Homily: Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time: 2007

Brothers and Sisters, today we will look at the remarkable example of the Holy Maccabees. It is in the seventh chapter of the Second Book of Maccabees. Just before it comes the martyrdom of Eleazar, which those of us with gray hair can especially esteem. It contains the immortal line: "But having taken a noble decision worthy of his years and the dignity of his great age and the well-earned distinction of his gray hairs . . . he publicly stated his convictions, telling them to send him at once to Hades. 'Such pretense does not square with our time of life . . . Many young people would suppose old Eleazar had conformed to this way of life because I had played this part for the sake of a paltry brief spell of life might themselves be led astray on my account; I should only bring defilement and disgrace on my old age." (2 Macc. 6:23-25). And so he bravely refused to eat pork -- or even submit to the pretense of eating pork while eating kosher meat instead -- and died under the blows of whips and scourges, a horrible death. "The well-earned distinction of his gray hairs." What a great line. As Bill Cosby says, "Gray hair is God's graffiti."

Anyway, in the story of the seven brothers (and their intrepid mother) who were viciously martyred by Antiochus Epiphanes in the time of the Seleucid kings, about 175 - 134 BC. They were, one by one, tortured and killed for their refusal to eat pork and thus violate Jewish law. And I think their wonderful and harrowing story, which we just heard, can give us three lessons.

1) The importance of praying for our faithful departed. This month of November we especially remember and pray for those who have gone before us, especially our friends and family, and make sacrifice for them if they are still in Purgatory. For thus it says in the Book of Maccabees: concerning Judas' collection and donation to the Temple (for those soldiers who had died and were ostensibly guilty of wearing tokens of idols), an action which was "altogether fine and noble, in which he took full account of the resurrection. For if he had not expected the fallen to rise again it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead, whereas if he had in view the splendid recompense reserved for those who make a pious end, the thought was holy and devout." (2 Macc. 12:44-45).

2) The importance of praying TO our faithful departed. It is a tenet of our Catholic faith that the souls in Purgatory, known also as the Holy Souls or the Poor Souls or collectively as "The Church Suffering," can pray for and aid us, even though they cannot do so for themselves. And in fact their prayers are very powerful. We should turn to them when we have difficult intentions and they will understand and bring them to the altar of the Lord for us.

3) The importance of imitating the faithful departed, in this case, the Holy Maccabees. The Church celebrates these heroic Jewish martyrs with their own feast on August 1st. In fact all the great Jewish saints are celebrated in our Church, in the East even more observantly than in the West. And what can we learn from them? The importance of faithfulness, to be sure, and also the courage of our convictions. We should be ready to defend -- with our lives, if necessary -- the doctrines and dogmas of our Catholic faith. Another thing here is clear. We don't always get to pick our battles. What I mean is, we don't always get to defend the particular aspect of our faith we may want to at the time. The Maccabees may have wanted to defend the doctrine of the oneness of God, or the omnipotence of God, or the truth of the Ten Commandments, but that wasn't called into question, at least not directly. It was the discipline of not eating pork (a discipline we don't share). And it may have seemed like a minor thing, but the Maccabees saw it all as a seamless garment, as it were, and died defending their faith whole and entire.

It may seem that we Catholics spend an inordinate amount of time defending the Church's teaching on so-called "pelvic issues" -- sexual, reproductive and life issues -- but that's just because that is what's being attacked right now: the sanctity of life (especially the right to life of the unborn), the wrongness of premarital or homosexual sex, the evil of contraception. You may prefer to spend your time and ink -- it hasn't yet come to blood -- defending the Incarnation or the action of the Holy Spirit, but this is what is being attacked right now. May we all have the courage and honor of the Holy Maccabees in that struggle.

[pause]

Let us now profess our faith . . .