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Homily:
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
By all accounts, Blessed Marcel Callo was what we might
call a “Catholic Nerd” in his youth. You
know, the one who’s so into all of the “Catholic” things that he becomes a
little obnoxious. One writer has said of
him, “He would have been the modern equivalent of the teenager who wears 50
saints medals at once and has the techno remix of [the worship song] ‘Oceans’
as [sic] their ringtone”. If he had been
a seminarian, he would have been the one that other seminarians labeled a
“POD”: “Pious and Overly Devout”. When
his coworkers would make jokes about women, Marcel refused to have anything to
do with them. He refused to date, saying, “I am not one to amuse myself with
the heart of a lady, since my love is pure and noble”. That same writer said that this last comment
is the kind that would make her “want to take his lunch money”.
As he progressed through his teen years, Marcel involved
himself in his local youth group, which in France at the time was called the
“Young Christian Workers”. Through this
group Marcel lightened up. He still took
his faith and his Catholic identity very seriously, but he learned to live it
more joyfully. He would eventually
become a leader in the group, from where he could then pass on the good graces
of formation that he had received from the group. He met the love of his life there and,
although he waited some time to ask her out, they eventually became engaged. Marcel’s piety had paid off, it seems. He had found his vocation in Christ and was
ready to enter into it.
This was the time of the Second World War, however, and
Marcel and his family had to face the reality of the German invasion. While helping to clean up debris after a
German bombing in his town of Rennes, he discovered the body of his younger
sister. Later his family was told that
they had to send Marcel to the forced labor camps and that if they didn’t, the
whole family would be sent. Marcel went
willingly; reportedly telling his family that he was “going as a missionary,
because there was an urgent apostolate waiting for him in the barracks”. (Perhaps he hadn’t quite yet purged his
“overzealous Catholicism”.)
What he found there was beyond his imagination. Everything that once supported his strong
Catholic identity—and, thus, his faith—was stripped away from him. Aside from the deplorable conditions (intense
physical labor, unsanitary living quarters, and starvation rations for food),
there was no Catholic Church in that town.
After three months without his family, his fiancée, and the
Eucharist—all the while living in inhumane conditions and being forced to
produce the very same weapons that killed his sister—Marcel sunk into a deep
depression.
As I reflected on today’s Gospel reading, I couldn’t help but
wonder if the man who approached Jesus wasn’t a little like Blessed
Marcel. He comes to Jesus, probably
because he had heard of the way that Jesus spoke with great authority, so as to
“double-check” to see if he was truly living his life in such a way so as to be
made worthy of eternal life. In some
way, you could almost imagine him saying, “Am I Jewish enough?”—that is, “Am I
doing all of the right things? Are my saints medals in the right order? Am I
saying the right novenas?” etc. He must
have felt relieved when Jesus confirmed that what he had been doing were the
right things. Then Jesus blindsides him:
“You are lacking in one thing” he says, “Go, sell what you have, and give to
the poor … then come, follow me”. The
Gospel tells us that he went away sad because he had many possessions.
I imagine that this man from the Gospel and Blessed Marcel
both thought that, because they had been diligent to order their lives
according to God’s commandments, they wouldn’t be tested beyond their
strength. Yet, in both of their stories
we see not only that they were tested, but also that when they were tested the
fell into despair at what had been asked of them. In times of peace and security, they could be
bold about their religion. Confronted
with trial, however, they faltered.
Their religious convictions had not prepared them for this challenge.
I, myself, have often wondered if I would be able to face a
strong challenge to my faith without faltering.
I like to think that I would be able to face it, but I’ve never had to
face it, so I can’t know how I’d react.
The secret, I suppose, to knowing can be found in taking a look at how
we are using our religious practices.
If the substance of our faith is our encounter with the
person of Jesus, and, thus, our religious practices serve to bolster that
faith, then we should be able to weather any storm that comes our way (even if
we don’t weather it very gracefully).
If, however, our religious practices are the substance of our faith
(that is, “I’m Catholic because I go to Mass and pray the rosary”, instead of
“I’m Catholic because I believe in Jesus and the communion I experience with
him in the Catholic Church), then our faith will crumble when storms come and
wipe those things away.
The man in the Gospel faced this challenge. His security was in his religious practices
and material things. When Jesus
challenged him to leave those things behind, he fell into crisis because he didn’t
know how to deal with it. Blessed Marcel
also faced this challenge. His security
was in his religious practices and the community he formed in his youth
group. Sent to the work camp, all of
these securities were stripped away and he, too, fell into crisis. Now, although we don’t know what happened to
that rich man in the Gospel, we do know what happened to Blessed Marcel.
After three months in the camp, he discovered that Sunday
Mass was being offered in an obscure room in the camp. He managed to get there one Sunday and, for
the first time in months, he received Holy Communion. He profoundly felt Christ in that Communion
and in it that he discovered hope.
Christ was not far from him in the camp, he discovered, and so there was
no reason that he couldn’t live with the same sense of joy and purpose that he
had when he lived at home.
Marcel began to organize sports and other activities like
he was used to organizing in his youth group back home. They prayed together as a community in the
barracks and he even found a French priest to come and offer Mass once a
month. His efforts, however, got him
noticed by the S.S. He was arrested and
when the other prisoners asked why he was arrested the officers simply replied:
“He’s too Catholic”.
Marcel was convicted of operating a “clandestine operation”
in the camp and so was sent to a different concentration camp where the
conditions were so deplorable, and he was so neglected, that in less than one
year he would die. He never lost his
joy, however, and he continued to pray with and encourage his fellow prisoners
until the end. For this, John Paul II
beatified Marcel, calling him a “martyr for the faith”. The pope said that like Christ, Marcel “loved
until the end, and his entire life became the Eucharist.”
My brothers and sisters, none of us can ever prepare
ourselves for the ways that life might challenge us and our faith. Our religious practices must be more than
ornaments, however, if we hope to have the strength to overcome these
challenges. Rather, they must be outward
signs of our inner convictions. If
they’re not—or if those inner convictions could use a little workout—don’t
waste another second! This time of peace
and security is a time of preparation—a training camp, if you will—for any and
every challenge that may come. While we
may never be asked to face what Blessed Marcel faced, we are daily being
challenged to confront our attachments to this world, like the man in the
Gospel was, and, thus, our readiness to follow Jesus with undivided hearts.
If you find yourself unready for such a challenge, then
don’t go away sad. Rather, turn to our
Lord today, encounter him here in this Eucharist, and let him transform your
heart. He will strengthen you with a
supernatural grace to overcome every challenge and to be a true witness of his
grace and mercy in the world. May our
Blessed Mother Mary protect us with her prayers and guide us with her motherly
care; and may Blessed Marcel Callo, patron of Catholic Nerds everywhere,
inspire us all to take up our crosses and follow Christ.
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – October 10th & 11th, 2015
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