We find our hero Odysseus on his journey home from the Trojan war. Ten years he fought on the plains before Troy; and now ten years more he will journey home. After several adventures, Odysseus and his men land on an island and come under the care of the witch Circe.[1] She throws the men grand feasts with choice meats and heady wine to ease their hearts. She lulls the “battle hardened” warriors into a comfortable complacency. And in this soft security, Odysseus slides into a forgetfulness. He forgets who he is. He forgets his purpose. Under the weight of comfort and easiness, he forgets about his journey home to his family. For a year, the witch tames Odysseus—until his men cry out that this is “madness” and remind him of his purpose. It is only then that Odysseus is moved to break free from the comfort and complacency of the witch’s care.

In the story of Odysseus, we are offered a mirror to our own situation. We too, as Catholics, have forgotten who we are. A deep forgetfulness has been worked into us by the world. Like Odysseus, we are lulled into comfort and complacency. We forget our purpose. We forget that we too are on our journey home. We too are feasted and entertained until we forget our identity as a child of God. We are, in many ways, made safe and tame by the workings of the world.

Worse—we turn to the world to understand who we are as Catholics. We look to the world to tell us about our saints and our histories. We look to the world to tell us the value of our ethics and our teachings. We, who follow the God of love, ask the world what love is. We are made safe. We are made tame. We forget about our journey home.

Like the men crying out to Odysseus to awake from his madness, so too do our saints and angels cry out to us to remember our purpose. We are called to arise from our sluggishness—to be bold and vigorous. We are to shed the cares of this world and embrace our purpose as children of God. As our Lord tells us in today’s Gospel: “fear no one” [Mt. 10:26]. We are given the “Spirit of truth” and called to “testify” to the truth of Jesus Christ. What He tells us in the darkness, we proclaim in the light. What He whispers in our hearts, we proclaim from the rooftops. We are called to wake up from the madness of this world and remember our purpose: that we too are on our long journey home.

If we are permitted to start a homily with Homer, then let us end it with C.S. Lewis.

In his 1953 classic, The Silver Chair, a young girl named Jill finds herself before a stream in the land of Narnia. She is dying of thirst and wants to drink—but standing by the waters is an enormous lion. Jill hesitantly approaches. She asks the lion to move. He will not. She asks the lion to promise he will not do anything—that he will be safe and tame. He will make no such promise. Jill asks the lion whether he eats girls. The magnificent lion replies: “I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cites and realms.”

For the lion’s name is Aslan. And Aslan is not safe. Aslan is not tame. Aslan is, however, good. C.S. Lewis, who uses Aslan as an analogue for Jesus Christ, tries to teach us that God is neither safe nor tame—but He is good.

And we who follow this God should not permit ourselves to be made safe either—for Holy Mother Church is not tame. We need an untamed Catholicism. We must remember our purpose. We must not look to the world but to Jesus Christ to understand who we are. We must remember our journey home. We must shake off this present madness and proclaim unashamedly the truth of Jesus Christ.

We must be willing to shout from the rooftops what the Lord whispers into our hearts.

We must not be tamed.

We must follow the words of Jesus Christ and “fear no one.”

[1] Odyssey, 10.146.