Schwarzenegger and the Face of God

Did you hear? Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hollywood actor/body-builder and theologian, in a “shared discourse” with Danny DeVito, a diminutive version of Arnold, revealed that heaven and hell are mere fantasies. When asked what happens after death, he replied, “Nothing. You’re six feet under. Anyone that tells you something else is a f___ing liar.” 

The Austrian-born übermensch went on to say: “When people talk about, ‘I will see them again in heaven,’ it sounds so good, but the reality is that we won’t see each other again after we’re gone. That’s the sad part. I know people feel comfortable with death, but I don’t.”

Wow! After hearing these seemingly angry words of eschatological wisdom from Arnold, I’m sure the religious world will begin to rethink its entire attitude toward death and eternal life.

Okay, maybe not.

Arnold, because he denies life after death, is certainly no believer in the Judeo-Christian God. If he believes in any god it would be a merciless, hateful god, not unlike many of the pagan gods of the ancient world. In truth Arnold, although he might not admit it publicly, is an atheist, just another celebrity member of today’s expanding atheist culture. Today’s atheists, men and women like Arnold Schwarzenegger, deny human uniqueness. Without God there can be no real meaning and purpose in the natural world. And because they reject the presence of the sacred and transcendent, they really don’t know themselves because they don't believe they have immortal souls. Consequently, they neither encounter nor enjoy the true freedom God promises us.

Some say the atheist fears death because he fears oblivion. I disagree. The atheist fears death because he fears judgment. He fears coming face to face with the God who created him. The only way to escape God’s judgment is to cancel God, to cover or simply blot out His face. There are so many just like Arnold, people seeking only ephemeral pleasure, with no real concern for others, especially for future generations, those yet to be born. Without the face of God looking at them, they believe they can escape the eye of judgment and pretty much do whatever they like, focusing only on the here and now. We see it manifested in a consumerist society that in its most extreme form leads only to personal and societal destruction. 

You don’t have to be a theologian or sociologist to realize Arnold is not alone. I’ve focused on him simply because he went public with his comments on death and eternal life. But just consider how many other notables — politicians, Hollywood denizens, media talking heads, so-called educators — believe just what Arnold believes. Oh, they might even claim to be religious, or more likely, spiritual, but in truth they are essentially atheists. We can be fooled by listening to their words (unless like Arnold they occasionally open up) because they try to sound so good, so reasonable. The truth, however, is always in their actions. How did Jesus put it?

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits” [Mt 7:15-16].

Yes, indeed, sisters and brothers, just watch what they do; just examine the fruit and you will understand the nature of the tree.

Homily: Wednesday, 12th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Gen 15:1-12,17-18; Ps 105; Mt 7:15-20
Do you remember that preacher, Harold Camping, who predicted the world would end on October 21, 2011. He collected all sorts of donations from supporters, and used much of the money to put up billboards across the country announcing his prediction. I recall seeing several along the interstate on one of our trips up north. Of course, as it turned out, he wasn’t a very adept prophet, and the fateful day came and went.

About the same time we began to hear rumblings from new-agers that centuries ago the Mayans had predicted the world would end on December 21, 2012. It seems that millions of people throughout the world had become convinced that these primitive folks apparently had some inside knowledge. Of course, that day came and went as well. The prophecy was grudgingly accepted as false and I suppose the true believers are now searching for the next false prophet.

Yes, our world is filled with false prophets and their followers, people so caught up in their fantasies that they’re unable to recognize the truth. But many not only reject the truth; they reject the source of all truth. They reject God Himself. And by doing so they can’t accept that humanity’s ultimate vocation is salvation, eternal life, the reason we were created in the first place.

In the Gospel passage we just heard from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns us about false prophets, telling us we can recognize them by their fruits. How easy to listen to the words of the false prophet, all the while ignoring what those words yield.

False prophets abound, but fortunately we have the example of others, of those who yield good fruit. How blessed we’ve been with the saintly popes who have led the Church in recent years – with John Paul, Benedict and Francis.

But this has been true in every age of the Church. The Spirit seems always to raise up the saintly men and women most needed by the Church and the world. Whenever the Church faced a crisis, God supplied just the right person to handle it; people like Leo the Great, Catherine of Sienna, Francis Assisi, and two saints whose feasts we celebrated just last Saturday: Thomas More and John Fisher.

Both were executed by King Henry VIII because they refused to accept the king’s temporal authority over Christ’s universal Church. Who could be more relevant to our own times?  Indeed, Pope John Paul II named Thomas More the patron saint of political leaders.

Our modern politicians would do well to emulate these two 16th-century martyrs, for each was both wise and virtuous. In wisdom each applied his intelligence toward the accomplishment of what was good, and in virtue each habitually chose the good, regardless of the consequences.
This, of course, demands courage, the sort of personal courage rare among politicians of any time and place, but increasingly rare today.

How sad that we live in a world where true wisdom and true virtue are more often ridiculed than praised. For too many, cleverness has supplanted wisdom and pragmatism has replaced virtue, and the intoxicating and corrupting influence of power becomes oh so apparent. Too many see no difference between good and bad fruit because they no longer recognize virtue, they do longer discriminate between good and evil.

Relativism has replaced truth, and like Pontius Pilate they can look into the eyes of their God and sneer, “What is truth?” Like Pilate, some trees are deceivingly and splendidly arrayed, but have no fruit…while others bear only bad fruit, because they have chosen their will over God’s.

The Church will provide today’s prophets, brothers and sisters, and we will recognize them by their fruits. The patron of our parish, St. Vincent de Paul, warned his brothers not to become those wolves in sheep‘s clothing that Jesus warned us about.

In Vincent’s words…

“They pride themselves on their inflated imaginations. They are satisfied with the sweet exchanges they have with God in prayer; they even talk about it like angels. But when they come away is there any question of working for God, of suffering, practicing mortification, teaching the poor, searching for the lost sheep, being pleased when they lack something, accepting sickness or some other misfortune? No, let us not deceive ourselves: our whole task consists in doing the Father’s will.”

And that, brothers and sisters, is our task as well.

Homily: Wednesday, 12th Week of Ordianry Time

Readings: 2 Kgs 22:8-13; 23:1-3; Ps 119; Mt 7:15-20

False prophets, wolves in sheep's clothing – yes they’ve been around a long time. If you read the Old Testament – which I hope you do regularly – you’ll encounter many false prophets, along with a few true ones. Generally, it wasn’t easy for the people of the time to differentiate between false and true prophets. But it wasn’t impossible, because there’s a key difference between the two, one that still holds true today.

The false prophet inevitably tells people what they want to hear, while the true prophet tells people what God wants them to hear, and the two messages are never the same. That’s why a false prophet seldom, if ever, asks for sacrifice. Why not? Because telling people they must sacrifice doesn’t win hearts and minds. People don’t want to hear the truth when it hurts; and yet the hurtful truth is often the sign of the true prophet.

Jesus, of course, gives us another way to separate the false from the true prophet: “By their fruits you will know them.” And, trust me, our world today is filled with prophets; and just like Biblical times, far more false than true – yielding a lot of bad fruit.

Who’s today’s true prophet? Believe it or not, you and I. Each of us is called to be a prophet in today’s world. We’re all called to perform the prophet’s primary mission: to bring God’s Word to His people.

Being a prophet doesn’t mean telling the future. Oh, that can be a small part of the prophet’s message, but it’s not the critical part. For example, I can predict to someone who has rejected Jesus Christ and His commandments that his life will be marked increasingly by sadness and despair, that it will never experience the joy, the real happiness, that God wants for him.

You see, brothers and sisters, being a true prophet means leading people to the truth. Being a false prophet means denying the truth…or denying that there is any such thing as truth. This denial of truth is a topic that Pope Benedict addresses frequently. He calls this movement in our society the “dictatorship of relativism.”

We see it in evidence through moral relativism when sociologists or anthropologists make statements such as this:

Some cultures once approved of human sacrifice while others didn’t. And so human sacrifice isn’t universally bad. It’s fine in those cultures that approved it, wrong in those that didn't.

This same kind of relativism also appears at the individual level:

Mary thinks abortion is acceptable, but Ellen doesn’t. Each is equally entitled to her view. And who am I, or anyone else, to judge?

We see this sort of relativism at work in our legislatures and courts on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage…and even when specifically religious issues are addressed.

Before he was Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith caused a firestorm of relativist criticism with a document reaffirming the unique role of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church in God's redemptive plan. This was news? Well…in an age of relativism, apparently so.

As a frontal assault by false prophets on the very possibility of objective truth, relativism is by far the most destructive force of our time. It turns both private and public life into moral swamps. It’s apparent too in the attack on religious freedom we are defending against today in this country.

The question for us: what can you and I do?

First, always speak and support the truth…the unchanging, eternal truths of our faith. And live the truth. That’s right, live the commandments. Don’t listen to those who try to convince you that the Church’s teachings are out of date and don’t reflect the needs of today’s world. And finally, carry the truth.

Remember, God places people in our lives, sometimes for a lifetime, sometimes for just a moment. Sometimes they are placed there as an opportunity for us to act, to do something positive for God. And sometimes they are there to teach us something. But they are always there to remind us that we are to carry Jesus Christ to others; and we are to do so by seeing Jesus Christ in others.

And by your fruits they will know you are a Christ-bearer, a true prophet of Jesus Christ.

Homily: Wednesday, 12th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Gen 15:1-12,17-18; Ps 105; Mt 7:15-20

A few years ago, a prison administrator told me about an inmate who had been incarcerated for nearly 40 years. He had been through many parole hearings but had always been refused parole. And then, quite suddenly, the parole board gave him his freedom. But on the morning of his release, when they went to his cell, he acted as if it were no different from any other day. In fact, he acted as if he didn’t intend to leave, and resisted doing so for almost an hour.

“Don’t you understand?” they asked him, “You’re a free man.” But he just stared at the door to his cell as if he couldn’t figure out why it was open. Finally he said quietly, “One of the guys said I didn’t have to leave if I didn’t want to.” One of the guys…there are false prophets everywhere, aren’t there?

And for many of us, just like that inmate, life’s routines become life itself. We are so caught up in the routine of our lives that we miss the truly important. He’d been imprisoned so long that the routine had become his life. He no longer even thought of freedom, of our human vocation to be free men and women. So caught up in that routine, he’d long ago lost sight of everything else. Of course, the ultimate vocation for all of humanity is salvation, eternal life, the reason we were created in the first place.

In the Gospel passage we just heard from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns us about false prophets, telling us we can recognize them by their fruits. How easy it is just to listen to the words of the false prophet, all the while ignoring what those words yield. Yes, false prophets abound, but fortunately we have the example of others, of those who yield good fruit.

St. Thomas More

Today we are triply blessed, a saintly triple-header in which we celebrate the feasts of three saintly men whose lives bore especially good fruit. Two of them – St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher – were executed by King Henry VIII with weeks of each other because they refused to accept the king’s temporal authority over Christ’s universal Church. I can think of no saints more relevant to our own times. Indeed, Pope John Paul II named Thomas More the patron saint of political leaders.

A modern politician would do well to emulate these two 16th-century martyrs, for each was both wise and virtuous. In wisdom each applied his intelligence toward the accomplishment of what was good, and in virtue each habitually chose the good, regardless of the consequences. This, of course, demands courage, the sort of personal courage rare among politicians of any time and place, but increasingly rare today.

Pilate: "What is truth?"

How sad that we live in a world where true wisdom and true virtue are more often ridiculed than praised. For too many, cleverness has supplanted wisdom and pragmatism has replaced virtue, and the intoxicating and corrupting influence of power becomes oh so apparent. Too many see no difference between good and bad fruit because they no longer recognize virtue, they no longer discriminate between good and evil. Relativism has replaced truth, and like Pontius Pilate they can look into the eyes of their God and sneer, “What is truth?” [Jn 18:38] Poor Pilate, the first-century relativist, never suspected (or did he?) that he was standing in the presence of Truth Himself: "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life" [Jn 14:6]

Like Pilate, some trees are deceivingly and splendidly arrayed, but have no fruit…while others bear only bad fruit, because they have chosen their own will over God’s will. Thomas More and John Fisher chose wisely and virtuously; and willingly gave their lives as a consequence.

St. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola

The other saint whose feast day we celebrate today is St. Paulinus, a fourth-century bishop who had a deep love for the  poor, whom he took pains to feed during the difficult times in which he lived. I’ve always had a particular fondness for him and consider him the patron of soup kitchens, for his love for the poor yielded bushels and bushels of good fruit.

These, brothers and sisters, are the true prophets, the ones we should emulate. All too often we listen to the others, the ones who speak well but yield nothing.

Let me conclude by quoting the patron of our parish, St. Vincent de Paul, who while preaching to his community warned them not to become those wolves in sheep‘s clothing that Jesus warned us about. In St. Vincent’s words…

“They pride themselves on their inflated imaginations. They are satisfied with the sweet exchanges they have with God in prayer; they even talk about it like angels. But when they come away is there any question of working for God, of suffering, practicing mortification, teaching the poor, searching for the lost sheep, being pleased when they lack something, accepting sickness or some other misfortune?”

How did St. John put it? “Let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.”

Brothers and sisters, we should not let others deceive us with their empty words and false speech; nor should we deceive ourselves. Our task is really quite simple and consists only in doing the Father’s will.