Amos: Thus says the LORD the God of hosts: Woe to the complacent in Zion! Lying upon beds of ivory,
stretched comfortably on their couches,…anointing themselves with the best oils, yet they are not made ill by the collapse of the nation of faith around you, nor the lack of faith left in it.Gospel of Luke. “There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table.
I have a homily that will feature an American Blessed, on his way to sainthood, who lived in a positive way what the Scriptures are asking us to do today. He is the founder of the Knights of Columbus Catholic men’s fraternity—Blessed Fr. Michael McGivney. (Blessed is one step short of sainthood. We are praying for a confirmed miracle to elevate him to canonization in Pope Leo’s time. Pope Leo has a brother in his family who is a Knight in an Illinois council.)
In the readings today both the Amos message and the Gospel of Luke message say that the sin of many is their not seeing one’s own resources and talents as belonging to God, but rather only to themselves. “It’s miiiiiiiiinnnnnnne! (mine!)” is their assessment. They say: “My world, my life, my ways.”
Saints of the past like Fr. Mcgivney would say—you’ve got it all wrong with that attitude of acting like it’s not God’s world and that we aren’t going to follow God’s ways—especially in acting in fairness, mutual love, sharing and caring—as like Jesus asked us to do. The Catholic gentleman will witness a caring life, and not be so self-centered or indifferent!
The Gospel story makes a point of “the worthless rich man” as him (the example Jesus gives in the parable) as so often overlooking, ignoring and dismissing opportunities to genuinely share—even in a daily case right outside his convenient door. The desperate plight of the man Lazarus at his door was not the rich man’s his concern. Dives (the name we give for the complacent rich man) would just step around the poor needy man Lazarus, as like pretending he did not even see him there. ‘Not my problem. That was his excuse. Yet in his conscience, God kept asking Dives to make it his concern. But Dives was stubbornly deaf to this word for empathy and care.
Likewise, in the first reading of Mass, the prophet Amos saw people lying on couches (literally–ivory couches) and only getting up from them for their own selfish matters. It would lead to God preparing these proud ones for a big fall. “Pride comes before the fall,” so says the proverb. In their fall, they’d lose their whole country due to a complacency of spirit and an assumption that they were “aok with the God upstairs.” They were not.
We go forward to modern times here in America. Fr. Mcgivney organized some Catholic men to do the opposite of being aloof and carefree—but to serve widows and children of widows and orphans and other left-out-of-the-community people. They were to be men who got involved. They called themselves the Knights of Columbus—saying that the Catholic presence begun in these United States should witness to living in the heart of Jesus for others. The Catholic faith crossed the ocean blue, starting in 14 hundred and 92, to bring Jesus-heartedness here to the “New World.”
Today’s Scriptures exhort the hearers over the issue that some people have accumulated an extravagant amount for themselves on earth. It’s led some to a sin of looking down or away from others who are not in their affluence. It’s an attitude as if some people are better and deserving of wealth, but not others—that God has somehow cursed them or turned His back on them. It’s a nasty view of life. It’s an ungodly view.
Some people are quite rich. Or, at least, quite comfortable. That, in itself, doesn’t bother the Lord, but His message of disdain is for the ways of the “worthless rich.” This describes people, particularly his own people in the Church (or those calling themselves Christian or God-believers,) who live in a grossly insensitive, blissfully unaware manner to their fellow human beings or to the call of the Church to be the hands of Christ extending out to the needs of others.
It’s not my problem or issue, the worthless rich say. You can lose a once-nation of faith that way!!
When fellow Christians behave that way, even to others in the Fold, then the Lord thinks that it’s really bad.
So it was in America many decades ago when families had lost their breadwinners, such as in industrial incidents, yet their fellow church-goers or neighbors did not step up to help the surviving home-mothers and children in their need. They were shunned and treated as if “God was punishing the dad-less families,” with it being explained how it was “God being the one causing the misfortunate ill will and poverty for his supposed dislike of them.” “They had it coming—was their attitude to the needy—and it quite the arrogant thing. It totally was a dodge of responsibility and love.
It had become an anti-Catholic matter, too, of majority non-Catholics having no interest in helping the nasty Catholics with their problems.
So Fr. Michael, a priest up in the New Haven Connecticut region, said it was time to go help widows and families to not wind up destitute on the streets. It was time to not let Catholics be persecuted Catholics or get getting mistreated as second-class people. Fr. Michael founded the K of C to protect them. It worked. Catholics had numbers, if not power. We watched out for the vulnerable families and got them help. That was the K of C’s beginning.
As you heard the gospel today, we in the Church look not to let a Dives attitude hurt us. The K of C wants Catholic men with a heart to join them and look after the needs of the Church and of the nation’s needy.
We can describe their founder Michael McGivney as a priest with a heart. He reached out to families’ particular needs, youths’ needs, and America’s need to let Catholics be in the national story as first class citizens as the rest. Fr. Michael knew that anti-Catholic secret societies had formed in America, so he needed to a group to unite and defend Catholics from attack and discrimination.
Maybe his strongest influence was of the faith of immigrant households, like his, that had Catholic identity and images of the Sacred Heart in their homes. How often Blessed Michael must have prayed the Litany to the Sacred Heart, preached about the Sacred Heart, and sought to instill in his people confidence in the heart of Jesus. With this way of life, our hope of eternal life springs up, with Christ teaching us His ways of charity, mercy, and consolation.
Fr. McGivney mirrored the Christ who was poor in spirit, having nowhere to lay his head; the Christ, who mourned our sins, the Christ who was meek before his accusers, the Christ who hungers and thirsts for our holiness, the Christ who was merciful, and pure, and the Christ who made peace by the blood of his Cross, even persecuted in life and in death. This blessed man did truly mourn the spiritual and material misfortunes of his people, as too did he hunger and thirst for his own holiness and of his people. What a man of the Beatitudes!
Attracted to the open heart of the Savior, we imitate Fr. Michael’s model of seeking to grow in holiness, and to be formed in the faith and our core beliefs, to build up family ties, and to get men to join together in efforts to make a parish and parish council strong.
Rather than let complacency or indifference take over men’s thoughts, the K of C seeks to make the Church and Jesus Christ and brotherhood as a center for living.
My father was in the Knights, and so was my grandfather, both for decades.
Then I joined in around at 27 years old, following their example. When I have served as a priest, I have had K of C chapters or councils in each of my 8 parishes—where the men made a good impact on the parish and in outreach efforts. It’s true of the council here at Resurrection.
Even if a man or woman doesn’t join an organization like the K of C, the epistle today might describe what God is looking for in his mature believers: “But you, man of God, pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness. Compete well for the faith. Lay hold of eternal life, to which you were called—keep the noble confession of your faith in the presence of many witnesses.” From 1st Timothy 6. Thank you.