Over the last couple of weeks, Pope Francis has
been delivering some powerful homilies about the Holy Spirit and what it truly
means to be a Catholic. He did this over
the course of three homilies that he preached as the Church prepared for
Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
First, he said that the Church must be wary of “lukewarm” Christians
that lack courage and only cause the Church to look inward and become
tepid. If we are lukewarm, the Pope
says, then we don’t seek to expand our horizons and open ourselves to the wonderful
possibilities that the Spirit has in store for us. The second homily that drew my attention is
when he told us to be wary of “part-time Christians” that live our faith on a
part-time schedule or when it suits them or is convenient. Our faith is a
full-time job, and if we don’t open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, then “our being
Christian will be superficial.” But the
good Pope Francis doesn’t end there, just last Thursday he said in his morning
homily that we must be careful with “couch potato Catholics.” As only he could,
the Pope was reflecting on what a nuisance St. Paul was because he irritated
those he preached to. One translation
has the Holy Father calling out coach-potato Catholics, but here’s the official
translation of what he said: "There
are backseat Christians, right? Those who are well mannered, who do everything
well, but are unable to bring people to the Church through proclamation and
Apostolic zeal. Today we can ask the Holy Spirit to give us all this Apostolic
fervor and to give us the grace to be annoying when things are too quiet in the
Church the grace to go out to the outskirts of life. The Church has so much
need of this! So let us ask the Holy Spirit for this grace of Apostolic zeal,
let’s be Christians with apostolic zeal. And if we annoy people, blessed be the
Lord. Onwards, as the Lord says to Paul, ‘take courage!' "
So the Pope is
asking us to be annoying, to be a nuisance like St. Paul. Well, I’m being too simplistic, but we get
the point. The Holy Father doesn’t want
us to be “pew-sitting” Catholics that don’t contribute anything to the mission
of the Church. He doesn’t want us to be
closed off to what the Holy Spirit can do in each one of us. And the thing is that good Catholics are
indeed annoying. We’re annoying to
society because we stand up against basically everything that the secular world
promotes. We become a nuisance to people
that don’t want to hear that there is life in the womb at conception, that
marriage is between one man and one woman, that the death penalty is wrong, that
the proliferation of guns is wrong, that everyone has a right to health care as
long as we don’t have to compromise our morals to get there, and that Jesus
Christ is the one Savior of the world.
When we annoy people, when we stand up for our faith and become a
nuisance: that’s when we’re really living our faith! I’m sure workers at abortion clinics across
the country drive in to work every morning and see people praying the rosary
silently across the street and consider them a nuisance even though they’re
only praying. I’m sure there are politicians
in our government that consider the Church annoying because we just won’t shut
up about all issues that have to do with the sanctity of human life. And next month when the Supreme Court decides
on how marriage is defined, the Church will continue to annoy people with her “archaic”
teaching that God did make us male and female and only a male and female can become
one in marriage. That last line is going
to get me arrested one day but I really don’t care. I’m just trying to be annoying. As the Holy Father said: “If we annoy people, blessed be the Lord.”
So on this
Pentecost Sunday, we must call down the power of the Holy Spirit upon us
because we need that life giving Spirit now more than ever. If we want to be courageous Catholics and not
part-time Catholics, we must pray to the Holy Spirit daily to guide us, to
speak for us, and to help us defend our faith.
The Spirit renews, refreshes, and recreates. We need some of that fire of the Spirit to
penetrate our hearts so that can boldly go forward with courage and set the
world on fire. And if we annoy some
people along the way…blessed be the Lord!
