Sunday Homily, November 10, 2013, 32nd Ordinary Time C
Readings:
2 Maccabees 7, 1-2, 9-14, 7 brothers with their mother were arrested.
Psalm 17, Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full
2 Thessalonians 2, 16-3, 5, The Lord is faithful.
Luke 20, 27-38, There were 7 brothers.
2 Maccabees Observatons :
What : another reading from one of those unique dozen extra books. A history of the Maccabee family. This is the only time in the 3 year cycle
this book is used. Perhaps it is only
used to support in some way Luke’s gospel about the wife of the 7
brothers.
Date : around 200 before Christ.
Subject: In order to
emphasize how God appreciates faithfulness, the author describes in vivid
detail the torture and murder of 7 brothers who refused to eat pork. I wanted to read the whole story, but it is
too brutal for public reading. Check it
out for yourselves.
What to Die for
I want to talk this
morning about an event that took place 24 years ago, November 16, 1989. This Friday is the date. I was back in the States about 2 years at
this time.
The event I’m talking
about happened in the early morning of November 16, on a Jesuit university
campus, called Universidad Centroamericana, UCA for short. This is a Jesuit university just like many others
you know of, U. of San Francisco, St. Louis U. Fordham, Georgetown, Marquette,
and the Loyolas. This university is in
San Salvador, El Salvador.
There were 6 Jesuits
home that night, plus a housekeeper and her daughter in a rear apartment. All was quiet.
Suddenly about 12:00
there was a great commotion at the door of the residence, lots of yelling and
banging. The, Jesuits, thinking the door
was going to be bashed in, opened the door and in burst about 40 soldiers
in camouflage and heavily armed.
Continuing to yell,
the soldiers went room to room, busting down doors, smashing windows, storming
around, and ultimately dragging the 6 Jesuits out into their interior
patio. Even the housekeep and her daughter
were dragged into the patio. Can you
imagine the fear?
For an hour the
storming around and the noise continued.
Then, a bit after 1:00, witnesses outside said shots began. Each of the 6 Jesuits and the two women had
to lie on the ground on their stomachs.
One by one they were shot in the back of the head and left.
9
years before this, on March 24, 1980, a similar event had happened in the same
country, El Salvador. Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot by a single
assassin in the middle of his Mass in a chapel at a hospital in San Salvador.
The
same year three American nuns and a lay woman volunteer were all killed on
their way to the airport one evening.
I talk about this this
morning because, first, it still moves me and the anniversary is coming this
Friday. Secondly, I talk about it
in reference to the 7 brothers who died rather than eat pork.
Question:
what would you die for?
Two
observations.
First,
what these Jesuits died for is something really worth dying for. I can imagine all of us doing this, dying for
people dear to us. The people dear to the
Jesuits were the poor of El Salvador, especially those abused by the military
dictatorship.
Secondly,
while the 7 brothers showed heroic courage along with their mother, that they
were going through this because they thought God told them they should not eat
pork is just sad. The don’t eat pork law
did not come from God, but from Jewish elders and priests.
At
the time it may have been a health instruction.
But religious people set this instruction up, not God. Watch
out. Religious leaders lay lots of loads
on people and say that God demands this.
Remember the prohibition to eat
meat on Friday? You could go to hell for
this.
I
would propose that we all die, that is, give our life for something or
someone. Teachers give their lives for
their students. That is what the Jesuits
did. Parents give their lives for their
kids. Coaches, like my friend Frank,
give their lives for their kids.
For
whom or what do you give your life?
