A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. As Jesus drew near Jericho, that's down by the the river, down by the the Dead Sea. As Jesus drew near that city, a blind man sat at the side of the road begging. Hearing the crowd go by, the man asked, what's it all about? The answer came that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by.
The blind man shouted out, Jesus, son of David, have pity on me. Those in the lead sternly ordered the man to be quiet, but he cried out all the louder, son of David, have pity on me. Jesus halted and ordered the blind man to be brought brought right to him. And then Jesus asked him this is very astonishing. And the Jesus then said to him, what do you want me to do for you?
And the man answered, I want to see. And then Jesus said to him, receive your sight. Your faith has healed you. At that very moment, the man was given back his sight and began to follow Jesus. Giving god the glory.
Everybody who witnessed it gave praise to god. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise Well, there's a great deal there that certainly, invites commentary. Lot a is there that invites commentary. It's a bewildering story in many ways.
And, but, anyway, I wanna speak to you on another subject. Yesterday's paper had quite a spread over the byline of Marjorie Hyer about the women who have been meeting in Washington in to discuss the pastoral letter that the bishops of The United States are working on. I don't know what it's supposed it's supposed to be about women, I guess. The title of it was the partners in redemption. Well, as you know, that little document has caused quite a stir.
Now dear old Marjorie has has quite a spread on it yesterday's paper. The bishops are meeting. I think they're may beginning the meeting today when they're going to consider the revision. Of course, they ought to throw the whole thing out. The holy father has issued a letter on the dignity and the vocation of women which says it all.
Of course, there's one thing he doesn't say, that women ought to be priestesses. That, of course, is a three strikes against him. Now the point I wanna make is this. I don't wanna get involved in all this mess. In all of this discussion that these dear ladies had at Holy Comforter Church, and there's not a word there on the other side, these are all radical feminists that are quoted, which shows a great in a fairness of argument but the point I wanna make is this, in reading all of it, it's on two pages.
There's not a word there about god and holiness. Not a word. You'd think that the Catholic church existed to create the Roman collar or to put a a neck inside of the collar. And that's what's so true of a lot of these talks about the atomic bomb and defense and the economy and all of this stuff that we're being that's being shoveled at us. You hear very little about god.
You hear very little about man's duty to god. You hear nothing about sin, of course. That's the four letter word of all four letter words. But what are we where are we going with all this stuff? If we have women in the chancery, does that make the church more holy?
Does it make the women in the chancery more holy? Does it make the chancery more holy? What does it do? I I could care less whether there's a woman in the chancery. But to hold that up as the ultimate goal of so called feminism, what in the world are we talking about?
Is it the vocation of women to be chancellors or bishops or what have you? Is it the vocation of men to be priests or bishops? Of course not. What does the holy father say in that marvelous but very boring and very long what he calls meditation? He begins it with begins it with the book of Genesis.
Notice the title of that letter, he calls it a meditation or reflection, is on the dignity on the dignity and vocation of women. The Latin title is, but in English but the what it's about is is about the dignity and the vocation of women. Now vocation means calling. Where does our holy father begin, and where I may add does he end? He begins and ends with the book of Genesis, The very first chapter of Genesis when God made man, which includes men and women, to his image and likeness.
That god made all human beings to his image and likeness. When you have a human being, you have there the image and the likeness of god. And wipe that out and all you have is an animal. That's where our holy father begin that's where the book of Genesis begins. And then in the major part of his reflection, he then develops this with the New Testament and what our Lord contributed.
But the point I wanna make is that whatever we are in this life, I mean by that whatever we do, is almost unimportant, almost, because I didn't say it was unimportant. What matters is our calling, that we recognize our calling, and that we do something about it. And that's perfectly clear what we are, what we're called to, and what we have to do about it. We are called to return to our creator, and our worth, our value, our most fundamental and essential dignity is based upon the truth that if it's a that every single human being is a reflection of god almighty and that it is in our power to give ourselves back to god or to say, Nick's. We contribute that, and nobody is going to force us one way or the other.
God does not take us by the hair of our head and flop us down and say, go that way, go that way. You have to say thy will be done. This is a this is terribly important. You see, the trouble with being a human being in this world and I I could do two things. I give everybody a credit for being human if they appear human.
And if if I can see and taste and hear them, I think they're in this world. That's where I begin. You can't begin any lower than that. And if that is a fact, then we have our life cut out for us. There's no question of our vocation.
We are all called, equally called, substantially, essentially, fundamentally called to return to the god who made us. Every single human being is a unique, incomparable creation. Even the million and a half babies that are murdered every year in the grand country called USA. And it is our obligation to return to god. Then what is life about?
It's to help us get there. It's that simple. It's that simple. So that what we do in this life is going to be important. It's going to have value.
It's going to have worth so far as it helps us to fulfill our vocation. Can anything be simpler than that? And yet people are say are confused. Take those two little girls at last week. That's terrible.
Sitting together knee to knee, one shoots the other, then shoots herself. Right here, Wheatman, Kensington. Apparently, there was they were they were way, way off course, and so can we be way, way off course. We can get so lost in the things we have to do. We have to do things in this life.
As colonel Newman says, we have a work to do, and if we don't do it, it'll never be done. But let's not get get confused about it. There's something far more ultimate than the work we do in the sense in being specific. In a very real sense, the only thing that matters is that the work we do is a work that contributes to our going back to god, and the other way of saying that is holiness. Isn't this isn't this simple?
But you see, it goes back to God. It goes back to faith in God. It goes back to trust in God. It goes back to love of God. It goes back to a gut reaction that we have that God is running the show and he's calling me to follow him and he will let me not let me down.
That he will not ask me to do anything that he and I cannot do together. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the spirit. Amen.