Sunday Homily, September 6, 23rd Ordinary Time
Readings:
Isaiah 35, 4-7, The eyes of the blind will be opened.
Psalm 146, Praise the Lord, my soul.
James 2, 1-5, 21-22, 27, Show no partiality
Mark 7, 31-37, Jesus heals the deaf & mute man.
Homily:
Last Sunday Stack reminded us about how Moses told the people of Israel that they would have their own land promised by Yahweh. And how after Moses’ death Joshua and others wiped out the Cannanite tribes who resided there, and just moved in.
The theme today is that of healing. During the week I was touched by two visuals of a lack of healing for people. The first was the visual of a dead child lying on a beach in Turkey, whose family were trying to get from Syria to safety in Europe. His family was one of thousands escaping from war torn Syria, escaping death by the King’s military, or by the rebel fighters, or by ISIS jihadists. Newspeople often refer to them as ‘immigrants’–-yet their country is in civil war and there is hardly a safe place for anyone on any side. They are refugees. They leave everything behind. They cross the Mediterranean in rubberized boats or rafts. Many don’t even make it to the first stop in Turkey. These thousands of refugees are leaving their homes, leaving their land, in search of a safe place for their families, for their children.
The second visual that struck me this week was from a series of articles in the National Catholic Reporter on the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ and its impact on people over centuries. The ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ is found in papal bulls beginning in 1436; that’s almost 600 years ago. One example is a papal bull from 1493, after Columbus’ ‘discovery’ of the Americas. This papal bull gave Ferdinand and Isabella “full and free power, authority and jurisdiction of every kind” over almost all of the Americas, except for part of modern-day Brazil and a few islands. Some say this was the beginning of international law as each succeeding papal bull would quote or reference those that came before. When, in the late 1400’s discoverers were finding lands far away from Christian Europe, they found these lands occupied with non-Christian peoples, tribes and civilizations. The papal bulls gave Christian discoverers full power and authority over all non-Christian peoples in these lands. This meant the land could be claimed by the Christian discoverer (like for Spain or for France, etc.) and the non-Christian people could be enslaved, made to become Christian, even killed if they resisted.
Fast forward to 1823. This Doctrine of Discovery was legitimized in a ruling by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. His ruling maintained that Native Americans had the right to ‘occupy’ land, but not have full ownership, and that tribes were dependent on the federal government.
So the two visuals that touched me this week were the thousands of refugees fleeing Syria, especially the little boy lying dead on the beach; and the millions of peoples in the Americas, Africa, the Pacific islands, etc., dispossessed of their lands, culture and religion, to a large extent due to a series of papal bulls and the Doctrine of Discovery.
What would healing look like for the people of Syria fleeing war and devastation? What would healing look like for the offspring of the indigenous peoples of North and South America? of Africa? of the pacific islands?
And how do I individually, or as a member of this Christian community, promote healing in my own world?