Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time 'A'

Sunday September 7, 2008

Healing Love

The following story is not a true story but there is truth in the story. It’s a family story about a man losing control over his life and risking the loss of his family in the process.

This man had worked hard all his life. You might say that he pulled himself up by the bootstraps after the depression. He married his teenage sweetheart and together they headed out to the suburbs where they reared two sons and two daughters. Being a high achiever, he moved up in his company and took on more and more responsibilities. He was a social drinker but was known to chug a few extras at a party and engage in weekend binges. Sometimes he would reward himself with one too many during the week when no one was looking. And then it happened one day that his rewards became a daily habit—not just one glass but many glasses. It turned out that for him the glass was always half empty. For an alcoholic, one drink is too many and ten is never enough.

His wife complained to him about his drinking habits. His bowling buddy spoke to him. One of his co-workers chided him. He listened but didn’t get the message.

Finally when it became clear to everyone but himself that he was no longer in control of his drinking and well on the way to losing control of his life, his family including his two oldest daughters, his boss and his closest friends and a couple of friends from A.A. arranged a surprise ‘party’. During that session all affirmed their love and genuine affection for him and then one by one calmly described his behavior and what it was doing to him, to his family and to all his relationships. They also listened to the pain of his inner feelings of inadequacy and fear of failure.

This is known in professional circles as a critical intervention, an exercise of tough love. Some refer to it as a “trip to the woodshed.” Still others refer to it as “getting one’s comeuppance.” The bottom line is love—healing love.

Whatever it’s called, it’s a moment of truth — a necessary aspect of human recovery, growth and development. It’s supposed to be a confrontation that leads to conversion and healing. More often than not, it is successful but not always. Some people need to lose everything to appreciate their blessings. Reconciliation takes place after a long period of healing of the spirits both of the problem drinker as well as his family and associates. This often requires the assistance of competent therapists and spiritual counselors. Alcoholism is an illness that has a ripple effect and touches so many people within a family and society.

Ezekiel was a prophet during the reign of a weak king, Zedekiah. His weakness was not the absence of physical strength but the absence of resolve toward works of justice and mercy within his own kingdom. Instead, he was preoccupied with kingdom building and unhealthy alliances with other nations for his own gain. He didn’t listen and neither did the people and so they were carried off into exile. They had to lose everything to gain appreciate how much they meant to God.

Paul experienced a direct critical intervention on the road to Damascus that resulted in his instant conversion. He became an itinerant preacher to both Jew and gentile in the style of his master. It was not his intention to condemn the Jews but to affirm their covenant and to extend that covenant in Christ to gentiles as well. Through his letters, he intervened in many of the communities that he established always affirming them as a community of faith and assuring them of God’s healing love before admonishing them for their indifference to the ideals he preached to them acknowledging at the same time, his own struggle to live the rule of divine love personified in the life and message of Jesus.

The Matthean Jesus combines the technique of the compassionate judge and the Good Shepherd going after the lost sheep of the house of Israel and alerting them to the universal healing love of God for everyone.

There are indeed lessons we can take from the readings this weekend.

As in a family it can happen in the life of the Church and in the life of a nation that the need arises for a critical intervention of one kind or another. Sometimes that person is a church leader or a nationally known figure who brings to the attention of the faithful and to the citizens issues of grave moral and social concern, e.g., human rights and other life-issues that effect not only individual rights but the common good of the nation. At other times that person is someone outside the clerical ranks or the political arena. It may be a group of the faithful or a consortium of citizens who challenge the religious establishment or the political status quo to find new ways to deal with old and new issues that threaten the well-being of individuals and a nation.

Things have not been right in our Church. The scandal of abuse is not over because it was and is rooted in the abuse of authority. Our leaders have not listened to the pleas of the faithful for reform. Instead, many of them hired attorneys and blamed victims for the high cost of justice. They have not dealt with issues of accountability and transparency. They have not been good listeners.

Our national leaders have not been attentive to the cries of the citizens especially the poor for change despite protests to the contrary from both sides of the aisle.

But there is a process for the pursuit of justice and reconciliation in the Church and in society. Reason and charity must prevail in our call for reform. Assigning blame to leaders without taking responsibility for the thinking that drives them makes little sense. Presidents and even popes are not always who they say they are but who and what we or their advisors make them.

We do not need grandstanding and name-calling from politicians and on- the-spot indictments from network pundits serving as self-appointed prosecutors and judges are not helpful.

At every level, we need to challenge the strong to embrace the weak, sometimes with tough love but always with a mix of tender mercy.

We need to adopt a new way of thinking about who we are as family, as Church and who we are as a nation especially about those who fall through the cracks. Programs for evangelization in the Church must include a great deal of active listening. The stories of so any alienated Catholics and those in diaspora must be heard and understood. People are more important than buildings. Church rules and disciplines that diminish the human spirit must be changed to conform to the rule of love. Evangelization programs that do not address the serious issues and obstacles that keep people away from participation in church life will fail. Courtesy and kindness at the church door and of going the extra mile whatever the need will add credibility to the voice of evangelizers.

On the national level there is a need for a heightened awareness of the increasing disparity between the rich and the poor. We have discovered in the tragedy of Katrina and more recently of Gustavo that water trickles down more easily than wealth.

But this is not the time to look for scapegoats to blame for the inadequate responses to human need. It’s a time for the Church and the nation each to look into its soul and ask how we got here and to find solutions through open dialogue and genuine collaboration.

True love is persistent and relentless in its response even in the face of rejection. Love binds us to justice. Justice holds us to compassion. Compassion demands that we listen to the cries of the those who are struggling for survival and that we respond not only with bread and water but with the bread of our lives in Eucharist.

The gospel according to Peanuts records this little anecdote.

“Lucy says to Charlie Brown: ‘You know what the whole trouble with you is, Charlie Brown?’

“No and I don’t what to know! Leave me alone!”

“The whole trouble with you is that you won’t listen to what the whole trouble with you is!’” [Treasury of Quips, Anthony Castle, Twenty-Third Publications as quoted in’ Celebration’, NCR Publications, 2002]

True love takes a lot of listening with the head and with the heart. Listening leads to knowledge; knowledge leads to understanding; understanding to appreciation. Appreciation is the gateway to justice and peace in the family, in the Church and in the world.

This is a vision, not the way things are. However, Christians must be on the cutting edge of the search and in the vanguard in making the vision come true.

It’s all about healing love.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

An Invitation

Victims of sexual abuse didn’t choose which road they took in life. Others chose it for them, leading to pain and suffering.

But there is one road that can bring those wounded back to health. It’s The Road to Recovery.

Please help Road to Recovery reach those in need of a healing way home. Send your donations to

Road to Recovery, Inc.
PO Box 1908
Livingston NJ 07039

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