Homily

Elizabeth and Cliff, with their families and friends, spent many hours on Friday setting everything up outside for their wedding reception here. And then, on Saturday morning it started raining. I felt so bad for them, as the beautiful tablecloths and center pieces, along with everything else, became thoroughly soaked. I prayed to the Lord to stop the rain. Now, and please be very honest with yourself, do you think it possible that God might have stopped the rain because I asked Him to do it? And here's another question: Do you believe that angels are present with us here when we celebrate the Liturgy? When was the last time you spoke to, or thought of, your guardian angel? Do you believe the Lord knows your every thought? Do you think that if you said a prayer before driving home today it might save you from a traffic accident? Do you think that Jesus Christ could come back again tomorrow and this whole universe would come to an end? Do you think Satan may have tempted you this past week? (Or is he obviously so very busy with other people?) How much time did you spend reading or watching something for the good of your soul this past week?

I have been reading a book about the ideas of Charles Taylor who has done a great deal of thinking about how we have become a secular society. He says that many people think that we are living in a secular culture because many people have simply dropped religion, but it is not so simple as that. The secular society comes about when people think and live as though this world, our existence, is a closed system, a material existence, with no genuine access, or help, or assistance, or interference from anything or anyone outside of it. The natural is all that is. The supernatural is just not part of the world. Taylor holds that even many people who are religious and practice some kind of faith may actually be secular in their viewpoints to such an extent that it can be difficult to tell them apart from atheists, agnostics and people who do not practice any faith. Yes, they may go to church and they may even pray, but in actual fact the supernatural, God, grace, heaven, hell, angels, demons—these things have little or no real importance in the way they see their lives, nor in the way they live their lives. Being secular does not simply mean dropping the practice of religion.

For example we are still a rather church-going nation, even if we don't live in a church-going state. Lots and lots of Americans still go to church, and of course I'm talking about Christians primarily. Now these Christians pretty much attend the same churches, the same denominations that were around 50 years ago, and even if some new versions have popped up over time, they still claim to teach Christian faith, not some new variety of religion. But how many of these church-going Christians today believe that abortion, pre-marital sex or euthanasia are deadly sins? 50 years ago almost all Christians would have held that, but not so today, and indeed even many of the churches they attend have changed their teaching about these sins. They don't preach eternal, God-given truths that cannot be changed, but they teach and preach a morality just for today, for the here and now, for the real world, this world, and even if they pray that "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done," they don't believe they're living in that kingdom here and now and they find it hard to see how God's will could be any different from their own ideas about life, morality and love. So yes, you can practice religion and still be secular.

Look at our filmed entertainment, television and movies: how often do you see anyone act, or think, or talk about any faith or belief in God? How many people notice that? How many people think that is strange, not like their own life, their own viewpoints? How many people would think that's just normal? Isn't that a sign of secularism? (And, on a side note, in films, the name, "Jesus Christ," is used 10,000 times to one as a curse rather than a blessing, or even a topic of discussion. That's not secular?)

Yes we pray, we come to Liturgy, we believe in God, but even so, how much do we think, and live, and act as though this world is truly all that there is? And we have a little religion on the side?

Today we celebrate Mary, Mother of God, by recalling a miracle obtained through her intercession 1,000 years ago, when her belt was placed over the Byzantine Empress Zoe, and she was miraculously cured. Now I can see secularist scoffers making jokes about someone thinking that Mary's belt was passed down from one person to another for 1,000 years. And I can see that same secularist sitting down and watch "Antique Roadshow" on TV and enjoying the fact that a pair of George Washington's gloves could bring in $40,000 at an auction.

I can see a secularist calling the use of the relic of Mary's belt a superstition, or some type of magic; because secularists do not see the spiritual working in the material world, thorough material things. Even if they believe in a spiritual reality, a spiritual world, it has to be kept separate from the material world we live in. No belt of Mary can help produce a healing. The Corinthians may have had some similar problems.

We heard St. Paul earlier today telling the Corinthians about the people who had actually seen the risen Christ, including himself. It may be that some Corinthians doubted the actual resurrection, or it may be that there were those who believed Jesus rose from the dead, but they did not believe they would be resurrected from the dead. That is why Paul is emphasizing the many witnesses who saw Jesus alive after the grave and burial. Apparently St. Paul taught that the resurrection of Christ was at the heart of the Christian gospel, and he even says somewhere that if the resurrection is not true, our faith is worthless. Would I bet my life on that being true? The secular voice would say it doesn't really matter, does it? Believe what you want! But we ought to be sure that we are always and everywhere believing more firmly, more completely in the resurrection of Christ. No other—there is no other hope for us, but this hope is everything.