Homilies & Thoughts

The Apostles are often, embarrassingly, all too human. I remember attending a retreat for high school seniors several years ago. The retreat was meant to be a time for spiritual growth—a chance for students to grow closer to Christ and form stronger bonds with one another. There were spiritual talks, time for prayer, and moments of quiet reflection. But there was also paintball. And to no one’s surprise, that was the most exciting part for the students. Before the game, all they could talk about was how great they would be and how their strategies were unbeatable. Afterward, they spent hours boasting about their victories. The boys in my cabin stayed up until 3:00 a.m. arguing over who shot whom and, naturally, who was the greatest.

It is interesting to look at advertisements for charities, especially those that feed or provide medical treatment to the poor. When it comes to international charities, they often feature many pictures of those in need. These charities may even offer symbolic adoptions, where you receive photos and biographical details about a specific person. However, with local charities, this is rarely the case. Local organizations tend to avoid using photos of individuals altogether, relying instead on facts and figures. There is a simple reason for this: when we give money to distant causes in places we will likely never visit, we crave a personal connection. We want to see the faces of those we help because it makes us feel good—and it feels safe. But when it comes to giving locally, we often do not want to see the faces of those in need, because there is a chance we might run into them. We shy away from confronting suffering in our own community, fearing that if we truly grasp the depth of the need, we will be forced to share in their pain. As long as the poor remain a faceless mass, hidden behind statistics and dollar signs, we can carry on with our lives undisturbed.

Tonight, I would like to reflect on the topic of hypocrisy, particularly the various ways in which it tends to manifest. Whenever I hear the word hypocrisy, what often comes to mind, perhaps due to the time and place of my upbringing in Alabama, is televangelists. These were men who promoted the Gospel on television but frequently targeted particular sins with great fervor. Over the years, how many of them did we see fall from grace, as it was revealed that the very sins they condemned so passionately were the ones they themselves committed in secret—and they were inevitably caught.