A Bracing Sermon: Are You Ready?

I received this from contributing editor Anne Gardiner--a more bracing sermon than the usual fare, coming from the new Roman Catholic bishop Philip Tartaglia of Paisley in Scotland:

Today's gospel begins with a brief but arresting summary of the mission of Jesus to his contemporaries. It bears repeating. 'The time has come·and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent and believe the Good News.'

The time has come. What time are we in? I think we are in a key time, possibly a defining moment, for our society and for the Church in our society. Recently the Scottish Parliament has enacted legislation that allows for same-sex partnerships to be registered in what are officially termed civil partnerships. The purpose of this legislation is to give same-sex partnerships recognition in law similar to the legal status previously accorded only to the institution of marriage, including the right to apply for the adoption of children. . . .

In a word, I feel sadly that the Church and contemporary society are in danger of waving goodbye to each other. You could say that was already happening with the existing legislation on divorce, abortion, genetic experimentation, and in the current pressure towards the legalization of the direct killing of terminally ill people. But the dangerous and deeply unwise social experimentation and engineering involved in these same-sex civil partnerships seems to me to be taking the alienation between the Church and society to a new and potentially disastrous level.

So the time has come. The time has come for what? Well, if the Church and contemporary society are waving each other goodbye, are you ready to belong but not really belong? The other Christian Churches in this land have largely given up the fight on these things. So the time has possibly come to stand alone. Are we ready to stand alone? Do we have the conviction, and the spiritual energy? Am I being fanciful if I say that in the not too distant future there will be some kind of legal challenge against the church for its opposition to civil partnerships and for its teaching on sexuality, marriage and the family, judged homophobic by the intolerant canons of political correctness? Are we ready to be persecuted in our own land? Do we have the courage of our faith, do we have the unity of purpose to stand with the Pope and with our bishops? We have in the past, but can we now?  Have we become too complacent and comfortable? Have we compromised too much with the spirit of the age? Have we lost our edge? Are we made of the stuff of the martyrs? We are in a new time, and these are the questions which arise for this time.

…  The Church can only fulfill its mission in the world if it has the spiritual integrity and the depth of faith which allows us to respond to the Lord with a ready and generous heart, and to be faithful as we face what is a new and testing time for the Catholic Church in Scotland and for all people who believe in Christ.
--St. Peter's, Glenburn, 22nd January 2006

I would add that it is the Christian's vocation to always be ready for persecution. If one is to be ready at any time to give a defense for the hope that we have, then one must always be ready to be ridiculed and despised for that hope. If one is prepared for that, then one is on the path. Levels of persecution rise and fall, but the path is one with the Cross.

Do we and society wave farewell to each other? In a sense, this has always been so, for friendship with the world means enmity with God. Society's friendship with the world, by which the Apostle means, I think, the spirit of anti-christ, or perhaps the lust of the eyes, the pride of life--the world, the flesh and the devil--also rises and falls, but the alliance, through sin, is pretty strong.

But it's not time for pessimism, or despair, which is a sin. It is always time for hope, for speaking the word of truth in season and out of season. The latter seems to be the case increasingly, but we have hope because our hope was never based on the relative health of society anyway. But truth-seeking also means realizing the possibility of persecution.