St Charles Church .org   News & Events Faith & Sacraments Ministries Volunteer Search/Help Contact Us

I Will Not Be Quiet

This is a summary of a Fr. Gerry Creedon homily delivered at St. Charles on January 18, 2004

"TO ANOTHER, PROPHECY." 1 Cor. 12: 10

This week we mark Christian Unity, Martin Luther King and the March for Life. There is one theme that unites all three events, the dignity of the human person.

From Birmingham Jail, Martin L King penned these words: "How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things

Laws that segregate and attitudes that discriminate on the basis of race or color violate the human person. Similarly when we judge others on the basis of religion we do not respect the dignity of the human person. We are called to an ecumenical perspective in our view of other Christians. Today we are challenged still further to an inter-faith relationship that respects the Jewish and Islamic traditions. Our laws and attitude to abortion do not adequately express the sacredness and dignity of the human person. In all three areas we are called to a renewal of Christian commitment.

"For Zion's sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet until her vindication shines forth like the dawn and her victory like a burning torch." Is. 62: 1

Martin Luther King at the age of 37 poignantly proclaimed that if a great decision came to the door of his life, some opportunity to stand up for what was true and noble, and he did not stand up, because he was afraid that his children would be killed or his house bombed; then he might live to a ripe old age, but the cessation of breathing in his body would only signal an "earlier death of the spirit."

Martin Luther King, like all the great prophets could not be silent in the face of injustice. The christening at Baptism calls each of us to a prophetic role. Let us review the situations in our own life and work that call for our voice. Let each of us take on the word of Isaiah; "I will not be quiet."

  or  2004 Homilies