Wednesday April 21, 2004 Homily by Fr. Robert Altier Second Week of Easter
Reading (Acts 5:17-26) Gospel (St. John 3:16-21)
Our Lord, in the Gospel today, tells us that the
verdict with regard to the judgment of the world is nothing other than this:
that the light came into the world and men preferred darkness rather than the
light because their deeds were evil.
Now when we look around, we see that there are lots
of people in our society who will give lip service to Our Lord; and yet the
reality is, if we look at the way these people live their lives, their works
are evil. They will lie and cheat and steal, they will do all kinds of wrongful
things as soon as they have the opportunity to do so, and all the time they
will tell you about how much they believe in the Lord. What happens with these
people is they do not come out into the light. When they are out in the light
practicing their hypocrisy, they will speak about Jesus. But when it comes to
actually doing good work, that is, doing the actual work of the Lord and living
lives that are virtuous, that is something they do not want to do. And that is
exactly what Our Lord is condemning. He tells us, then, that everyone who does
wicked things hates the light and he does not come into the light because his
works will be exposed, but everyone who lives the truth will come to the light
so that his works may be clearly seen as being done in God.
We can see the in the first reading, for instance,
how the apostles, who now understood Who Jesus was and understood the power of
His Holy Name, went right into the temple to preach. And when they were thrown
into prison, the angel of the Lord let them out in the middle of the night.
Instead of saying, “Now go and hide yourself so that you don’t get caught,” the
angel said, “Go right back to the temple and preach.” Now this did not make any
sense to the average person because, after all, they knew these men were in
trouble, that they had already been thrown into prison, that the chief priests
and the Sadducees did not like them, and yet there they were. What they
preached, everyone could hear. The way they lived, everyone could see. They did
not have anything to hide. When they were brought back into trial and thrown
into prison, anybody who had two eyes was able to see that they had done nothing
wrong. They had preached the Name of the Lord and they had lived what it is
they had preached.
We too have to do the same. We profess our belief in
Him, and yet at the same time it is not enough. Our Lord tells us in the Gospel
reading that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have
eternal life; that is the reason God sent Him into the world. And then He
immediately follows it up by telling us that we have to do the work of God. It
is not enough just to say that we believe; we have to act upon what it is that
we believe. The Lord links these two things together completely, just as He
does elsewhere; for instance, when He says, “Not everyone who says, ‘Lord,
Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven but only the one who does the Will of My
heavenly Father.” So, again, it is not enough just to simply say we believe in
Jesus. Recall what Saint James tells us: “Even the demons believe and they
tremble.” That is not enough to get them out of hell. So we have to make sure
that the way we are living our lives is in accordance with the faith that we
profess, to be able to preach with our actions far more even than with our
words, to live a life that is consistent with what it is that we speak.
Now we also have to be clear that all of us, as we look
at ourselves, will recognize some hypocrisy – which is why we all wind up in
the confessional line regularly – because we know that we are sinners. But that
is also part of what we acknowledge. We are not trying to hide the fact that we
are sinners. We are not trying to say, “Because I believe in Jesus, I’m
perfect,” but rather what we are saying is, “Because I believe in Jesus, I have
hope, because I have a means to overcome my sin.” And that is precisely what
gives other people hope that they too can overcome their sins. So we have to be
careful not to get caught in the trap of thinking that we are just plain
hypocrites because we are not perfect, or that somehow we have to be perfect
before we could really claim to be followers of the Lord. No, it is striving
for that holiness, striving for true perfection, not settling for mere
mediocrity or settling for just trying to be in the state of grace. That is
where we have to begin [remaining in the state of grace], but that is not the
end; we have to be making progress and pushing forward and seeking a greater
and more perfect union with the Lord at all times.
We see the weakness of the disciples. They did not
try to hide their weakness, but what they did was to bring their strength out
into the light – that is, Jesus – not themselves. That is what we are expected
to do as well: to profess our faith in Christ and to live what we profess.
* This text was
transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing.