Sermon, 18th Sunday after Pentecost, October 16, 2011

Chapel of Mary, Virgin of the Poor

Society of Our Lady of Guadalupe – San Francisco

                                                               Fr. Raymond A. Olinger                                   

4213 Collinwood Dr., Melbourne, FL 32091-6701

Phone: 321-271-4341

18^th Sunday after Pentecost – October 16, 2011

 (Matthew 9: 1-8)

At Apocalypse 3: 15, 16 Christ, through St. John, addresses the Angel of the Church at Laodicea. It is addressed to all the faithful, but particularly to the Bishop of Laodicea, as he is the angel, the messenger, of Christ’s Church. “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.” This was a warning to the Church at Laodicea and, of course, to us today.

Are you bad or good or lukewarm. If you are lukewarm, what can you do to escape this condition that is so dangerous that God will actually vomit you out of His mouth. The bishop of Laodicea was lukewarm, meaning he led what most would consider an upright life, spending no money on unjust things, opposing vice and corruption, giving no bad example to others, but not giving his all to God. This warning should fill all of us with fear because there are very few in the world who are positively bad, and very few also who are positively good. That places most of us in the lukewarm category, the dangerous category.

How do we know which category we are in? Consider those who never go to Confession or Communion. These are not lukewarm. They are cold. Those who will enjoy the happiness of heaven will be selected from those who make frequent use of the Sacraments. Also, consider those who want to belong to the world and also belong to God. One moment they will be on their knees before God, and the next on their knees to the things of the world, but promising to give themselves to both God and the world, they finally tire of this impossible task and give themselves entirely to the world. These are also not lukewarm.

The faith of a good soul is not content just to believe all the truths of our faith. He loves them and tries to learn what he can about them. The more he hears the Word of God, the more he wants to hear it. He is always aware that God watches him and will judge him at the hour of death. He trembles at the thought of this, and so he seeks to improve himself every day and find new ways to do penance. His hope is firm and his trust in God is never shaken. He never loses sight of the next life, and never forgets the sufferings of Jesus. He thinks of hell at times to picture the eternal agony of sinners who die unrepentant. He will also raise his thoughts to heaven to arouse his love of God. He remembers the happiness of those who prefer God above all things. He does not fear death at all because he knows that death will deliver him from the miseries of life and unite him with God forever. He will do whatever is necessary to avoid the near occasions of sin. He considers that everything that displeases God also displeases him. He sees himself on the bottom rung of a ladder and knows that there is no time to lose to reach the top. So every day he advances from rung to rung, from virtue to virtue, until he enters eternity. This is a good soul.

The lukewarm soul: This soul is not yet dead in the eyes of the Lord because faith, hope and charity are not completely extinguished. However, his faith is without much enthusiasm or devotion. His hope is without much desire, ambition or achievement. His charity is without much generosity or warmth. He does not doubt that the Lord watches over him and will judge him, but even believing this, he does not sin any less. He falls into sin as easily as if he didn’t believe anything. He knows that while he is in this condition he is an enemy of God, but he makes no effort to improve his condition. He confesses his serious sins, but often makes no serious effort to amend his life or do anything to merit the happiness of a life of grace. If you talk to him about heaven he is uninterested. He is bored with the Word of God. He dislikes long prayers. He does not seriously consider the next life. The devil easily convinces him to make resolutions to do better, but this never changes the way he lives. For twenty years or more he has made good resolutions, without every losing any of his bad habits. God will send the lukewarm soul a cross to bear to help him detach from this world and bring himself closer to God, but instead he is bitter and complaining and often gives in to despair. He asks what he did to deserve this, as if there were other souls guiltier than he who have not received the same cross to bear. He is not seriously interested in making himself acceptable to God.

Each of us needs to examine our own souls to see if we stand with the sinner, the good souls, or the lukewarm. Which of us can say we are not a sinner, not lukewarm, but definitely one of the elect?  The lukewarm souls is in greater danger than those who live in mortal sin. A sinner will sincerely repent when his conscience awakens. But a lukewarm soul never thinks of quitting that state and can even fool himself that he is in good standing with God. What can we conclude from that? The same thing God has concluded and told us about in the Apocalypse: “I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.”

The worst sinner is more easily converted than a lukewarm soul. If you wish to shake yourself out of lukewarmness, then in your mind take yourself occasionally to the entrance of hell. Listen to the howling and shrieking of the lost souls and you will get an idea of what suffering they go through because during their lives they neglected their salvation. Raise your thoughts also to heaven to behold the glory of the Saints who during life fought the devil at every opportunity, who lived for God, and who loved their neighbors as themselves. Think about how the Saints forgave those who persecuted them,  how they carefully avoided the near occasion of even the least sin, and how many tears they shed over their past sins. Let us pray with our whole hearts that God will grant us the grace to follow the footsteps of the Saints and that at the end of life we find ourselves in the state of a good soul and so gain eternal bliss with God in heaven. +++

(Thanks to St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, for today’s sermon.)

We Celebrate the Traditional Tridentine Latin Mass

Sermon, 17th Sunday after Pentecost, October 9, 2011

Chapel of Mary
Virgin of the Poor
Society of Our Lady of Guadalupe, San Francisco

17th Sunday after Pentecost – October 9, 2011

(Mt. 22: 34-46)

            Just before the incident in today’s Gospel, Jesus silenced the Pharisees about the coin of tribute, telling them to “render to God the things that are God’s and to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Following that, He silenced the Sadducees concerning the widow who married seven brothers, asking in heaven whose wife she will be. He told his tempters that in Heaven there is no marriage so she is wife to none of them. However, the Pharisees approached Him again trying to snare Him with the question of the greatest commandment. This is the way of all teachers of error -- they never stop talking, but are silent in the face of  truth.

            A certain Pharisee and doctor of the law asked our Lord, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” Certainly all the commandments of God are great, so this questioner thought no matter what Jesus answered, the Pharisees would have a pretext to attack Him. But Christ gave this gentleman more than he expected. By His own authority, Jesus clearly tells him, and us, that the first and greatest commandment is to love God with our whole heart, soul and mind.

            Jesus did not say, “Fear the Lord thy God.” He said love Him. Fear comes from coercion, having to do things under threat of force. Slaves are in fear of their masters. But love comes from liberty and is the character of children. The Hebrews called God “Abba” which translates best in English as Daddy. Children love their daddies with all their hearts, and that is the kind of relationship we should have with God. Children also stand in awe of their daddies because of daddy’s size and power, and that is what is meant when the Bible says “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” To stand in awe of God is the beginning of wisdom. Having said this, it is also good to fear the punishments of God. Let that kind of fear lead us to love Him.

            To love God with our whole heart means we are to love God more than all other things. To love God with our whole soul means to hold on to the truth we have been given, to be obedient to God and firm in our faith. One who loves God with his whole mind puts all his faculties at God’s disposal; that is, his understanding serves God, his wisdom concerns Godly things, and his thoughts dwell on God’s blessings. You can see from this that God wants us and He wants us completely. If you give yourself to our awe-inspiring God then Psalm 118 v. 99, 100 (KJV 119) will become a part of you: “I have understood more than all my teachers” and have “understanding above ancients: because I have sought thy commandments.” This is the reward in this life of loving God with our whole heart, soul and mind and our neighbor as ourselves – an understanding of all of the Law and the Prophets, or as Christ put it, “On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.”

            The first three commandments deal with the love of God and the remaining seven with love of neighbor. If we do what Christ tells us, we will become “wiser than the ancients.” What this means in a practical sense is that we will be wiser than all the philosophers throughout history who either did not have the advantage of knowing Christ (e. g., Plato, Aristotle) or who have rejected Christ in their own peculiar system of thought (e. g., Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell).

            Our Lord continued in His answer to the Pharisees, telling them that the second commandment is like the first: “Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.”  Psalm 10: 6 KJV 11:5 tells us that one who loves sin hates his own soul. So one who loves sin does not love his neighbor as himself, because he does not love himself. He hates his soul and loves sin. It is clear from Christ’s parable of the Good Samaritan that all men are our neighbors. Jesus also lets us know that He, Himself, is our neighbor because He is the Samaritan who helped the man left for dead on the side of the road in that parable. So, a love of God that doesn’t include Christ, our Neighbor, is of no help to our salvation. If we love our neighbors, we love God, because our neighbors are made in his image.

            Had these Pharisees believed that Jesus was the Son of God they would not have tempted Him. Jesus did not want to tell them straight out that He was God, because they would have thought that was blasphemy which would have inflamed them to kill Him. It was not time for that yet. So He asked them such a question, that the question itself would tell them Who He was and tell them also that He knew the deceit in their hearts. He asked: “What think you of Christ? Whose son is he?” They answered “David’s” because they thought the Messiah would be only a man, not the Son of God. But Jesus immediately corrects them by quoting the testimony of King David, the Prophet, concerning the rule of the Messiah and the true nature of His Sonship and the dignity He shares with His Father.

            Jesus asked them, “How then doth David in spirit call him Lord saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand: until I make thy enemies thy footstool?’” (Psalm 109, KJV: 110) This tells the Pharisees and us that Jesus Christ is a son of King David, through his family line, because Christ is a man. It also tells us that Jesus is David’s Lord because Christ is God and Lord of us all. That is how the Prophet David could make such an odd-sounding statement.

To sit at the right hand of God means to abide in equality and dignity with the Father. The word “until” is used for indefinite time It’s as if to say, “Sit thou at my right hand, and let Thy enemies be forever beneath Thy feet.” Jesus tells them this so they might begin to fear Him, to stand in awe of Him. We are told in the Psalms and in Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus that, “Fear is the beginning of wisdom.” As I said earlier, “To love God with our whole heart” means “our wisdom concerns Godly things,” and this kind of Godly wisdom would lead these Pharisees to say of Jesus what Peter said, “Thou are Christ, the Son of the Living God.” (Matthew 16: 16) So you see that to be put beneath the feet of the Lord as His footstool lowers our standing, but if it causes us to fear him, it is also for our salvation.

Well, all this was too much for the Pharisees in today’s Gospel reading. Later on they tried to explain that David’s Lord was Abraham, but this doesn’t make sense. Read Psalm 109 (KJV 110). Abraham was not begot before the day star, nor was Abraham a priest in the order of Melchisedech. It was Melchisedech who offered bread and wine to Abraham.

Had the Pharisees asked these questions of Jesus to learn from Him, Jesus would not have put before them this question of what King David meant. But whatever wisdom they possessed was earthly wisdom, not wisdom of the things of God, and so they couldn’t answer our Lord. In fact they were brought to a halt, and from that time on no one tempted Him or tried to trick Him into blasphemy. +++

     We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass