McTeigue: Christ wants a radically welcoming and inclusive Church

October 23, 2014 at 7:24 pm · Filed under Ave Maria Florida, homily and tagged: Ave Maria chronicles, Ave Maria Oratory Parish, Catholic college, divorce, faithful, Father Robert McTeigue SJ, inclusive church, Jesuit, pete, Synod, synod fathers, welcoming church

Ave Maria’s Father Robert McTeigue, S.J., preached this homily at Mass last Friday:

We were created for the praise of God’s glory. What is God’s glory? God’s glory is the shining forth of His truth.

In these days, when people tell us that we must be a “welcoming” Church and an inclusive “Church”, I think we must ask, “Can we be the Church that welcomes and includes the truth of God that God Himself has revealed?”

Can we welcome and include the truth of God’s wisdom? The wisdom that made us male and female and for each other as male and female? Can we be such a welcoming and inclusive Church?

Can we welcome and include the truth of God’s goodness? The absolute goodness that cannot abide any evil or lie? Can we be such a welcoming and inclusive Church?

Can we welcome and include the truth of God’s mercy? The mercy that allows us to embrace the justice of God which names good as good and evil as evil? Can we be such a welcoming and inclusive Church?

It is for such as these that we were made, we who were made for the praise of God’s glory. And at this moment, when we are being called upon to welcome and include what dishonors God, that we must decide whom we shall worship? Shall we worship the living God Who has revealed Himself to us through His only-begotten Son, Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life? Or shall we worship an idol of our own making?

If we make our choice well, then we will know the truth of the psalm we heard today: “Exult, you just, in the LORD; praise from the upright is fitting.”

May God’s Holy Name be praised now and forever.

Father McTeigue is currently finishing a collection of homilies and essays on preaching entitled, I Have Someone to Tell You: A Jesuit Heralds the Gospel. He recently began writing a weekly column, which this week focuses on what he would want the Synod Fathers to know about his long-suffering divorced friend, Pete. Father McTeigue earnestly seeks your prayers that his life and work be to God’s greater glory – and he invites your comments.

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