Showing Mercy in This Time of Trial
Monday June 27, 2005 Homily by Fr. Robert Altier Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Reading (Genesis 18:16-33) Gospel (St. Matthew 8:18-22)
As we look around in our world today, the
great question that we ask so often is: How long is God going to tolerate all
the evil? How many babies have to be killed? How many things need to happen?
How many marriages need to break up? How many people need to contracept? How
many times do all of these evil things happen? How many priests and nuns
abandon their vocation and start teaching things that are completely false and
leading people astray, and on and on it goes. Look at what is happening in
Spain right now – a Catholic country – where they are protesting in order to
have homosexual marriages, as they call it. Of course, it is going to pass
because of the government that is elected there. We have to wonder how long God
is going to tolerate it.
But then we look at the first reading, and we hear Abraham asking God,
“What if there are but fifty people in the city of Sodom that are innocent? How
about forty-five? or forty? or thirty? or twenty? or ten? Will you spare the
place for the sake of those people?” And each time the Lord says, “If I can
even find but ten, I will not destroy the place.” So when we wonder how long
God is going to tolerate the evil in the world, we need only to think about
this particular passage. What if He can find even just a handful of innocent
people, of holy people, will He forebear for the sake of that handful? He has
made His answer clear.
We need to also, then, forebear. It is a test for each one of us as to
whether or not we will remain faithful in the midst of all the evil that
surrounds us. It is a test for each one of us to determine whether or not we
are going to remain faithful to God when it seems that something different
should happen. If we think that God ought to intervene and do something and He
does not do it in our time, then we begin to wonder and doubt and question. So
the question is not: How much evil is God going to tolerate? The real question
is: Are we going to remain faithful in the midst of an evil society? That is
what it really comes down to.
Part of that remaining faithful is not just holding tenaciously to the
doctrines of the Faith; it has to do with the charity and the mercy that God
shows toward us and that we therefore need to show toward others. Are we
praying for the conversion of these people? Or are we instead praying that God
will send a lightning bolt and destroy the whole mess? Abraham intervened and
prayed that God would spare the place for the sake of the innocent. Are we
praying for that? For many of us, we could probably look back in our lives and
say, “If God would have intervened with some sort of lightning bolt at such and
such a time in my life, I would have gone to hell. Am I glad that somebody was
praying for my conversion? Should I not do the same for others?” Why is it that
suddenly we become so self-righteous since we have had a conversion and we pray
that God would destroy everyone else? That does not make sense. If mercy has
been shown to us, we need to show mercy in return.
God will indeed intervene one of these days, at the appointed time that
He Himself has decided. In the meantime, it is for us to pray that we will
remain faithful and that others will be converted. Saint Peter tells us that
God’s patience is directed toward salvation. He wants as many souls saved as He
can. Therefore, He continues to wait, and He allows many, many people to fall
away so that those whom He has chosen will be brought into the fold. That
includes each one of us. We now need to act as children of God.
Remember that Our Lord chastised James and John when they wanted to
call down lightning on the people who would not receive Jesus. Rather than
calling down the lightning, Jesus chastised his disciples who wanted to see the
show and wanted to see the people destroyed. The Lord simply said, “Let’s move
on to another place.” So too for us, we need to pray that these people will be
converted – not destroyed. What kind of charity is it for us to desire that
people would go to hell? There is no charity in that. We need to pray that they
will be converted so that they too will be able to go to heaven because no one
should desire that anyone would go to hell. What a horrible place to be, and
what a horrible thing to desire for anyone. Christian charity requires that we
have to be like God, Who has shown mercy to us. In turn, we must show mercy to
others so that many will be converted and many will be able to enter eternal
life.
* This text was
transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing.