Catholic Charities Summer Institute Mass 2024

Published: July 12, 2024

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor preached the following homily at St. John Catholic Center in Little Rock on Friday, July 12, 2024.

Bishop Taylor

How many of you have been at one of my confirmation Masses this year? If so, the first part of this homily will be very familiar to you. Remember what I said about salmon and other fish that live in rivers?

They are constantly swimming against the current. If they didn’t, they’d all eventually end up in the ocean, carried away by the current. The struggle against the current makes for strong fish muscles and good eating that pond-raised fish can’t match. Going against the flow requires strength and makes them strong.

In today’s Gospel Jesus says it is the same for his apostles. His message is countercultural, and so following him will entail swimming against the current of public opinion. He says we will be like sheep in the midst of wolves — “led before governors and kings for his sake as a witness before them,” handed over even by members of our own family, “hated by all.”

No one can accuse Jesus of trying to collect followers by pretending that doing God’s will is always going to be easy, pleasant and well received. Indeed, he continually promises a cross and that what doesn’t kill them will make them strong: “whoever endures to the end will be saved.”

The same is true today. You participants in C2SI have spent a week looking at some of the social and moral teaching of the Church in matters which bear on the dignity of the human person, issues where we are countercultural, where we are in a lot of ways swimming against the current of public opinion.

Issues of social justice and human rights. The special claims that the poor have on us, people who have no voice, whom society disregards — for instance, the homeless, refugees and victims of human trafficking — and the imperative to do what we can to work to make changes in our society to address these evils.

We don’t usually get much push back when we do works of charity, other than perhaps being dismissed as “do-gooders.” But people really do get their back up when we speak out about people’s rights. For instance, the God-given right that people have to immigrate when desperate circumstances so require — and the obligation to welcome them with open arms.

Or the immorality of the death penalty, or the need to restructure our economy in a way that better serves the poor, or the universal right to receive medical care. And many other issues, for instance the gender ideology that ignores the specific physical body that God gave us — which is an area that you learned about this week.

And I could name a half-dozen other social and moral topics that bear on the dignity of the human person as well. We are countercultural and when we voice these truths, lots of people don’t like it. But in the end, the truth will prevail. “The light is stronger than the darkness.” “Whoever endures to the end will be saved.”

So if you intend to be faithful to Jesus and his teaching regarding the dignity of the human person, expect to spend your life swimming against the current.

That’s what our seminarians are doing, which is what makes their witness so powerful and challenging. The Lord may well be calling some of you to follow him in this inspiring countercultural way as well. And some of you young ladies to serve him in religious life, which may be even more countercultural, given how our society currently views women.

These days we cannot expect the support of our increasingly pagan society and sometimes not even the support of family members and friends who have drifted from really living the faith, which is why it is so important for us to learn how to support each other in living our faith.

Jesus talks about persecution and rejection, but even incomprehension can be very painful — especially in the teenage years when it is so important to feel accepted. But later too. I’ve experienced it and so will you if you truly give yourself over fully to the Lord and his will for your life.

After all, just as with salmon and trout, going against the flow and doing what you know is right when doing so is difficult, will make you strong, in this case, strong in the Lord.