Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Fr. Ben Riley

If you remember the first Sunday I arrived at Mary Mother of God, I gave an abbreviated version of my vocation story. I spoke about my uncle, Father Greg, asking me when I was about five or six years old if I wanted to be a priest, how I was not interested at all, and didn’t think about the priesthood until my later years of high school. I spoke about my years of high school being a period of turmoil, and my existential crisis; trying to figure out who I was, and where I was going. And I spoke about trying to run away from God’s call in my life, how I spent a year in college at a small school in Colorado before joining the seminary. But there is one part of that story that I specifically glazed over. It was my first week at Mary Mother of God, I didn’t know any of you yet, and so I was a little hesitant to describe just how lost I became in high school. But today, I want to share it with you, not because I want to boast, and make you impressed with how much I’ve changed and grown in my relationship with God, but truly because my experience is nothing special, it’s something that many people, especially young people, struggle with.

So, without further ado, I have to tell you that in high school, I was more or less, a pagan. Now I don’t mean that I lost my faith in God. I have always had a belief in God, but in high school I had a tremendous amount of doubt about who or what God is. I started to consider, like many young people, that the faith I was raised in, may not be the true faith. And so I started experimenting with, and doing research in other faith traditions, other Christian denominations, but primarily, eastern faith traditions. It’s kind of funny to think about it now, but for a time I claimed to be a pantheist. I believed that God not only created all things, but that He literally was all things. Kind of strange. For a while I researched different forms of Buddhism, and what is amazing is that I believe it was these Buddhist meditative practices that eventually led me back to Christianity. It goes to show that God can use anything to His purpose, and there is always cause for great hope. As I was sitting on the floor, legs crossed, trying to focus on my breathing, my 16-year-old self started to consider the foundational truths of the Catholic faith: namely, is the Bible the divinely inspired word of God? Is Jesus who he says he is? Is the Catholic Church the church that Jesus formed? Those three questions, are at the foundation of what we believe, and from which all other scriptural and theological teachings have their origin.

I hope that you’re not scandalized by my doubt as a 16-year-old. I believe that level of questioning is something that all of us go through in some way, at some point in our lives. And honestly, it’s something that a lot of people are unwilling to wrestle with. They deny religion all together, or at least the Christian religion, or simply Catholicism, without ever giving it a critical look. How could one deny something, that they’ve never seriously looked into? And yet we see this all the time, and often very close to home, in our friends and family, and especially for you parents. I see how heartbreaking it is when children step away from their faith. Parents often blame themselves, and I’m sure there is enough blame to go around, but truthfully the real culprit, are the priests. The men who have dedicated their lives to teaching the truth, and yet have failed to do so. When I die, and meet our Lord, I’m sure he will accuse me of many sins, sins for which I will repent in purgatory. But one thing I will never be accused of, is failing to teach the truth, no matter how unpopular or challenging it is.

In our Gospel today, Jesus is very clear. On the foundation of the apostle St. Peter, Jesus formed a church. He said, “You are rock and on this rock I will build my church.” If we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and Jesus is who he says he is, not a prophet, not a religious leader, but the Son of God, then we cannot discount, alter, or explain away His words. Jesus did not suffer torture, be crucified on a cross, and rise from the dead so that 30,000 different Christian denominations could falsely interpret what He said and did. He formed one Church to be the authentic interpreter of His Word. And he gave us one, and only one, authentic means of worship. It’s called the Mass.

If you go into a church, and there is not an altar, and there is not a priest in the line of Melchizedek, then there is not a sacrifice, and there is no Eucharist. If the Bible is the Word of God, and Jesus is who He says He is, then we must take seriously His words at the last supper. “Do this in remembrance of me.” Properly translated, it is “Sacrifice this in remembrance of me.” The Eucharist, the recapitulation of the salvific work of Christ, offered as a sacrifice on an altar, by a priest, is how Jesus commanded us to worship him. I cannot believe in a good and loving savior who would leave his people with no authentic interpretation of his word, and no direction of how He wants to be worshiped. What kind of vicious and confusing messiah would do that to his people?

It’s okay to have doubt, it’s okay to question; that is how we grow in knowledge and understanding. Believe it or not, I am grateful that I doubted my Catholic Faith in high school, it led me to wrestle with and prayerfully think through the teachings of the Church. There is great hope for friends, family, and children who have fallen away from the Faith. But we do them no favors by watering down the Faith. We do them no favors by saying all Christian churches have the same truth and authentic worship as any other so long as it’s based on the Bible. If a church is truly based on the Bible, it must have an altar and a sacrifice. Now let me be clear, I am not saying that people have to be Catholic in order to be saved. Scripture very clearly says that salvation comes through the waters of Baptism, and the Church has always professed the reality of baptism by desire, for those who do not receive a baptism by water. But without the Eucharist, it is like someone being on a diet forever. You can survive on a diet, but you will be very malnourished.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, I recognize that there is tremendous division in our society today, and I certainly do not wish to sow more division. We must treat people with love, dignity and respect regardless of their beliefs or state in life. But Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me, you either gather with me or you scatter.” And I believe that the reality of 30,000 different Christian denominations is evidence of that scattering. If we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and Jesus is who He says he is, and instituted the Holy Catholic Church as the only authentic interpreter of His Word, then we have to have the courage to defend what we believe. And furthermore, we should have the knowledge to defend it well.

When I was in high school, I went down a rabbit hole of different faith traditions, but what ultimately lead me back was trust in the words of Jesus Christ. We come to Mass not to entertained, not to hear a good sermon, or hedge our spiritual bets, we come to Mass, because the Mass is how God commanded us to worship him. Jesus told Peter, “You are rock, and on this rock I will build my Church.” My brothers and sisters in Christ, let’s be that rock, confident in our faith, confident in our beliefs. Not afraid to give a testament to the joy that is within us, through our words, but more importantly, through our actions.