Actions Accumulate
Saturday:
Twentieth Week of the Year: August 20, 2016
Year II: Ezekiel 43:1-7; Psalm 85:9-14; Matthew 23:1-12
The Responsorial
acclaims the “tranquility of order”: “The
Lord speaks of peace to his people.”
In
Ezekiel 43:1-7 God is teaching us about reverence. When the “glory of the
Lord” fills the temple we must respond to that physically. Ezekiel fell
prostrate on his face.
The presence of the Eucharist in our
churches is truly the “glory of the Lord.” God is saying, “this is the place of
my throne and the place for the soles of my feet, where I will reside among
[my] people… forever.” But if we neglect to recognize that physically — by
genuflections or bowing, by body-language and appropriate silences — we cease,
for practical purposes, to believe it.
The principle is: what we express is
what we experience as real. That applies to reverence shown to people as well as
to God. Reverence should match reality.
In
Matthew 23:1-12 Jesus teaches that sometimes the smallest things can do the
greatest harm. Either because they are so small they are unnoticed (like
germs), or because they are so frequent they become taken for granted (like
cuss words). So we need to notice little things. And we need to ask whether the
commonplace is, in fact, corruption.
Jesus spoke about the small, commonplace
practices of those recognized in Israel as official teachers and “model” Jews:
the scribes and Pharisees. He spoke about the way they called attention to
their religious status through the size of their “phylacteries and fringes”
(see Numbers 15:38); about where they liked to sit at banquets; about the signs
of respect they expected when they walked around, and the titles they liked to
be addressed by. Is any of this so bad? Is not every external detail Jesus
warned the “scribes and Pharisees” against in this reading something that all
Catholics take for granted in the behavior of priests and bishops?
Many Catholics wear crosses. Priests and
bishops wear bigger ones — and Roman collars to boot. At Church functions and
banquets it is normal for bishops or even priests to sit at the “head table,”
if there is one. Almost all bishops and many priests insist on being addressed
by their titles. If not by pretentious ones anymore, like “Your Excellency” and
“Monsignor,” at least as “Bishop,” “Father,” or (in writing) “Reverend.” Never
by their first names!
And so what? This is “standard operating
procedure” in the military and in many (but not all) corporations. You usually
don’t have to ask who the boss is; it is made apparent by protocol.
Is it wrong for us to do this in the
Church? Does it distort the truth of Baptism? Does it do damage — especially to
those who are on the receiving end of this special treatment — if we act as if
ordination to a sacred function makes this particular divine member of the body
of Christ more sacred than other divine members? (Question: Is anything more
“sacred” than giving birth to a child?)
When Jesus told us not to do this, was
he simply making a mountain out of molehills? Can we really corrupt our
ministers by a little thing like protocol?
What do you think?
More important: What did Jesus think?
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