12th Sunday—C
Zechariah 12:10-11, 13:1
Galatians 3:26-29
Luke 9:18-24
The question of human identity is as old as human history.
The fundamental question is: who am I; or, what am I? I began thinking about
this essential matter almost half a century ago. During my college years, my
sophomore English professor mandated that she would make gentlemen out of my
fellow classmates and I; her method was to have us select an American poet and
commit to memory ten poems of that poet. We would then recite from memory five
of the poems before our classmates—all who were anxious as I. I chose Emily
Dickinson—after all, her poems are rather short. But one of the poems I chose
and recited was: “I’m nobody…” In this poem, Dickinson—and for that matter,
anyone else—declares something about her (or his) identity and therefore
addresses the interlinked questions of: who and what am I?
Today, all of our readings tackle the issue of identity: the
prophet Zechariah addresses the identity of the Messiah who will be persecuted
before God’s people are saved from their sin and uncleanliness—for us Catholics
this is clearly our Lord, Jesus Christ. [As an aside, the reference to the
mourning of Hadadrimmon is unclear—there is some thought that H was a god of
antiquity, and something terrible happened at the Plain of Meggido, but no one
is sure what happened.] In his letter to the Galatian church, Saint Paul
reminds the faithful—including us—that our identity as Christians and as
disciples of the Lord materializes at our baptism when we put on Christ. In
Saint Luke’s Gospel, the question of identity is raised by Christ Himself when
He asks the disciples: “Who do the crowds say that I am?” Peter offers the
correct answer here and elsewhere in the synoptic Gospels (both Mark and
Matthew). Well, the question of identity is settled then—or is it?
For you see the question of identity as a disciple of Christ
surfaces time and again. Yesterday on June 22, we commemorate every year on the
22nd of June two great saints—Thomas More and John Cardinal Fisher.
In doing so, we must necessarily reflect on their identity. Like other martyrs,
a fundamental question is this: what made them “tick”; what made them open to
the ultimate sacrifice of giving their lives for that in which they believed?
More was Lord Chancellor of England; he had been a successful and rather
wealthy Oxford-educated lawyer; and he was a confidant—perhaps even friend—of
King Henry VIII. John Fisher was a Cambridge man who was ordained into the
priesthood in his early adulthood. He returned to his beloved university and
assisted (with the generous help of his friend, Lady Margaret Beaufort, the
paternal grandmother of King Henry) in the founding of several of the Cambridge
colleges and university professorships. Eventually, he became the chancellor of
Cambridge University. Fisher also became the bishop of Rochester at an early
age, and he was bishop of that diocese for over thirty years. He must have
anticipated what Pope Francis has been saying of late about bishops being
wedded to their dioceses without having ambitions to go to a larger, more
prosperous one, because Fisher never succumbed to leave his poor diocese for
another or others! I hasten to add that the diocese of Rochester in his time
was very poor in comparison with the dioceses over which Cardinal Wolsey
administered.
Both Fisher and More were very clear on who they were.
Indeed, they were prominent members of English society in the early sixteenth
century; they were highly educated and displayed their intelligence without
pride for they were humble before God and man. But there is abundant evidence
that at the heart of their respective identities was their unshakeable fidelity
to the Church. They were patriots first and last and devoted to their king;
but, their commitment to God and His holy Church took precedence. They labored
hard to be both good subjects of the king AND faithful sons of the Church.
However, the king tested time after time their fidelity to
the Church, and it was their fidelity that cost them their lives by depriving
them of their heads when Henry (with the help of Parliament, Thomas Cramner,
and Thomas Cromwell) decided that he would rid himself of his wife of over
twenty years, Queen Catherine, and establish himself as the “supreme” head of
the church in England. Sorry Saint Peter and your successors: move over—I’ve
now decided who is in charge of God’s work! Both Fisher and More knew that
Henry’s actions were wrong. The monarch’s self-authored divorce from Catherine
violated the law of God and the Church and his self-proclamation of Supreme
Head of the Church in England, moreover, contravened the Magna Carta. But both
defiances did not stop an intelligent man who was driven by worldly ways to
transform himself into a despot. More and Fisher knew that at the heart of the
Magna Carta was the several-times stated principle of the freedom of the
Church. This is essentially a vital element of the First Amendment of the
United States Constitution. This was and is a freedom not simply to be free
from the civil authority; it was and is also the freedom to do what is
essential to the Church’s mission in society without interference or pressure
from the state. The Church’s freedom was also the freedom of More and Fisher.
They understood well our Lord’s exhortation in Luke’s Gospel: in order to save
one’s eternal life, it may be necessary to sacrifice some of one’s life in the
City of Man. This is the nobility of self-denial; it is the affirmative
response of what Pope Francis urges us in not being “self-referential”; it is
the duty of one who desires to follow Christ by taking up one’s cross each day
in order to be faithful in following the Lord who showed us the true path by
His own sacrifice.
And this is where we come into to chronicle of identity—as
disciples and as a free people who believe in God and His Church. On this past
Thursday, the U.S. bishops announced the beginning of the second annual
Fortnight of Freedom. It will conclude on Independence Day. Freedom and its
inseparable companion, responsibility to be virtuous citizens of the City of
God and the City of Man, are at the core of our individual and corporate
identities of American citizens and as members of the Catholic Church. Our
heritage is founded on the duty of citizens and their freedom to be true to our
identity. We are not the servants or subjects of the realm, as were More and
Fisher. Rather, we are participants in a realm who are served by a state whose
sole ambition is and must be to attend and protect its people; not
to be served by them against their will. The state is not the common good;
rather it exists to serve and safeguard the common good—a vital element of our
faith. Like More and Fisher, we are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ and
members of His holy Church. The freedom from state interference and for
following Christ is the same freedom possessed and exercised by the same saints
whom we commemorated yesterday.
But this freedom is sometimes eclipsed by the ambition of
those who do not share our identity or who have abandoned this essential
element of their identity. So what can we do as Americans and as Catholics who
cherish our freedom as Americans and simultaneously practice it as Catholics—as
I have briefly explained freedom?
Perhaps like More and Fisher, who understood what Saint Paul
said so many years ago to Timothy: we know in whom we have believed! May this
declaration be a part of our identity and our heritage as a free and sovereign
people. May it also be a part of our prayer not only for today but for all the
days of our lives! For prayer is the distinguishing mark of the good citizen
who is also the faithful disciple. This is who we are as individuals and as
members of the Church, the People of God. We have put on Christ; may no one
remove Him regardless of their intention otherwise.
Amen.
June 23, 2013 in Araujo, Robert | Permalink