It is common in today's world to find Catholics who openly disagree with core Catholic teaching. We all know people who say that they are Catholic, but who don't come to Mass on Sunday - they only come on Christmas and Easter, if they come at all.
We all have heard or read about politicians who say that they are ardent and practicing Catholics, but who publicly support laws that go directly against some of the most basic tenets of morality as taught by the Catholic Church.
And if we are honest with ourselves, we even recognize in our own lives this same tendency. We call ourselves practicing Catholics, and yet we spend more time working on our favorite hobbies than on our prayer life. We spend more time becoming an expert in our profession than in our faith. We tolerate in our own lives hidden habits of selfishness and sin while we criticize other people for their more visible faults. If we think about it a little bit, we see very clearly that this contradiction between what we believe and how we live is not a good thing.
It is like the second son in today's parable. He impressed his dad with fancy words and a good show of healthy obedience, but underneath the surface he was still living for his own self-centered gratification, not for the greater good of his mission in the Father's kingdom.
When we fall into that contradiction, it is no wonder that we don't grow in our experience of Christ's love and grace, and it is no wonder that we don't grow in wisdom, interior peace, and the deep Christian joy that we thirst for. Faith, if it's real, makes a real impact on our lives. When it doesn't, our spiritual growth is stunted.
This kind of integrity is something that all of us admire in others, but find difficult to live out ourselves. Contemplating the saints can help strengthen our weakness.
St. Stephen of Hungary was a great example of real faith. The Magyar [MAG-yahr] tribes invaded southeastern Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries. Stephen was the elder son of the first Christian leader of the Magyars. Unlike his father, who had accepted baptism mainly for political reasons, Stephen took his Christian identity seriously.
At age 22 he succeeded his father, and began his life-long work of bringing stability, order, and justice to the rival Magyar tribes, so that the Christian faith could take deeper root in the souls of his people. Eventually he was crowned the first King of Hungary by the pope, and he successfully turned the chaotic territory into a prosperous and organized nation.
Through all his struggles, he strove to fulfill his royal duties in life in a way that would please Christ, dedicating himself entirely to the spiritual and material good of his subjects. He was often found in disguise, distributing alms to homeless people and cripples camped out in the city streets. His disguises were so good that once the crowd of beggars actually threw him to the ground, stole the money and food bags he was using to hand out offerings, and left him in the dust.
He overcame great opposition to institute a policy whereby every ten towns was required to construct at least one Church and support at least one priest, so that all his citizens could receive the sacraments and be instructed in the faith. No corruption stained his regime, and when he died at 63, his tomb immediately became a favorite place of pilgrimage and devotion. St Stephen truly understood that real faith requires real action.
This honest look at our tendency to be hypocritical, like the second son in today's parable, can make us feel discouraged. But discouragement never comes from God. He is all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing, and all-merciful. And since he is on our side - as the crucifix proves to us - everything is possible for us, nothing is out of our reach.
Discouragement is a temptation. It is a feeling that comes when we recognize how weak we are, and how little we can really do when we rely on our own strength. The devil wants us to give into that feeling - as if we really did have to rely on our own strength. But we don't.
The whole point of today's beautiful readings is that what we cannot do with our own strength, we can do by turning to Christ. That's what the prostitutes and the tax collectors discovered, and so they were able to repent and change the direction of their lives. That's what the first son in the parable discovered - he repented from his selfishness and found strength to fulfill his duties. That's what the First Reading teaches us so clearly: if we turn away from our sins and turn towards Christ, we shall surely live!
Today the Lord has reminded us of how much we all need his grace. As this Mass continues, let's promise that this week we will come and drink deeply from the fountains of this grace: prayer, the Bible, the Eucharist, and confession. These are the secrets to our hope, because they unite us to Christ. And if we use them well, we will also be able to spread our hope to others.