Fr. Campbell, "Tears at the Foot of the Cross"
Many
of Our Lord’s hearers were ordinary folk – laborers, fishermen,
housewives, shepherds, farmers. The Lord spoke to them using images that
were familiar to them, as in the Gospel today about the weeds (cockle)
among the wheat. Everybody knew that you just can’t start pulling the
weeds out of a field of wheat. They grow too close to the wheat and are
entangled in its roots, so that in uprooting the weeds you endanger the
wheat also. Unfortunately, the weeds steal sunlight and nourishment from
the wheat; they invade its space and crowd it out; they strangle it and
prevent it from ripening. They persecute the wheat.
The
Lord wants to tell us that this is what happens to the good. They are
persecuted by the wicked, who poison the minds of the innocent and lead
them into sin. They destroy their faith through heresy disguised as
truth, and sin disguised as entertainment.
The
minds of many “pastors of souls” have already been corrupted, so that
they can no longer safely guide their people. Through dialogue with the
world the contemporary church has lost true judgment concerning good and
evil, and has thrown the sheep to the wolves.
Many
parents are no longer safe guides for their children. The prophet
Ezechiel quotes a saying of his time, “The fathers have eaten sour
grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge” (Ez:18:2).
Although Ezechiel says that each will be held responsible by God for his
own sin, parents will have a lot to answer for on Judgment Day for what
they allow their children.
Many
TV programs are simply immorality disguised as entertainment. The
“weeds” of the entertainment industry destroy the faith of the innocent
by portraying fornication as funny, the gay lifestyle as hilarious, lewd
and immodest behavior as normal. By watching programs like this, young
people, like their parents before them, lose their ability to discern
good from evil and are taught to love sin. They end up no longer
Christian but pagan.
What
happens is that the conscience becomes dulled. The sense of sin is
lost. When sin becomes a laughing matter, it is no longer the horror
that has caused all the sorrows of the world. One no longer remembers
that Paradise was lost because of sin, and that “the wages of sin is
death” (Rom.6:23), or that Jesus Christ shed His Precious Blood upon the
Cross to save us from these very sins. How carelessly we add another
thorn to His crown, or another blow of the lash to His torn flesh.
Along
with the loss of the sense of sin is the loss of a sense of the sacred.
Sacred things are even made an object of ridicule, and Jesus Himself is
paraded before sinners to be mocked and spat upon as He was during His
Passion. St. Paul tells us with tears:
“For many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the Cross of Christ” (Phil.3:18).
The
Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints as well as the holy Catholic Church
are also made objects of scorn and derision. To laugh at holy things is a
further step down on the road to Hell. We have no less reason for tears
than Mary had at the foot of the Cross of Her Son. The Body of Christ,
the Holy Catholic Church, is being crowned with thorns, bloodied, and
crucified right before our eyes. Now Our Lady cries for us, because she
knows how we are being attacked by the devil, and how difficult it is
for us to avoid sin.
Abraham’s
nephew Lot and his family lived in Sodom, where they had a lot of nice,
friendly neighbors. But the neighbors’ minds had become totally
corrupt, and they wanted to entice Lot’s guests into sin. The only way
to avoid being corrupted themselves was to leave the city. So God
ordered Lot and his wife and two daughters to turn their backs on the
city and its inhabitants, led by the two guests, who were really angels
sent by God to rescue them. Lot’s two intended sons-in-law took the
whole thing as a hilarious joke, and stayed behind in Sodom. Fire and
brimstone rained down from the sky totally destroying the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah (Gn.23-29). The sulfurous ruins can be seen even to
this day. Lot’s wife, thinking she was safe once she had left the city,
turned around to take one last look, and she was turned into a pillar of
salt. The moral of the story is: God’s judgment is no laughing matter;
turn away from evil, and don’t look back.
Jesus
makes it very clear that decisive action is required: “So if thy right
eye is an occasion of sin to thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee;
for it is better for thee that one of thy members should perish than
that thy whole body should be thrown into hell. And if thy right hand is
an occasion of sin to thee, cut it off and cast it from thee; for it is
better for thee that one of thy members should be lost than that thy
whole body should go into hell” (Mt.5:29,30).
The
Lord’s words are not to be taken in a literal sense, because
self-mutilation is wrong, but the meaning is clear enough: occasions of
sin must be avoided if one is to escape hell, and this means any person,
place or thing that is likely to cause us to sin. The alcoholic must
not take that first drink. Those addicted to pornography must use the
internet with extreme care, and must not pass by that “adult” shop.
Those involved in sinful relationships must break off the relationship
immediately. TV and internet slaves must either learn to use the “off”
button, or throw out the offending device.
Don’t
be a “weed,” an occasion of sin, but be an occasion of grace for other
people who are trying, like yourself, to escape God’s just judgment and
enter eternal life.
“Watch,
then, praying at all times,” says the Lord, “that you may be accounted
worthy to escape all these things that are to be, and to stand before
the Son of Man” (Lk.21:36).
“Beloved,”
says St. Peter, “I exhort you as strangers and pilgrims to abstain from
carnal desires which war against the soul. Behave yourselves honorably
among the pagans; that, whereas they slander you as evildoers, they may,
through observing you, by reason of your good works glorify God in the
day of visitation” (1Pet.11,12).