Summary of a Fr. Gerry Creedon homily from March 19, 2006
"You
shall not have other gods besides me." Exod. 20:2
I ASKED THE CONGREGATION, "Who are these false gods in our lives today? Where are our idols?" There were many answers: money, TV, status, computers, the self, drugs, sex, alcohol, power..."
Computers caught me off guard. In 1995, when I returned from the Dominican Republic where the nearest phone was 20 miles away, I found myself in the middle of a high tech revolution. I vowed I would buy a fountain pen and a bottle of ink! When my computer crashed last week I was surprised at how depressed I was at all my years' work going down the drain, or the hard drive, or whatever is the correct expression these days. A friend visiting from Ireland was the last to use my computer, so I had to work on being civil as I treated my guest to supper. Our attachments rob us of our peace.
The fasts and abstinence of Lent are a way of liberating ourselves from the "the idols we carve for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below". The Gospel presents a strange idol: the church itself. "Destroy this temple and in three days I will build it up". He spoke about the temple of his own body. The people had become overly involved in all of the needs for worship. They marveled that he could restore what it took them 46 years to build. It is clear in our time that religion itself can become a source of violence. Fundamentalism can deify the scriptures, the tenets of Islam, or the rights of Israel. A neo-orthodoxy can fossilize our Catholicism and produce intransigence. The institutions of our church and the sacraments themselves can become our object of worship. I the Lord am a jealous God. Zeal for His father's house consumed him. Jesus still needs to cleanse our temples. He wishes to purify our religion.
May the Lenten season free us from self and the divination of things sacred and profane, even computers, so that we may be free to rejoice at Easter in the triumph of the living God.
P.S. Come to our Trialogue with Jewish and Muslim leaders on the evening of April 2: "In the light of the cartoons"