By Fr. MICHAEL P. ORSI
(Editor’s Note: A priest of the Diocese of Camden, N.J., Fr. Michael P. Orsi currently serves as parochial vicar at St. Agnes Parish in Naples, Fla. He is host of Action for Life TV, a weekly cable television series devoted to pro-life issues, and his writings appear in numerous publications and online journals.)
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From time to time I get to preach on a Gospel reading that demonstrates how the Bible is truly trans-historical — not limited by time or place.
The Gospel for Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, John 14:23-29, was such a reading. Its central point is as relevant today as when the apostle first recorded his thoughts, sometime back in the AD 90s: “Do not be afraid.”
John was reflecting on how the resurrected Jesus had told His followers that He would be going away, but that he would return — and in the meantime, they would have the Holy Spirit as their advocate. So they had no need to fear.
This was a message Christian communities very much needed to hear by the time John penned it, since active persecution of the Church was by then well underway, with more to come.
In those early days when Christian thinkers were struggling to distill from Jesus’ teachings clear principles for their new faith movement — and doing it without any sort of canonical scripture to follow (compilation of the Bible would come later) — it was easy to interpret fear as weakness of belief.
John’s point offered encouragement: Your fears don’t matter. Regardless of how desperate things may look, it’s God who’s in charge. He’s the one who determines what life is about and how we’re to live it. If we trust in Him, we’ll get through.
Encouraging those words may have been, but not necessarily self-evident. Early Christians knew they were in the crosshairs of the most powerful empire in human experience — moreover one built upon an aggressive society whose values were at odds with virtually all Christian teaching.
The loving message proclaimed by the Church and the charitable manner in which Christians attempted to live stood as a rebuke to Rome, with its lurid sexual perversions and fascination with blood sports, its rapacious (and highly efficient) exploitation of conquered peoples, right up to its casual killings of infants and unwanted children.
The contrast Christianity presented was attracting converts from every level of Roman society, even from among the aristocracy. That the empire knew this and was taking steps to counter it gave the people who received John’s message good reason to fear.
And yet. . . .
Over time, it was they (or rather, their descendants) who would prevail. Christianity would become the state religion of Rome. And when the empire finally crumbled, only the Church would remain, to build a new society and impact the fate of the entire world.
In our own day we hear many echoes of John’s time. The parallels with various conditions of life in the Roman Empire are obvious, frequently cited, and often quite chilling.
Christianity is under attack once more.
The modern world finds Christian ideals as challenging as did ancient Rome. Our secular society wants to bend religious believers to its will on a wide range of matters that touch the nature of humanity at the deepest levels of physical, mental, and emotional reality.
In some ways the situation is even more extreme. Ancient Romans may have stretched the behavioral boundaries of men and women, but they at least never attempted to deny that there are such distinctive entities as men and woman.
Today’s secular attack upon the Church is, in some instances, quite specific and overt. Legislation that passed the California State Senate would mandate breaking the Seal of Confession in cases where a priest becomes aware of child sexual abuse by another priest or by people he works with.
It’s unclear how law enforcement officials would even know that a priest has such knowledge (and priests remain under canonical compulsion to refuse divulging it). But the fact that this measure might become law demonstrates clearly that the state is prepared to destroy a sacrament and fundamental Church prerogative with very little thought.
And so we face the same situation our early Christian forebears faced, the attempt by government to determine what life is about and how we are to live it. And this is a complete contradiction of John’s message, that it’s God who’s in charge.
But then, we know that faith has always been in conflict with human will, as expressed in the policies and acts of government. The more human will is exalted, the less religion is tolerated, and the less freedom is permitted to the people.
Which, incidentally, is the real danger in the current fascination with socialism.
This is a timeless struggle — a trans-historical conflict, if you will — the war between the forces of light, God’s truth, and the forces of darkness, the human will (which always eventually devolves to the basest, earthbound instincts).
That’s what makes John’s Gospel so trans-historical. It gained an extra bit of relevance this year by falling on Memorial Day Weekend, a time set aside to acknowledge the many sacrifices people have made to preserve our freedom. Among which is the most important: freedom of religion.
But then, we shouldn’t be surprised to get that point.
After all, God’s in charge.
Do not be afraid.
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