Three Signs of Positive Change

Saul's big moment of "change"

(Fifth Sunday of Easter (B): This homily was given on April 28, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Acts 9:26-31; Psalm 22:26-32; 1 John 3:18-24; John 15:1-8.) 

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Fifth Sunday of Easter 2024]

It’s the question that every good mother and every good father asks when a child of theirs goes astray.  They might not verbalize it, but at the very least they think about it constantly—and it normally causes them to experience a great deal of anxiety:

Will they ever change? 

That’s the question: Will they ever change?  In other words, Will my son—will my daughter—ever become a good person again: the kind of person they used to be, the kind of person I raised them to be?

I’m sure that question is in the minds of some of the mothers and fathers in this church right now.

Now the tendency is to jump the gun and immediately say or think, “No, they’ll never be any different; they’ll never change for the better—even though I desperately want them to, even though I’m praying every day that they will.”

Maybe that’s because we live in a very cynical age of human history, where all too many have the attitude that, as the old saying goes, “A leopard doesn’t change his (or her) spots.”  And so we tend to be suspicious of anyone who claims to have changed their life in a positive way.  We think to ourselves, “Well, sooner or later, we’ll find out about the skeletons in their closet.  It’s just a matter of time.”

If a baseball player, for example, tests positive for steroids at some point in his career, and then goes on to hit 50 home runs the following season, you can bet that most fans will doubt that he did it legitimately—even if he takes several drug tests during the course of the year and passes them all!  He might have changed his ways, but the first inclination most people will have is to doubt it.

This tendency toward skepticism, of course, is not peculiar to our generation or culture.  To some extent it’s always been present—ever since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden at the beginning of human history.

It was even present in the early Church, as we heard a few moments ago in our first reading from Acts 9.

Listen again to the opening words of this text:

“When Saul arrived in Jerusalem he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple.”

Imagine someone told you back in 2002 or 2003 that Osama bin Laden had all of a sudden become a big supporter and friend of the United States.

Would you have believed it?

Well, that’s precisely the kind of thing these early Christians were being asked to believe about Saul of Tarsus!  Remember, this was the man who had been an accomplice in the death of St. Stephen, the first martyr; this was the man who had probably arrested some of the relatives and friends of these early Christians and thrown them into jail; this was the man who only recently had been (as the Bible puts it) “breathing murderous threats against the Church.”

And now you expect us to believe that he’s “Joe Super-Christian”; you expect us to welcome this man with open arms?  We don’t think so!  He’s probably lying just to get into one of our Sunday Masses so that he can arrest all of us at one time!

In all likelihood, that was the initial reaction these Christians in Jerusalem had when they heard that their old nemesis was in town!

But Saul had changed, and, with the help of Barnabas, the apostles and the rest of the Christian community eventually came to recognize that fact.

So positive change is possible!  It’s always possible.  Even if your children have severed themselves from “the Vine,” Jesus Christ—to use the image of today’s gospel—they can always get grafted back on.

Most of us know the story of St. Augustine, who went from hedonist to saint after his mother Monica prayed for him for thirty-plus years—no doubt getting some very thick calluses on her knees in the process! 

That’s another well-known example of somebody who changed for the better in a radical way.  But the great thing is, for every famous conversion story (like that of St. Paul or St. Augustine), there are literally thousands of unknown ones which are just as real!  They’ll never be written up in any book, that’s true, but they’re every bit as genuine.

Perhaps you have one of your own.

Let me close now by sharing with you 3 visible signs which indicate that a true conversion has, in all likelihood, taken place.  I mention these today because they were all present in Saul of Tarsus after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus 2,000 years ago. 

Moms and dads, these are signs to look for in your child which will indicate that your prayers are working, and that your child either has changed, is changing, or is on the verge of changing for the better.

Sign #1: New friends.  It’s very hard to change your life in a positive way if you continue to hang around with the people who encouraged you and supported you in your old life of sin!  You need new friends to encourage you and support you in your new life of virtue.

In 1 Corinthians 15, St. Paul wrote these words: “Bad company corrupts good morals.”

That was something he probably knew from his own experience!  Needless to say, in his days as a Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus would not have been “best buddies” with somebody like Barnabas! 

But after he came to Christ and was baptized, Barnabas became one of his closest friends and allies, as we heard in today’s first reading.

So, moms and dads, if you’re praying for your children to change, start by praying that they get some better friends!  Virtuous friends can make an incredible difference!  I’ve seen that happen over and over again in the last 38 years in my ministry to teenagers.

Sign #2: An honest assessment of the past.  This is another important indicator of positive change: when a person can sincerely acknowledge their evil, pre-conversion behavior.  There are several examples of this sign in the writings of St. Paul, none of which is more powerful than this line from 1 Timothy 1, where Paul says of himself, “I was once a blasphemer, a persecutor, a man filled with arrogance . . . “ 

Paul didn’t try to excuse or “whitewash” the sins of his past life; he was completely honest about everything he had done.

Moms and dads, if you don’t encounter that same kind of brutal honesty in your son or daughter, chances are they haven’t really changed—even if they insist they have.

And finally, sign #3: A recognition of the need to remain vigilant, lest they fall back into their old ways.  When a person says, “Oh, I’m different now.  I’ll never even be tempted to do that stuff again,” watch out!  That’s a clear sign of pride; and, to paraphrase Proverbs 16:18, “Pride precedes a fall.”

Those who have really changed understand their own weakness and the need they have to be vigilant over their thoughts, words and actions.  They know they need to (as the Act of Contrition puts it) “avoid the near occasion of sin.”

St. Paul expressed this attitude in 1 Corinthians 9:27 when he wrote, “What I do is discipline my own body and master it, for fear that after having preached to others, I myself should be rejected.”

Paul was not a prideful fool—and that’s one of the biggest reasons why his “change” lasted.

The final paragraph of today’s first reading says, “The Church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria was at peace.  It was being built up and walked in the fear of the Lord, and with the consolation of the Holy Spirit it grew in numbers.”

“It grew in numbers” for one very simple reason: because an awful lot of people changed their lives for the better!

So take heart, worried mothers and fathers: if it happened all those years ago for those early Christian converts, it can happen once again today—for your wayward children.

 

Which Jesus is Your Shepherd?

 

(Fourth Sunday of Easter (B): This homily was given on April 21, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Acts 4:8-12; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Fourth Sunday of Easter 2024]

Every Christian will say, “Jesus is my shepherd.”

And that’s good; every Christian should say that!

But that assertion still leaves one very important question unanswered: WHICH JESUS is the person talking about?  Of all the Jesuses that are out there—of all the Jesuses that they could possibly be following in this life—which one ARE they actually following?  Which Jesus is truly their personal shepherd?

Now you might be thinking to yourself, “But Fr. Ray I thought there was only one Jesus—the one who called himself ‘the Good Shepherd’ in the gospel text we just heard from John, chapter 10.”

Well, yes, that’s true.  There is only one Jesus who is, in fact, the Good Shepherd.  There is, in other words, only one REAL Jesus.

But there are a lot of other Jesuses out there that people follow these days—false Jesuses; counterfeit Jesuses—and the sad reality is that many of them have a larger following than the real one does!

I’ll give you some examples.

First we have what I would call the “feel-good Jesus”.  The only thing this Jesus does is give people a warm and fuzzy feeling on the inside.  He doesn’t challenge them; he doesn’t criticize them; he doesn’t ask them to change in any way.  He’s like a drug they take when they want to feel good about themselves and about the way they’re currently living.  I suppose another way to describe this Jesus is the “happy pill Jesus”.

And then we have the “non-judgmental Jesus” (who might be classified as the first cousin of the feel-good Jesus!).  This is the Jesus that the mainstream media actually accused Pope Francis of following after he made that statement, “Who am I to judge?” in an interview he gave early on in his pontificate.

Of course, they took his statement completely out of context!

The Holy Father was speaking specifically in that interview about priests who may experience same sex attraction in their lives, but who are striving to be chaste.  And in that context he said—and here’s the complete sentence: “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

He was not condoning sin there!  He was basically saying exactly what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, and what John Paul II and Benedict XVI and every other modern pope has said: that it’s no sin to experience same sex attraction! 

The sin comes in certain activities of a sexual nature which are associated with the attraction. 

Of course, the fact of the matter is that heterosexual men and women can also commit serious sins of a sexual nature in their lives.

That fact is often left out of the discussion—especially when the discussion takes place in the mainstream media.

By the way, I should add that if most of the people in the mainstream media would approve of the Jesus you are currently following as your shepherd, you can be certain that you’re following the wrong one.

The real Good Shepherd didn’t condemn people, but he did convict people of their sin—often—as the scribes and Pharisees would certainly attest!  Our Lord judged their actions and convicted them of their sins lots of times! 

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites …!”

Remember when he said that to them?

And speaking of condemning other people, there are actually some Christians who follow a false Jesus who, sad to say, is most accurately described as the “hateful Jesus”.  Ever hear of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas?  This church has made national news a number of times over the years because its members often picket public events holding up signs and banners that say things like, “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “God hates gay people” (although their signs usually refer to gay people with a much more vulgar term—which I won’t mention). 

Yet another false Jesus.

And then there’s what I would call the “irrelevant Jesus”.  This is the Jesus who has nothing to say about current moral or social issues.  He lives in the church building, comes out for an hour on Sunday morning (or Saturday night) to be with his people; then he gets locked up and is silent for the rest of the week.

This is the false Jesus who is followed by all those Catholic politicians who are fond of saying, “I am a Catholic, but …” It’s also the Jesus who is followed by those people who criticize their bishops, priests and deacons for speaking from the pulpit about abortion or physician-assisted suicide or some other contemporary issue, and who thus accuse them of being too “political”.

Lest we forget, the real Jesus—the real Good Shepherd—talked about moral issues all the time!  He even talked about the moral obligation to pay your taxes (which hopefully everyone here did as of the 15^th of this month!—unless, of course, you got an extension).

And finally, there’s the very popular “modern-love Jesus” who is shepherding lots and lots of people in the Western world right now.  This is the false Jesus who teaches people to use others for pleasure, and that everything is acceptable as long as it happens between two consenting adults.  I don’t know whether or not Hugh Hefner ever claimed to be a Christian, but if he did make that claim when he was alive then I would say this is definitely the false Jesus he followed, the false Jesus who functioned as his personal shepherd.

The real Jesus Christ—the real, genuine Good Shepherd—is the one that the Church has preached and that true Catholics have followed for 2,000 years.  Yes, it’s true, he sometimes he does give us a warm and fuzzy feeling on the inside (and that’s always nice when it happens!), but at other times he makes us feel uncomfortable by challenging us to be better disciples.  The real Good Shepherd won’t condemn us during our earthly life—just like he didn’t condemn the woman in John 8 who’d been caught in adultery.  But he WILL convict us of our sins, just like he convicted her of her sin!  Remember his parting words to her were, “Nor do I condemn you.  You may go, but from now on avoid this sin.”

The real Good Shepherd never hates—soldiers, gays or anyone else!  He’s ALWAYS relevant; and he teaches us about true love, not the modern-Hugh Hefner version of it.  And he expresses the essence of that love in today’s gospel passage when he says, “I will lay down my life for my sheep.”  Or, as he said later in John, chapter 15: “Greater love no one has, than to lay down his life for his friends.”

Let me close now by stating what should be obvious: It’s very easy to follow one of those counterfeit good shepherds that I just spoke about in this homily; it’s very hard to follow the real one!

But it’s worth making the effort to do so—it’s worth ALL the effort!—because, as St. Peter reminds us in today’s first reading, only the REAL GOOD SHEPHERD can save us. 

Which Gospels Do You Want—The Four In The Bible, Or The Ones Written By The Gnostics?

(Third Sunday of Easter (B): This homily was given on April 14, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Acts 3:13-19; Psalm 4:2-9; 1 John 2:1-5a; Luke 24:35-48.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Third Sunday of Easter 2024]

Which gospels do you want?  Which gospels do you want to use as the basis of your religious beliefs?

The ones that were inspired by the Holy Spirit?  The ones that were written in the first century by the four men whose images adorn the back wall of our sanctuary: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?

Or the ones that were written much later, by the so-called “Gnostics”?  I’m talking here about writings like the Gospel of Judas (which was in the news a lot in the mid-2000s); the Gospel of Thomas (made famous a number of years ago in the movie, Stigmata); the Gospel of Peter; and the Gospel of Philip.  (Now please don’t be fooled: these Gnostic gospels weren’t actually written by the apostles themselves.  Rather, Gnostic authors put the names of the apostles on their writings in order to deceive real Christians and lead them away from the true faith.) 

At this time, let me say a brief word on Gnosticism itself, since people today are still buying into it!  Case in point: Dan Brown, the much-celebrated author of The DaVinci Code.  I hope you realize, all the so-called “deep insights” about Jesus and Christianity that he shares in that book are nothing more than ideas he ripped off from ancient Gnostic writings!  They’re not new truths; they’re simply old lies!  The latest popular manifestation of these lies, incidentally, is in the transgender movement (of all places)—especially in how people in that movement view the human body.  More about that in a minute.

The name itself—Gnosticism—comes from a Greek word (gnosis) meaning “knowledge”.  Gnostics were people who considered themselves to be “in the know” with respect to the deep mysteries of God and the universe.  They thought they were smarter and more spiritually enlightened than everyone else—which is one reason why the philosophy is still very popular today.  In our pride, we like to think we know spiritual secrets and other secrets (like our true sexual identity) that other men and women—“ordinary” men and women—don’t know.

In the early centuries of Christianity, the followers of Gnosticism were a lot like people in the contemporary New Age Movement.  That is to say, they weren’t members of one single organization.  Rather, they were people from many different groups who embraced similar ideas about life, God and salvation.

For example, the Gnostics did not believe that Jesus Christ was truly human (as genuine Christians did).  To them, his humanity was merely an illusion.  Consequently, in their view, Jesus did not experience death on the cross.  He only appeared to die.  As one author put it, his crucifixion was really a “cruci-fiction”.

Nor did they believe that Jesus was God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.  To them he was an “aeon”—a created being who was on a level somewhere between God and humans.

Gnostics sometimes disagreed among themselves on particular issues, but nearly all of them agreed on this crucial point: physical matter is evil (and that includes the human body), but the human soul or spirit is good. 

This explains why, in the Gospel of Judas, Judas is considered a hero for helping to get Jesus killed!  That’s why, in the Gospel of Judas, Jesus says to his betrayer, “But you will exceed all [the others].  For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”

In other words, “Judas, by betraying me and getting me crucified you’ll be doing me a really big favor!  You’ll be helping me to get rid of this evil body that I have.  You’ll help to set my spirit free from this flesh that holds it in bondage.”

Now, when you stop and think about it, you have to admit, there’s something rather appealing about this particular Gnostic teaching.  You see, if your body is truly bad, then it obviously doesn’t matter what you do with it.  You can get drunk every day; you can have any kind of sex you want as often as you wish.  You can mutilate your body and take harmful drugs to try to become a member of the opposite sex.  When it comes to your flesh, there are no rules you have to follow!

Sounds rather appealing, does it not?  That’s why people like Dan Brown think it’s great!

This, of course, is exactly the opposite of what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John teach in their gospels.  They teach that matter is good, not evil.  In John 3:16, for example, Jesus doesn’t say, “For God so hated the world”; he says, “For God so loved the world.” 

God doesn’t hate the material universe or consider it to be evil.  After all, he’s the one who made it!  In fact, he uses matter to give us his grace in the sacraments!  As the Vatican reminded us in a document that was released just this past week, which made reference to the transgender phenomenon: “The dignity of the body cannot be considered inferior to that of the person as such. … [And] It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”  (Dignitas Infinita, 60)

God made it a material universe, and he also made it a moral universe, governed by laws and commandments.  St. John says in today’s second reading, “Those who say, ‘I know [the Lord],’ but do not keep his commandments are liars, and the truth is not in them.  But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.”  A staunch Gnostic of the first century would wretch at a statement like that.

Following the teaching of the real gospels is obviously much more difficult than following the teachings of Gnosticism, because it requires discipline, repentance and sacrifice.  But, in the long run, it’s really much better.  Trust me.  Because if “matter” is really as bad as the Gnostics said it was, then it becomes almost impossible to argue against evils like the Holocaust and the terrorist attacks of 9/11! 

You see, according to strict Gnostic principles, the Nazis did those 6 million Jews a big favor during the Second World War by setting them free from their evil bodies!  Thus, they weren’t murderers; they were liberators!  They did for the Jews (and for many others) what Judas did for Jesus (according to the Gospel of Judas).

The terrorists did the same for those who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Do we really want to say that?  Do we really want to rewrite history and call both the Nazis and the terrorists of 9/11 “liberators”?

I hope not.  But we would be forced to, if we believed the Gnostic gospels.  We would even be forced to say that suicide is morally good, since the person who takes his own life frees himself from his own evil body.

The real Jesus took on human flesh out of love, and he redeemed it through his resurrection.  That’s the Good News!  Jesus didn’t just come to save our souls from eternal death; he came to save “all” of us—body and soul—from eternal death!  At 66 years of age, incidentally, that’s a thought that appeals to me more and more.  I like the thought of having a transformed, glorified body that’s free from Parkinson’s Disease and prostate cancer and multiple myeloma—and every other illness!

Notice in today’s resurrection story from Luke 24 how determined Jesus is to get his disciples to understand that his resurrected body is real!  Even though he doesn’t need to eat (because his body is immortal), he does so anyway.  He has a nice fish meal with his apostles, and he tells them to touch his body.

The Gnostics must have freaked out when they first read this story.  It must have made them sick!

That’s why they felt so compelled to write their own fictitious accounts of Jesus’ life.

So which gospels do you want?  Which gospels do you want to use as the basis of your religious beliefs—the four we have in the Bible, or the Gnostic ones? 

I would tell you my personal answer to that question, but at this point I really don’t think I need to.

I’ll only say that I hope and pray that your answer is the same as mine.