Last Sunday at our 5:00 and 9:00 Masses I pointed out some similarities between the situation in ancient Corinth and the recent uproar over a few students from Covington Catholic High School. Quite a few of you asked me to make my text available, so I have provided it below. Please continue to pray for our country.
Sincerely in Christ, Msgr. Bill Parent
By now, I suspect we’ve all heard about the uproar over the video of students from Covington Catholic High School who were in DC last week for the March for Life. After the initial mass hysteria over the viral video, a lot of thoughtful commentary has emerged from all points on our political spectrum. By thoughtful commentary, I mean acknowledging that this episode reveals that something is wrong with us because the uproar never should have happened.
I’m not going to comment on this controversy directly but raise it as an example of a growing societal problem: the way our increasingly tribal political environment is destroying us. It’s a problem that I believe is probably going to get worse before it gets better.
The question for us as Christians is how do we live as Christians in this increasingly tribal, hate-filled world?
By chance or divine providence, what St. Paul says to the Corinthians in our second reading today points to an answer. Ancient Corinth was a lot like us in that it was a culturally diverse city whose diverse Christian community was being torn apart by factions. They may not have had social media, but social media is ultimately only a tool that magnifies and intensifies what is already in our hearts. So in speaking to ancient Corinthians, St. Paul is really also speaking to us. We share the same fundamental problem of tribal hatred.
In today’s passage we heard the great Biblical image of the Church as one body made up of diverse parts. The diversity Paul describes is both cultural and functional. It’s cultural in that there were Jews and Greeks, rich and poor, even slaves and free. It’s functional in the variety of charisms present in the community.
Paul’s ultimate point is that once united through Christ we serve one other in our diversity according to who we are and the gifts we have received. And so when one suffers, we all suffer together, and when one is honored, we are all honored together. Through the power of the Holy Spirit we who are diverse and many become one body in Christ.
None of this implies that we should
never correct each other. Earlier in the letter, Paul goes so far as to say that we should “purge the evil person from [our] midst” (1 Cor. 5:13). But that extreme measure is only for those who persist in grave sin and refuse to take correction from the community. Such purging is never justified in a kind of
gotchya moment where we project our assumptions and fears onto someone we already distrust or hate because they’re somehow different.
How do we know the difference between correcting someone who is persisting in evil and condemning someone because they’re in another tribe? I suspect if we stop and think we usually know the difference, but then that’s part of the modern problem, isn’t it? With the speed of modern social media, we usually
don’t stop and think.
But in the hope that we might stop and think more often, here are three sure signs that the spirit we’re channeling is
not the Holy Spirit:
If on the basis of a few words or a few minutes of video we are absolutely convinced that we can read the evil in another person’s soul, especially if that person is part of some group we tend to distrust or dislike, then we are certainly not channeling the Holy Spirit.
Or if we find ourselves really wanting to hurt someone physically – say punch the person in the face – then even if there’s some truth in our position, we are certainly not channeling the Holy Spirit.
Or if we derive pleasure from demonstrating to the world on social media how good and virtuous we are by ridiculing and denigrating others, then even if we’re right in the debate, we are certainly not channeling the Holy Spirit.
Even today in so-called post-Christian America, most Americans identify themselves as Christian. Imagine for a moment if all self-identified American Christians honestly tried to live as if humbly serving each other were the answer to our divisions. We would be a nation transformed – a nation that would even welcome non-Christians into our communities because in God’s plan for creation everyone is to be loved and everybody is potentially a member of Christ’s body, the Church.
May the wisdom of St. Paul and the presence of the One who serves us all so generously and pours out his life for us in this Eucharist – may this wisdom and presence inspire us to live as one in Christ’s body and help heal the wounds that divide our nation.