Seventh Sunday After Pentecost
Dearly beloved,
Today we mark the 7th Sunday after Pentecost, with its all too familiar Gospel of the false prophets. There are some in every age, but because of the way technology allows for rapid and worldwide communication, there seem to be more than ever in our age. The false prophets of each region of the world can more easily come together to speak their lies, which makes it particularly overwhelming.
In speaking of false prophets, Jesus says we are to beware of them and to recognize them by their fruits. The verb ‘beware’ is important: the Lord is saying we should be attentive to them, take heed of them, be leery of them. But he does not say that we should obsess about them or make them the center of our religious observance, study or prayer. We are to be aware of them and keep an eye on them and keep them at a distance, yes. But one does not necessarily obey the sign which says, ‘Beware of dog’ by keeping watch at the fence. We can easily get drawn into a version of the secularism they are promoting by thinking the answers lie in information and tactics rather than in prayer and divine grace.
In learning to spot false prophets so we can steer clear of them and protect ourselves and others from them, Jesus twice says, You shall know them by their fruits. This talk of fruits should make us think of Galatians 5, with Paul’s list of the fruits of the Spirit and the works of the flesh. St. Paul says that we are to walk in the Spirit, by which he means that we are to live in accord with the Holy Spirit who lives in us. If the Spirit is truly the principle, the source of our actions, then we will bear fruits that come from him. Paul mentions charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longsuffering, mildness, faith, modesty, continence, chastity. If someone bears these fruits, we can be fairly sure that the Spirit that works in them is the Spirit of the Father and the Son and not the spirit of this age or an unclean spirit.
In contrast, the false fruits, or the works of the flesh as St. Paul terms them, are indications that a man is not moved by the Holy Spirit but by another spirit. This list is longer, since goodness can break down in so many ways, though in itself it is one and simple: fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings. These false fruits can be grouped into three basic categories: sins against God, like idolatry and witchcraft; sins against our bodies and other’s bodies, like sexual sin and drunkenness; and sins against unity and charity, like quarrels and dissensions.
Drawing together what the Lord says in today’s Gospel and what Paul says in Galatians 5, we can see that whoever claims to have an important message for others, and at the same time produces these false fruits is likely a false prophet, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. We should always give space for human frailty, as we know that sins of the flesh and sins of uncharity can come about as a sort of diseased fruit from an otherwise healthy tree. But if the false fruit is consistently brought forth, we should be wary of such a person.
A false fruit we might otherwise overlook is a sin against unity; the sins against God and against the body are obviously wrong, but do we have the same attitude about contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions? We most likely have the same attitude when it comes to our own families: no one wants contention and quarreling and divisions to be a regular aspect of family life. But Paul calls the Church ‘the house of God,’ by which he intends the likeness to our own households. We should desire unity also in the house of God, even as we wish unity within our families, even with those whom we pray will be converted.
The first Vatican Council spoke of two unities in the Church: one of faith, and one of communion. The first unity, of faith, means that all members of the Church inwardly believe the truths of the faith and outwardly confess them. The second unity, that of communion, means all are subject to their bishop and to the Pope, and that is manifested by social unity in worship and sacraments. These two unities together form an integral whole; they cannot be separated from one another. Each member of the Church has a duty to foster both unities and to strive to find a balance in their expressions. This particularly applies to bishops and priests and other clerics, whose role in the Church is to serve as a sign and source of unity.
It can be tempting to say that when the unity of faith is compromised, we may compromise unity by disobeying our bishop or setting up an alternative parallel system or other such things, or that we may compromise unity with the Pope by ceasing to commemorate him in the liturgy or by totally disregarding his legitimate directives or statements. But since the unities of faith and communion form an integral whole, then the virtue which protects them, the virtue opposed to the false fruits of enmity and division and quarrels, should protect both unities.
As with other virtues, the ecclesial virtue that protects unity lies in the mean. This means that most virtues, find their expression in the middle of the possibilities of human action. There is the virtuous action, and there is its excess and its defect: there is a point at which the action is too much and a point that is too little. For example, the virtue of temperance does not consist in eating nothing nor in eating everything; it lies somewhere in the middle. The virtue of justice likewise lies in the mean because an excess of justice is actually injustice; and therefore some injustice must be tolerated, some mercy must be extended for true justice to be.
In terms of protecting unity, the excess is unity at all costs. No matter what is said or done in the Church, we are told to bear with it and not rock the boat. This is like the family that avoids speaking of important things in order to have a surface level peace. It is an acceptable mode for a while, but not as a permanent position. As a Church, we come together precisely to witness to the truth revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Our unity of communion must have some relation to this foundation. When unity is preferred to all else, we find liberal Protestantism, which no longer has a link to historic Christianity; it is just a body united for the purpose of socializing.
The defect of protecting unity is that whenever unity of faith is compromised, unity of communion is severed. This means that every breach of truth or tradition is met with a schism, either in one’s mind or in physical separation. This is a defect because there is no balance: unity of communion is treated as if it has no value and can be thrown away at any moment. Here we find the national Orthodox churches, which excommunicate one another over doctrinal matters and tear asunder the Body of Christ in the name of purity of truth and practice. As St. John Chrysostom says, “There is no scandal so great as division, whereas unity among believers is a great argument for believing.” The belief that is so strongly guarded by these groups loses its credibility by the disregard for unity of communion.
So what is that Catholic way? Whatever protects the unity of belief and the unity of communion, striving to compromise neither, despite the difficulties. This means sincere prayer for our Pope and bishops, especially those most responsible for compromising truth and encouraging division. It means praying for those who publicly seek clarifications—the dubias put forth, the research compiled, the petitions signed are all good examples of working for both unities at once. And it means supporting the priests and bishops who do strive to bring forth good fruit and who wish to be true prophets, and forgiving them their occasional weakness or imprudence. As Gregory the Great says, “once the attention is preoccupied with a variety of matters it becomes less observant of details. One who is occupied with a multitude of affairs is all the more liable to be misled in regard to any one of them.” Parents sometimes make mistakes because they have too much going on; the same happens to the fathers who have care of the house of God.
A final point is that we should believe in the providence of God. The collect for today’s Mass says that divine providence does not fail in disposing things, and despite the grief we feel over many of our fathers in God, the Lord is still at work. He is at work in purifying our reasons for being Catholics; he is at work in giving us many opportunities to practice heroic virtue. The heart becomes stronger by being taxed; and wherever the faith is lived with love for tradition and the liturgy and a sincere attempt at moral integrity and generosity, there is the heart of the Church. And if the head doesn’t care for the extra oxygen pumped its way, so be it; let the heart keep beating vigorously. By loving the Body of Christ in this way, by divine grace, we give life to the Church. And one day, the unity of the Church militant will give way to the peace of the Church triumphant. Then we can rest and rejoice.