All of us here at St. Thomas Aquinas are very excited to welcome our students, faculty, and staff, both those returning and also all of those who are new to our community. A new year always affords new opportunities and new horizons, and especially here at the University of Arkansas, the ability to learn and encounter new things. New courses, new majors, new dissertations – all of them speak to the very reason why a student comes to college: to learn what is true, what is good, what is beautiful, and then to use that knowledge to better themselves and the world around us.
Of course, all of that assumes there is actually the possibility of learning, that one is actually open to being taught. Even the best of teachers cannot be effective if the student refuses to learn, if a person is closed off completely from having their viewpoint changed. In the Gospel today, Jesus encounters this problem in a direct way. As we have heard the last several weeks, Jesus has been patiently explaining that he is the Bread of Life, given from heaven for the life of the world. Today though we hear that some are skeptical – they question how exactly it can be possible for a man to give his body and blood as food for others. Jesus today becomes even more insistent – his Flesh is “true food” and his Blood “true drink” and that in order to have eternal life, one must eat that Flesh and drink that Blood. As we will hear next week, this is too much; many who had followed him walked away. They were not interested in this bit of learning; they had closed their hearts to what the Lord wanted to teach.
And so it is often for the most important things in our world. Most of us are willing to be challenged in small ways, to learn some new things as long as they are not too difficult. But truths which are truly transformational often require us to change our worldview completely. Even harder, they may force us to change ourselves. Those bits of learning are the most important kind, and yet they are also the ones most difficult to accept.
Golgotha [detail] by Nikolai Ge, 1893.
I mention all of this because I think our Church is very much at one of those moments. Like many of you, I have been distressed beyond words at the reports that came out this week, and indeed in recent weeks, about the scandals in our Church. As disgusted as I feel, I also believe we have been confronted with a hard truth, one that is difficult to accept because it requires us to change our worldview and our behavior. And yet, its importance cannot be turned away from – it is truly crucial that we learn from what we are experiencing. Bishop Taylor has asked us priests to read this statement to you:
[You can read Bishop Anthony Taylor's statement on the Pennsylvania grand jury results here.]
I want to share a few thoughts about what we can do in light of this scandal, but before I do so, I want to say two very important things.
Number 1: the true victims of this tragedy are not priests, or bishops, or even those of us who feel outraged and discouraged. The victims, or rather the survivors, are those who had their innocence, their dignity, and in many cases their faith stolen from them by men who should have protected them. They deserve to be affirmed and aided in whatever way the Church can, and that includes at the official levels as well as from you and me. If you or someone you know has been hurt by someone in the Church, please report it. You’ll find the numbers for the state hotline, as well as for the diocesan victims assistant coordinator, in our vestibule.
Number 2: remember that the Lord is teaching us something here. Please don’t misunderstand me! In no way did God cause this scandal; he is as outraged as you and me. Nonetheless, I firmly believe that God will use this catastrophe as a difficult teaching moment, if you will – one that will rouse us from the drowsiness and dysfunction that has crept into our Church. This cancer of abuse and coverup is a foreign object, an invading presence in the Body of Christ, and as with any wound, what is needed is purification – something that will be painful but necessary in order to allow for true healing.
With those important things said – what do we do in response? First, allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling right now. Some of you are furious, as I am. Others of you are disheartened and overwhelmed, and I sympathize with that as well. Whatever you feel is okay – but don’t let it rob you of your faith. The easy thing now to do would be to turn away, like the crowds who could not accept Jesus’s teaching. Instead, we must accept what the Lord wishes to teach us, hard as it may be. I think the Lord wants to form us into a purer, holier Church. This scandal is a reminder to all of us who are priests that we can never be satisfied with anything less than radical holiness in ourselves. The Lord Jesus demands nothing less from us, and you deserve nothing less. But if this scandal teaches us anything it is that it not just the clergy whom the Church needs now, but good and holy lay people as well – we need you to help build the Church to be all that God wants it to be. This has to start within before it can move without.
Second, consider what acts of self-sacrifice or penance you might be able to offer in reparation for the sins of the Church. Am I asking us to embrace penitence, even suffering, for sins we didn’t actually commit? Yep. That may seem unfair, and it is. But it is also deeply Christian, because it is what Jesus himself did on the Cross. Small sacrifices – such as going without your morning coffee, or giving up meat for a day, or refraining from social media for the evening – each of these and more can be a small way of saying, “Lord, have mercy on your People, on your Church, of whom I am a part.” They can also allow us to orient our hearts and minds toward prayer, which is action as well – the spiritual action of asking the Lord to act. If there’s nothing else we can do at this time, we can all lift up a prayer asking for the Lord to renew his Church.
Third, keep your eyes on Jesus. Individual priests and bishops may fall, but the Lord never betrays us. It is not going to be easy to be Catholic for a while, and you may well face insult or rejection for your faith from others. If that happens, remember that every suffering, especially an unjust one, is an opportunity to be joined to the Cross of Jesus, the most difficult teaching moment of all time. The Lord will not abandon us in this hour of trial. Rather, he’s feeding us with his own Flesh and Blood to give us the spiritual strength we need to renew the Church in this age.
Friends, welcome back! School is back in session here at the University – and so too in our Church we are learning hard lessons at the moment. As challenging as it is, we can't turn away from the difficult thing which the Lord wants so earnestly to teach us. It was the failure of some of our leaders to learn that lesson that has led to where we are today: to lives that have been damaged and a Church that is weakened. To begin to heal, we need more justice, more transparency, more accountability – but we also need more prayer, more poverty, more humility, more conversion. The lesson of this catastrophe is not just that we must demand change, but that we must change ourselves, so that we can more fully and more faithfully be the People of God in the world.
With those important things said – what do we do in response? First, allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling right now. Some of you are furious, as I am. Others of you are disheartened and overwhelmed, and I sympathize with that as well. Whatever you feel is okay – but don’t let it rob you of your faith. The easy thing now to do would be to turn away, like the crowds who could not accept Jesus’s teaching. Instead, we must accept what the Lord wishes to teach us, hard as it may be. I think the Lord wants to form us into a purer, holier Church. This scandal is a reminder to all of us who are priests that we can never be satisfied with anything less than radical holiness in ourselves. The Lord Jesus demands nothing less from us, and you deserve nothing less. But if this scandal teaches us anything it is that it not just the clergy whom the Church needs now, but good and holy lay people as well – we need you to help build the Church to be all that God wants it to be. This has to start within before it can move without.
Second, consider what acts of self-sacrifice or penance you might be able to offer in reparation for the sins of the Church. Am I asking us to embrace penitence, even suffering, for sins we didn’t actually commit? Yep. That may seem unfair, and it is. But it is also deeply Christian, because it is what Jesus himself did on the Cross. Small sacrifices – such as going without your morning coffee, or giving up meat for a day, or refraining from social media for the evening – each of these and more can be a small way of saying, “Lord, have mercy on your People, on your Church, of whom I am a part.” They can also allow us to orient our hearts and minds toward prayer, which is action as well – the spiritual action of asking the Lord to act. If there’s nothing else we can do at this time, we can all lift up a prayer asking for the Lord to renew his Church.
Third, keep your eyes on Jesus. Individual priests and bishops may fall, but the Lord never betrays us. It is not going to be easy to be Catholic for a while, and you may well face insult or rejection for your faith from others. If that happens, remember that every suffering, especially an unjust one, is an opportunity to be joined to the Cross of Jesus, the most difficult teaching moment of all time. The Lord will not abandon us in this hour of trial. Rather, he’s feeding us with his own Flesh and Blood to give us the spiritual strength we need to renew the Church in this age.
Friends, welcome back! School is back in session here at the University – and so too in our Church we are learning hard lessons at the moment. As challenging as it is, we can't turn away from the difficult thing which the Lord wants so earnestly to teach us. It was the failure of some of our leaders to learn that lesson that has led to where we are today: to lives that have been damaged and a Church that is weakened. To begin to heal, we need more justice, more transparency, more accountability – but we also need more prayer, more poverty, more humility, more conversion. The lesson of this catastrophe is not just that we must demand change, but that we must change ourselves, so that we can more fully and more faithfully be the People of God in the world.
May this Eucharistic banquet, in which our Lord becomes “true Food and true Drink,” nourish us in this time of trial and open our hearts to all that he wishes to teach us.
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