Be authentic Christians
Sunday, May 30, 2010
*John C. Favalora
My dear friends,
You may have noticed that, throughout the Easter season, which ended with Pentecost Sunday, our Mass readings were taken from the Acts of the Apostles. It is a wonderful book of the Bible, because it shows us the early Christians. It brings us back 2,000 years to those who were such authentic followers of Jesus that they attracted other people to Christianity and in the process changed the world.
Think about it: Originally there were the 12 apostles and a handful of other followers. Now, across the world, there are 1.1 billion Catholics. That is billion with a �b� and it includes only Catholics, not other Christians who follow other Christian traditions, such as the Orthodox and Protestant churches. That means there are billions upon billions of people today who call themselves Christians.
My question is this: If the 12 apostles and their few followers did such remarkable work that the Church spread throughout the entire Mediterranean in a few hundred years, causing a profound change in the then known world, why is it that with so many Christians in the world today, the world is in such a mess?
Why does there continue to be war and hunger and injustice and immorality? Why is there still so much infidelity in marriage? So much abuse of the beautiful gift of sex? So much drug abuse, corruption in government, in business, in family life, even in the Church?
Something is wrong.
What is wrong is that not enough of us live as authentic a Christian life as those in the early Church did. It was precisely by the way those in the early Church lived that they attracted other people.
The Acts of the Apostles make this very clear: They were called the people of �the way� because of �the way� in which they lived. They lived differently from the other Romans. They lived differently from the Greeks. There was something different about them.
What was different? The fact that they were living the way Jesus taught them to live. Their secret was that they had been born to a new way of life, which is what is supposed to happen to us in baptism and through the sacraments. That authenticity of life is what characterized the early Church.
I say if the early Christians could do that, we can, too. But in order to succeed as they did we have to be authentic Catholics, not just cultural Catholics. To be a cultural Catholic means you�re Catholic because you�re Italian, and all Italians are Catholic, or you�re Cuban and all Cubans are Catholic, or you�re Haitian and all Haitians are Catholic. So you�re baptized and that�s the end of it.
That is wrong. We have to be practicing Catholics. We have to start living �the way.� The more we live �the way� the more we will change the face of the earth in the same way the early apostles changed the face of their world.
Unfortunately, today so many people are merely cultural Catholics that they blend into the woodwork. They don�t stand out as people who live �the way� of Jesus. They look like everybody else, act like everybody else, talk and have values like everybody else and consider it okay.
But that�s not following �the way.� That�s not being authentic. That�s a compromise. And the early Christians did not compromise. That is why so many of them were put to death. We compromise, unfortunately, and as a result, it is going to take a long time for the Holy Spirit to �change the face� of our world.
So my prayer for you, as I enter into my retirement years, is that we all learn to be authentic in our Christian calling. Let us live �the way� of Jesus, not just the compromise. Only then will we change the face of south Florida and the world.
In the meantime, be assured that I will continue to pray for you daily. Please continue to pray for me, and especially for your new archbishop. May God give you and your families abundant blessings!
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