You see it quite frequently, someone riding around with a Rosary hanging from their rear view mirror.\u00a0 Sometimes even cabbies have rosaries dangling from their rear view mirrors.\u00a0 I asked a cabbie with such a rosary once if he was Catholic, pointing to his rosary.\u00a0 He told me \u201cno\u201d, but said he believed that \u201cit couldn\u2019t hurt\u201d and it might protect him against an accident!\u00a0 This poor cabbie was just putting his trust in symbols, but not having any real sense of belief in what the symbol represented.<\/p>\n
And so it was in the story about the Israelites defeat in battle against the Philistines this morning.\u00a0 The words very clearly show that the Israelites summoned the Ark itself- \u00a0they wanted the physical presence of the Ark there.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t any semblance of faith in what the Ark symbolized- the presence and power of Almighty God.\u00a0 In fact, the Philistines seem to have a better understanding of the power behind the Ark than the Israelites did.\u00a0 For they said \u201cGods have come to their camp\u201d.\u00a0 This motivated the Philistines to redouble their preparation, and to make sure they were as ready as possible.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the Israelites whooped it up in a party, trusting that the symbol itself would carry the day.\u00a0 Such a dreadful mistake.\u00a0 Where was their respect for the God the Ark represented?\u00a0 How did they prepare in God\u2019s name for the battle?\u00a0 By whooping it up?<\/p>\n
Contrast all of this with the story of Faith presented in the Gospel.\u00a0 Lepers were isolated from society, and if they approached people, they could be severely dealt with by the authorities.\u00a0 But this leper violates all these taboos and takes a big risk because the leper\u2019s faith is strong; and his attitude is very humble.\u00a0 He has a plan, and he boldly approaches Jesus directly.\u00a0 Kneeling before the Lord he says \u201cIf you wish, you can make me clean.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notice that his faith is strong, and he takes direct action.\u00a0 By contrast the Israelites faith is lukewarm, and they are content to let the symbol do all the work for them.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lesson for all of us in this contrast.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t enough for us to just go through the motions that our Faith demands.\u00a0 We need to embrace the Faith itself and take action.<\/p>\n
Now don\u2019t get me wrong.\u00a0 I am all for proudly displaying religious symbols in our homes and even on our persons.\u00a0 But, the symbols are there to give witness to our Faith and to remind us of our Faith. They are there to call forth our Faith, whether we are in need or not.\u00a0 But the Symbols themselves are powerless without the faith behind them.<\/p>\n
One such symbol that we must carefully consider in today\u2019s world is the Church itself.\u00a0 People come to Church for a variety of reasons.\u00a0 Do they come just to be associated with what the Church symbolizes- a religion.\u00a0 For example- coming to be seen; to provide a social context; \u00a0to validate a life style; to fulfil an obligation or to find a safe haven.<\/p>\n
Or do they come to worship God and to get to know him?\u00a0 For example, to give special time and praise to God; to seek direction in one\u2019s life; to know more about God; to teach and foster faith to our youth; to help spread our Faith to others outside the parish and to serve others as an example of Christ\u2019s love.<\/p>\n
I say all this because as numerous as Christians are in this country today, we are losing ground in battle against the forces of secularism each and every day.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Perhaps we are lukewarm in our Faith and hoping the Church will do the work for us?\u00a0 But you see, the Church is us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of the First Week In Ordinary Time 1 Sam 4: 1-11; Mk 1: 40-45 Dc. Larry Brockman You see it quite frequently, someone riding around with a Rosary hanging from their rear view mirror.\u00a0 Sometimes even cabbies have rosaries dangling from their rear view mirrors.\u00a0 I asked a cabbie with such a rosary once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[387],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":818,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions\/818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}