciples to evangelize the world, which was thought to contain 72 countries, not the current 195. The word evangelize has two meanings: 1 st to preach the Gospel of God s love and 2 nd to convert people. The biblical meaning is the 1 st that is to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. The crusades and inquisition embodied the 2 nd meaning. Having preached the Gospel, we then allow people to make their own free

2 2 will decision to convert based on their informed conscience. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica addressed this fundamental tenant in the 13 th Century which contributed to changing our false view during the Crusades. Vatican II further clarified the teaching. This is why no one can morally violate their informed conscience. The word conscience consists of con meaning with and science meaning knowledge. The operative word is informed since we must be careful not rationalize our wrongful actions. So we must preach the Gospel, not necessarily convert. But there are two ways to preach, by words and by actions. St. Francis clarified their relative importance when he said: Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. This reaffirms John 13:35 which says: "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." Today many people travel around the world and show love but the question is who is evangelizing whom, the immigrants or residents? If the test is the Gospel of love then let s examine today s readings more carefully. In today s richly sensual 1 st reading, after the Israelites are defeated and exiled, the people are called to a renewed faith in God. They are called to imagine a New Jerusalem where your hearts shall rejoice and your bodies flourish like grass. In today s world often the United States is a place to which many people flock for a brighter future. In countless cases they are willing to traverse treacherous waters and tortuous terrain, risking violence and theft to make it to the US. In today s 2 nd reading Paul writes to the Galatians, about their legalistic approach in requiring circumcision to enter the Kingdom. In fact, during the 1 st Century one had to be a Jew in order to be a

3 3 Christian. The Council of Jerusalem in 50 A.D. eliminated this requirement thus opening Jesus love to all, regardless of faith belief. Today our country is open to all, partially to legal immigrants and widely to illegal immigrants. The big debate is what accounts for so many illegal immigrants. There are two reasons both of which are destructive. First is failure of immigrants home countries. They are often driven out because of bad economic and legal systems. I was once on the Reforma, a main street in Mexico City, observing a policeman accepting a bribe for triple parking. Though I said nothing, a dual citizen friend saw me and said: you don t approve do you? Not really I said. He said then you don t understand the culture. Mexico is ruled by Napoleonic law which has literal interpretation of statutes with no court precedence for changing interpretation and little rescinding of laws. The result is no one can live a day without breaking the law. The solution is trading services, either strictly within ones family, which leads to strong family bonds, or through bribery in a close circle. Both compromise economic freedom, which accumulates the wealth in the hands of a few and leads to more immigration abroad in search of freedom to earn an honest living. Second is failure of our country. We are not enforcing our boarders which we have a right, and an obligation, to do. At the same time our immigration laws have not kept up with the need for more migrant workers to be allowed in the U.S. legally. The result is an enormous number of undocumented workers. Over 20 years ago I hired a man for services. Only years later did I learn that he and his wife were Catholic, had 7 American children since they were born in the US, but they were not married because he feared that the marriage papers would risk him being deported since he and his

4 4 spouse were both illegal immigrants. Though they originally broke the law, what was he to do now without hurting his 7 legal children? This untenable tension between unsecured boarders and outdated immigration laws, puts families at risk, invites exploitation of workers, and threatens our national security. In today s Gospel the emphasis is on the hospitality that God calls each of us to practice both as host and guest. This Gospel is rich in language that applies to the immigrant in our midst and how we should respond. Jesus sends forth his disciples without money, sack, or sandals but instead asks them to eat and drink what is offered because a laborer deserves his payment. Throughout our archdiocese immigrants worship with us on Sunday, clean our office buildings and hotels, and cook our food. Yet because of our broken federal immigration policy, they are often the victims of abuse in the workplace such as wage theft, which they will not report for fear of being deported. As Christians we are disingenuous and unloving by wanting both cheap labor and deportation threats. This call to fix our immigration policies and boarder security is not an evaluation of or proposal for a particular political party, government policy, or economic balance sheet, but a moral mandate from Jesus, to love every human being regardless of faith or origin. So when we hear the fireworks this weekend celebrating our freedom let s also celebrate the families of the immigrants. Jesus sent out His 72 immigrants; today we receive immigrants. So let us return to the question, who is evangelizing whom? As a former inadvertent, undocumented worker in Canada with a wonderful Hispanic son-in-law, I have some firsthand NAFTA perspective on the answer.

5 5 Family values are being evangelized by the immigrants. To sustain a culture there must be a minimum fertility rate of 2.11 births per family; no culture has survived less then 1.9. Our non-immigrant US population is at 1.6 but combined with the Hispanic immigration that increases to Statistically the Hispanic population is the future of our Church and our country since, we, the non-immigrant US population, together with our views on birth control and abortion, are literally self-destructing. Freedom values are being evangelized by the US. A free market creates jobs for workers. But there can be abuses. As business professionals do we hire foreign agents knowing that they will bribe foreign local officials even though that would violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? If we do, then we contribute to the foreign culture of bribery and the demise of their middle class, which causes more immigrants to flee to the freedom of the US? In a June 22 nd open letter to the clergy, Cardinal DiNardo requested, together with other faith leaders in Houston, that today s homily address the reform of the broken US immigration policies. The guiding principle of that letter is as St. Paul says: If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing [1 Cor. 13:2]. It can be further summarized, in the spirit of St. Francis silent preaching, by our song: "They will know we are Christians by our love.