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August 28, 2022: The Last Shall be First and the First Shall be Last
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There’s the old joke that says the best Catholics sit in the back row. When walking to the back of the Church for a Funeral Mass at times, I might joke with the folks sitting in the back row and say, “The best Catholics sit in the back row,” not knowing if they are Catholic or not. It almost always gets a laugh, or at least a strange look.
Truth be told, the best Catholics don’t always sit in the back row. They sometimes sit in the front row like our Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, or other places throughout the Church. There are no “Reserved” signs placed on the end of the two back rows in this Church or any other. This is not to say that a good Catholic, self-proclaimed or not, is taking up space in the back row. There may be good Catholics who will settle into the back row without telling others around them that they’re a good Catholic. Or, the self-proclaimed or non-proclaimed good Catholic will almost never ask their neighbor, “Are you a good Catholic? I’m asking because this specific area of the Church is reserved for people like me. So please tell me if you’re a good, great, or mediocre Catholic, or something below mediocre.” Why won’t they do this? Because a good Catholic will not judge the heart of another who happens to take up residence for one hour or less in the back row of any Catholic Church.
I remember one 10:00 Sunday morning Mass at Immaculate Conception when two guys from off the street (literally) were sitting in the back row when yours truly, the Deacon, the altar servers, and Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist approached the rear of the Church preparing for the start of Mass. I knew one of the men from a previous meeting with him at the Parish rectory. The poor guy struggled with alcohol, homelessness, and the inability to hold a job. Honestly, he was a very good person with a good heart who struggled with his tough issues. But there he was, months later, with a friend of his in the same condition as he, taking up space in the back row before the start of Mass, sitting behind a family of five who normally would have been in the back row. They were the two most disheveled persons who ever entered a Church, or any other establishment for that matter. They looked like they hadn’t taken a bath in months, they needed a shave really, really badly, as well as a good barber, they smelled to high heaven (they would have won a skunk-smelling contest), yet, they had smiles on their faces as they sat there and chatted with the priest. Strange, to say the least. Were they good Catholics? I guess they were that day, given the circumstances. Sadly, the one gentleman I had the meeting with months before ended up dying from exposure under a railroad bridge near the Church some time later. We pray that God was kind and merciful to his soul. He was less than 30 years old.
So, it is true that some folks who park themselves in the back row – or rows – of the Church are “good Catholics,” however one wishes to interpret this short phrase. I suppose “good” or “best” with “Catholic” begins with the mindset that said person will attend Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation for the rest of their lives. I ask the three or four people who read this column, “Is this part of your faith thinking? Never to miss Mass again for any illegitimate reason?” This is the proper place where the word “good” can be placed before the word “Catholic,” since I believe there are some of us who falsely believe one can be a “good Catholic” without the intention of attending, or the actuality of attending, the Lord’s Day Mass every Lord’s Day for the rest of our lives.
My experience – firsthand – is hearing and knowing that Mass attendance on the day Jesus was raised from the dead by his Father is a choice for some “good Catholics,” and not an obligation, with the choice of not attending because the time is not there, or it gets in the way of some blessing God has given to us in our lives. I understand how the word “obligation” does not settle too well into the hearts of some fellow Catholics. We may have a hard time with “being forced” to do something, or anything, in our present world. Even going to Church for one hour each Sunday to spend time with others we hope to enjoy heaven with some day, and giving ourselves to the Lord in person, is difficult for some folks. The hope, however, is to be like the Greatest Generation and the generation that followed them by way of making Church an automatic part of our living and eventual dying. Like one friend of mine says, “I cannot imagine not attending Church on Sundays.” Those are words of someone who is on the road to being a “good Catholic,” wherever they happen to sit in Church. In these words, there is no wishy-washy approach to the Sunday call of serving the Lord. And I agree - it’s much too serious a matter to be wishy-washy.
The “back row” topic, as well as the “good Catholic’ theme that flows from Church attendees sitting in the back row of every Catholic Church, can easily be connected to the words of Jesus in this Sunday’s Gospel. Believe it or not, the Lord basically tells us to “sit in the back row.” Or at least begin there with the hope of being invited up to a better seat. Of course, good reason and logic tells us there’s no need for everyone to cramp into the back rows. There’s simply not enough room. Here in the United States we have not reached the point of some parts of Europe where most Catholics have stopped going to Church altogether. Thus, all Sunday Mass attendees can fit in the back rows if they wish to.
Rather, the Gospel this week is grounded and centered in the virtue of humility. I love all the virtues of Jesus, who is the perfection of all virtues. In truth, he created all the virtues. But of all the Christian virtues, humility is my second favorite virtue of Jesus closely following on the heels of our Lord’s perfect simplicity. If Jesus came across the Prosperity Gospel message we see and hear of today, he would undoubtedly ask, in my opinion, “What is this?” For someone who had no place to rest his head, according to his personal take on his life after Nazareth, the Lord Jesus was not about amassing things of the world, no matter how nice they were. He was much too focused on a Cross that awaited him. Yes, Jesus’ “Prosperity Gospel” consisted of dying so that we may live after we call it a day here. As the Book of Job points to, Jesus came into this world naked, and he returned to his heavenly home the same way. He did not ascend with a U-Haul or storage locker.
Humility, on the other hand, is the virtue that best defines the life of Jesus of Nazareth, even though it comes in second place for me personally. Humility allows the Lord to finish his race that ended at Golgotha. How could this not be the truth when we consider the fact that God died for us, overturning the sin of Adam and the punishment that followed? St. Paul writes how Jesus humbled himself, being born in the likeness of men. How could this act of God not be the greatest act of humility the world has known? God lowering himself to become human, under normal circumstances, would be a rather large insult to the living God. The biggest insult. But our Savior embraced the insult of humanity, if you will, being born of the Virgin in a body that could now die. Remember, God is not supposed to die. He is above the condition of death that has no capacity to touch Him. But he allowed it to touch him for our salvation. This would be humility personified. How could a believer not want to come to Church every Lord’s Day and give thanks to the God who saves us in this way?
The Gospel this week has a Divine concern about where to sit at gatherings. Do we start low, or do we go for the best seat in the house? I would love to sit in the Red Sox dugout for any game I attend. However, this would not be possible for obvious reasons. Having the best seat in the house and hearing what Devers says to Bogaerts in Spanish would be rather cool. But dugout seats are reserved for those who belong there, and not some peon fan like myself. It is true we at times can find ourselves out of place at a gathering. Most of us know what is proper and what is not in a group setting. So, trying to sit in a seat in this world we do not belong sitting in, like Adam and Eve tried, results in being thrown out of the seat (or garden). I liken this to anyone nowadays who tries to play God or be God. There are more than a few of these folks in politics, the world of business, and even in the Church. Not knowing and accepting the seat we are to sit in will create havoc for ourselves and for others.
Humility, and not self-deprivation, allows us to “know thyself,” and not take over a seat that we should know does not belong to us. In terms of being a “good Catholic,” a “wrong seat” to claim in relation to this phrase presently bantered about is to understand and accept the respective roles we hold before God in his Church. For example, a lay person is not a Bishop called to lead the flock in ways of faith and morals, and a Bishop is not a lay person who goes out into the world of business every day to raise a family. These are two very different seats, but seats that are meant to compliment and assist each other in building up God’s kingdom. To understand our roles and respect them means never having to be asked to leave the improper seat at the table of this world and told to go to a lower one with our tail between our legs.
We pray for the wisdom first, to be a genuinely “good Catholic” in the best sense of these two words. It is a term that others should recognize in us for the correct reasons, if you know what I mean, and not any type of self-recognition. And second, may we possess the wisdom to know which seats in this world we should sit in, averting the embarrassment of having to get up and move to a lower spot. All the while sitting in our favorite seat every Sunday and Holy Day for the rest of our lives that most Catholics have staked out for years now, be it back, middle, or front row.
HOLINESS
The Church, in short, is not a “sacred object” but an assembly that holds within itself the means of holiness as it re-members, re-calls, and re-creates the saving mysteries of Jesus Christ in time and history. The Church is not a perfectionist sect but a pilgrim people of saints and sinners.
Those in the Church respond to the call to holiness by hearing the word of God preached, sharing in the sacramental life of the Church, and living out those values and insights that we learn from Jesus Christ, “the Divine Teacher and Model of all perfection,’ who, “Himself stands as the Author and Finisher of this holiness of life.” The holiness of believers, in short, finds its model in Jesus Christ, who mirrors the holiness of God. Vatican II stated it succinctly in its preface to the Decree on the Bishops’ Pastoral Office in the Church: “Christ the Lord, Son of the living God, came that he might save people from their sins and that all people might be made holy.” From The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality