August 25, 2003
Fulton County Jail
Dear Friends in Christ,
One thing that our Lord could not stand, was hypocrisy – saying one thing while you mean another – or as common language puts it: "Lying out the side of your mouth."
With almost every other situation our Lord had great patience. People demanded things of Him every day – some wanted to be cured, some wanted to be taken care of – the Apostles were forever trying to get Him to explain everything so they could understand it all – the leaders of the people were forever trying to embarrass Him with trick questions – and wherever Jesus went, children could not be kept away from Him. But with all these Our Lord always showed patience and kindness, and usually did whatever it was that they wanted Him to do.
But with hypocrites, and especially the ones who were supposedly the religious leaders of the people – with them, the Lord had no patience at all, and if you want to see Him angry, then the 23 rd chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is the place to go.
Why did this kind of behavior – hypocritical behavior - anger Him so much? Because, the worst thing you can do is to say one thing when you really believe or mean something else. It not only makes you a liar – it misleads those who are listening to you. And we never know how hard others might be listening to us, and trying to find in our words, something to hold on to, something to believe in. And Jesus is so concerned with how we treat one another, that He always wants us to be the person who is helping someone else, and who might even be saving someone else's soul.
To be that kind of person, the Lord teaches us that we must be absolutely honest on the inside, and that however good a person we might be, or end up being, has entirely to do with this kind of inside honesty. That is why He says, that it is the temple which makes for holy sacrifice, and not the gold in the temple – and the altar which makes offerings holy, and not whether or not the gift on the altar is rich or poor.
What Jesus is telling us, is that it is what is in the heart of a man that makes him good and holy, and not anything on the outside. We know men who wear the flashiest kind of clothes, the most expensive alligator shoes, velvet hats, and gold jewelry wherever they can find a place to put it. We also know that these kind of men are often the absolute worst – living off the lives of other people, or better, off the suffering of other people, and doing nothing for anyone else, unless they get a big payback in return.
But I'll bet we also know men who have very little or even nothing – maybe not even a decent set of clothes on their back, or a home where they can rest their weary bones at night. But my money is on the probability, that poor men are way ahead of the flashy men, when it comes to goodness, and when it comes to finding favor with God.
If we were to try and translate the words of Jesus into a statement that makes sense to people in jail, then it might be this: It isn't the jails that make men better, it's the heart within the man – it isn't being prisoners of a county or a city that makes society a better place, but how each one of us becomes a prisoner of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you know what St. Paul says about becoming a prisoner of the Lord – He says that becoming a prisoner of the Lord is what will truly set you free .
Dear friends, becoming a prisoner of the Lord, a prisoner of His love, starts with being absolutely honest with yourself, because you can't be honest with anyone else, or with God, until you are honest with yourself. You can't make things right with the world around you, until things are right within you. And it won't happen, unless you let the Lord in, and let the Lord take a hold of your heart. I don't know any better way of doing this than receiving the Lord in Holy Communion, which is what we are going to do today. But you must make this day last a long time, because I know that you don't get to have Mass and Communion very often.
So as you receive today – and even if you are not receiving, you can still pray that this takes place – pray, that your heart will be changed today like never before, and that it will be changed permanently – and that from now on, you will be totally honest with yourself, and with everyone else.
And if you do this, then God will look down, and He will know that you are begin totally honest, and that what you are doing is not only worthy of your friends, your family, and your society, but also worthy of Him.
And if you do this, He will give it back to you a hundred-fold – for nothing pleases God more than an honest man depending on Him for everything.
May God's Holy Spirit lead you into an understanding of this way by which you may change your lives – and more than understanding, may He make it absolutely true inside, where it counts – in your hearts.
Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the Kingdom of heaven before men. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves.
“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If one swears by the temple, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.' Blind fools, which is greater, the gold, or the temple that made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If one swears by the altar, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gift on the altar, one is obligated.' You blind ones, which is greater, the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? One who swears by the altar swears by it and all that is upon it; one who swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it; one who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who is seated on it.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Because we have faith, we are a people of hope. Because we believe that God has loved us, has sent us His beloved Son Jesus Christ, to suffer and die for our sins, we are able to put down our suspicious natures, and look forward, if not in this world, to a reward in the next that will surpass all our imaginations. In good times, this has enabled the true Church, the Catholic Church, to produce works of surpassing beauty and inspiration, for the benefit of all mankind. And in bad times, the faith and hope of the Church has given courage to the martyrs to die for the Faith, and countless other souls, to suffer hardship and depreciation for the sake of what they believed - for even in the worst of times, hope held out to those suffering heroes, men and women of faith, the expectation that God's reward for their loyalty would be even greater.
Where do we live today - are these the best of times? - are these the worst of times? If we look to history, I think we can all safely conclude that we are in neither. At the same time, we cannot hide our heads in the sand and refuse to see the truth about our own culture, about our own nation, about our own communities - that somehow, there has been a breakdown in those powers which once prevailed over the darkness - a breakdown in morality, in personal responsibility, in law and order, and in the ability of one generation to transmit to the next, those values and ideals which have fired the engine of faith for the two thousand years of our Church's existence on earth.
We may listen to the commentators - to the sociologists, to the journalists, to the politicians and pundits, and try to understand with them, the reasons that things seem to be, in so many ways, falling apart at the seams. We may try to find common solutions that might be applied to the problems of our institutions and the widespread inflation in the cost of basic services. And we may gather with educators and counselors and try to ferret out motivations that will lead our young people back into an understanding of personal worth, of respect for tradition, and a sense of respect for what they have been given, as they dash madly around, trying to find new things, new ideas, new gods to fill what they imagine to be the void in their lives.
But the words of St. Paul , heard in today's Mass, undercut all these futile gestures - the grabbing in the dark for the answers to questions that have but one answer. And the answer is what he has said:
For no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ.
The best thing we can do for our children, the best thing we can do for ourselves and the world we live in, is to hold fast to our faith and our hope, but also to let faith and hope move us to charity - to work, to good work, for the sake of Christ's love and for the sake of the love we bear one another. And how better can this love, this charity be expressed, than in teaching - in teaching our children especially, that the only foundation upon which one can successfully build life, is the foundation of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, whose life was the perfect and eternal example of the principles upon which we desire to live, the principles we desire to impart to our children - principles etched in our memories by the words of Micah, the prophet, in our first reading:
…to do right…to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.
Last October, on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi , you invited me to be here, to lend my support and blessing to the groundbreaking for the building we dedicate today. At that time, I summarized this project with these words:
"To plan a new building for education, to commit to its funding, and to see the project through to its end – these are all steps in a project that for us has its beginning in Heaven – a project that is born, because we have heard the voice of God say to us - here in our own neighborhood, here in Peachtree City – we have heard the voice of God say to us, 'My most beloved sons and daughters, build my church.' And today, we are answering Him, saying, 'Yes, Lord, we are here to do your will.' ”
Dear friends, for our children, and for the world we live in, let us be a beacon of faith and hope, a city set on a mountain, a light to lead home those who have wandered and who are searching for a way out of the darkness. Evil, Satan, and the terrible effects of original sin will be with us to the last day, but we have been given the power to fight these terrible forces, and to overcome them in our own lives. That power is the foundation upon which our lives are based, by our baptism - that power is the foundation upon which our Church stands, and stands without equal and without fear - and that power is the love and the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who died to save us. He moves to save us by coming to us in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, when we receive His Body and Blood. And entering us, He magnifies His own power, and brings forth from us much good - much fruit from the vine, as He has described us in the Gospel, saying:
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
God has given the people of Holy Trinity Parish this new education building - may all who pass through its halls become greater believers and deeper friends of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and in the fruit that this vine will bear, for generations to come, may God forever be glorified.
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