St. Dominic Catholic Church

Homilies

Feast of St. Dominic

In southern France in the early 1200s people began enjoying an increase in wealth and leisure that gave them time to reflect upon life.

The previous century had seen wars between England and France, 11 antipopes that divided Christendom, and the fall of Jerusalem to the Muslims.

Under the feudal system, the vast majority of people were peasants who farmed land that would never be theirs and paid heavy rents to nobles.

People were told God was both almighty and good, but that raised the question, “then why is there so much evil?” 

The ignorant, worldly, often scandalous clergy didn’t answer the question.

 

The Albigenses, however, had explanations.

They were a religious group that proposed two mutually opposed principles – two Gods: one good, the other evil.

The evil principle was the creator of the material world and responsible for natural phenomenon, including disasters like earthquakes, tidal waves, plague, drought.

This powerful deity caused sin like lies, war, adultery, and greed.

This was the God described in the Old Testament.

 

The New Testament, they said, revealed the good God who created all things spiritual, like angels and the human soul which the evil principle deceived and imprisoned in a body.

The Albigensians claimed Jesus did not take on a human body, or else he would have come under the control of the evil god.

He was a kind of celestial essence; it only seemed that he was born, suffered and died.

For the Albigensians, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus does not help us, except as an example.

They denied a bodily resurrection from the dead, of course, since all material is evil.

This was the situation at the time of St. Dominic.

He founded the Order of Preachers to answer the Albigensian heresy with friars who were holy, well-educated, and who lived in joyful community with one another.

 

Our situation today is not so different, is it?

Contemporary culture is disgusted by priests and the Church they represent.

We just heard of another sex abuse scandal– this time by an American cardinal.

The internet and TV keeps us up to date natural disasters and human cruelty.

Rather than propose two gods - one evil, one good - secular society says senseless evil is evidence that the almighty, loving Christian God is a myth.

 Emotionally, it’s a compelling argument.

 

But logically it is mistaken on several counts.

First of all, God, who Catholic theology claims islove, never causes evil.

God only wills the good for us.

Secondly, God, whose essence is to exist, cannot be the source of evil, which is a lack of being, a lackof what should exist.

Catholic theology says God permitsmoral evil as a consequence of human freedom.

God permits natural evil, like earthquakes, as a consequence of a natural world that also sustains human life.

The atmosphere that we breathe and is heated by the sun can also produce tornadoes and hurricanes.

 

In the midst of this world of good and evil, St. Dominic was called the joyfulfriar.

He knew that God’s perspective is infinitely different from ours, and that God can bring out good from evil – so much so that we call the day God incarnate was tortured, mocked and executed, “Good Friday.”

There’s an old story that helps us understand this perspective.

A farmer’s horse ran away, and his friends commiserated with him over his loss; but the farmer responded, “we’ll see.”

A week later, the horse returned with three other horses, and his friends rejoiced with him; and the farmer said, “we’ll see.”

A week later, his son was riding one of the horses and fell and broke his leg.

His friends sympathized with him, but he said, “we’ll see.”

The next week, recruiters from the emperor came to draft the young man into the army to fight on the front, but excused him because of the broken leg.

Of course, the friends congratulated the farmer, who sighed, “we’ll see.”

 

The story can go on and on, and attempts to illustrate how our perspective on life is so small, we can’t actually say any evil is meaningless or beyond God’s capacity to elicit a greater good.

That would be like reading half a sentence from Macbeth and thinking we could judge the play’s quality.

Of all people, Christians should use their free will to respond to tragedy with courage, imagination and grace – because we know “we’ll see” the tragedy in a different light – perhaps in our life, and certainly in the next.

Belief that evil is not the last word, and that God uses us to bring about a greater good is part of what makes us the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

 

One last image.

Friday morning I learned our refrigerator wasn’t working.

Fortunately, we have a smaller refrigerator in a pantry where I was able to make some space by removing water bottles, soda cans, juices and a few beers.

Those cold beverages didn’t stay cold long in the pantry.

To make things cold we have to put energy into a refrigerator.  

To make things hot, we have to put energy into an oven or microwave.  

Without adding energy, things will take on the temperature of their environment.

The same is true for Catholics.  

It takes spiritual energy to prevent us from becoming like everyone else around us, formed by the skepticism, apathy and weariness of our age.

 

So on this feast of our patron, let me remind you of our parish mission: “To help people have a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ, form them as His disciples and equip them to be apostles.”

This goal has to be our constant focus as a parish, through prayer, study, community and service, which were the hallmarks of the life of St. Dominic.

That mission is why we are renovating our community center to make it a place for evangelization programs and formation.

It takes energy and resources to be disciples of Jesus and to make disciples of Jesus.

The alternative is to become tasteless salt and hidden light; useful neither to ourselves or others – and unworthy of our holy patron, St. Dominic.