So I go to Saturday vigil Mass, and everything was normal until the homily.
Just for reference, this was the gospel:
Gospel – John 1:29-34
John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one of whom I said, ‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’ I did not know him, but the reason why I came baptizing with water was that he might be made known to Israel.” John testified further, saying, “I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon him. I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”
And I know I'm still pretty new to this whole Catholic thing, but usually, the homily references the gospel. Usually, the priest tries to tie in the gospel reading to our experiences now. Which is great. I don't have a problem with that.
But what I can't figure out is how John the Baptist testifying that Jesus is definitely the Son of God is any way related to talking about needing diversity in our church and how we were all guilty of "whiteness."
So, yes, I know that our congregation is majority white. We do have a few black and Hispanic families in the church, but for the most part, it's white. Our priest has always been open to let everyone and anyone be a part of church. He has always been in support of gays. We have a sister parish in El Salvador, where we regularly donate to and go on mission trips. No one would ever claim that our priest was some backward, bigoted person.
But there he was, in front of the whole church, telling us that we were guilty of something we couldn't control. I can't control the fact that I'm white. But somehow, I'm suppose to feel guilty about this.
I mean, I get it. The new "original sin" is being white now. No one else in the whole world is called out for being guilty for just being a certain skin tone. And if they are, they're racist. Which is how it should be. You shouldn't judge anyone by the color of their skin.
And he was up there, going on and on about how we need to come to terms with our guilt of being white. And somehow, this was suppose to bring about diversity in our church? If his actual goal is to make our church more accessible to people of color, that's fine. I don't have a problem with that. But then, the speech (because let's be honest, it stopped being a homily awhile ago) should have been focusing on how we could reach those people and help them feel welcome in our church. But there wasn't one solid step towards making this goal a reality. No concrete way of going about it.
And do you know what the kicker was?
When he was done, the whole congregation applauded.
Applauded. As if he said something brave.
The whole thing made me sick.
Because he wasn't really trying to bring about change. He just wanted to virtue signal in front of the entire church. Empty words. That's all it was.
Nowadays, we don't pray in the streets or in public to show how religious and righteous we are. That would be looked down on. Instead, we virtue-signal, shouting out how woke and progressive we are, making sure to insert as many buzzwords as possible.
And it's not right.
In the Bible, Jesus clearly says:
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." Matthew 6:5-6
I mean, what do I know?
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