St. Aloysius Gonzaga/Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, as well as commemorating the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost. St. Aloysius was born into an aristocratic family in northern Italy in the sixteenth century. His upbringing was conventional for his time, and it seemed inevitable he would follow the life of the type of Renaissance man that he was brought up to be. However, he suffered from ill health and instead became religious. He sought to enter a religious order, coming under the influence of the great reforming bishop of the Counter Reformation, St. Carlo Borromeo. Despite the opposition of his family, he entered the Society of Jesus (a new religious order at the time) and hoped to become a missionary. He was drawn to ministry among the sick, especially after a plague in Rome. Despite his own ill health, he continued to minister to victims of the plague, and himself contracted the disease, dying on this day in 1591 at the age of twenty three.
A saint who died of the plague ministering to the sick and dying is very relevant to our situation at the present time. St. Aloysius gave up the lifestyle of an Italian nobleman for the religious life, and ministered among the sick and dying. His entrance into the religious life did not lead to his withdrawal from the world, but rather led him to renounce worldly attitudes and standards for a vocation of service and self sacrifice, a vocation that cost him his life. It is a reminder that love is inseparable from self sacrifice and suffering. We can either remained detached and uninvolved, or we can love and be involved, and that will involve suffering.
This poses a challenge for us at the present time. It is reasonable to take precautions to avoid becoming infected with disease, but the Church cannot use this as a reason to exempt itself from ministering to the sick and dying, because that would be contrary to the vocation to self sacrifice which we are called as Christians to follow. Whereas the historic response of the Church in times of contagion has been to minister to the sick and to the dying, the modern response is to avoid any risk. This is reasonable up to a point, but, as we discovered a few years ago under the so called lockdowns, a society that becomes obsessed by the avoidance of risk becomes an inhuman society. An obsession with the avoidance of risk may or may not be the right way of dealing with disease, but it creates the problem of a society where self sacrifice is seen as an unnecessary risk and everyone looks after their own interests (without taking any risks), rather than the needs of others. At one level, this may make sense in the short term, as it may well help to save lives. The problem in the long term is that it leads to a society in which personal involvement in helping others is seen as an unnecessary risk. But is such a life really worth living? People may or may not die of a particular disease, but everyone will be affected by a society that is obsessed by controlling the movements of people in order to avoid any form of risk. In the long term it will produce a social and economic catastrophe. The other name for such a society is totalitarian.
The Gospel of St. Matthew (which we heard today) records that Jesus said to the Sadducees: “You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven. And concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken by God, saying to you: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
It is important to emphasise the distinctive nature of our Christian hope and how it differs from other religions and philosophies. Most people throughout human history have believed in some form of life after death, but it has usually taken the form of survival into another mode of existence, not belief in the resurrection of the body. It is held that this life cannot be all that there is, but any future life does not seem radically different from this one. In fact, far from being something to be hoped for, it can often seem quite depressing, as the life in the future world goes on much the same way as before.
In reaction to this view, many have sought refuge in a belief not in a mere survival of death, but in the immortality of the soul. The body may die, but the soul or spiritual part of man lives on, for it belongs to a higher world, and cannot perish with the end of bodily existence. This view was classically expressed by the Greek philosopher Plato with his allegory of the cave in which in this life we see only shadows of a realm beyond this. Our ultimate destiny is in this higher reality and to escape this world of space, time and matter, which is corrupt and transient.
A different vision arose in ancient Israel. In the face of those around them who believed in many gods, the Israelites believed in only one God, the maker of all things and judge of all men. Far from being a curse to be escaped from, human life was a blessing to be enjoyed. But, although man had been created good and in the image of God, he had succumbed to pride and fallen. Hence, sin and death had entered the world. There was a tension between the world as it is and as it ought to be. The Hebrew prophets looked forward to a future messianic age, when God’s kingdom would finally come on earth as it is in heaven and the wolf would live with the lamb.
The this worldly focus of the religion of ancient Israel left little room for any interest in life after death, although many of the Psalms seem to speak of hope beyond anything that is realised in this world. The prophet Ezekiel spoke of the future messianic age as like a resurrection of the dead, in which a valley of dry bones came alive again (Ezekiel 37). Since God had made man in his own image, but humanity was also fallen and sinful, the whole person would die, but ultimately the whole man would be raised. The book of Daniel concluded by saying that some would be raised to a life of eternal blessedness, for others it would be torment (Daniel 12). Many of the Maccabean martyrs went to their deaths in the hope that they would rise again. Indeed, the second book of Maccabees said that without this hope in the final resurrection it would be superfluous and vain to pray for the dead (2 Maccabees 7).
Hence, by the time of Jesus the majority of Jews (though not the aristocratic priestly party of Sadducees to whom Jesus was responding in today’s Gospel) had come to believe in a final resurrection of the dead. Jesus affirmed this hope, but he also spoke of the Kingdom of God as not simply a future expectation, but a reality that was already breaking into history in his own person and ministry. The resurrection which they were expecting at the end of time had already happened to Jesus in the middle of time. Although the old order of sin and death was still proceeding apace, it had been in principle defeated in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Hence, our Christian hope is not in survival of death or merely in the immortality of the soul, but in the final resurrection of the body. Sin and death do not have the last word, for in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus they have been in principle defeated and we too shall share in that risen and glorified life in that new heaven and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Let us pray for grace that we will follow the example of St. Aloysius and be faithful to our calling to live in service to God and neighbour, amidst whatever trials and tribulations may beset us in our own time and place.
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
Leave a Reply