CRICTICAL and COMMITTED

The Birth of John the Baptist

Given at the Little Sister of the Poor Home for the Aged

June 24, 2024

When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child

she gave birth to a son. They asked his father what he

wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote,

“John is his name.” The child grew and became strong in spirit,

and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.

Luke 1:57-66,80

 

 

He had a beard, so he can't be all bad. But in spite of his beard, John the Baptist has never been one of my favorite saints. Screaming men who wear fur and eat bugs make me very nervous. They are not the type of person you could sit out on the deck and have a beer with. Before you open the can, they would be giving you a lecture on the evils of drinking.

Since I have gotten older and wiser; I have begun to appreciate John a little more. In fact, maybe he could be a role model for today's American Catholic. John the Baptist stands out as a believer who is both critical and committed, the two essential ingredients most needed in today's church. He, above all, seems to have found a balance between those two poles.

As our church continues to undergo massive transformation, the tension between the left and the right continues to produce anxiety in the hearts of believers everywhere. It seems that zealots at both ends of the spectrum are claiming to own the truth. Somehow, we must cooperate and give up our competition, separatism, and fragments of the truth. Maybe John the Baptist can teach us to ignore zealots of every stripe and listen to the less shrill voices of reason and joy. Maybe we can find some common ground between the hypercritical and the blindly committed. Maybe John can teach us to be both critical and committed.

Criticism, without commitment, is cruelty. There is a growing number of Catholic people who have moved to the edges or left the church altogether to take potshots at the church from their safe positions of smug superiority. They have their well-documented lists of flaws and sins to justify their withdrawal from active church life and are willing to point them out on cue. They are like the people who look at a thorny bush with a single flower and see a thornbush rather than a rosebush. Behind their superior attitude is a belief that others are responsible for the health of the church, and they will not grace the church with their presence until it conforms to their point of view.

Just as dangerous are those who are committed without being critical. Even Pope John Paul II, when he was still Cardinal Wojtyla, wrote in 1969: “Conformism means the death of any community; a loyal opposition is a necessity in any community.” Blind commitment without question is also unhealthy for the church. There are those among us who would have us believe that anything our leaders say or do should be followed without question, without hesitation. Sometimes, the church's best friends are those who criticize it.

Criticism without commitment is cruelty. Commitment without criticism is lazy, sentimental, and infantile. What is needed is the spirit of John the Baptist. He was both critical and committed. What we really need today is people who care enough and love enough to raise some questions. We need committed people who are willing, in the words of Saint Paul, to "profess the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15). Those who drop out and attack from the outside are no help.  Those who stay and bury their heads in blind conformity are dangerous and destructive. What we need are people who are committed but vigilant and attentive, knowing in their hearts that this old church requires, in the words of Pope Paul VI, “that continual reformation of which she always has need.”