26 Sunday B #137
Nm 11, 25-29
Ps 19
Jas 5, 1-6
Mk 9, 38-43. 45. 47-48
September 30, 2012
Peter Maurin Farm
Marlboro, N.Y.
Deacon Tom Cornell
Imagine this passage from the Letter of Saint
James being read aloud at a recent national political convention. I won’t say which one. We just heard the words, God’s words. They’re important. So let’s hear them again and take careful
heed:
“Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your
impending miseries. Your wealth has
rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver have
corroded and that corrosion will be a testimony against you, it will devour
your flesh like fire…. Behold, the wages you have withheld from the workers who
harvested your fields are crying aloud and the cries of the harvesters have
reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
You have lived on the earth in luxury and pleasure and you have fattened
your hearts for the day of slaughter.”
Word as harsh as these might well have been
directed at the other party convention too, I won’t say which one, words of
condemnation for the crime that cries to heaven for vengeance, the slaughter of
the innocent yet-to-be-born. The legal
right to abortion at any stage of gestation or even birth for any reason
whatsoever is now part of that party’s orthodoxy. How long will the hand of God’s justice be
stayed? "God is not mocked." (Gal 6, 7) “Vengeance is mine,” says the
Lord, “I will repay!” (Deut 32,35; Rom 12, 19)
The president from one party declares that anything
the president does is by that very fact legal.
The president from the other party acts upon that and authorizes
assassination by drone missile, targeted assassination of individuals he
chooses to designate enemy combatants without any judicial process, appeal,
oversight or review, and ten or more innocent women, children and other
by-standers die as “collateral damage.”
Obscene! And some people wonder
why they hate us.
Our bishops have given us guidelines, guidance,
not in how to vote, but in how to weigh the candidates and party platforms. It is not their place or mine or anyone else's to
tell you how to vote. But we who are
ordained to teach the faithful the principles of social justice based on
Scripture and natural law have it laid upon us to do just that. The bottom-line is this: how will your choice affect the most vulnerable in our society?
Catholic social teaching holds that
all citizens have the right to participate in the political life of their
communities and nations, that is, among other things, to vote. The right to participate entails the
responsibility to participate. Any who
fail to exercise that right endanger the right of others to do so. Catholics make a better showing at the polls
than our fellow citizens. We make up 20% of the population but 27% of the voting public. There was a time when we tended to vote as a
bloc, for the New Deal, for instance, up to 80 percent! But we are not beholden to any party, nor
should we ever be! And voting is not the
only way we participate in public life.
Here we are about five weeks from Election
Day. I confess to you, I haven’t made up
my mind yet, whom to vote for or even whether to go to the polls at all, the
choices are so bad. Choosing the lesser
of two evils is choosing an evil, after all.
Maybe a third party. But they’re
all compromised. Then again….
I am consoled by the words of a great
American once scorned but now seen as a national treasure, Henry David
Thoreau. “Cast your whole vote, not just
a piece of paper.” If we live the life
that Jesus taught us to live, a life centered on the works of mercy, we cast
our whole vote every day of our lives.
God be with you and God be with us all on November
6, a day of tears for the poor, the aged, the sick and the unborn. God forgive us!
W
