On Canonizing Sinners

Canonizing Sinners

Introduction

A subliminal message

The parable today begins with “Once upon a time a father had two sons, and he said to the first, `Go into my vineyard and work.’” The parable of the Prodigal Son begins the same way:”Once upon a time a father had two sons. And the first son says to his Father, `Give me my share of the inheritance.’” I often wonder about those scriptural parables: they never begin by saying, “Once upon a time a mother had two daughters!” It’s a small point, but it bears a kind of subliminal message.

Disobedient or obedient?

At any rate, in the parable today the father orders the first son to go and work in his vineyard. The son’s first response is to be break into a bit of kid rebellion: “No, I am not going. I’m sick and tired of going out there everyday. I’m sick and tired of you and mom always telling me what to do. I’m not a kid anymore; I’m going to do what I want to do today. I’m going into town today and have some fun with my friends. So long! “

He turns on his heels and starts for town. He finally gets to the gate which is some distance down the path. But by then he has had time to think things over. He cools off, and his rebellion peters out. He turns his face toward the vineyard, and off to work he goes. His disobedience has quickly melted down into obedience. The kid wasn’t really as disobedient as he first seemed to be.

When the father orders the second son to go and work in his vineyard his first response is, “Yes, sir, I’m on my way!” But he never goes. His facile verbal obedience quickly corrodes into disobedience. He sneaks into town and plays pool with the boys and drinks beer. He wasn’t as obedient as he first seemed to be.

This parable is similar to that of the Prodigal Son. Here is another father who has two sons, and the younger says to him, “Dad, I’ve had it! Give me my share of the inheritance! I’m going out on my own.” He grabs his money and takes off for a distant country, where he squanders his inheritance on high living and loose women. After he’s wasted everything and is reduced to slopping the pigs for a farmer, he comes to his senses and repents. His rebellion peters out, and he turns his face toward home and the house of the father. His disobedience with time has also turned into obedience. At the end of the day, he, too, perhaps wasn’t as disobedient as he looked. [i]

Jesus aimed today’s parable at the chief priests and elders. John the Baptist came to show them the right way to live, but they didn’t listen to him. Those chief priests and elders, so scrupulous about observing the pickiest details of rabbinical traditions, like the second son weren’t as obedient as they looked. On the other hand, along came the tax collectors and prostitutes, and they listened to John. Like the first son, they weren’t as disobedient as they looked. Then Jesus climaxes the parable saying, “I tell you that tax collectors and prostitutes are far ahead of all of you in the great procession entering the kingdom of God” (Mt 21:32). That knocks the socks off the chief priests and the elders (and also off all those who see sex as the sum total of morality).

Don’t be fooled by obedience

Don’t be fooled by the “obedience” that only looks like obedience. That’s the obedience of the second son who says, “Yes, Dad, I’m off to the vineyard,” but instead sneaks into town and has fun with the boys. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, that’s the obedience of the elder son who was really disobeying the Law of Growth by sticking to home and playing it safe and never venturing forth into the unknown. He ended up as a pouting kid who wouldn’t come in and celebrate the return of his prodigal brother.

Listen to the obedience that only sounds like obedience. A few years back a woman wrote demanding obedience especially from those favorite sons of the church, namely her priests. Visiting from another state, she attended the 10.00 A.M. liturgy here at Old St. Mary’s totally unaware of the liturgical disobedience she was about to endure. In a rather long letter she comes to her bottom line: “My son, who studies here at MSOE, as well as the entire community of Old Saint Mary’s, has a right to have Mass celebrated in obedience to the liturgical rules and regulations as laid down by the church.”

She then proceeds to enumerate all the liturgical disobediences which she had to endure in that 10 A.M. Mass at Old St. Marys.

Disobedience no. 1: You failed to give the prescribed absolution at the penitential rite. Disobedience no. 2: You failed to recite or sing the Gloria prescribed for Sunday Mass. Disobedience no. 3: You failed to read the Gospel in its entirety. You shortened the reading of the Gospel proclaiming only verses 27-39 from the tenth chapter of Matthew. Disobedience no. 4: In the reading the Gospel you failed to use the masculine words prescribed by the Church, but instead you went ahead and changed them to gender-neutral words. Disobedience no. 5: You failed to pray the prescribed prayer at the offering of the gifts: “Pray, brethren, that our sacrifice may be acceptable…” Disobedience no. 6: You failed to use the Preface and the Eucharist Prayer prescribed in the liturgical books, but instead you used one of your own making. Disobedience no. 7: You failed to break the host at the time prescribed for breaking it. You broke it at the consecration when Jesus broke it. Disobedience no. 8: You failed to hold up the chalice together with the Host on patent at the great Amen. Disobedience no. 9: You failed to hold up the Host at Communion time when you said, “This is the Lamb of God…” Disobedience no. 10: You failed to take Communion at the prescribed time; instead you took Communion after everybody else had communicated. Disobedience no. 11: You failed to read the concluding prayer and to give the dismissal as prescribed by the Church.

Make no mistake about it—she’s perfectly correct: those are the prevailing rules and regulations for celebrating the Eucharist. Such pickiness, however, only looks like obedience. In fact, it’s really disobedience. “Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees,” Jesus cries out. “You are picky about washing cups, pots, and copper kettles” (Mk 7: 4). “Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees! You are picky about paying tithes on mint, cumin and dill but all the while you are really disobedient when it comes to the weightier matters of the Law, like justice, compassion and honesty” (Mt 23: 23).

Imagine the picky letter she would have to write to Jesus himself; “Dear Jesus, my son has a right to expect obedience especially from you who are God’s most beloved son of all.” Then she would proceed to enumerate all Jesus’ disobediences:

One day you went to dine in the house of a Pharisee, and before you sat down to eat, you didn’t first wash your hands and were in disobedience to our rules about ablutions (Lk 11:37-41). One Sabbath, a woman (bent over with an illness of 18 years) approached you for a cure. There are six days in a week when you could have cured her, but you chose to do it on a Sabbath in disobedience again of our rules about Sabbath observance (Lk 13: 10-17). Again on another Sabbath you and your disciples were walking though the field of wheat and were plucking off the grain to make yourselves something to eat in disobedience of our rules about food preparation on the Sabbath (Mt 12:1-8).

Such pickiness looks like obedience, but it’s really disobedience; for it neglects “the weightier matter of the Law, like justice, compassion and honesty” (Mt 23: 23).

Don’t be fooled by disobedience

The gospel enjoins upon us not to be fooled by the obedience that only looks like obedience. But it also enjoins upon us not to be fooled by the disobedience that only looks like disobedience. That’s the disobedience of the first son who said, “No, Dad, I’m not going to go to work in the vineyard today,” but then cools off and changes his mind. That’s the disobedience of the younger son who, though he squandered his inheritance on high living and loose women, did obey the Law of Non-conformity which commands us to not always do what’s expected of us. And he did obey the Law of Growth which beckons us all, like baby robins in late spring, to leave the nest of the mother and the house of the father and to fly away on our own.

The gospel enjoins upon us not to be fooled by the disobedience that only looks like disobedience. That’s the disobedience of the tax collectors and prostitutes who listened to John the Baptist, and who were entering the kingdom of God far ahead of the chief priests and elders. That the disobedience of Fr. Mychal Judge, a Franciscan friar.

The disobedience of Fr. Mycal

He was one of the chaplains for the New York Fire Department. The story of his death in the line of duty was one of the first to come out of the tragedy of 9/11. Everybody knew of his disobedience. He was a recovering alcoholic. He was very earthy and streetwise. He lined up well with the characters and chaos of New York City. In his own house, the church, he was controversial and very unconventional, holding mass in the most unlikely places. A Monsignor in the New York Chancery frequently had to admonish him. It was known, too. that he had no compunction when it came to language. He, priest of God, would actually use the “f” word at times. He’d tell an alcoholic, for example, “Oh look, you’re not a bad person. You have a disease that makes you think you’re bad, and that’s going to `f…’ you up.”

Everybody knew his disobedience. People knew he was gay. He opened the doors of the well-known Church of St. Francis of Assisi on 31^st Street in Upper Manhattan to Dignity, an organization for gay Catholics. To top it off they saw him march with a gay contingent in the first gay-inclusive St. Patrick’s Day parade.

The obedience of Fr. Mychal

Everybody knew his disobedience. But everybody, except those who were incapable of spiritual insight, also knew his obedience. Everybody was amazed at his encyclopedic memory for people’s names, birthdays, and passions. He knew everyone from the homeless to Mayor Giuliani, who declared at his funeral (televised in its entirety) that, “The man was a saint.” And though he was a true New Yorker, born and raised in the New York City, everybody knew that he lived on an entirely different plain of priorities than most New Yorkers. He wasn’t acquisitive; never grabbed for anything. He was unselfish and uncomplaining.

When a memorial was held for him, an endless flow of priests, nuns, lawyers, cops, firefighters, homeless people, rock-and-rollers, recovering alcoholics, local politicians and middle age couples from the suburbs streamed into Good Shepherd Chapel on Ninth Ave, an Anglican church, to do a memorial for a Roman Catholic priest. An editorial on Fr. Mychal reads, “If the account of his death was dolled up with a bit of legend it was because countless people out there wanted him to die both gorgeously and aptly in a manner that expressed the depth of his faith.” Everybody knew the disobedience of Fr. Mychal, and almost everybody wasn’t fooled by it.

Conclusion

There is now a Website, www.saintmychal.com, to promote his canonization and to collect reports of miracles. A Franciscan confrere of his hesitates about canonizing him. “It is better,” he says, “to keep the real Mychal alive and well in your brain. I think he has a lot more to say than a Mychal with a halo over his head.”

If the bid to make him a saint does proceed, that would indeed be a new and remarkable phenomenon. For in the past, we didn’t canonized sinners. We canonized only saints. In the past we didn’t canonize the disobedient. We canonized only the obedient. Canonizing Fr. Mychal would be like canonizing the son who said, “I’m not going into the vineyard” but then changed his mind and went anyway, or it’s like canonizing the Prodigal Son who got lost on the journey of non-conformity and growth but finally found himself. Canonizing Fr. Mycal would put him up front with tax collectors and prostitutes, leading the great procession of saints as they go marching into the kingdom of God.