Everyone Has a ‘Religion’. Is the Blessed Trinity at the Center of Yours?

 

(Trinity Sunday 2024: This homily was given on May 26, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Deuteronomy 4:32-40; Psalm 33; Romans 8:14-17; Matthew 28:16-20.)

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

 

“I’m not religious; I’m spiritual.”

Have you heard that line before?

I have—lots of times!

But what’s become even more common in recent years is for people to say, “I’m nothing; I have no religious affiliation at all.”

Sometimes you hear these men and women referred to as the “nones”—which has nothing to do with those women who taught some of you in Catholic school.

In this case, nones is spelled n-o-n-e-s, not n-u-n-s.

But the really interesting thing is, it’s not true!  It’s a misnomer.  There is really no such thing as a “none” (n-o-n-e).

If you ask one of these people, “What’s your religion?” they will say, “I have none.”

But that’s not the case!  Everyone—and that includes every atheist—has a religion, whether he realizes it or not.

What’s a religion, after all?

A religion is a belief system that guides your life!

At its core, that’s what every religion is: a series of beliefs that guides you in your thoughts, your words, your actions and your decision-making.

So, in that sense, EVERYBODY is religious—because everybody has a belief system that guides him in those ways I just mentioned! 

·       Every Catholic has a belief system that guides him through life.  (Hopefully it’s the Catholic belief system—although it might not be.  Think of those who say, “I am a Catholic, but …”)

·         Every Muslim has a belief system that guides him through life.  (In some cases, sad to say, this includes the belief that it’s morally acceptable to kill innocent people.  Thankfully, not every Muslim believes that, but some certainly do.  We see evidence of this quite often on the evening news.

·         Every Protestant has a belief system that guides him through life.

·         Every Jew has a belief system that guides him through life.

·         Every Buddhist has a belief system that guides him through life.

·         Every materialist, every hedonist, every secularist, every agnostic—and, yes, even every atheist—has a belief system that guides him through life.

So the real question should NOT be, “Are you religious?” (since everyone is!); the real question should be, “To what extent is your religion rooted in truth?”

In other words, “To what extent does your religion teach the truth concerning God and life and the nature of the human person?”

For Catholics, the belief that there are three divine Persons in the one true God—that is to say, belief in the reality of the Blessed Trinity—is supposed to be at the very foundation of their religion.  Of course, as I indicated a few moments ago, it might not be for a particular Catholic person.  But it should be.  Here’s how the Catechism says it in paragraph 234: The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life.  It is the mystery of God in himself.  It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them.  It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faith”.   The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men “and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin”.

Let me give you a few examples now of some of the ways that having the Blessed Trinity in our “belief system” should guide us in our lives.

First of all, it should directly influence our view of love.  To worldly people in the 21^st century, love is all about “taking”: “What can you give me, what can you do for me, to make me happy?”  The inner life of the Blessed Trinity teaches us that real love is about “giving”—giving yourself to another person for their good and happiness.  Jesus said in John 5: “For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to his Son the possession of life in himself.”

That’s an example of the kind of self-giving that takes place between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  It’s intense, and it’s complete.  Needless to say, it’s a love without any selfishness.

Belief in the Blessed Trinity should also motivate us to make family life a priority, because the dogma of the Trinity teaches us that God is (in a certain sense) a “family” of Persons: a family of Persons united by an eternal bond of love.  This means that a Catholic who has the Blessed Trinity as part of the “belief system that guides his life” will always be working to make his relationships with his family members the very best that they can possibly be.

Which, of course, is not easy!  That’s why he’ll also pray a lot!

Belief in the Blessed Trinity should also impact our view of marriage.  In the Blessed Trinity, the Father loves the Son with an intense, perfect, eternal love.  That love is so intense that it’s actually another Person—the Holy Spirit—who, as the Nicene Creed tells us, “proceeds from the Father and the Son.”

So please notice, in the Blessed Trinity, love is fruitful: the Father loves the Son, and from that love the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally.

In a speech he gave in Africa in 1988, Pope St. John Paul II said this: “Christian family life is a reflection of the life of the Blessed Trinity.”  That, of course, really shouldn’t surprise us, because we’re made in the image and likeness of God.

So, obviously, if a marriage here on earth is to reflect the life of the Trinity properly, it must be FRUITFUL (or at least it must have the natural potential to be fruitful).

It must be fruitful (or at least potentially so), because the Father’s love for the Son in the Blessed Trinity is fruitful!

But a so-called “gay marriage” can never be fruitful, can it?  You learn that in Biology 101.  Two men cannot have a natural child of their own; two women cannot have a natural child of their own.  It’s impossible.  Only the marriage of a man and a woman has the natural potential to be fruitful!

So of all the reasons that can be mentioned as to why gay marriage is wrong, perhaps the most important one is this: It’s “anti-Trinitarian.”  It’s anti-Trinitarian because the love of the Father and the Son in the Blessed Trinity is fruitful.  The love in a gay relationship is not.

And it never can be. 

One more point needs to be mentioned today: Belief in the Blessed Trinity should also prevent us from ever buying into a lie like racism. Sad to say, even after all our nation has been through, racism is still alive and well in certain segments of our society.  Well, no Catholic who has the Blessed Trinity as part of his life-guiding belief system should ever be a part of any of it!

That’s because the Blessed Trinity reminds us that those who share the same nature enjoy the same dignity.  Remember, in the Blessed Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three distinct divine Persons.  However the Father is not “more divine” than the Son; the Son is not “more divine” than the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is not “more divine” than the Father or the Son.  Each Person of the Blessed Trinity shares the divine nature; consequently each is to be worshipped as God! 

Those who share the same nature enjoy the same dignity. 

Well, in a similar way, every human person—regardless of their skin color or their age or their sexual orientation or their other personal characteristics—has a human nature, and so they deserve to be respected and treated with a certain dignity, from the moment of their conception in the womb to the moment of their natural death.  As the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity share the divine nature and are to be treated accordingly, so every human person has a human nature and is to be treated accordingly.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if more Americans believed that—and if more Christians worldwide understood that saying you believe in the Blessed Trinity means that you MUST also believe in the dignity and equality of every human being?

In closing I ask you to think about your own belief system—the one that guides your life (your thoughts, your words, your actions, your decision-making process).  Is it the Catholic belief system—and is the Blessed Trinity at the center of it?  

If you answer that question honestly, it will tell you a lot about where your life is at—and a lot about where your life is going.

 

How to Make Better Choices

 

St. Matthias

(Seventh Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on May 12, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Acts 1:15-26; Psalm 103:1-20; 1 John 4:11-16; John 17:11-19.)

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

 

Two men.

Two disciples.

Two men who had been disciples from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

Two witnesses to the resurrection.

Two great candidates to replace Judas . . .

But only one office that needed to be filled!

That means a choice—a very important choice—had to be made.

And it was made, as we heard a few moments ago in our first reading: Matthias was chosen to replace Judas as a member of the Twelve.

I mention this today because all of us face important decisions like this in our lives: the choice, for example, of where to live; the choice of where to work; the choice of what college or technical school to attend; the choice of whether to get married, or remain single, or enter the priesthood or religious life.

The list goes on and on.

How do you make decisions on matters like these?  What steps do you follow in your discernment process?  What principles guide you in your attempt to make the right choice?  

Here, I think, we can learn some very important lessons from these 11 apostles and how they finally picked Matthias.  Their experience in picking a replacement for Judas can help us to become better decision-makers ourselves. 

Let me briefly share these lessons with you now . . .

Lesson #1 that we learn from the apostles here: When making an important decision in life, know what you’re looking for.  In other words, make sure you have the right set of criteria in place.

Notice that Peter and the other ten apostles knew exactly what they were looking for in Judas’ replacement.  He had to be all those things I mentioned at the beginning: he had to be a man; he had to be a disciple; he had to be a disciple from the beginning of our Lord’s earthly ministry (that is to say, for the previous 3 years); and he had to be a witness to the resurrection in the same way that Peter and the others were.

Those criteria were firmly set in place before they ever started to evaluate individual candidates.  They knew the kind of person they were looking for; they knew the kind of person they should be looking for.

What I have found in my priestly ministry, is that many people make decisions—especially moral decisions—without putting the right set of criteria in place beforehand, and that sometimes leads them to choose courses of action that are morally evil and disastrous for their lives.  For instance, when a teenage girl discovers she’s pregnant, she basically has three options: she can raise the child herself; she can give the child up for adoption; or she can have an abortion.  But if she wants to make the morally correct decision in that situation, she needs to put the right set of criteria in place before she starts her deliberating!  And her first criterion should be that she will only choose a course of action that will respect the innocent life in her womb!  That, of course, immediately eliminates abortion as one of the possibilities!  Now she’s down to two.  And if a second criterion is that the child be well provided for financially, that may narrow down the options to one, namely, adoption.

Another example that doesn’t get mentioned too often in homilies is the problem of infertility.  It’s terribly sad when couples who want children of their own are physically unable to have them.  But here, once again, there’s a need to put the right criteria in place before a decision is made on how to deal with the situation.

The Church teaches that infertility treatments which assist the marital act in bearing fruit are morally acceptable in most instances (this includes, but is not limited to, infertility drugs), whereas infertility treatments that replace the marital act (like in vitro fertilization and surrogate parenthood) are not morally acceptable.  So obviously, when Catholic couples are faced with this difficulty in their marriages, they should resolve to pursue only morally acceptable solutions.

That should be the first criterion they set up for themselves in the decision making process.

Unfortunately, it isn’t always—but it ought to be.

And then, there’s prayer.  They say nothing truly good happens without it.  Prayer is lesson #2.  Notice that before the apostles made their decision about Judas’ replacement, they spent some time in prayer, realizing that God already knew who the replacement should be.

How often do you seek wisdom and insight directly from the Lord before making a life-changing decision?—“Lord, what do you want me to do with the rest of my life?” “Lord, what school do you want me to attend?”  “Lord, how do you want me to handle this difficulty?”

If we believe that God knows everything, then he knows the answers to questions like these long before we do.  The key is to pray, and then to learn to listen for God’s response.

We must remember, too, that sometimes God speaks through other human beings, as he did through Peter in this scene from Acts 1.  In fact, I’m sure that there was a good bit of discussion among all 11 apostles before Matthias and Barsabbas were nominated and the lots drawn.

Lesson #3 follows from this:  Before you make a big decision, talk about it with wise people who can give you good advice.  On that note, Bishop Sheen always said that there are only two groups of people we should seek counsel from in our lives: those who have suffered a lot, and those who are holy.

I think that’s very good counsel—from a very holy bishop.

When making an important decision it’s also essential for us to put aside our own feelings and personal preferences, so that we can discern the perfect will of God.  That’s another little lesson we can glean from this story.  You know, there might have been several other great candidates for the position of apostle, who had become followers of Jesus after the resurrection.  And perhaps Peter and some of the others would have preferred that one of them replace Judas. 

But Peter and those others didn’t let their own feelings get in the way.  They knew that wasn’t what God wanted.  The apostles were the foundation stones of the Church, and those stones needed to be there from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

When we’re making an important decision like this, it’s very hard not to let personal feelings get in the way of objectivity.  But we have to try—lest we make a foolish or hasty choice.

And finally, we can ask for a sign like the apostles did to confirm our decision, if we’re so inclined.  Although we need to be very careful about this (that’s why I mention it last). 

It’s been my experience that people can see “signs from heaven” where there really aren’t any signs from heaven:  “Oh, Fr. Ray, I was thinking about so-and-so because I really like him a lot, and at that exact moment he called me on the phone!  I think that’s a sign that I’m supposed to marry him!”

Wooah, now!  Wait a minute here.  That’s reading a bit too much into the situation, I think.

A good rule of thumb is: If you believe you’ve seen a sign from the Lord, check it out with several of those wise people I mentioned earlier.  And only act on it if it’s confirmed a number of times.

When the apostles finally ordained Matthias and made him Judas’ replacement, they were extremely confident that they had taken all the steps necessary to make the right choice.

May God help us to follow their example and make better choices—better decisions—in our own lives.

 

 

Ordinary and Extraordinary Signs ‘That Will Accompany Those Who Believe’

(Ascension Thursday 2024: This homily was given on May 9, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Mark 16:15-20.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Ascension Thursday 2024]

 

It’s a pretty impressive list, isn’t it?

I’m talking about the one Jesus gives us in today’s gospel: this list of signs “that will accompany those who believe.” 

• Driving out demons
• Speaking new languages
• Picking up serpents (he doesn’t mean garter snakes either!)
• Drinking deadly poison
• Healing the sick through the laying on of hands

I’ve done a few of those things, and so have many other Christians in the 2,000-year history of the Church.  They are extraordinary signs of the continuing presence of Jesus Christ in our world.  They remind us that, even though our Lord ascended into heaven on the first Ascension Thursday in 33 A.D., in a certain sense he never left the earth.  His presence continues among us in the sacraments, in the Sacred Scriptures, and in extraordinary signs like these that are mentioned in Mark 16.

But it would be wrong for us to confine the presence of Jesus only to the Bible, the sacraments, and incredible events like healing the sick and picking up deadly snakes.  The fact is, there are many other signs of Jesus’ presence in our world today that are just as noteworthy, although much more “ordinary”.

Here’s a partial list of those signs, which also “accompany those who believe”: 

• Walking away from a really big temptation by relying on your faith in Jesus.  (That can be every bit as impressive as driving out a demon or healing the sick, if the temptation is severe.)
• Forgiving someone who has hurt you deeply, even though the other person doesn’t repent and never says they’re sorry.  (It takes a special divine grace to do something like that.)
• Holding your tongue when you’d really like to tell someone off, but know you shouldn’t.  “Dear Jesus, help me not to say what I feel like saying right now!”
• Speaking up when you know you should (for example, to correct an injustice at work), even though you’d much rather be quiet and say nothing.  “Dear Jesus, give me courage—and the right words.”
• Being kind and respectful to someone who is continually unkind to you and has no intention of changing.  (It takes a special internal power to do that.)
• Persevering in fulfilling your family responsibilities by tapping into God’s power through prayer, when deep down inside you feel like giving up.  (That perseverance is a sign to others and to the world that Jesus Christ is present with you and within you.)

All these things I just mentioned are relatively “ordinary,” compared to driving out demons, drinking deadly poison, and healing the sick; and yet, they’re just as important as those other “extraordinary signs” of the Lord’s presence.  In fact, in a certain sense they’re even more important—because they involve situations that we encounter almost every day.  Let’s face it, in all likelihood we will not encounter a possessed person this week who needs an exorcism; but all of us will probably be tempted to tell someone off or hold a grudge or be unkind to a person who is unkind to us.

It’s in moments like these that we have the opportunity to witness to the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives by how we respond.  And that’s especially true in times of tragedy.  I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve been inspired by people from this parish who have clung to their faith in the midst of very tragic situations, like the sudden death of a loved one.  Their faithfulness in the midst of a crisis has been a sign to me (and probably to many others as well) of the presence of Jesus Christ in them.

So today let us thank God for all the “signs that accompany those who believe”: the extraordinary ones that Jesus mentions here in this gospel text from Mark 16, but also the ordinary ones that are made manifest in the everyday—and sometimes tragic—circumstances of this life.

They are signs that Jesus Christ is with us and will always be with us—until the end of the world.

 

’Love’ and ‘Approval’ are NOT Synonyms!

 

(Sixth Sunday of Easter (B): This homily was given on May 5, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Acts 10: 25-48; Psalm 98:1-4; 1 John 4: 7-10; John 15: 9-17.)

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

The homily I’ll give this morning is the same homily I gave on the sixth Sunday of Easter 6 years ago.  I’m giving it again today because I think this message can help us to make sense of so much of the craziness that’s going on in our country right now.  In modern-day America, love and approval are synonyms.  They basically mean the same thing.  Now please don’t misunderstand me here; I’m not saying that love and approval actually are synonyms.  What I’m saying is that they’ve become synonymous in the minds of many Americans today (maybe even the majority)—although most of them are probably not aware of it.

Jesus talks about love—real, genuine love—in today’s gospel.  St. John does the same thing in today’s second reading.  To love another human being is “to desire the good” for that person, and then to do what you can to help the person attain that good in his or her life.  Which explains why Jesus Christ came to this earth 2,000 years ago and died on the cross!  It was out of this kind of love: “Greater love than this no one has, than to lay down his life for his friends.”  Jesus Christ loved us and so he wanted us to experience the greatest “good” that we could possibly experience as human beings, namely heaven!  But he also knew that we couldn’t merit and attain that eternal life on our own.  So he did what only a God-man could do.  He made the ultimate sacrifice of love, so that through his eternal merits we could attain the ultimate good: unending life in his kingdom.

St. John summarizes it perfectly in today’s second reading when he says, “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.  In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”

God loves every human person, and he demonstrated that fact by sending his Son to die for us all.  But at the same time God does not APPROVE of everything that we do in our lives.  That’s because we’re all sinners who commit sins every day.  (I hope this is not a revelation to anyone; it certainly shouldn’t be.)  He approves of some of the things we do, for sure: acts of kindness, mercy, forgiveness, etc.  But not everything.  This is clear from today’s gospel reading when Jesus says, “IF you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.”  Well, if that statement is true (and we know it is, since Jesus said it!), then so is the opposite true: “If you DON’T keep my commandments, you will NOT remain in my love.”

Obviously Jesus does not approve of sin—ours or anyone else’s.

Nor are we supposed to approve of sin!  That message comes through in the very next paragraph of the text when Jesus says, “Love one another as I love you.”  Jesus loves us—he desires the good (the best!) for us—but he does not say “Amen” either to the sins that we commit in our lives or the sins that others commit in their lives.

And neither should we—if we want to love as he loved.

Does this make sense to you?

It should. 

But if it does, I hope you understand something.  I hope you understand that YOU ARE IN THE MINORITY RIGHT NOW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA—AND IN MUCH OF THE WESTERN, INDUSTRIALIZED, TECHNOLOGICALLY-DRIVEN WORLD!

As I said at the beginning of my homily, in the minds of all-too-many Americans today love and approval are synonyms.  That means if you say you love somebody, you MUST approve of EVERYTHING they do!  That includes the sins they commit in their lives.

And if you don’t believe me, just read the newspaper or watch the evening news.

In 21^st century America, if you don’t approve of abortion, for example, then many people will say that you hate women.  That’s why a lot good pro-life organizations have been labeled “hate groups”.  If you don’t approve of homosexual activity, then you hate homosexuals.  If you support securing the border with Mexico and don’t approve of illegal immigration, then you hate immigrants.  If you don’t approve of people mutilating themselves and taking potentially harmful drugs in order to deal with their gender dysphoria, then you hate transgendered people.

If you don’t approve of certain sins—certain socially-acceptable sins—you are immediately called “a hater” in 2024.  Now that’s an illogical position to hold—hatred does NOT necessarily follow from disapproval—but an awful lot of people have bought into the lie that it does.  And many of those who’ve bought into the lie are teaching your children and grandchildren in schools and universities all over this country.

This really hit home with me one day several years ago when a college student came to see me at the rectory.    This young man came to see me because he was struggling with his faith.  He said to me, “Fr. Ray, I’m not sure I want to be Catholic anymore.”

I said, “Why not?”

“Well,” he said, “my family all goes to church; and I did too, when I was in high school.  But when I went away to college I became friendly with some people who are gay, and I know that as Catholics we’re supposed to hate gays.  But I don’t hate these people; I like them.”

I said, “As Catholics, we’re not supposed to hate anybody.  We may not approve of some of the things they do; but even then, as the old saying goes, we’re supposed to ‘love the sinner, and hate the sin’.”

We talked for a while longer.  I tried to explain the teaching of the Church—that it’s not a sin to experience same-sex attraction; that the sin comes with certain actions that follow from the attraction (something he should have already known since he had come to my youth group when he was in high school).  I also reminded him that so-called ‘straight’ people can commit sins that are equally serious if they act on their sexual impulses in the wrong way.  I even said to him, “I know people who experience same-sex attraction—and I don’t hate them.  In fact, I consider some of them to be my friends.  Now if they’re committing a serious sin and I find out about it I certainly don’t approve of it.  (I don’t approve of anyone’s sin, including my own!)  But I definitely don’t hate them—or anyone else for that matter.”

Well, he still had some difficulty getting his mind around this idea of loving the sinner and hating the sin, so I finally said to him, “Let me ask you a question.  Do your parents love you?”

He said, “Of course they do.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Well,’ I said, ‘do your parents approve of everything you do?”

He smiled a little, and said, “No.”

I said, “Then they must hate you!  You’re saying to me that Catholics hate gays because they disapprove of some of the things that gay people do.  Well, according to that logic, your parents must hate you, because they sometimes disapprove of some of the things that you do.”

At that point, I think a ‘light bulb’ finally got turned on, and he left with a promise to reflect on what I had said.

That young man, my brothers and sisters, is not alone in his perspective.  In fact, I would say that many (maybe even most) college students right now approach contemporary moral issues with the same erroneous ideas about love and hatred in their minds that this young man had in his.

And so I have a homework assignment for you.  It’s very simple, but very important.  Recall the core idea of today’s homily, which can be expressed in one line: “Love” and “approval” are not synonyms; neither are “hatred” and “disapproval”.

Your assignment is to remember that fact and then to share it with others, especially your children and your grandchildren—who need to know it (and believe it!) long before they go to college.