14th Sunday after Pentecost, September 18, 2011

14^th Sunday After Pentecost – September 18, 2011

Matthew 6: 24-33

Our Lord is telling us today not to center our lives on the things of this life. As he puts it, “Be not solicitous of your life, or food or clothing.” This leads us to consider how we order our lives.

There is a right order of things in the universe:

• God created us.
• We are thinking beings.
• We have souls that will live on eternally.
• We have been given dominion over the earth.
• We have been given our bodies to rule over.

When we become too interested in our lives, our jobs, entertainment, clothing, and food – all those things that pass away when we die – it means we make these things so important to us that we no longer serve God. In this life, the latest fashion always gives way to the next latest fashion, and what is “in” this year is definitely “out” next year.

Our Lord pokes a little fun at King Solomon by telling us that even Solomon, with all the wealth and the fancy clothing that he had, was not as beautiful as a common lily growing in the fields.

Note that in today’s Gospel our Lord is not telling us to give up working for a home, food and clothing.  After all, the virtues of justice and prudence demand that we provide these things for our ourselves and our families. But he is telling us that we cannot make these things the center of our lives and at the same time think we are serving God. That is serving two masters, and that Jesus tells us is impossible.

What happens to the right order of things in the universe when we give in to temptation to sin, and how do we change masters? Suppose someone steals something from his employer. He’s happy with what he stole, so his next step then is to rationalize his sin. He tells himself it’s so small his employer won’t even miss it, besides it really should be part of his salary anyway. Eventually the sin of theft disappears and he says “so what, everybody does it anyway.” Then stealing becomes a “normal part of the job,” and next we convince ourselves that we have a “right” to take things.

At this point the sinner has justified his sin. Now he loves his sin. Now he lives his life in service to sin because he has upset the right order of life that God gave us. Part of the right order of life is “Thou shalt not steal.” Honesty is the right order of things. When the man accepts his sin as justified, he is serving mammon, and he can no longer serve God.

Then if someone condemns his actions, the man finds he must in turn condemn the condemnation in order to avoid his conscience.  When he does this, what exactly is he doing? The Word of God is the condemnation of the sin of theft. When he rejects the Word of God, the man next finds that he must reject God so he doesn’t have to listen to this constant preaching all the time, condemning his life of sin. In effect he calls God a liar. He judges God and places himself above God and tries to make God his servant. At this point the man has become a complete servant of his sin and his new master is Satan.

But he’s living in a fantasy world; he’s living an illusion. To avoid bowing to Satan outwardly the man may simply say he believes in a different set of rules. Note the TV preacher, Pat Robertson, who recently said it's okay to divorce a spouse with Alzheimer’s disease and remarry as long as you make sure the sick spouse is taken care of. Never mind taking up your cross every day and following Christ, never mind the promise of fidelity ‘till death do us part. The man in our example can say he loves God but now he belongs to a different religion with a different set of rules. But God is never the servant of man. Eventually the man dies and he enters eternity where God’s right order is established forever.

If someone asks us do we love God, we will, of course, say yes. How do we prove that? We know how God proved His love for us, humbling Himself to become like one of us, suffering and dying for us, and giving us His Gospel of Love. How do we know that we love God? Jesus told us how:  “…If any one love me, he will keep my word. . . He that loves me not keeps not my words. (John 14: 23,24) God’s words, His commandments, His will – these are one and the same thing. God commands us to believe in Him and be faithful to Him. (1^st Commandment) Further, we should be subject to and respectful of our parents and those placed over us. Superiors should treat those under them with kindness and love. We should feel contempt for both the praise and condemnation of others. St. Ambrose, a fellow with a sense of humor wrote, “If any one despises us, we ought not be troubled, but think, on the contrary, that if they really knew us as we are, they would say much worse [things] about us.” If someone condemns us, forgive them and go out of your way to do a good service for them. Accept with patience any sufferings that come our way and make good use of them by coming closer to God.

Our bodies encourage us to do evil, while our conscience and God’s grace encourage us to do good. So to love God is to struggle, to courageously resist all temptations. This is how we shall prove our love of God. This is how we will be able, like the martyrs, to sacrifice everything, rather than sin against God, Whom we love. Nothing in this life will make us completely happy because nothing in the world can satisfy our hearts except the love of God. When we die, everything we possess will pass in to other hands and everyone we love we will leave behind. “Love God, and prove your love by serving Him faithfully, and ardently strive to possess Him, and the love of God will be your salvation at the hour of death.” (St. John Vianney, Sermon, 14^th Sunday after Pentecost.)

When we go to claim this treasure of our love of God at the end of our lives, we will find ourselves in the presence of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost where we will enjoy, as St. Thomas Aquinas put it in his Prayer After Mass, “fullness of content, joy for evermore, gladness without alloy, consummate (perfect) and everlasting happiness.” Through Christ our Lord. Amen. +++

We Celebrate the Traditional Tridentine Latin Mass

Sermon, 13th Sunday after Pentecxost, Sept. 11, 2011

13^th Sunday after Pentecost, September 11, 2011

(Luke 17: 11-19)

Jesus rebukes the ungrateful. To these ten lepers, Jesus gave back their health, their families, their position in the community -- He gave them back their very lives – yet nine out of ten of them didn’t even thank Him. But there is more to this event than just the cure of the ten and rebuking the ungrateful. This event and all events of Christ’s life are filled with meaning.

Today’s Gospel reading records that “He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.” Jews and Samaritans did not like each other. He passes through their midst to demonstrate to them, as it were to reconcile them, that the Messiah and the new Covenant He established now make all factions into one.

Next the Gospel describes the ten lepers. We see from the text that they were standing together because they called out together, “Have mercy on us.” And a short time later, the one who returns to thank Him is a Samaritan. Christ says, “There is no one found to give glory to God except this stranger?” This indicates the ten lepers were composed of Jews and Samaritans, who were driven to live together because of their disease. Again this demonstrates that the Son of God, in the New Covenant, has made all people into one new man. The law of the Gospel is that leprosy of the skin is not unclean, rather, it’s the leprosy of our souls that is unclean. The Samaritan returned because he was miraculously cured by Christ – who he now knows to be God. He fell on his face before Him because he was ashamed of all the sins he now remembers he committed. The Son of God tells him, “Arise, go thy way; for thy faith hath made thee whole.” If faith made whole the one who bowed down to give thanks, then it is lack of faith that destroys those who do not give glory to God for the many favors God gives to them.

In the Parable just preceding the cure of the lepers, the Apostles ask our Lord for an increase of faith. He tells them that the way to increase faith is through humility. Immediately afterward, the Apostles see this in action, when the Samaritan returns and falls on his face to give thanks and glory to God for his cure of leprosy.

We  have much to give thanks for. We can start with our very existence in God’s universe. Thank Him for our mind that sets us apart from the beasts of the earth, for our sight, hearing, taste, touch, our ability to walk and talk. Thank Him for the Mass and the Sacraments. Thank him for our health. Thank Him for our illnesses and setbacks, which allow us to come closer to Him by offering these up to Him as a gift of love. Thank him for our heart, which, as St. Augustine says, He made restless -- until it rests in Him. We know that antsy feeling inside, that feeling that something’s not right. We feel if only we could put our finger on that one thing that is missing in our lives. We know what that one thing is, and that feeling goes away, when we commit ourselves to obedience to Christ and to His Church.

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I want to give a brief recitation now of what we must know in order to make a good Confession. Absolution is given by a priest to a penitent at the end of a good Confession. Of course, we must confess all of our sins, but St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) said that “absolution cannot be given to persons who do not know the principal facts of the faith and the duties of their state of life.”

We have to know the Our Father, Hail Mary and the Creed, which is the statement of our faith. We have to know that the Our Father was written by Jesus, Who is God, that the Hail Mary was written partly by the angel in telling Mary of the Incarnation and partly by the Church. We must know that the Creed was established by the Apostles after Pentecost so when they travelled throughout the world the same mysteries and same religion would be taught to all people.

In the Creed we say I believe in God the Father Almighty, which means He created all things, including our bodies and souls, that the universe did not always exist and that the world will some day be destroyed. We believe that Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, became like one of us in all things but sin, that He suffered and died so that we might merit heaven. We believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, which means there is one Church, the one that Jesus Christ himself founded, that in His Church He deposited all His graces, and that His Church will endure until the end of the world. When we say I believe in the Communion of Saints we must understand that all Christians take part in one another’s prayers and good works, that the saints in heaven pray to God for us and that we can pray for those who are in purgatory. When we say I believe in forgiveness, we must mean that in Jesus’ Church there are Sacraments which remit all sin.

When we say I believe in the resurrection of the body, that means the same bodies we have now will one day rise again, that our souls will return to our bodies to accompany them to heaven or hell as we have deserved. When we say I believe in life everlasting we mean that the next life will have no end, that our souls will last as long as God Himself, who is without end.  When we say from whence He shall come to judge both the living and the dead we mean we believe that Jesus Christ is in heaven, body and soul, and He will return to judge us, to reward the good and punish the bad.

In order to make a good Confession we must also know that the Commandments of God were given to Adam and inscribed in his heart, that afterwards God gave them to Moses inscribed on stone and that Jesus Christ renewed them. We must know the Acts of Faith, Hope and Charity (which is Love) and the meaning of these. Faith enables us to believe all that the Church teaches. We may not comprehend the mysteries of our Faith, but it is Faith that teaches us to believe that God sees us and watches over us. Hope teaches us to do all our actions with the intention of pleasing God, and that our actions will be rewarded throughout eternity. The Love of God consists of our loving God above all created things, and preferring Him above all things, even our own life. This is the love that enables a man to lay down his life for his friends.

We must understand the Incarnation, that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Jesus of Nazareth, took a human body through the operation of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary; that He was like us in all things but sin; that neither He nor his mother Mary suffered the stain of the original sin of Adam which we have inherited. You must also understand the Sacraments, that they were instituted by Jesus Christ and by Him alone; that Baptism wipes out original sin; that the Bishop confers Confirmation which gives us the abundance of graces of the Holy Ghost; that in Penance (Confession) our sins are absolved by the priest; that in Holy Eucharist we receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread and wine. We must understand that the Sacrament of Extreme Unction helps us to die well and cleanses us of the sins we committed with all of our bodily senses. We must know that Holy Orders confers upon a man the power that Christ gave to his Apostles, and we must know that Matrimony sanctifies the union of husband and wife if they are united according to the laws of the Church.

Knowing all this, you will understand that if it comes out in the Confessional that you do not know and understand all these things, or that you are not truly repentant, the priest may withhold or postpone absolution until he is convinced that you do know and that you are truly sorry for your sins. He must do this by the rules that the Church gives him and if he is not obedient to these rules, it is at the risk of his own soul. I hope you can see from this short discussion that all of Christ’s Sacraments are to be taken seriously, and not lightly, because they all have an effect upon our eternal life. +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass

Sermon, 12th Sunday after Pentecost, Sept. 4, 2011

12th Sunday after Pentecost – September 4, 2011

(Luke 10: 23-37)

            While Jesus was going about preaching, there were also those going through the whole country of the Jews attacking Christ and saying that He had said the law of Moses was useless. The lawyer who stood up to tempt him today was one of these. He was a Levite, those who assisted the Priests and were schooled in the law of Moses. Because the Lord was accustomed to speak of eternal life to those who came to Him, the lawyer makes use of this, hoping he might say something against Moses. Our Lord knew the mind of this man, of course, and what he got in reply was nothing but the commandments that Moses laid down – “love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.” (Deuteronomy 6: 5 and Leviticus 19: 18) These Jewish commandments are also Christian commandments, because Jesus Christ did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. (Matthew 5: 1-17)

     Having given us this commandment, God promises to bless us in many ways if we keep His commandments, but if we don’t, we will be cursed in everything we do. (Deuteronomy 28)  The reward for being obedient to God’s commandments is not only eternal joy in heaven, but also blessings in this life. Look at Adam and Eve. As long as they were obedient they led a blissful existence that could have gone on forever. When they disobeyed, their lives became a “valley of tears” and suffering. They had to work hard for their food and shelter, and the fear of death, judgment and punishment replaced their former happiness.  King David is another example. As long as he obeyed God he was successful and happy. When he disobeyed his troubles began. His son Absolom got drunk and ran his brother through with a sword. Later David had to hide from Absolom who was trying to depose him as king. A plague killed off many of David’s subjects. And King Solomon also: As long as he kept faithful to the commandments he enjoyed the admiration of the world, and when he was no longer faithful everything went wrong.

     Our troubles arise because either we or others do not obey God’s commandments. But if we seek to please God and to save our soul we will never want for what we need. This is not a promise of heaven on earth. Daniel was obedient and still ended up in the lion’s den, but the prophet Habacuc brought him what he needed, food.  Elias hid in the woods to escape from Queen Jezebel, but an angel from heaven brought him what he needed to survive. God provided food for the holy hermit, Paul, by means of a raven. All  these were faithful to God and God provided what they needed. 

     After the Levite gives his reading of the law, to love God and neighbor, Jesus tells him to go and do likewise, but the Levite, wishing to justify his uncharitable life asks: “And who is my neighbour?” Then Jesus gives to him and us the parable of the Good Samaritan.

     A certain man “fell among robbers, who also stripped him and having wounded him went away, leaving him half-dead.” The robbers are Satan and his fallen angels, who in the beginning stripped humankind of our adornment of virtue and continue to wound us to this day. They left this man half dead, and they leave us half-dead, because in the part of us that can know and understand God we are alive, but when our virtues have been stripped from us by sin, in that part we are dead. The man in the parable, of course, is Adam, who lay stripped of the means to regain the eternal life that he had lost. Neither the Priest nor the Levite, representing the Law, could restore that to him. The Law of Moses gave us knowledge of sin, but not its abolition, such as we receive absolution in the Confessional.

     The Samaritan in the parable is Jesus Himself. Samaritan means guardian and Psalm 120: 4 tells us about His coming: “Behold he shall neither slumber nor sleep that keepeth Israel;“ for, “rising again from the dead, [he] dieth now no more.” (Romans 6: 9) The one who keeps Israel is its Guardian. This is confirmed in John’s Gospel, when they accused Him, saying, “Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil.” (John 8: 48) Jesus denied that He had a devil, but in His response to this accusation He did not deny that He was the Samaritan, meaning the Guardian of the weak.

     Jesus asks the lawyer, “Which of these three (the Priest, the Levite or the Samaritan), in thy opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among the robbers?” Clearly it was the Samaritan, and the lawyer answered, “He that showed mercy to him.” The dignity of the Priesthood and the learning of the Law, as represented by the Levite, is without profit to us unless it is confirmed by good works, and so Jesus instructs the lawyer, “Go, and do thou in like manner.”

     As St. Ambrose said, “It is not kinship that makes a neighbor, but compassion.” Our Lord told us clearly that we must “Do good to them that hate you.” (Matthew 5: 44) We cannot inquire into the past sins of those in need, and it doesn’t matter if they are Catholic, Muslim, Jew or atheist – if we see someone in need we are required as Christians to come to his aid. Compassion is part of human nature, for nothing is more in agreement with nature than to help those who share our human nature.  We cultivate love of God by being obedient to His commandments. We cultivate love of neighbor by good works.

     Lastly, our Lord also wanted to be called our neighbor because he made clear to us that it was He who had taken care of the man lying half-dead by the wayside. +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass