Ezekiel is taken into a valley full of bones.
Not sick people. Not wounded people. Bones. Even dry bones.
Humanly speaking, there is nothing left to save.
Then God asks: “Son of man, can these bones live?”
Ezekiel gives the only sensible answer: “O Lord God, you know.”
Then God commands him to prophesy.
The bones come together. Flesh covers them.
The breath of God enters them. And what was dead stands alive.
There is a lesson here which Saint Pius X understood very well.
The Church does not live because she changes the Gospel to suit the age.
She lives because God breathes His truth and grace into souls.
Saint Pius X faced the movement known as Modernism.
Its great danger was subtle.
It did not always deny Christianity outright.
It tried to reinterpret Christianity from within.
Revelation became religious experience.
Dogma became something changeable.
Faith became increasingly subjective: what religion means to me, rather than what God has revealed.
Saint Pius X saw the danger clearly.
Once revealed truth is reduced to personal experience, the bones may still look vaguely Christian, but the supernatural life has gone.
Christianity cannot live without truth.
Nor can truth live without charity.
That is why today’s Gospel is so important.
Our Lord is asked which commandment is greatest.
He answers: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
And: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”
Notice the order. First God. Then neighbour.
Christian charity does not begin with mere kindness.
It begins with loving God as He truly is.
With the whole heart. The whole soul. And the whole mind.
Our minds also belong to God.
We do not honour Him by believing whatever happens to suit the spirit of the age.
We honour Him by receiving the truth He has revealed and allowing that truth to shape us.
Saint Pius X’s motto was: “To restore all things in Christ.”
That is exactly what Ezekiel sees.
God takes what is scattered, lifeless and hopeless and restores it.
The answer to spiritual decay is not less doctrine. Not less worship.
Not less supernatural faith.
It is more Christ. Christ truly known. Christ faithfully taught.
Christ worthily worshipped. Christ loved above everything.
My brothers and sisters, dry bones cannot raise themselves.
Neither can the Church renew herself by human cleverness alone.
Life comes from God. Truth comes from God. Grace comes from God.
And whenever Christ is believed, obeyed and loved, the dry bones begin to live again.
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 