Homily: Spiritual Dynamite of Christ's Words

Peter Maurin lamented of what became of the power of the Catholic teaching. It is time to bring it back.

One of my favorite stories of military strategy is about an inflatable army led by General George Patton. It is a truly strange story.

The Allies were going to overcome the NAZIs by invading from the South of France at Normandy. However, they had to get the NAZIs to believe they were invading from England across the channel. So they created a plot to deceive the NAZIs by getting a cadaver dressed as a US Army officer carrying plans for a battle to invade from England. They hoped the NAZIs would get the cadaver and fall for their plot. They did.

However, to make the plot work, they needed to have an army ready to invade from England and that was not possible. So they made one out of balloons. They literally designed huge balloons to look like the tanks of an invading army and set them up near the coast of the English Channel.

So General Patton was in charge of the plot that worked perfectly and so he headed up an inflatable army. One funny part of this was a British farmer finds all these tanks on his lands and then one of his goats butts a tank and his horns puncture and deflate it. He is left to think what is going on here?

Did Patton study Gideon?

I cannot help thinking that Patton drew at least some of his ideas from Gideon. Gideon was to Battle the Midianites who had a huge army. Gideon did too and knew he could easily defeat them. However, God told him that if he did, he would be too prideful and not humble. He had to learn that God would defeat the Midianites, not Gideon. So he began a process in which he weeded out all of Gideon’s men from thirty-thousand down to three hundred. God instructed Gideon and his men to follow. It sounds ridiculous but they do. When the plan was put into the place the 300 looked like three hundred thousand to the Midianites.

The Midianites panicked and ran. God through this military strategy caused the them to defeat themselves.

Did Jesus create a new spiritual army out of a just a few?

Today, we see the last of the readings from the famous Bread of Life Discourse. In this reading, we see the Jews Jesus fed with the loaves and the fishes turn away from Him because he said: “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will have no life within you.”

Five thousand walk away, twelve remain. Of those twelve, eleven change the world.

If we look at that same scene from the perspective of God working in our world, we can see the old order passing away that was focused on what this world offers and a New World focusing on eternal life.

The old order is one where we focus on what this world has to offer. The new order is spoken of by Peter seeking not only eternal life but spreading the new message of the promise of eternal life.

This promise did not exist prior to the resurrection of Jesus. Some believed in it and some did not but now it becomes the focus.

With Jesus saying this one sentence the old order passes away and the new order comes. The old order focused on obeying the law and the new order focused on a pilgrimage to a new kingdom and inviting people to join us.

People celebrate when the Church grows smaller

If you read the polls, you will see people celebrating because less and less Catholics are attending Mass. That trend is hitting other religions too. However, others will tell you that there are some powerful spiritual signs that have been going on for many years and they feel the culmination of those signs is coming.

I know someone who feels a kind of separation has been going on in the world, where God is separating one group from another. What he noticed was the difference, there was a loss of charity and love in societies turning from God which leads to more civil disorder and unrest.

Now we have to ask the Lord to show us what we need to do to lead others to this vision he gave to the apostles.

This week at the Dorothy Day Faith Forum I introduced a text from Colin Miller’s book We Are Only Saved Together (2024; Ave Maria Press). He teaches on Catholic Worker Movement co-founder Peter Maurin’s philosophy that the Church’s teachings are so powerful they are like spiritual dynamite. Maurin complained however that theologians turned them into cute little phrases. He instead teaches that what we believe is so powerful it changes whole societies starting with each individual.

I also spoke with some men who are asking the question: how did Jesus’ words become reduced from being so powerful to everything we believe is based on not committing a mortal sin so that we don’t go to Hell? This is not what Jesus taught.

Jesus is letting the old order pass away because the new order which is the message of the coming of the Kingdom of God can motivate everything we do that we become revolutionaries for the Gospel—people who live in such a way that not only do their lives change but so do others.

This is what Jesus will call the Apostles to understand. He calls us to live the Gospel as people of prayer who allow that prayer to transform us powerfully. Dorothy Day summed it up in the Corporate and Spiritual Works of Mercy.

I am discovering how much of what we believe has been reduced to following rules by others who live in terror they will go to Hell if they do not follow the rules. That is the philosophy that walked away in this Gospel. The philosophy that stayed is the one that embodies the rules so much that it completely changed the Roman Empire. That is the spiritual dynamite Peter Maurin spoke about and the spiritual dynamite that is the Gospel of Christ. A dynamite of peace that changes everything when we eat Christ’s Body and Blood.

Fr. Robert J Carr is pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Allston, MA

The parish podcast is at https://catholicaudiomedia.com