Mass Readings Audio
https://bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2021-07-04-usccb-daily-mass-readings
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 4, 2021
Welcome to the one hundred and seventy-first episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I know that you have a hundred different things you could be doing right now, so I thank you for choosing By Your Life.
My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular business world. It’s my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.
In this edition, we’ll reflect on the readings for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. (Year B) In the first reading from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, the Lord said to Ezekiel, “I am sending you to the Israelites, a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have been in revolt against me to this very day. Their children are bold of face and stubborn of heart—to them I am sending you.” (Ez 2:3-4) That scary thing is that these words spoken to Ezekiel were spoken to us, and we too were sent, on Sunday and every Sunday we are sent to out to a rebellious world, a secular world that has revolted against God. To them, He is sending us to go and glorify the Lord by our lives.
Prophets Don’t Know Everything
As challenging as this call is for us, it is not anything that we are not equipped to handle, for as the saying goes, “God does not call the equipped, he equips the called.” I’m not sure who first coined that phrase, but we have to look no further than the first apostles and all the saints throughout the ages to know that it is true.
When I think back over my career, every job I had included projects and challenges that I had never faced before, I really had no clue what I was doing when I started, and I always felt unequipped to handle it. I spent most of my career in the telecommunications industry developing new products, markets, or businesses, so we were literally forging new ground all the time. When we started out, we had to first assess whether the new project made sense to pursue strategically, whether we could do it technically, and then figure how much investment would be required before the venture was profitable and if it could earn a sufficient return. Although we created proforma financials, our job was not to predict the future, nor was it my job to know everything about all aspects of the new venture. My job was to assemble the team who did have the knowledge and ability to figure things out. What a relief it was to focus on my job and let others do what they were equipped to do.
One of my favorite examples of this type of leadership was the portrayal of the Flight Director Gene Kranz played by actor Ed Harris in the movie Apollo 13. With every succeeding problem, he turned to the person on the flight desk who had the knowledge and responsibility for that area of concern. When they encountered something new, he challenged his team to figure things out. He didn’t have to have all the answers. He just had to have faith in his team.
Prophets Don’t Do Everything
Ezekiel didn’t have to have all the answers either, he just had to have faith in God. What a relief it must have been for Ezekiel, knowing he was being sent to the “bold of face and stubborn of heart” (Ez 2:4) children of Israel, when God told him, “You shall say to them: Thus says the Lord GOD. And whether they hear or resist—they are a rebellious house—they shall know that a prophet has been among them.” (Ez 2:4-5) In other words, “You don’t have to worry about whether they convert or not. Your job is to speak the word of God to them. I am only asking you to be faithful and leave the rest to me.”
Each According to His Own Abilities
Our job as baptized Christians is much the same. We all have a right, and an obligation, to speak God’s Truth according to our own abilities. The Code of Canon Law says “From their rebirth in Christ, there exists among all the Christian faithful a true equality regarding dignity and action by which they all cooperate in the building up of the Body of Christ according to each one’s own condition and function.” (Can 208) Even though we are to speak the Truth in our own way, it doesn’t mean we get to make up our own truth. The prophetic word is not our own but comes from the revealing God, as the Canon continues saying, “The Christian faithful, even in their own manner of acting, are always obliged to maintain communion with the Church.” (Can. 209 §1) Our job is to share the faith with others, in a way that is attractive, rich, interesting, and true, as the Church teaches.
Powerful Paradoxes
And what a relief that is, but it is still not without its challenges because the Truth as the Church teaches is a powerful paradox. Jesus told us “the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Mt 20:16), “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mk 8:35), and St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians in our second reading this Sunday, “power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9), “when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor 12:10)
How do we make sense of this? Mother Angelica said, “The Christian experiences and lives a paradox. He possesses joy in sorrow, fulfillment in exile, light in darkness, peace in turmoil, consolation in dryness, contentment in pain, and hope in desolation.” These seemingly absurd or self-contradictory propositions, when investigated or explained, prove to be true. These paradoxes should make us think and think deeply, not just feel good. They present the Truth in love.
Bishop Robert Barron dedicated a whole book to the Vibrant Paradoxes of our Catholic faith. Sin and mercy, faith and reason, matter and spirit, freedom and discipline, suffering and joy, are some of the “both/and of Catholicism.” As he wrote in his introduction and siting G.K. Chesterton as his source, “Catholicism keeps its beliefs ‘side by side like two strong colors, red and white…It has always had a healthy hatred of pink.’ What he meant was that Catholicism consistently celebrates the coming together of contraries, not in the manner of bland compromise, but rather in a way that the full energy of the opposing elements remains in place.”
Marketplace Paradox
Which brings me back to our prophetic obligation to bring God into the marketplace. Catholic Social Teaching affirms the legitimacy of private property and a market economy, and it teaches that the market functions properly only when it is circumscribed both politically and morally. It is not a question of either a market economy or a moral economy, but rather a market economy that is successful precisely because it is based on moral truths.
In Vibrant Paradoxes, Bishop Barron writes, “A market economy enjoys real legitimacy if, and only if, it is set in the context of a vibrant moral culture that forms its people in the virtues of fairness, justice, respect for the integrity of the other, and religion. Indeed, what good are contracts—fundamental to the functioning of the market economy—if people are indifferent to justice? What good is private property if people don’t see that stealing is wicked?”
As prophets, we are called to bring these truths to the marketplace by what we say and what we do. We are called to make these truths our guiding principles—our core values if you will. Many business executives have the mistaken notion that core values and profitability are mutually exclusive, but nothing is further from the truth. Core values will provide the priorities for creating vision, the principles for developing plans, the guidelines for making decisions, the standards for governing behaviors, and the benchmarks for establishing accountability. Organizations that live by moral core values attract high-caliber employees and loyal customers. They are great places to work, and they achieve sustainable profitability precisely because of their core values.
It may be paradoxical but living according to our Catholic faith and being a witness in the marketplace is good for business. But I admit, I have been personally challenged by this obligation and I’m sure you have too. In a modern culture that celebrates that which is wrong as something that is right and condemns those who call it out as wrong, it is difficult to speak the truth. But in the words of St. Paul, “I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ.” (2 Cor 12:10)
Defining Success
I’ve had to walk away from business that would have caused me to compromise my values and when I explained why I was condemned for it. I may not have maximized my business profits by living these values, but I firmly believe that living by my core values has led to my business success—and my definition of business success does include profitability. However, as I’ve personally experienced and observed in other organizations who have benefited most from living their core values, we define success in light of our values. We are working for rewards that are substantially greater than profitability alone.
Failure to do so ultimately leads to destruction. As, Bishop Barron wrote in Vibrant Paradoxes, “Won’t wealth destroy the rich man who doesn’t appreciate the value of generosity or fails to develop sensitivity to the suffering of the poor? Won’t the drive for profit lead to the destruction of nature unless people realize that the earth is a gift of a gracious God meant to be enjoyed by all?” Those who use the market economy in the wrong way, greedily making an idol of money and becoming indifferent to the needs of others are not living a life consistent with Catholic Social Teaching and pose a long-term threat to a vibrant economy. It is simply not sustainable.
What is sustainable? Living according to the precepts of the Catholic Church. Catholic Social Teaching with regards to the dignity of the human person, from conception to natural death, treatment of the poor and vulnerable in our society, care for our common planet, the dignity of work and rights of workers, and promoting the common good. The Church views its own social teaching as more of an orientation and a motivating force than as a model for solving social problems. The Church does not possess all the answers but searches for them in cooperation with others. Our job is to be the force of cooperation in a rebellious world that is “bold of face and stubborn of heart.” (Ez 2:4)
It may not always be easy, but it will always be rewarding. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to help us by entering into our hearts and setting us on our feet. (Ez 2:2)
Lord God, we know that your grace is sufficient for us and that your power is made perfect in our weakness. Be our strength when we are tempted to be weak and fall into the traps of moral relativism and indifferentism. May the power of Christ dwell in us when we are tempted to forsake our values for the sake of monetary rewards. Comfort us when we are condemned by the world that has turned its back on us. Be our strength as we live our lives for the Gospel of Truth, so that it may never be said of us that you are amazed at our lack of faith. (Mk 16:6) and that all that we do, we may glorify you by your lives.
May God strengthen you when you are weak and abundantly bless you with His grace this week, and may you glorify the Lord by your life.
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