Let Us Not Continue In Ignorance – 3rd Sunday of Easter – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; April 14, 2024

Let me begin today by repeating the theme of my preaching on Easter Sunday, the solid reality of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is the proof of who he is and of all that he did and taught. Now, if any one of us, after witnessing the death and burial of someone we knew and loved, were absolutely sure that he was dead, saw the person standing before us, our instinctive reaction would be disbelief; we would not be inclined to trust our eyes; we would think that we were dreaming or seeing a ghost, just like the disciples in today’s Gospel. The instinctive disbelief of the disciples gives Jesus the opportunity to convince them that it is really he, Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have. By convincing them, in their disbelief, he convinces us also, giving solidity to our own faith.

With the solidity of the resurrection firmly in mind, let us now turn our attention to the preaching of St. Peter in today’s 1^st reading.

Now, I know that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did.

What was the result of their ignorance? The crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man. Their ignorance did not thwart the plan of God, but helped bring God’s plan to fulfillment despite themselves. Nevertheless, their ignorance did not excuse them; they needed to repent, repent of their very ignorance, so as to have their sins forgiven; St. Peter indeed calls them to repentance.

Their leaders, who also acted out of ignorance, read the Scriptures – our Old Testament – but were blind to its meaning. The New Testament lies hid in the Old, but they did not perceive what was hidden, they did not learn the mystery of the Holy Trinity, they did not learn about how the 2^nd person of the Trinity, the Son of God was to become man, the mystery of Incarnation, nor even did they grasp that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all the nations. Not even the Apostles understood this until after Jesus rose from the dead and opened their minds to understand the Scripture.

In our world today the person with an “open mind” is praised; the truly open-minded person, who does not persevere in ignorance, is the one whose mind Jesus has opened to understand the word of God – and consequently his mind is closed to all that opposes the word of God.

Now, if ignorance among the people of God and its leaders led to the crucifixion of Christ, we would do well to ask what sort of ignorance is found among the people of God in the world today. We are no longer speaking of things that lie hidden in the Old Testament before the coming of Christ, but things that have been openly proclaimed by the Church for 2,000 years – from the rooftops. (cf. Mt 10:27)

I have found that few Catholics today seem to grasp that the Mass is not just about receiving Jesus in communion, but that the Mass is a true and proper sacrifice, the perfect worship offered by Jesus Christ, our great high priest, who offers his very Body and Blood for the forgiveness of sins, and who has given this sacrifice to his Church to be offered ever anew in an unbloody manner. As a result, the banquet of communion is a sacrificial banquet, communion in the Body of Christ cannot be separated from partaking of the sacrifice.

Few Catholics seem to grasp the supernatural reality of sanctifying grace, which makes us to partake of the very life and nature of God, thereby becoming children of God, not merely in name, but in reality. The language “children of God” is bandied about today, but in contemporary language it seems to mean that we are all “God’s children”, regardless of faith, regardless of baptism, merely because we are human beings. That is not the language of the word of God, for only those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God, the Spirit of God that is received through faith and baptism. (cf. Rm 8:14) This is a truly supernatural reality, lost to the human race through the sin of Adam and restored to the faithful through Christ’s sacrificial death on the Cross. The reality of grace is something that sets Christianity apart from other religions, making it truly unique.

That is another thing that few Catholics seem to grasp, namely that our religion is truly unique. “Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, [the Second Vatican Council] teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.” (Lumen Gentium 14)

If we consider the unique and extraordinary truth that lies at the heart of our faith – a truth we celebrated last Monday on the Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord – the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, that is the very Son of God, the 2^nd person of the Trinity, the Creator of heaven and earth, for us men and our salvation came down from heaven and became man, this changes everything. As a result, there can be no way to God apart from him, the one mediator between God and men (1 Tim 2:5); truly there can be no salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)

There is another matter of ignorance that has become widespread among Catholics, namely the necessity of keeping the commandments of God. These commandments, especially in matters relating to life and marriage, are regarded as merely human “rules,” subject to change, imposed by the Church in order to control people’s lives.

Now, in today’s 2^nd reading, St. John tells us that he is writing that we might not commit sin.

What is sin? Sin does not mean breaking some arbitrary human rule; sin is a violation of God’s law, in thought, word, deed, or omission. Even though the action might involve our private thoughts and actions, or our relation with another human being, as sin it bears on our relation to God, who created us all. God’s law is not arbitrary but prescribes the right order in the human soul, the right order of human relationships, the right order of human life, the order that truly brings us to perfection in him. Consequently, sin involves the destruction of human life and well-being, individually and socially, even if it appears otherwise.

All sin involves an implicit lie; that is why we rationalize our sins; we might acknowledge that is the law, but reason that it does not apply to my situation; or we might reduce God’s law to a mere human “rule” that does not bind; or we pretend that it doesn’t really harm anyone.

The way we may be sure we know him is to keep his commandments. Those who say, ‘I know him,’ but do not keep his commandments are liars, and the truth is not in them. But, whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.

Jesus Christ died and rose again from death for the forgiveness of sin, but we must not abuse his mercy. We must not willfully continue in our ignorance. Rather than exchanging truth for lies, let us learn to live in the truth, because Jesus Christ has truly risen from the dead. This is how we show to him our gratitude and love.

Then, if we are sincerely turning to Christ and striving to live in the truth he has revealed to us, we can have confidence even when we give way to our weakness and fall into sin because Jesus Christ is the expiation for our sins  – the expiation offered always anew in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the expiation always ready to be applied to us in the sacrament of penance – and not our sins only but those of the whole world.

“For the sake of his sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”