Today’s homily is entitled, “How
to get away from the ‘Herods’.” Notice
that “Herods” there is plural. It’s
plural because there are lots of Herods around these days. Adam Lanza, the man who murdered his own
mother, and 20 children and 6 adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on
December 14, was definitely a “Herod.” In
fact, his behavior would have made the original Herod quite proud. As the original butchered the Holy Innocents when
the Magi failed to return to him after their visit to the Christ child in
Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, so Adam Lanza killed 27 innocent human beings in
Newtown, Connecticut the other day.
But it’s not only mass murderers
like Lanza who fit into this category.
In point of fact anyone who advocates or supports the destruction of
innocent human life is, in some sense, a “Herod.” This would include abortionists as well as all
the politicians and lawyers and judges who enable them to do their dirty
work! It would include the medical
doctors who withdraw nutrition and hydration too quickly from terminally ill
patients, such that those patients actually die from the lack of food and
water, and not from their respective diseases.
It would even include the purveyors of violence in the entertainment
industry in our country: the makers of violent video games and the producers of
blood and gore movies and TV programs.
On that note, I went to see a
movie at Regal Cinemas in Stonington a couple of weeks ago and I was forced to
sit through 20 minutes of previews! (I’m
not exaggerating either; it was 20 solid minutes—I timed it! The movie was scheduled to start at 6:30, and
it began at 6:50! No wonder so many
people are late for Mass and for just about everything else that they do in
life. They’re being trained at the movie
theater to be late!) Now the reason I mention this today is because
for at least 15 of those 20 minutes, I was forced (as was everyone else) to
watch images of people being shot or blown up or beaten up or physically
attacked in some other way.
Please don’t tell me that this
kind of entertainment has absolutely no effect on the daily conduct of people
in our society! If nothing else, this
kind of stuff helps to create an “atmosphere of violence”; and all of us, like
it or not, breathe in that atmosphere every day.
Herod, of course, would absolutely
love it! He, after all, was a man who murdered
lots of people in addition to the Holy Innocents—including several members of
his own family! That’s why Caesar
Augustus reportedly once said that it was safer to be Herod’s pig than it was
to be Herod’s son!
Sad to say, Augustus was probably
right. Herod’s whole life as a ruler was
lived in an atmosphere of almost incessant violence.
Which seems to be where we’re
headed in our country, at least as of late.
The challenge we face as Catholic
Christians in 2013 is to create a new
atmosphere—a different atmosphere—a different culture—a different environment:
an atmosphere, a culture, an environment of
life, whereby we first decrease the number of Herods who are around, and
then minimize the negative influence of the ones who continue to live among us. That, incidentally, is what I mean by
“getting away from the Herods.”
Because we live in a fallen
world, there will always be some Herods that we have to contend with. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that it is possible to
decrease their number and minimize the negative influence of the ones who do
remain with us. In that sense, at least,
it is possible to “get away from them.”
And here we can learn some very
important lessons from the Magi, who did a great job of getting away from the
original Herod 2,000 years ago! We heard
about that in our gospel reading this morning.
Herod wanted the Magi to return to him after they visited the newborn
King of the Jews, but St. Matthew tells us that they took another route back to
their home country, and consequently never saw Herod again.
Now if you read the story
carefully, you see that there were reasons why this was the case: reasons why
they ended up staying away from this evil, violent man. I’ll mention a few of the more important
reasons in this homily—all of which apply to our situation today.
First of all, the magi followed the right light, and they
heeded God’s warning. If the Magi
had followed another star—any other star
in the heavens—they would not
have met Jesus in Bethlehem. They would have
ended up somewhere else—and perhaps eventually back in Herod’s clutches. But they did
follow the right star—and they heeded the warning God gave them—and thus they
stayed away from the evil king. As it
says in the last line of this gospel passage, “[God warned them] in a dream not
to return to Herod, [and so] they departed for their [own] country by another
way.”
As Catholics, we are blessed to
have the “light” of the fullness of the gospel—the “light” of the fullness of
God’s revealed truth in Jesus Christ—to guide us through the “minefields” of
this life and keep us away from the majority of the Herods out there. But how many Catholics really follow that
light? In other words, how many
Catholics know and understand and embrace the teaching of the Church on
doctrinal and moral matters? If you
believe the polls that are always cited in the media, not enough do. And how many Catholics heed the warnings that
God gives to them through people like the Pope—warnings against the hedonism
and materialism and secularism of the world?
Once again, if you believe the
polling data that’s out there, not enough do.
Is it any wonder the Herods are
so numerous and so active in our modern American society?
The
Magi also bent their knees (so to speak) to the Savior. Actually the text says they did more than get
down on their knees: they actually prostrated
themselves before the Christ child! That
action was a sign of their total submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ!
If we want to get away from the
Herods of the modern world, we have to do the same. The fact is, the further we distance
ourselves as a society from God and his Son Jesus Christ, the more lawless we
become. Kick God and his moral law out,
in other words, and the Herods will very happily and very quickly fill the
vacuum!
Someone sent me an email the
other day that makes this very point. Many
of you have probably seen it. It
contains a photograph of a T-shirt, and on the T-shirt are the following words:
Dear God, why do you allow so much violence in our schools?
Signed, A Concerned Student.
Dear Concerned Student, I’m not allowed in your schools.
Signed, God.
But unfortunately sometimes the
Herods are allowed in—Herods of one kind or another.
And that’s why this final point
is so crucial: To get away from the Herods, we
also have to give what we can give—just like the Magi 2,000 years ago gave
what they could give (namely, their gifts of gold and frankincense and
myrrh).
I’ll give you a perfect example
of what I mean by this: One of the reasons that abortion became legal in this
country 39 years ago was because in the late 1960s and early 1970s many
pro-life Catholic doctors and nurses and lawyers and judges and university
professors did not “give” what they could have given: they failed to “give” a
clear, intelligent public defense of innocent human life in the womb! They were, to a great extent, silent on the
matter. And so the Herods got what they
wanted in the Roe v. Wade decision in January of 1973.
The Herods win if we fail to give INSTRUCTION AND GUIDANCE to our children on moral matters.
They win if we fail TO GIVE
SUPPORT TO PEOPLE AND TO ORGANIZATIONS THAT PROMOTE RESPECT FOR INNOCENT HUMAN
LIFE (and that includes political support).
They win if we fail TO GIVE THE
WITNESS OF OUR PRO-LIFE WORDS AND ACTIONS AT SCHOOL AND AT WORK AND AMONG OUR
FRIENDS.
Make no mistake about it, if we
don’t “give” in these and similar ways, the Herods “get”.
And everyone suffers for it.
So today, Lord, we pray that more Catholics, more Christians, more believers
will do what these Magi did—these Magi who followed the right light, and who heeded
your warning, and who submitted to your Lordship, and who gave all that they
could give—and who, in the process, got away from Herod.