Homily for the First Sunday of the Fortnight of Freedom

12^th Sunday—C

Zechariah 12:10-11, 13:1

Galatians 3:26-29

Luke 9:18-24

 

The question of human identity is as old as human history. The fundamental question is: who am I; or, what am I? I began thinking about this essential matter almost half a century ago. During my college years, my sophomore English professor mandated that she would make gentlemen out of my fellow classmates and I; her method was to have us select an American poet and commit to memory ten poems of that poet. We would then recite from memory five of the poems before our classmates—all who were anxious as I. I chose Emily Dickinson—after all, her poems are rather short. But one of the poems I chose and recited was: “I’m nobody…” In this poem, Dickinson—and for that matter, anyone else—declares something about her (or his) identity and therefore addresses the interlinked questions of: who and what am I?

 

Today, all of our readings tackle the issue of identity: the prophet Zechariah addresses the identity of the Messiah who will be persecuted before God’s people are saved from their sin and uncleanliness—for us Catholics this is clearly our Lord, Jesus Christ. [As an aside, the reference to the mourning of Hadadrimmon is unclear—there is some thought that H was a god of antiquity, and something terrible happened at the Plain of Meggido, but no one is sure what happened.] In his letter to the Galatian church, Saint Paul reminds the faithful—including us—that our identity as Christians and as disciples of the Lord materializes at our baptism when we put on Christ. In Saint Luke’s Gospel, the question of identity is raised by Christ Himself when He asks the disciples: “Who do the crowds say that I am?” Peter offers the correct answer here and elsewhere in the synoptic Gospels (both Mark and Matthew). Well, the question of identity is settled then—or is it?

 

For you see the question of identity as a disciple of Christ surfaces time and again. Yesterday on June 22, we commemorate every year on the 22^nd of June two great saints—Thomas More and John Cardinal Fisher. In doing so, we must necessarily reflect on their identity. Like other martyrs, a fundamental question is this: what made them “tick”; what made them open to the ultimate sacrifice of giving their lives for that in which they believed? More was Lord Chancellor of England; he had been a successful and rather wealthy Oxford-educated lawyer; and he was a confidant—perhaps even friend—of King Henry VIII. John Fisher was a Cambridge man who was ordained into the priesthood in his early adulthood. He returned to his beloved university and assisted (with the generous help of his friend, Lady Margaret Beaufort, the paternal grandmother of King Henry) in the founding of several of the Cambridge colleges and university professorships. Eventually, he became the chancellor of Cambridge University. Fisher also became the bishop of Rochester at an early age, and he was bishop of that diocese for over thirty years. He must have anticipated what Pope Francis has been saying of late about bishops being wedded to their dioceses without having ambitions to go to a larger, more prosperous one, because Fisher never succumbed to leave his poor diocese for another or others! I hasten to add that the diocese of Rochester in his time was very poor in comparison with the dioceses over which Cardinal Wolsey administered.

 

Both Fisher and More were very clear on who they were. Indeed, they were prominent members of English society in the early sixteenth century; they were highly educated and displayed their intelligence without pride for they were humble before God and man. But there is abundant evidence that at the heart of their respective identities was their unshakeable fidelity to the Church. They were patriots first and last and devoted to their king; but, their commitment to God and His holy Church took precedence. They labored hard to be both good subjects of the king AND faithful sons of the Church.

 

However, the king tested time after time their fidelity to the Church, and it was their fidelity that cost them their lives by depriving them of their heads when Henry (with the help of Parliament, Thomas Cramner, and Thomas Cromwell) decided that he would rid himself of his wife of over twenty years, Queen Catherine, and establish himself as the “supreme” head of the church in England. Sorry Saint Peter and your successors: move over—I’ve now decided who is in charge of God’s work! Both Fisher and More knew that Henry’s actions were wrong. The monarch’s self-authored divorce from Catherine violated the law of God and the Church and his self-proclamation of Supreme Head of the Church in England, moreover, contravened the Magna Carta. But both defiances did not stop an intelligent man who was driven by worldly ways to transform himself into a despot. More and Fisher knew that at the heart of the Magna Carta was the several-times stated principle of the freedom of the Church. This is essentially a vital element of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. This was and is a freedom not simply to be free from the civil authority; it was and is also the freedom to do what is essential to the Church’s mission in society without interference or pressure from the state. The Church’s freedom was also the freedom of More and Fisher. They understood well our Lord’s exhortation in Luke’s Gospel: in order to save one’s eternal life, it may be necessary to sacrifice some of one’s life in the City of Man. This is the nobility of self-denial; it is the affirmative response of what Pope Francis urges us in not being “self-referential”; it is the duty of one who desires to follow Christ by taking up one’s cross each day in order to be faithful in following the Lord who showed us the true path by His own sacrifice.

 

And this is where we come into to chronicle of identity—as disciples and as a free people who believe in God and His Church. On this past Thursday, the U.S. bishops announced the beginning of the second annual Fortnight of Freedom. It will conclude on Independence Day. Freedom and its inseparable companion, responsibility to be virtuous citizens of the City of God and the City of Man, are at the core of our individual and corporate identities of American citizens and as members of the Catholic Church. Our heritage is founded on the duty of citizens and their freedom to be true to our identity. We are not the servants or subjects of the realm, as were More and Fisher. Rather, we are participants in a realm who are served by a state whose sole ambition is and must be to attend and protect its people; not to be served by them against their will. The state is not the common good; rather it exists to serve and safeguard the common good—a vital element of our faith. Like More and Fisher, we are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ and members of His holy Church. The freedom from state interference and for following Christ is the same freedom possessed and exercised by the same saints whom we commemorated yesterday.

 

But this freedom is sometimes eclipsed by the ambition of those who do not share our identity or who have abandoned this essential element of their identity. So what can we do as Americans and as Catholics who cherish our freedom as Americans and simultaneously practice it as Catholics—as I have briefly explained freedom?

 

Perhaps like More and Fisher, who understood what Saint Paul said so many years ago to Timothy: we know in whom we have believed! May this declaration be a part of our identity and our heritage as a free and sovereign people. May it also be a part of our prayer not only for today but for all the days of our lives! For prayer is the distinguishing mark of the good citizen who is also the faithful disciple. This is who we are as individuals and as members of the Church, the People of God. We have put on Christ; may no one remove Him regardless of their intention otherwise.

 

Amen.