Homily for the Red Mass for the Diocese of Fort Worth

September 26, 2024
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Daniel 5:1-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28
Psalm 104:1-2, 24, 35, 27-28, 29, 30
Romans 8:14-17
Luke 10:25-37

Our first reading taken from the Book of Daniel begins by describing an elite banquet hosted by the Babylonian King Belshazzar for one thousand of his nobles. As the banquet deteriorates into the haze of inebriation, the king orders brought to him the holy vessels that they had plundered from the Temple in Jerusalem when they vanquished God’s Chosen People. As the Babylonian king, his nobles, and their concubines enter further into debauchery, guzzling from the precious chalices that had been reserved for the sacredness of Temple sacrifice in honor of the one true God, they begin to mock the God of Israel and to praise their material idols of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.

The euphoria is interrupted by the abrupt appearance of a human hand that begins to write on the wall, certainly a disturbing sight in itself even if one is sober, but terrifying if one is intoxicated. So, having consulted his own magicians to no avail, the king desperately summons Daniel the highly regarded Jewish prophet to interpret the writing for him. The king is so desperate that he offers Daniel political patronage by promising him the position of third in line of succession, only if Daniel will tell him what the writing means. Daniel interprets the writing but refuses the king’s offer, for wise reasons that will soon become apparent, because he interprets the writing to read that the king’s life and kingdom will soon be destroyed.

The message passes judgment upon the king and his court for oppression of God’s people, for idolatry, and for ingratitude towards the true God. The writing enjoins: “God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it; you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” That very night Belshazzar is killed, and the Babylonian Empire soon falls to the Persians.

Daniel is a prophet. Daniel is not a prognosticator. Prophets do not simply predict the future. It is the prophet’s responsibility to announce God’s judgment on the present in the present. The prophet always includes the message that God’s judgment offers an opportunity for a decision to those who hear it: either to repent and correct their lifestyle and cooperate with God’s law of love manifest in His act of creation and to bring about His justice, or to continue to rebel against His law resulting in self-destruction and disaster. Belshazzar and his colluders continue towards disaster while the faithful remnant of the Chosen People are spared by God through the Persian conquest of Babylon.

While the Chosen People fare better with the conquest of the Babylonians by the Persians (they are permitted to return to their homeland), it only offers a reprieve. Their lot really has not changed as they still await the coming of the Promised Christ, who will fulfill the Covenant with God given to them through Moses and deliver them from oppression and slavery. They are still dominated, just by a new power. The Babylonians give way to the Persians, the Persians will fall to the Greeks, and then the Greeks will fall to the Romans. Nothing really changes as one oppressive tribe conquers and replaces the previous tribe. The status of the pagan idols remains the same but only their names change. Each succeeding tribe replaces the previous one by warfare fueled by mutual contempt, while Israel maintains its identity as God’s Chosen People by remaining faithful to the Covenant. The more things change for the Chosen People, the more they stay the same but without true peace. Christ alone will bring this peace.

Peace is the tranquility of order, not merely the absence of conflict. A good society is one where the law of love and goodness is praised, observed, and reliably enforced. A bad society is one where the law of love and goodness is mocked, flouted, and selectively imposed dishonestly with bias and self-interest. We have to be careful not to see the rule of law as merely a political tactic because the rule of law is rightly intended to be the way to bring about and respect God’s purposes for humanity resulting in the tranquility of order. The Law of God, the expression of His wisdom, is alone our peace. Absent the rule of law, the result is tyranny, chaos, and violence.

The extreme partisanship afflicting our political life today is a type of tribalism not informed by rational debate for progress towards a peaceful society, but instead an ideology fueled by narratives of mutual contempt between extreme partisans. Each tribe becomes increasingly drunk from the precious vessels that God has given us but that they have plundered. These vessels that God has given us to use as stewards to achieve and celebrate His purposes for us include all the truths of nature and objective morality. The Persians merely replaced the material idols of the Babylonians with their own material idols, as did the Greeks and Romans. The prophetic voice of the Church calls each of us neither to embrace nor to settle for today’s material idols that will only lead us to decline and ultimately fall. Idols will never bring us peace or hope.

We have heard and believe the Gospel that Christ has come and is the full and final revelation who heals, elevates, perfects and completes nature. Christ is the Good Samaritan who brings us hope through His rescue, protection, healing, and payment of the debt of sin on our behalf. Saint Augustine wrote, “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger that the world is the way that it is, and courage to see that it does not remain that way.”

It is incumbent upon those entrusted as stewards of the rule of law to serve and to celebrate this hope by respecting both her daughters. Lawyers, judges, and those entrusted with the public service of government should not give way to idols but rather permit their anger at injustice in our society to instill in themselves the courage to effect change through the rule of law impartially legislated and fairly enforced. Without the courage to lead, that anger becomes unrighteous and soon extinguishes hope by replacing justice with the malice of revenge.

The mission of Christ and His Church is the mission of the Good Samaritan who shatters the tyranny of tribal contempt by revealing and accomplishing the justice of God with healing for all His children. We belong to Christ. All of us are neighbors. We are all His children, His heirs, and not His slaves. As we heard earlier in our second reading from Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba,’ Father! The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

In light of this admonition from Saint Paul, we are here called upon at this altar to beseech Christ to renew our commitment to the great cause of justice that prompted each of us to follow this path rather than any other, eschewing presumption and putting aside discouragement, distraction, and despair. The Lord invites us to renew at this Altar of His Body and Blood our commitment to His call that we answered with confidence that God always provides for us and loves each of us unconditionally.