Saturday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/062312.cfm

(The prophet Zechariah) took his stand above the people and said to them: "God says, 'Why are you transgressing the Lord's commands, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have abandoned the Lord, he has abandoned you.'

Not even a simplistic history of Jerusalem would say the city, its kings and people were always faithful to the Lord. Though the city was the center of Jewish worship and its temple one of the wonders of the world, there were alien shrines and foreign religions in Jerusalem. Like any large city of today it was cosmopolitan with many cultures and many values.

But that galled the Hebrew prophets who remembered the ancient traditions of Abraham, Moses and David. They treasured the origins of the city and despised the foreign elements who brought weird ideas and worship to Jerusalem. They resented the ambassadors and tradesmen from Africa, Europe and the mid-east who settled in the city. They were appalled that their rulers would compromise the worship, values and principles of ancient Israel.

The two Books of Chronicles records the “sacred history” of the city, and how God dealt with its infidelities. There is reward for piety and mercy toward the poor, and punishment for impiety and cruelty.

Stories like those we hear in today’s first reading are often misread as a history of the arbitrary, cruel God of the Old Testament. Christian ministers and teachers with only a superficial understanding of the Bible will use these texts to underline their love of Jesus, who is always gentle and kind. They overlook the gospel passages where he, like the slain Zechariah, chastised the city for its infidelity.

Today’s Christian leaders are also apt to suppose that God never disciplines his church as he did the Holy City. The Church, they assure us, is always holy.

I agree wholeheartedly that the church is always holy, true and pure – insofar as the Church is the Blessed Virgin Mary. I think of her as the Jovian planet which orbits our Sun. Astronomers say that, compared to Jupiter, the rest of the solar system is hardly worth mentioning. Compared to Mary, the holiness of the rest of the Church is hardly worth mentioning.

And we do need God’s discipline, and we do call down upon ourselves God’s punishment. It would be hard to reckon the Scandal that afflicts our Church today if we did not see God’s punishing hand in it. Even secular journalists consider the latest embarrassment a part of the overall pattern of scandal.

I am sure there is no bishop, priest or catechist today who has not had to face that shame in their classroom and counseling chamber. Many are deeply shocked by the stories and rumors; some have been personally traumatized.

Nor does “an answer” appear to the question. There is no formula for what went wrong or what should go right. Is there something we did wrong that can be corrected? Not really. We can learn from this crisis and we can make changes but we cannot guarantee anyone that these crimes will never recur.

Rather, we must etch this story into the history of the church and “Never Forget,” just as the Chronicler etched his stories into our Bible. And we must pray that God will forgive and restore the Church for which Jesus Christ gave his life.