Anniversary of the Dedication of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen

Readings: 1 Kings 8:2-23, 27-30; Ephesians 2:19-22; John 2:13-22

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In his book Confessions, 
as a prelude to his account of his own conversion,
St. Augustine tells the story of Victorinus,
a prominent Roman philosopher of his day—
a pagan who, through reading the Scriptures 
and other Christian writings,
became convinced of the truth of Christianity.
When he said in private to a Christian friend,
“Did you know that I am already a Christian,”
this friend replied, “I shall not believe that
or count you among the Christians
unless I see you in the Church of Christ.”
To this Victorinus responded, jokingly,
“Then do walls make Christians?”
Augustine notes that, despite his joking tone, 
Victorinus’s question was motivated by fear 
that if he openly professed his faith
and stood publicly within the walls of the Church
he would be scorned by his pagan friends
who had hitherto held him in such esteem.

As time passed, however,
Victorinus felt a growing longing to be within the Church,
to abandon his pride and receive the sacraments,
which Augustine calls 
“the mysteries of the humility of your Word,”
signs of God coming to dwell with us.
The priests offered to let him be baptized privately,
to preserve his dignity and reputation,
but Victorinus said “no,”
that he wanted to be baptized 
with all the rest at the Easter Vigil.
When the day came, 
and Victorinus stood up within the walls of the cathedral
and the assembled congregation saw this famous philosopher
publicly proclaiming his Christian faith,
a murmur of excited whispers 
went through the crowd: “Victorinus! Victorinus!”
Augustine writes, “all of them wanted
to clasp him to their hearts,
and the hands with which they embraced him
were their love and their joy” (Conf. 8.2.4-5).

Do walls make Christians?
Victorinus’s question remains a question worth asking 
as we celebrate the anniversary of 
the dedication of this cathedral in 1959.
And the answer is…well…yes and no.

No, walls do not make Christians
because the God whom Christians worship 
cannot be contained within walls of stone.
King Solomon, 
who built the first Temple in Jerusalem,
says in our first reading that the God of Israel 
is unlike other gods
because neither the earth 
nor the heavens that he created 
can contain him,
much less a temple built by a human being.
Jesus makes an even more startling claim:
the true Temple, the true dwelling place of God on earth,
is not a building, but a person: Jesus himself.
God is to be found in him,
not within the walls of any building.
And Paul, writing to the Ephesians, tells us
it is the Christian community,
Christ’s body joined to its head,
that is a temple sacred to the Lord,
a temple built of living stones
in which God’s Spirit dwells,
a holy place constructed from holy lives.

So, no, walls do not make Christians;
Christians can worship God in spirit and in truth
without the benefit of walls,
much less stained glass and stone carvings,
marble altars and votive lights.
Christians can worship God wherever Christ is,
and Christ is wherever his body the Church 
gathers in communion with him, its risen head.

But also, yes, walls do make Christians.
Or at least, a Christian who seeks to be 
a living stone in the temple of Christ’s body
must be a part of an actual community 
that gathers at a particular time and in a particular place.
Walls, strictly speaking, are optional.
But what Victorinus discovered is that
what is not optional is gathering together to listen to God’s word
and to celebrate the sacramental mysteries of God’s humility
in coming to dwell among us in Jesus crucified and risen.
What is not optional is being part of a community of worship,
a community that can both challenge and embrace us
as the Christians of Rome embraced Victorinus,
clasping him to their hearts with hands of joy and love,
no longer a stranger and sojourner,
but a fellow member of the household of God.
What is not optional is letting the stories of our lives,
as diverse and varied as they are,
be fitted together into a dwelling place for the Spirit
with Christ as our head and cornerstone.

And experience tells us that the physical spaces
in which the living temple of Christ’s body gathers
do take on a kind of reflected holiness.
Walls may not make Christians,
but the walls within which Christians worship
serve as an outward and visible sign 
of the presence of the Church
and therefore of the presence of the Spirit 
who dwells within God’s holy people.
This is why we try to make out church buildings beautiful,
to point to the deep mystery of God’s presence
that is enacted within them in word and sacrament.
This is why we seek to make them oases of calm and beauty
in a world that can at times get very noisy and ugly.
This is why we fill them with images 
of the living stones of the past,
the saints who now worship God eternally in heaven.

But the real beauty of our churches comes
from the thousand of prayers 
that have been prayed in them:
the cries and pleas for divine mercy 
that have be uttered,
the words of praise and adoration
that have been offered,
the sacramental mysteries of our salvation 
that have been celebrated.
These prayers have saturated these walls for decades
and made them holy.

Do walls make Christians?
No, God’s Spirit makes Christians.
But those Christians make places in which to gather
and the Spirit who prays within them 
hallows those places
and makes them a home 
in which God’s household can dwell.
So it is right and just that we 
should celebrate today 
this house of prayer that is our home,
and call to mind all those faithful people,
past and still to come,
who have found in it
a place of prayer and adoration,
a place where God’s grace 
has been given and received,
a place of living stones 
where God’s holy people can be found.
May God have mercy on us all.

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kings 17:10-16; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44

In today’s Gospel Jesus says 
to beware of religious leaders 
who go around in long robes
and recite long prayers
and sit in places of honor
in houses of worship.

I hope you will listen to me anyway.

The contrast Jesus draws between the poor widow,
who gives everything she has, little as it is, 
and those rich people who give much more
but still remain wealthy,
is a familiar one.
But sometimes we miss the fact that this story
is something of a two-edged sword.

On the one hand, 
Christians have traditionally heard in Jesus’ words
implicit praise for the widow’s sacrifice,
which in its unrestricted generosity
mirrors Jesus’ own gift of himself 
for the life of the world:
what counts is not how much you give
but the fact that you give your all.
And this is certainly true:
Christ calls his followers to give their all
for the sake of his kingdom,
to follow him on the way of the cross.

On the other hand,
we might notice that Jesus 
does not draw the widow to our attention
to praise her generosity 
but to drive home his denunciation 
of the Temple scribes who,
as he puts it, “devour the houses of widows.”
In giving all she has in paying the Temple tax,
the widow’s life and livelihood are 
consumed by the Temple leaders.
Jesus seems to be pointing her out as an example
of how the greedy scribes use religious duty
as a pretext to take from the poor
everything that they possess
in order to enrich themselves
and enhance their status.
This incident is therefore at least as much 
a denunciation of religious corruption
as it is a call to imitate the widow’s generosity.

I don’t think we have to choose 
between these options.
We can both praise the widow 
and denounce the scribes;
we can both value someone’s religious devotion
while criticizing their corrupt religious leaders.

This is important because our world is, alas,
not all that different from Jesus’ world.
In our own day, corruption often lurks 
within our religious institutions 
and evil hides behind the mask 
of piety and clerical privilege:
the long robes and long prayers
and the seats of honor in holy places.
We see it in our own house,
in the sexual abuse catastrophe
that over the past twenty years has laid bare
the ways in which some of our religious leaders
have committed heinous acts
behind the façade of holiness
or have hidden and enabled such act
in the name of protecting 
the Church’s reputation.
The corruption Jesus denounces,
which consumes the lives 
of the weak and defenseless,
is something that is all too with us.

What comfort can the Gospel offer
in the face of such a realities?
There are at least two things 
that we should keep in mind.

First, Jesus is on the side 
of people like the widow—
the poor and defenseless
who are constantly at risk 
of abuse and exploitation—
and not on the side of guys like me
with our long robes and long prayers
and our seats of honor in holy places.
Or, rather, he is only on the side 
of guys like me
to the extent that I am on the side 
of people like the widow.
When the final day of judgment comes
I will not be asked 
“did you defend the reputation of the Church?”
but “did you comfort the afflicted?”
“did you speak up for the voiceless?”
“did you bear witness to my healing love?”
It is true that the Church has taken significant steps
to correct past evils and avoid future ones,
and we should not be afraid to point this out.
But we should not let our desire to tell this truth
ever obscure the deeper truth
that Jesus is on the side of the victims
and of those who stand with them;
that they matter to him far more
than the reputation of the Church.

Second, because Jesus is on the side of victims
he will not allow the corruption
of religious leaders and institutions
to deprive the people of God of his grace.
It is long-standing Catholic teaching,
stretching back at least to St. Augustine,
that the sins of the Church’s ministers
cannot keep God from working 
through the Church and her sacraments.
As Augustine puts it: 
“The spiritual power of the sacrament 
is indeed comparable to light:  
those to be enlightened receive it in its purity, 
and if it should pass through defiled beings, 
it is not itself defiled” (In Joannis 5.15).
The Temple remained God’s house
despite the defiling corruption of its scribes,
and the generosity of the widow
remained worthy of reward
even if it was exploited.
So too for us the grace of the sacraments 
retains its purity and remains effective 
even if it is a sinner who administers them,
provided it falls on good ground in our hearts.
In the mystery of God’s mercy
Christ our great high priest makes use 

of fallible, frail, and even wicked ministers
as instruments of salvation
whose flaws cannot finally thwart God’s power.

God has willed that on the last day
the Church will be his spotless bride:
a Church whose leaders are humble
and do not exploit the weak and defenseless,
a Church whose ministers’ lives reflect the purity
of the sacraments they administer.
But it should be clear to anyone 
with eyes to see and ears to hear
that we are not there yet.
But it is our faith that,
as we journey toward God’s kingdom,
Christ journeys with us still,
present in his word and sacraments,
humbling the proud,
consoling the sorrowful,
healing the wounded,
ever-faithful even when we are faithless.
This should make us hopeful
even as it makes us humble,
and it should inspire us to pray more fervently
that God would have mercy on us all.