November 5, 2023
Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 5, 2023 – Malachi 1:14B-2:2B, 8-10; 1 Thessalonians 2:7B-9, 13; Matthew 23:1-12
So, I said that, from one point of view, there was something wrong with the first reading and the Gospel. The point of view is that both Malachi’s prophecy and the words of Jesus are aimed at religious leaders. So why am I reading them to you? You should be reading them to me. So, I thought what I might do is tell you some stories about some religious leaders. I am going to preface the stories with something from the church’s law. They call it Canon Law. Law is always boring, but the very first line of church law is only four words long in Latin. Suprema lex salus animarum. The principal law or the highest law is the salvation of souls. Everything else knuckles under to the work of saving souls.
In one parish where I worked, we had a very simple pastor. I don’t know how he passed the exams to get ordained because what he knew about theology could be put in a shoebox. And I was working with him at the height of the controversy over birth control. And you know, priests are allowed to dispense people from the Lenten fast, the Sunday Mass obligation, and a few other things like that. He thought he could dispense people from the birth control regulations. So, every Sunday morning there would be a line on the porch of people looking for their weekly dispensation. Now, he couldn’t really do that, but he didn’t realize that. And so, win-win for everybody. The supreme law, the salvation of souls.
Before I became a priest, when I was a deacon, the things deacons are allowed to do are baptize at solemn ceremonies, witness marriages, bless things, and preach. And I was sent to work in a very large suburban parish. It had two assistant pastors plus the pastor and a monastery full of monks living up the road. So, we had lots of priestly help. But deacons are not allowed to make the Eucharist, to anoint the sick, or to absolve from sin. So, one Sunday night it is raining cats and dogs, and I am in the rectory all by myself with just the pastor. Now the pastor was an imperious fellow, very standoffish from the people. The two assistant pastors really ran the parish. They would go to the pastor and say, “The people want x, y or z,” and the pastor would say, “Tell them yes,” or “Tell them no.”
Well, the phone rang, and it was the cops. And they had a situation in shanty town where there was a person dying who needed a priest. Well, the priests were out. I didn’t know what to do. So, very timidly, I knocked on the pastor’s door and I told him the problem. He said, “I’ll go.” I said, “I know the way. I’ll take you.”
Now he had a beautiful car, but I took him in my old beat up 1964 Dodge, lucky it had a roof. And I took him the shortcut way. We parked in a municipal parking lot and had to walk across a barrier, across the railroad tracks - these homes were, literally, on the other side of the tracks - in the pouring rain, in the puddles. And he was wearing his best cassock, with the fringe on the bottom of it. By the time we got to these people’s house, we were soaked. We entered the house, and it was filled with people, all concerned about their loved one. Very, very poor people. On the floor was a child of about a year-and-a-half with absolutely no clothing on, playing on the floor. And they brought the pastor in to the place where the person was dying and he anointed them, and they were unable to go to confession, and then I drove him home. He went to his room, and I went to my room.
The next morning when I came down to breakfast, the two assistants were there. I told them what happened and they audibly gasped. They said, “You didn’t.” I said, “I didn’t know what to do.” They said, “Boy, are you going to get it now.” So, I timidly crept back up to my room and I passed the pastor’s suite. I heard him say, “Pete come in please.” I stood in front of his desk, and he looked up at me through reeds of cigarette smoke. He said, “I want to thank you. I am so busy with the tasks of administration; I’ve almost forgotten what it’s really like to be a priest.”
I had a priest friend - much older than me - who was a Monsignor, in administration almost all of his life. Late in life, he was made a pastor of a little parish in the Bronx. And after only a few years as pastor, he had a serious heart attack and, naturally, was sent to the hospital. While he was recovering in the hospital, the nurses came to him and told him, “Down the hall from you is one of your parishioners, who found out you were in the hospital. And he is very ill, and he would like to see you.” So, on this particular evening, after visiting hours were over, my pastor friend put on his robe. Back then, people weren't always hooked up to stuff. He just put on his robe and put on his slippers, and he padded down the hall to this other person’s room. Naturally, he didn't have his holy oils with him, so he couldn't anoint him. But he heard his confession. And then, like two old men, they sat, and they talked about life, about things. Long talk. Late that night, my pastor friend went back to his room. Later still that night, the other man died. And early in the morning, my pastor friend died.
The Supreme Law is the salvation of souls.