Homily

"So it will be for the man who stores up treasure for himself, but is not rich in what pertains to God." That's the last line in today's Gospel, and it is also an idea that keeps popping up in the Psalms, as we have been noticing on Wednesday morning at Bible study. Who do you put your trust in, God or yourself? And I guess you could say, "God or material things," but perhaps it's more to the point to say that you either trust in God or in yourself. That was a great point to make 2,000 years ago and it's a great point for us today; because even if we're not so rich that we need to build more barns to store our stuff, we are still constantly faced with the same question, "Who do you trust, yourself or God?"

It is very easy for us to be the people who put our trust in God when all else fails. When there is an emergency, a crisis, a great problem that we cannot fix or solve, we may then call on the Lord to help us. Now there is a certain amount of faith involved in asking God's help when we are in trouble, but it may not be very much faith.

A faith that is the "growing rich in what pertains to God" is not a faith saved for emergencies, but a belief in One Who created me, Who loves me, and Who calls me to Himself. He gave me life, He wants to share His own life with me today, and He promises life eternal when I am done here. It is in my regular daily life that I need to choose whether I trust in God or in myself. He has set up for me a path of moral guidance within the teaching of the Church He has established for me and for everyone. Just as He gave the Israelites the Law through His servant Moses, so has He given us the perfect Law in His own Son, Jesus Christ. He does not give us this Law in order to condemn us, nor to control us. He gives us this Law in Jesus Christ because He loves us, and His Law is a path to the fullness of life, in this world and the next.

When a mother teaches her child, "Don't hit your brother, don't touch the oven, eat your vegetables, say "thank you," she does so because she wants her child to do well in life. That is why she lays down these laws. So every Mom is a law-giver. (If only every Mom had handcuffs and a jail cell to use.) So it is with the Law we have been given in and through Jesus Christ; it is a law given that we might live, and live the best possible life we could hope to have. Living by this law may not always seem to be giving us the best life. In fact we may still not want to eat our peas, we may still want to hit our brother. But it is only by faith that we can learn to completely accept the Law of Life we have been given, even when we do not always understand it. It is only by faith that we can live according to that Law. It is only by faith that we can thus grow rich in the things that pertain to God.

Where do we find this Law of Christ, given to us for our life and our salvation? We find it in the Church, which is the Body of Christ. But it's very interesting: in a recent study done by a Catholic University of America professor, 40% of those who claimed to be Catholic did not believe that the Holy Communion is really the Body and Blood of Christ. 40%!! I was totally shocked when I read that figure. Granted, some of that 40% may be because some people have not received a good education in faith, but obviously there are also a number of people who reject the teaching of the Church in this matter and instead put faith in their own understanding of what Holy Communion is. The faithful of the Body of Christ have believed and professed for 2,000 years that the bread and wine are changed, by Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, and the human ministry of the priest who celebrates the Liturgy, into the real and true Body and Blood of Jesus, and that it is He Whom we receive in the Holy Communion. There have been some groups in history who have denied that this central belief of our Faith is true, and they have left the Church in order to form a different church that teaches something different about the Eucharist. It is only in recent times that people will say they belong to a church but don't necessarily believe what it teaches.

So these are some very important questions and we need to have the answers to them: Who is Jesus Christ? Did He establish a Church and does that Church faithfully teach the revelation of Christ? What is that revelation? Do I have to believe in all of it? What if I have questions, or doubts or I'm not sure? When someone says, "All you need to do is be a good person," how do I answer that and what should I think? Aren't all the big religions pretty much the same?

These are important questions, but not the only questions of course. This is why we are going to run this series called, "Catholicism," during the coming months, because I think it can be a helpful way for us to review, learn, and deepen our understanding of the basics of the Faith, and hopefully that understanding will lead us closer to Christ. Hopefully, it will help to lead us closer to His law, not as a means to restrict us, but as a means to find greater freedom. And hopefully this series and the education and opportunities for reflection that it offers will also help us to become richer in the things that pertain to God.