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Sermon, 10th Sunday after Pentecost, July 28, 2013

10th Sunday after Pentecost  –  July 28, 2013

Epistle 1 Corinthians 12: 2-11                 Gospel Luke 18: 9­-14

            We have been given great encouragement to pray in the parable of the unjust judge (Luke 18: 1-8), which comes just before today’s reading. The widow in that parable repeated her petition to the judge over and over again until he gave her what she asked for just to get rid of her. Jesus asks: Will not God grant the petitions (prayers) of the faithful who cry to him day and night? The parable of the unjust judge begins with Jesus saying: “And he spoke a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint” (not to give up). The unjust judge granted her petition, that he didn’t want to hear, and will not God grant our requests, since He asks us to ask of Him? If our faith fails then prayer fails because faith is the source of prayer. A river cannot run, St. Augustine tells us, if the headwaters are dry. And St. Paul asks: “How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed?” (Romans 10: 14)

            Jesus said, “the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” (Luke 18: 8) He was talking about perfect faith. If we had perfect faith we could move mountains.  Yet, Jesus tells even His Apostles in the Garden of Olives, “Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation.” (Mark 14: 38) St. Augustine asks, “What does it mean, to enter into temptation, if not to depart from the faith? As faith retires, temptation advances.” Our Lord told Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.” (Luke 22: 31, 32) The Apostles had great faith, but even they asked, “Lord, increase our faith.” (Luke 17: 5) Our prayers make our faith stronger, and more perfect.  

            Faith is a gift given to the humble, not to the proud. The publican in today’s Gospel was humble, so much so that he would not even lift his eyes toward heaven when he prayed, “O, God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

            In today’s Epistle, St. Paul talks about the graces of prophecy, knowledge, tongues and miracles. If we don’t see these around us today, then we can look to the lives of those saints who had these gifts.  Saints are the common property of all of us, and their biographies are interesting, instructive and exciting.

The special gifts that Paul talks about, these miracles, were necessary in the early days to spread the faith authoritatively. And spread it did, even though the Catholic Faith is contrary to our human inclinations. If someone hurts us we want to hurt him back but we are told to pray for him instead. We want to sleep in on Sunday, but we are told we must attend Mass. We want to eat our fill during Lent, but we are told to fast. The world doesn’t like the discipline of Christ. The resistance to Christians faith by the Roman Empire and others was great, yet the Church quickly spread throughout the world.

St. Augustine observed three incredible things with regard to the miracles that helped  to spread the Faith: 1) that Christ rose from the dead in the flesh and ascended into Heaven, 2) that the world believed He did, and 3) that a small number of men from the bottom rungs of society convinced the world that He did. Those opposed to the Church refuse to believe Number 1, that Christ rose from the dead. They do acknowledge Number 2, that belief in Christ spread throughout the world because they can see that with their own eyes. Thirdly, our opponents can only account for the world-wide spread of the Church by agreeing to Number 3, that a few obscure and ignorant persons spread this faith around the world. As St. Augustine put it: “If people will not believe that the Apostles performed miracles in testimony of the resurrection of Christ, [then] they ask us to believe in a greater miracle, namely, that the whole world did believe without a miracle.” (The City of God, Book 22, Ch. 5)

Regarding today’s Gospel reading, there is no more appropriate teaching as a sequel to the destruction of  Jerusalem,  “. . .  every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.” The Jewish nation, represented by the Pharisees, was proud. This pride destroyed them -- and made possible the salvation of the Gentiles. We today must take care not to fall into the same trap because pride will cause our destruction also. Dom Guéranger writes: “Israel is assured, by prophecy, of a return to God’s favour when the end of the world shall be approaching, (Romans 11: 25-27)  [but] there is no such promise of a second call of mercy to the Gentiles, should they ever apostatize after their baptism.”

We can pause in our lives and look around the world and the universe and reflect on our nothingness, but this is not humility.  Rather, it’s a conviction that forced itself even on the devil and is the chief cause of his rage, because in his pride he wanted to be like God. On the opposite side we can see what happens when the Holy Ghost takes possession of a soul -- He gives us an extraordinary clear-sightedness, both as to who we are in the universe and Who God is.

Satan makes his slaves act out of pride and self-importance. The divine way teaches us humility, and humility leads us to the truth. Jesus told us, “The truth shall make you free.” (John 8: 32) Truth makes us free by liberating us from the tyranny of the father of lies. This is true liberty. But worldly people do not want true liberty, they want sin, and they want everyone to approve of their sinful lives. They want to suppress true liberty. That is why they  persecute those who speak up for what is moral and good. The world does not understand that real greatness consists in The Truth, and that those who have the courage to be humble will find it. Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. (John 14: 6)  He is the Way to the Truth that we all seek and He will lead us to an eternal Life of joy.    +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass

11th Sunday after Pentecost, August 4, 2013

11th Sunday after Pentecost – August 4, 2013

Epistle 1 Corinthians 4: 1-10                 Gospel Mark 7: 31-37

           

The publican in last week’s Gospel accuses himself, saying “I am not worthy to lift up my eyes to heaven.” St. Paul continues this lesson in humility in today’s Epistle saying, “I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church.” St. Paul puts humility before us so we will practice it because humility prevents us from fighting with each other to see who will be first or best. Humility is that gift from God that causes the “brethren to dwell together in unity .” (Psalm 133, v. 1, 3. KJV Psalm 132)  We acknowledge in today’s Introit that it is God that causes us to live together in the same house, that is, in the same Faith under the Church. Like the publican in last week’s Gospel, we are sometimes too afraid to name our faults, but the Church in today’s Collect prayer asks God to forgive the sins that we are too afraid to ask pardon for.

            St. Paul also shows us in today’s Epistle that even though he is now justified, that is, transformed from the state of unrighteousness to living in a state of sanctifying grace, a state of holiness and sonship of God, humility allows him never to forget his past sins “because I persecuted the Church”, as he put it.  The graces God gives the humble man permit him to see more clearly the enormity and disgrace of his sins. St. Augustine wrote of this, saying St. Paul “glorifies the just and the good God by publishing both the good he has received and the evil of his own acts . . . in order to win over to [Christ] the minds and hearts of all who hear him.” (St. Augustine, Retractationes  2: 6)

            There is more in Paul’s Epistle today, but I have limited my comments to humility, because it is a most important virtue on which depends not only all our progress but also our security in the Christian life. Humility allows us to thank God and praise Him for our lives that we live in a state of sanctifying grace, and humility keeps our pride in check by never forgetting our past sins.

            Jesus also spoke of humility when He said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 19: 13-15) A child’s faith is without any doubt or reservation, and so they give themselves over to love of parents and love of God with complete humility. Children don’t start with logic and arrive at such a love as great as this. To start with logic is to place the logic of our mind above God – in essence to worship ourselves. In Matthew 19  Jesus is urging us to do what children do, “for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.”

In today’s Gospel our Lord took aside the man who couldn’t hear or speak, to perform a miracle away from the crowd, thus teaching us that more miracles are wrought through humility and modesty than through the vanity and pride of public performance. He put His fingers into the man’s ears and touched his tongue to show that our Lord’s Body is united to His Divinity. He looked up to Heaven and groaned like a man in prayer might do, and then with a single word, “Ephpheta,” healed the man. Jesus could have cured him with a simple thought or word alone, but he looked up to heaven and groaned “to teach us to look up and sigh toward Him Whose throne is in heaven, confessing our need, that our ears should be opened by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our tongue loosed by the spittle of our Saviour's Mouth, that is, by knowledge of His Divine Word, before we can use it to preach to others.” (Pope St. Gregory the Great, Homily 10, Book 1 on Ezekiel)

The Redeemer’s fingers represent the gifts of the Holy Ghost. On another occasion, after casting out a devil, He said, “But if I by the finger of God cast out devils; doubtless the kingdom of God is come upon you.” (Luke 11: 20) This same event is recorded with a different phrase by Matthew: “But if I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you.” (Matthew 12: 28) When we compare the two readings, we learn that the terms “finger of God” and “Spirit of God” have the same meaning. Therefore, for our Lord, Who is God, to put His fingers into the ears of this man means to open the mind of the deaf person to obedience by means of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God.

At our Baptism the priest touched our ears and also said, “Ephpheta, be thou opened,” that is, be thou opened to the Word of God. In an earlier time, God spoke similar words to the Prophet Ezechiel: “And he said to me: Son of man, receive in thy heart and hear with thy ears all the words that I speak to thee. . . And go . . . to the children of thy people, and thou shalt speak to them, and shalt say to them; Thus saith the Lord. . .” (Ezechiel 3: 10) In telling us of the miracle of the deaf and dumb man Mark confirms the words of Ezechiel.

Before we received the gift of faith and the sacraments we were not unlike this man who was deaf and dumb. These gifts healed our souls just as our Lord’s gift of a miracle healed this man’s ears and tongue. If we are truly thankful for our gifts we should tell others about them, just as the deaf and dumb man told others about the Lord after his cure. We would not have received the gifts of faith and the sacraments unless our Lord thought we were worthy of them. And we would be foolish indeed if we threw these gifts away rather than sharing them with others. +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass

Sermon, 9th Sunday after Pentecost, July 21, 2013

9th Sunday after Pentecost – July 21, 2013

Epistle,  1 Corinthians 10: 6-13             Gospel,  Luke 19: 41-47

            Jesus wept over Jerusalem. He was the promised Messiah and brought great graces to His chosen people, but they would not accept Him. He cried over the loss of so many souls.  With all that Jesus has done for us, beginning with the creation of the universe, through His Passion and gruesome death, and continuing with the gift of Himself in the Eucharist and the forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of Confession, how is it possible that any soul could ignore Him or reject Him?

            Do we know the value of our souls? We know that, like God, our souls will continue to exist eternally. Do we know the true beauty and perfection of these souls created by God.? We are created in the image and likeness of God, and that image is reflected in our soul’s ability to reason, to love and to act on our own free will. Our reason allows us to recognize the perfections and beauty of God. Our soul is loved by the Three Persons in God Who created it, and we in turn show our love to Him by adoring Him in all His works, and adoring Him throughout eternity.  Our soul has the free will to adore God or not adore Him.  But those who do adore Him know a happy life because God resides in their souls, and because of this, they know happiness no matter how difficult life becomes.

            God has put in our souls desires that cannot be fulfilled in our lives.  We are poor in spirit, but ready to bear a painful and humble life. We mourn the loss of our loved ones, even while we pray in hope for their souls. We are meek, but suffer abuse by the strong.  We hunger and thirst for justice, but always come up short. We are merciful to others, but are scorned by many.  We may be pure in heart, but in our lives we must deal with other hearts filled with hatred. We try to make peace among those who profit from controversy and war, but again are scorned and ignored.  And we are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, but continue to live and preach it.  Jesus tells us that “Blessed” are those who suffer these things. To be blessed in this sense means to be honored, made holy.  In other words, to be invited into God’s kingdom where we will see Him face to face, and where all the good and all the pleasure we could ever hope for on earth will be ours.

We will never be fully satisfied in this life for the reason that God has created our souls for Himself.  As St. Augustine put it: “Lord, You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless ‘till they find rest in You.”

            God well knows the value of our souls. He could find no worthier gift for us than His own Body and Blood in the Eucharist.  Our soul is so precious in His eyes that He even assigned an angel to look after each one He Created, our Guardian Angel.  St. Bernard wrote, “How happy we are that our bodies harbor a soul which is adorned by such beautiful graces.”   Knowing the value of souls so well, is it any wonder that our Lord wept bitterly over their loss?

            Before God had the human eyes of His Son to weep with, He borrowed the eyes of His prophets who spoke repeatedly of mourning and weeping, both in repentance and because of the destruction God rains upon us because of our sins. We are miserable when we destroy our soul with sin. It’s like forced dialog in a “B” movie – we know people don’t really talk like that, just as we know that people aren’t really happy when they live in sin, no matter how much force themselves to think they are.  The Prophet Joel (1: 8)  tells us to weep at the loss of souls, as a young wife who has just lost her husband.  The loss of a soul is a great tragedy.

            To understand the value of your soul consider, firstly, that only God, Himself, in the Person of His only Son, Jesus, could pay the price, to Himself, to redeem our souls from the Original Sin of Adam and Eve. And, second, notice that during all our lives we are tempted by Satan to sin and to destroy our soul. It is enough to know he is our enemy, and only with Christ’s grace can we overcome him.  Considering this, we can understand that the only thing we own that has intrinsic or real value is our soul. We often think that gold has intrinsic value, but we cannot take gold into eternity with us.  Now we can easily answer the question that Jesus asked: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mark 8: 36)  It profits him nothing, because to suffer the loss of our soul is to suffer the loss of everything of value.  +++

           

(Thanks to St. John Vianney, Curé of Ars)

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass

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Sermon, 8th Sunday after Pentecost, July 14, 2013

8th Sunday after Pentecost – July 14, 2013

Epistle Romans 8: 12-17            Gospel Luke 16: 1-9

The main idea in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans is that we are unable to produce perfect justice and absolute good without the grace of God. Nowadays many people have a self-centered and pompous idea that the human mind is independent, but we Christians know that we can only be fully moral and honest in life by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know that the Gospel of Christ is the power of God, that it makes unholy people holy and it enriches those souls who search for perfect justice.

            The Jews were proud of the Law of Moses, and rightly so, because the Law gave them greater grace and understanding than the Gentiles had. However, many Jews made their whole virtue consist in the possession of the Law of Moses and thus rejected the Messiah when He came, even though He was the final purpose of the Law. St. Paul asks in Romans 9: 30-33 how it is possible that Israel, following the Law of justice, did not see the Messiah in Jesus but many Gentiles, not following the Law of justice, did reach Him. Paul answers his own question: Because they did not seek Justice by faith and they tripped on the stumbling-stone that Isaiah prophesied at Isaiah 8: 14 and 28: 16, “Behold, I lay in Sion a stumbling stone and a rock of scandal; and whosoever believeth in him shall not be confounded.”

         

          Today’s Gospel reading is a reminder of our judgment. Dom Guéranger wrote that we all have the same very basic vocation – to live, to die, and to be judged. The Unjust Steward in today’s parable was told to give an account of his stewardship. Whatever we have in life, our spouse, our children, parents, money, houses, cars, our personality traits, all the graces God gives us, it is all given for us to use. We will be asked at our judgment if we have used these things for good or for evil. When St. Augustine reflected on the accounting he would have to give of all the graces given to him said, “How unhappy am I, what will become of me, having received so many graces! I am more afraid on account of these graces than on account of the many sins I committed.” We will be asked: “Where are your good works? Where are your prayers which would have rejoiced my heart? Where are your Confessions and Communions which would have caused Me to dwell in your soul?  Where are your penitential works which would have wiped out the temporal punishment for past sins? Where are the Holy Masses that you should have attended which would have brought you closer to Me?” Let’s not appear before Jesus at our judgment with a backpack full of sins. Let’s’ fill them with adoration, prayers and good works and we won’t be so terrified of what is coming.

            There is another lesson in today’s Gospel reading, and that is to encourage us in the giving of alms. As St. John Chrysostom put it: “We are not placed in this life as lords of our own houses, but as guests . . .” We are brought into life whether we wanted to come or not and at a time we did not choose. “Therefore, whoever you may be, know that you are but an administrator of things” that belong to God and that we have only “the right of their brief and passing use.” When we do not administer our wealth in accord with the will of our Master, but abuse it for our own pleasure, we are unjust stewards. Riches possessed by a just man are simply a sum of money.   But riches possessed by an unjust person are a sinful burden of avarice – subject to the risk of loss or theft, a constant source of worry, corrupting their owner with enticements to sin. These  riches are full of poverty. Don’t call your wealth riches. If you do, you will love them: and if you love them, you will perish with them.

St. Gaudentius, bishop of Brescia, Italy, from about 387 to around 410, gives the opinion that the Unjust Steward in this parable stands for the devil. In Genesis, the devil is well depicted as a snake, who is “more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth.” (Genesis. 3:1) In the Latin it is: serpens prudentissimus erat, where prudence is not spoken of as a virtue but as craftiness and cunning. In the parable of the Unjust Steward, the steward cheats his Master in order to ingratiate himself with others who might hire him as a steward when he is let go. The Lord praises him – but not for his goodness. He praises him because he prepared his fraud with such cunning, craftiness and subtleness, like the snake in the Garden of Eden.  By the very phrase “unjust steward” our Lord condemns his wicked prudence. Christ praises him in order to prepare His followers to be prudent, but not venomous; to be wise, but not evil, to use our own cunning and prudence against the Unjust Steward, the devil.

The mammon of iniquity is usually thought of as ill-gotten gains, but there is another interpretation by St. Augustine, that mammon means all the riches of the world however they are obtained.  Consider blessed Job, the undefeated champion of God. Job’s courage was unshakable and he bested every assault of the devil as he came against him with the force of a tidal wave. The more each attempt of Satan appeared irresistible, the higher Job’s patience rose up, superior to every temptation. When Job finally lost everything and stood naked on the Earth, he was truly rich because then his heart was full towards God.  Life and wealth are passing things, but we are called to the fullness of eternal life with our Creator. Eternal life with God is the wealth we seek.

Who can allow us to enter into everlasting blessings except the Lord?  Yet, at the end of the parable Jesus tells us to make “friends of the mammon of iniquity; that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting blessings.” Understand this parable then, that we are to make friends of the poor with our wealth, so that when we die the poor will pray for us and Christ will receive us into His Kingdom. Why make friends of the poor? Because Christ tells us in Matthew 25 that He is poor: “You gave me to eat, to drink, you clothed me, you visited me when I was sick and in prison – that as long as you did this to the least of my brethren, you did it to me.” That’s how Christ is poor. And to be just stewards, we must give to the poor, who are our fellow stewards in need.

The parable of the Unjust Steward doesn’t stand alone in the Scriptures as unproven, because in Luke 19, we see an example of it in Christ’s life. When Jesus was walking through Jericho, Zacheus, who was chief of the publicans, a tax collector and a wealthy man, climbed a tree to see the Lord. When Jesus spotted him, he said, “Zacheus, make haste and come down; for this day I must abide in thy house.” Standing before Him then, Zacheus said, “‘Behold, Lord, ‘the half of my goods I give to feed the poor.’”  We see Zacheus making friends of the poor by means of his mammon of iniquity.  And lest he should be held wicked on other grounds Zacheus added: “’And if I have wronged any man of anything, I restore him fourfold.’” And Jesus said to him, “This day is salvation come to this house.”  +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass