Voting and Viruses

Presidential Primary Voting. Yesterday I voted in the Florida Presidential Primary. I usually take advantage of early voting, but this year I had a nasty cold (fear not -- no fever or other coronavirus symptoms) and really don't like voting by mail. Fortunately, I felt much better yesterday, so I decided to go to my local polling site fairly early, at 8 a.m. It's at a nearby recreation center, only a couple of blocks from my house, but I was surprised by the nearly empty parking lot. As I entered the lobby I noticed the door opened automatically so I wouldn't have to touch door handles. I was greeted by a gentleman who directed me down the hall to one of the large meeting rooms. All the poll workers, probably about ten people, were wearing latex gloves. But most surprisingly, I was the only voter. After two people checked my photo ID against the voter registration list, another took me to a voting booth and handed me a ballot. I voted -- prolife, of course -- and took my completed ballot to another worker who showed me how to feed it into the machine that turns my little mark into a vote. I was then given one of those "I Voted" stickers and sent on my way. The whole process took about three or four minutes, and I never saw another voter.

I admit, being the only voter in sight was empowering. For a moment, a very brief moment, I felt almost dictatorial, as if my vote were the only vote that truly counted, as if I alone were deciding the future of our country, as if all those poll workers were there to protect my one, all-important vote. Of course this fantasy didn't last very long. Indeed, this morning's newspaper informed us that largely rural Sumter County, in which a majority of The Villages' population resides, had the highest voter turnout in the state: 40%. That's really quite high for a presidential primary in a largely Republican county when the incumbent is up for reelection and opposed by only a few unknown wannabes. (Okay, all of us from Massachuestts know Bill Weld, but that's why we'd never vote for him.) I suppose most folks voted early, some Republicans decided it was not a meaningful election, and others were concerned about possible coronavirus exposure. Anyway, to my knowledge I've never missed an election, so I've kept my record intact. 

Viral Weirdness. Believe me when I say that, despite my occasional comments about panic and pessimisn, I accept the severity of the coronavirus. Yes, it's becoming a global health threat and must be addressed, perhaps through rather draconian means. And yet, so much of our nation seems to be driven solely by fear, and to me, that represents a major change in how Americans have historically faced a common foe. 

I can honestly say that I have no fear whatsoever of the COVID-19 bug. First of all I'm a Christian and fear no evil. Anyway, how can I fear something with a name like that? To the layman this name -- like the N1H1 Virus that hit us in 2009 -- means absolutely nothing. If the CDC wanted to get our juices flowing from the start, maybe they should have given it a better name, something like "Wuhan Killer #1." It's far more mysterious since few of us know exactly where or what Wuhan is; it focuses the mind on the worst possible outcome;  and it tells everyone it's seriously prime time -- all in all, a much better, pay-attention name.

But despite the virus' name, I certainly believe in taking prudent precautions when it comes to dealing with it. To ignore this virus at my age would put my life in danger, but more importantly would threaten the lives of others with whom I come into frequent and close contact. As a member of the community I have an obligation to protect that community from a threat, especially if that threat could come from me.

But, again, as a faithful Christian, how can I fear? God's command -- Be not afraid -- fills Sacred Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments. God knows that fear is the great faith-destroyer, and the destroyer of community. Fear is the work of Satan, the scatterer. The Greek word for the devil in the New Testament (diabolos) is translated as "the slanderer." But the word's two roots literally mean "to tear or throw apart" or "to scatter." This is what Satan does. He scatters, or tries to, while Jesus Christ unites. As Christians, then, we must strive always to unite, to do Christ's saving work, and never to divide or scatter.

I suppose it all boils down to our willingness to believe and live that which we constantly profess:

"We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose" [Rom 8:28]

"All things" covers the waterfront, doesn't it? It includes viruses and other evils that might plague us as individuals and as a people. The key, then, is to "love God" and to strive to do His will in our lives, to answer His call "according to His purpose." 

I'm often asked, "Why does a loving God allow such things?" We must, however, remember that evils like this virus, whether we call it COVID-19 or Wuhan Killer #1, will always be with us because of our fallen natures. Indeed, if God removed all evil from the world, we would lack that which makes us human. We would lack the ability to make a moral choice, because we'd be faced with no choice at all, and unable to choose the good. 

Let God strengthen your faith as He makes all work for good in your life today. You need only open the door and allow Him to enter. Let Him tell you how He is calling you to fulfill His purpose in the community.

Homily: Healing Mass - March 21, 2015

This morning our parish celebrated Mass followed by a healing service. I was honored to have been asked to preach, and privileged to join my wife, Diane, as one of the prayer teams who prayed over (and with) those who came for healing. It was a beautiful morning. My homily follows...

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Readings: Jer 11:18-20 • Psalm 7 • Gospel: Jn 7:40-53

What a wonderful crowd -- God’s people gathered here today to taste His healing and forgiveness. And I can only assume you’re a very different crowd from that which John just described in our Gospel passage. How did he put it?

“A division occurred in the crowd because of Him” [Jn 7:43].

I trust we have no division here today, certainly no division “because of Him.”

Yes, you and I know who Jesus is. As Peter would later confess, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” [Mt 16:16]. But the crowd that day was divided. They had gathered at the Temple in Jerusalem during Sukkoth, or the Feast of Tabernacles. And as they listened to Jesus proclaim God’s Word, they could only ask each other: Who is this Jesus who walks among us and speaks with such authority? The answers were many. Yes there was division because of Him.

A few in the crowd, the unimportant ones, thought He was the Prophet, and they said so openly: “This is truly the Prophet” [Jn 7:40].  It’s the same claim many had made about John the Baptist.

Not “a prophet” but “the prophet.” In this they went back more than a thousand years to the words of Moses, to the 18th Chapter of Deuteronomy. Here Moses had prophesied that God would raise up a prophet, one greater than Moses himself [Deut 18;18].

To others in the crowd Jesus was the Christ, the promised Messiah; and they, too, spoke openly: “This is the Christ” [Jn 7:41].

But they were scolded by the Pharisees, the self-righteous aristocrats of dogma. This Jesus couldn’t be the Messiah. Just listen to Him. Can’t you hear that Galilean accent? Haven’t you read the prophets? It’s right there in Micah: the Messiah will come from Judea, from Bethlehem, the city of David. He certainly won’t come from a backwater like Galilee.

Yes, the common people – those the Pharisees considered ignorant, lawless, and “accursed” – saw Jesus more clearly, didn’t they? It’s evident the Pharisees despised the people. Indeed, the very name “Pharisee” means “separated ones.” Separated from the people, the “accursed,” they knew all they had to know about Jesus; but of course they were wrong. Indeed, they were so convinced Jesus was a fraud they wanted to arrest Him.

And yet, how did John put it? “No one laid hands on Him” [Jn 7:44]. Even the Temple guards, sent by the Pharisees to arrest Jesus, were unable to do so. And what prevented them? John tells us: nothing less than Jesus’ Word, nothing less than the Word of God Incarnate. The guards, themselves, confessed it: “Never before has anyone spoken like this man” [Jn 7:46].

Yes, “this man” speaks like no one else. Jesus speaks, God speaks, and things happen. Not only does God create a universe with His Word, but he also changes hearts...at least some hearts – hearts that are open and receptive, hearts that ache to experience the forgiveness and healing power of their Savior.

Is your heart, is my heart, open and receptive to Jesus Christ? Are you and I gathered here today to praise God, to thank Him for the gift of life, for our very being? Are we here to ask that He send us His Holy Spirit, that He touch us with His healing power, healing us in ways we’ve never dreamed of?

And, believe me, He will touch us…oh, yes, he’ll touch each one of us today, simply because He promised to do so. When we come to Jesus in faith, when, in all humility, we approach Him with our broken bodies and in our sinfulness, He wants only to heal and forgive.

The question is: do you believe that? It’s an important question because our faith, or perhaps more accurately, our acceptance of God’s gift of faith, is a key ingredient when it comes to God’s healing power.

And so this is our first healing principle: Faith, a deep, living faith, brings healing.

We encounter this again and again throughout the Gospel. At our parish Bible Study, we’ve spent the past few months digging deeply into Luke’s Gospel; and it’s remarkable how often Jesus said those wonderful words: “…your faith has saved you.”

We hear it when Jesus healed the ten lepers, but only one, a Samaritan, returned to thank Him [Lk 17:19]. We hear these words again when He gave sight to Bartimaeus, the blind beggar of Jericho, a man the disciples tried unsuccessfully to keep from Jesus [Lk 18:42].

Jesus also said, “…your faith has saved you,” when He forgave the sinful woman who anointed him in the home of Simon the Pharisee [Lk 7:50]. Unlike the leper and Bartimaeus she was neither ill nor handicapped. To our knowledge she received no physical healing. But just like the others she too was a sinner. She needed salvation; she needed saving; she needed healing, spiritual healing. And it seems she was a public sinner since Simon and his friends apparently knew all about her. Indeed, her very presence in their midst was for them a great scandal. No, Simon and his guests weren’t very happy about her crashing their party, were they?

But Jesus? Moved deeply by her faith, He could do nothing but love her, love her with divine, forgiving, merciful love. And because her faith was a deep repentant faith, she too could do nothing but love. For that’s what her act of anointing was, an act of love, born of repentance.

As St. James instructed the first Christians: “Confess your sins… and pray for one another, that you may be healed” [Jas 5:16] Yes, we’re called to both repentance and prayer: Confess your sins…and pray for one another. We repent, then, for our own healing, and we pray for the salvation and healing of others.

This, then, is our second healing principle: A true, living faith always leads to repentance, and true repentance will manifest itself as love.

When we love each other, we pray for each other, and in that sense each and every one of us is called to the ministry of healing, a ministry of love. We see this manifested most beautifully in all three synoptic Gospels when the paralytic is carried by his friends to Jesus [Mt 9:1-8; Mk 2:1-12; Lk 5:17-26] But because Jesus has attracted such a huge crowd they can’t get near Him, so what do they do?

Why, they get creative. They make a hole in the roof, lower their friend on his pallet through the hole, and plop him down right next to Jesus. What a remarkable act of love!  But notice, the paralyzed man never says a word. He asks for neither healing nor forgiveness. No, his friends do all the asking, not with words, but through their own faith and their act of love. This moves Jesus to act. All three Gospels declare that Jesus, seeing their faith, first forgives and then heals. He forgives first so we will know that our salvation is the more important result.

This leads us to a third principle: The living faith of the community, a faith that manifests itself in acts of love for others, brings forgiveness and healing.

Of course, whenever we look at faith and healing, we inevitably find ourselves asking: Just how strong does my faith have to be? Faith – that all-important element of true healing – is a gift, but it can be a troubling one for the Christian

I’m sometimes approached by those who are distraught because they prayed for physical healing and believe God has ignored them.

“Deacon, I’ve prayed for God to take away my cancer…or to ease my pain…or to remove this debilitating illness, but nothing has happened. I guess my faith just isn’t strong enough.”

No, I tell them, it’s not because your faith is weak. But sometimes you and I aren’t open to God’s will for us, and so we ask for the wrong things. More than anything else, God’s wants our salvation. That’s why Jesus so often said, “Your faith has saved you.” It’s your salvation and my salvation He desires more than anything else. Whenever physical healing occurs, it’s simply a manifestation of God’s will for that person.

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg...How much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” [Lk 11:11-13; See Mt 7:7-11]

All too often, almost willfully ignorant of God’s will for us, we ask for the snake or the scorpion and then wonder why God gives us something else. How often do you and I ask for His Holy Spirit, the greatest of His gifts?

The Spirit is waiting for you to call for Him. He wants nothing more than to fill your entire being with His presence. And it’s a miraculous presence, one that will bring you to understanding and acceptance of God’s will for you, one that will bring the healing God wants for you.

Each one of us is here for a purpose, brothers and sisters, and that purpose will always involve the Cross; for it is Christ, the crucified one, who stands at the door and knocks at the heart of every man and every woman. Recall the words of Jesus in the Garden as He prayed to the Father:

“…if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will” [Mt 26:39].

Yes, Jesus suffered and died, and did so for all of humanity. His plea to the Father was not for Himself, but for us. You may be here today for healing, but healing for whom? Are you focused solely on yourself, while some of those seated all around you are in desperate need of your prayer, in need of your healing touch?

This is the wonderful thing about our loving God: He doesn’t force Himself on the world; no, He wants us to do His work, to bring the world to Him. It’s summed up well in the beautiful Lenten hymn we all know:

"Lift high the Cross, the love of Christ proclaim, ‘til all the world adore His sacred name."

That’s what we’re called to do: to lift high the Cross, to proclaim the love of Christ Crucified to all the world. It’s a task that must start right here, with you and with me. Just look at each other. Look to your left and right. Look at those in front of you and behind you. Do it now!

Unlike the people in Jerusalem, we aren’t just a crowd. We are a community, brothers and sisters, a community of faith and love. We’re not a mere collection of individuals who happened to come here today to beg God for what we think we need. We are the universal Church – One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic – present here and now in Wildwood, Florida.

Later, at the sign of peace, will you reach out in love to these others in our community, in this holy Church, others who need your prayers? Will you offer your prayers for them when the bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of our Lord and lifted up for your adoration?

God has a plan for the world, but He also has a plan for each one of us, a plan for our salvation. And so our prayer today should echo Jesus’ prayer in the Garden: “…not as I will, but as you will.” Let God be God, brothers and sisters. Let Him decide what is best for you, what will bring you to salvation.

Come to Him today in faith, in repentance, in love, and experience God’s healing touch.