Archbishop Dolan's Thought for the Week

April 1, 2008

Dear Friends United in Love and Service of Jesus Christ and His Church:

The wonderful Irish Sisters of Mercy who taught me at Holy Infant Grade School in Ballwin, Missouri, cautioned us about taking April Fools’ Day too seriously.

It was, they explained, a commemoration of the day the soldiers tortured and made fun of Jesus, during His Passion, as a clown, a fool, a loser, a reject.

How historically accurate the April 1st theory of the sisters was, I do not really know.

But they were sure right to remind us that Our Lord was mocked as a fool. The elite, the powerful, the rulers, the “movers and shakers,” the cultured class, the intellectuals, dismissed Him as a failure, a joke, someone to make fun of.

Guess what? His followers, 1,975 years later, can at times be treated the same way.

People who believe in Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, who take His Church and His teaching seriously, can expect to be ridiculed by some media, family, neighbors, co-workers, comedians, or talk-show hosts.

Those who put faith in values, convictions, or realities that cannot be scientifically validated are dismissed as crackpots, irrational, opposed to progress and reason.

His disciples of today who hold that His love is forever, and that He invites us to share it for all eternity, are sneered at as using religion as a crutch to get through life’s challenges, as “pie-in-the-sky,” to avoid life’s demands.

People who admit that their most cherished convictions – often flowing from their faith -- have a bearing on their political decisions are mocked as dangerous theocrats.

His followers of today who believe that our worth comes in who we are not what we have; that life is an inviolable gift to be protected, not an inconvenience to be extinguished; that sexual love is so sacred we save it for marriage; that love, forgiveness, and reconciliation trump hate, revenge, and conflict; can all expect to be treated as a nut.

Yep . . . He was called a fool . . . and those who dare follow Him can expect the same . . . and not just on April 1st.

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan

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