About as Close as I’ll Come to a Moralizing Homily

24th Sunday of the Year

One of the last funerals I had at my previous assignment was for a gentleman who died at 91 years old. His wife of over fifty years told me that he became Catholic first and foremost to marry her. He knew, strictly speaking, he didn’t need to be Catholic to marry a Catholic girl—but he knew it would make her and her family happy if he became one. So he did. She told me that, through the process and well after into his Catholic life, he would always say: “Just tell me what to do.” He only wanted to know the bottom line. He believed. He prayed. He practiced. He went to Mass. But the only part of the faith that really mattered to him was what he was supposed to do with it.

I never met this gentleman, and I don’t think he ever heard me preach, but I don’t think he would have liked me very much as a preacher! I know I tend to stay high up in the stratosphere and I’ve had a handful of parishioners over the years encourage me to bring it down. I hear that. And sometimes I try. But I’ve always felt that homilies that tell people what to do miss the bigger picture, and what people need isn’t as much marching orders as they do a vision—a way of looking at reality, the Gospel, and the Christian life. That’s what I try to give.

Now, on most Sundays I feel justified in my approach—but once every three years, when the Letter of James hits us with “faith without works is dead,” I’m stopped in my tracks. James tells me I talk too much about faith and not enough about works. I look forward to having all eternity in heaven to go twelve rounds with him over preaching styles, but today, I’ll let him have this one.

So, here’s the faith part, in a single (rather verbose) sentence: As Peter professes in the Gospel, Jesus is the Christ, the Savior sent by God into the world, who calls people to be his disciples, and discipleship with Jesus means we must follow his example and take up our cross, which entails a death to our own will and obedient surrender to God’s which shows itself must fully in acts of charity, and doing this with God’s help is how we attain our salvation.

Now, it looks like I have about 900 words left for works. Here are three things to do, and all of them have to do with what we say.

When we’re about to say something, there are at least three questions to ask:

The first is: How is the other person doing?

We fire off words with reckless abandon and rarely stop to assess who might get hit by the shrapnel. We say things because I need to say them but fail to consider if anyone actually needs to hear them.

Now, it’s not always easy to make that assessment in real time. It can be hard to read the room, especially when we don’t know the people in it. But when it comes to the digital sphere, we can do much better.

When you type a person’s name to start a text or an email, take 10 seconds and wonder how they’re doing today. Do you remember anything they’ve shared with you about what’s going on in their life? Can you make an inference about how their day might be going? Think of the last time you saw or talked to them. Were they in a good mood or a bad one? Did they seem stressed or preoccupied?

Ask questions like that—and then let the answers color your approach. Start with a warm greeting, “Hey, I hope you’re doing well.” Or, “I know you have a lot going on right now, but when you get a chance, could you…” And maybe give them an encouragement like, “Thanks for all the good you’re doing.” Or, “Be sure to take care of yourself.”

Things like that are small but can make a big difference.

And let me say something that might shock you: You don’t have to mean any of it. What I’m saying is you can be righteously annoyed with somebody over something. You can be absolutely fuming. But you can still be kind and polite and engage with them civilly—dare I say, charitably. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive. If you feel like that sort of language is disingenuous because you feel one way but you’re expressing yourself in another—it’s not. That’s called denying your will and taking up your cross.

The second thing to ask is: Does what I have to say help or hurt the other person?

Paul tells the Ephesians: “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear” (4:29). If it ain’t good, don’t say it. What we say should be aimed at building others up, not tearing them down. Our words should, ultimately, be directed toward their salvation; and while that might sometimes include a word of challenge or correction, even those must be given in love.

Some practical tips here is, first of all, think before you speak. Weigh out what you want to say and how you want to say it. Sometimes it’s not as much the content as the form that stings. We might say something true but package it in barbed wire. Instead try to put truths in boxes designed by Apple—appealing, accessible, and striving to be as beautiful as what’s inside.

Another important tip is to take those harsh thoughts to prayer. If you’ve got something bottled up inside, try saying it to Jesus before you say it to anyone else. You can have complete confidence he’s got the stomach to take it. And once you’ve gotten it out, listen to see what kind of feedback he gives you. Maybe there’s peace to be found in just letting it go. Maybe he leads you to say the same thing in a more charitable way. Let him be your sounding board, since he knows you and the other person better than any of us knows ourselves.

The last question is: Does this help or hurt me?

There’s a saying that harboring grudges is like drinking poison expecting to hurt someone else. All it does is hurt us. A lot of times the same is true with our words. We lash out at someone in frustration or anger, and maybe it affects them or maybe it doesn’t, but it leaves a bigger wound within us than we thought.  This is especially true with the sin of gossip (which is a topic for another homily).

But we should evaluate all our actions, including what we say, in light of our trending toward or away from holiness. And for a reminder, we want to be trending up. So put your decision making within a broader context. The things you do every day, big and small, are all part of a larger story—the story of your salvation. Everything matters. Nothing is irrelevant. Because when you get to heaven, the only question will be how much you’ve loved. So, love well—love God, love others, and love yourself—and you’ll make it.

There’s way more to Christianity to the bottom line, but without the bottom line, everything above it is really just a waste of time. If faith doesn’t flow into works, faith is dead. Being Christian is about more than what we do, but if we don’t do anything differently than anybody else, we might as well throw in the towel on Jesus, too. But we believe, with Peter, that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the one sent from the Father to win our salvation. He calls us to follow him, to lay down our lives and take up our cross. If that’s our faith, then let that be also our work.

Homily preached September 14/15, 2024 at Mount St. Mary’s University.