19th Sunday Year A - Homily 3

Homily 3 – 2011 

It can be hard to say “Sorry”; but, when I do, I am the one “in control”. It’s another thing to ask forgiveness. Then I give the power, the control, to the one I’ve hurt. That’s a lot more scary. And yet, I think, it is when the other forgives me, that I can make the next move from saying sorry to being sorry. Until I know I’m forgiven, it can seem there is too much to lose by admitting to myself my guilt: my self-esteem, that feeling of being at home in myself. But once I know that the one I have offended has forgiven me – truly forgiven me – I discover that there is nothing to lose... Being forgiven is so important – but it is beyond our control. And for the one who has been hurt, to forgive can seem more scary than saying sorry.

Pope Benedict, on a number of occasions now, has said sorry to victims of sexual abuse on behalf of the Church. Whatever about the Pope, I wonder if the Church – all the rest of us in the Church – have really said sorry in our own hearts. The sexual abuse by Catholic teachers and priests in our own diocese back in the 70s is in the news once more with the pending sentencing of Brother Robert Best. The sense of shame that most of us feel can really be a moment of grace, a moment to tune in to God’s thinly silent voice.  

The publicity can be an invitation to us to look again into our own hearts to see how truly sorry we are as Catholics. We regret what it has done to us – the bad publicity, the shame and ridicule, possibly the negative effects on priest numbers, the large numbers who continue to walk away from the Church. But are we genuinely sorry for what the abuse has done to the victims? to their families who love them? to the young people whose faith and trust it has undermined? Have we tried to feel their pain? And owned our powerlessness? A moment of grace.

It may be too much for victims to forgive the Church – to forgive us as Church. Can we ever, then, be free? I think we can, if somehow we can truly get hold of God’s forgiveness of us. I don’t think that is a cop-out. But we need someone to lead us beyond our own instinctive defensiveness, our spontaneous reaction to lay the blame elsewhere or to lay it too narrowly.

At the moment, so many in high places in the Vatican are blaming what they call the secularism of our age, and its influence on the perpetrators, for the spate of clergy abuse in the Western World. Not only they, but perhaps all of us, are still reluctant to seek for causes closer to home – causes to which we ourselves might contribute: for example, the generally accepted attitudes of deferring to those with responsibility in the Church, of putting us clergy on a pedestal (We like it!), of relating in the Church as superiors to inferiors, instead of as adult brothers and sisters.

Like the disciples in today’s Gospel, we have been made, reluctantly, to head for the other side; we’re heading into uncharted waters – into an uncertain future that we don’t control or understand. We’re exhausted; we’re bickering among ourselves. Where’s God? Where’s Jesus? Well, as the Gospel reminds us, he’s there – but he’s hard to recognise. Do we turn back and head for familiar territory? Do we stay in the boat? Do we try to walk on water?

Perhaps what we need to do first is to listen. Can we hear him say: Courage! It is I. Do not be afraid. It can be OK to be not in control, OK to feel without power, useless, uncertain, scared stiff. In my experience, that is the best spot to ensure I really mean it when I cry out: Lord, save me! And it is great to read that Jesus’ spontaneous, unthinking, instant response is to put out his hand at once and hold us. And, really, when we look back over our lives, it’s no surprise. He’s done it before. It’s why we’re here this morning – still dripping wet, perhaps, but all of us held by his strong arm.