Living Gospel Values

The Funeral Mass of Senator Edward Moore Kennedy offers another opportunity to explore what it means to be Catholic and/or Christian in 2009. I intend no defense or elucidation of the life of Senator Kennedy. Those who know him well have been expounding on every conceivable aspect of his life. I do, however, wonder about some comments I have heard. One priest commented that he had prayed for Senator Kennedy at Mass the day after he died and was excoriated by a member of his flock for the sacrilegious act of praying for such a man. I would like to believe that this does not represent an acceptable attitude of a Catholic/and or Christian in our country today.

The central core of the funeral mass was the Gospel taken from Matthew 25. I must confess this passage has always been at the center of what I believed being Catholic and Christian was all about. Jesus describes the final judgement at the end of the world. He gathers to himself those who saw him hungry and fed him, thirsty and gave him drink, without clothes and clothed him etc. Those who did not do these things for the least among us were denied heaven. We tend to gloss over such biblical passages because we know that we all fall short in this realm. I know I certainly do. We learn that being Christian is really hard. Maybe that's why we concentrate on following rules and adopting a rigid orthodoxy of belief rather than focusing on how we live our lives and treat others each day.

We know that the greatest commandment is love of God and the second is love of neighbor. We also know that we have been told to judge not, lest we be judged. We need to be very careful about condemning others. I saw nowhere in Jesus words that in order to gain heaven you had to adhere to a prescribed set of dicta. In fact Jesus argument with the pharisees was all about keeping the finer points of the Mosaic Law but failing in the more important area of living good and upright lives.

These Gospel values provide the impetus for the social teachings of the Church which were also much in evidence in the recent Kennedy rituals. Pope Benedict XVI just finished a great encyclical focusing on these social teachings. Earlier he penned encyclicals on the virtues of love and on hope. He understands the Church and every Christian has a mission to reach out to those around us in need with meaningful responses to make things better. He also demonstrated these gospel values by responding with compassion and charity to Senator Kennedy's letter to him requesting his prayers. In doing so he again provides a great example of how we need to treat one another.

Another theme on display at the funeral mass was the Church's attitude towards redemption. Again Jesus said he came to save sinners. The prodigal son story reminds us of God's love for each of us and his desire to bring us into his care. We have become too caught up in castigating all those who may see things differently. As difficult as it may be for some of us to accept, forgiveness and reconciliation are things that all of us need, not just those who disagree with us. Again in Matthew 7Jesus asks how can I see to remove the speck from my brother's eye if I cannot see to remove the beam in my own eye? The truth is we need to be reconciled to one another. To do that we must first truly listen to the other, then force ourselves to understand his/her point of view, and finally be able to see how the image of God is present in each of those around us, even those we find difficult to love.