7th
Sunday after Pentecost – July 15, 2012
Epistle Romans 6: 19-23; Gospel Matthew 7: 15-21
In the Epistle reading last week, St. Paul stated in clear
language a central fact of Christian life: “Knowing this, that our
old man is crucified with [Jesus] that the body of sin may be destroyed, and
that we may serve sin no longer,” so that we consider ourselves “to be dead indeed
to sin, but alive to God.” St. Paul
develops that in today’s Epistle.
Our first parents’ original
sin carries down to us today. Our bodies, to varying degrees, are always at the
call of Satan, who never lets us forget our vices. But death comes at last. Our
souls are set free and Satan has no claim on us then. The original sin carried
by our bodies is the “old man” St. Paul talks about, and this old man is buried
under the waters of Baptism. At the moment of Baptism, Satan lost his
possession of us, but throughout our lives he will try to get us back. St. Paul tells us in Romans 6 that we will win eternal life if we serve justice with as
much earnestness as we once served uncleanness and iniquity.
Living a life of sin
degrades us, but Justice blesses us with peace of mind at every step we take in
doing our duty. Once we are baptized we must keep watch over our inclinations
to sin, which comes to life at the slightest encouragement. We are faced with
the life-long job of mortification of the spirit and of the senses. Why are we
called on to live a life like this? Because that’s the way Christ showed us.
Jesus Christ is God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. He humbled
Himself to become like one of us and lived among us for 33 years. In Him was
the Spirit of God and of man. He mortified His Spirit, His Godhead, to become
like us. As a Man He mortified His body even to the point of dying a painful
death in order to redeem us from the Original Sin of Adam and Eve.
The Christmas song, Silent Night,
says the world lay in sin and error pining. The world was pining, yearning
deeply, for the Messiah. As promised, He came and He showed us how to live a
life of freedom, freedom from sin and error. This is true freedom and comes
from living a life of mortification of our spirit of rebellion against Christ
and from mortification of our body. In simple words we restrain, with God’s
help, the deadly sins of pride, greed, gluttony, lust, sloth, envy and anger
(wrath). With God’s help we will serve
justice with as much earnestness as we once served the seven deadly sins.
Dom Guéranger wrote that
there are many souls in hell who have gone through more pain and suffering to
win their damnation than the martyrs endured who died for Christ. Even though
they served Satan well, many did not enjoy even for a single day the vile
rewards he promised them. Justice treats Her followers differently. “She does
not degrade, she does not deceive . . . She blesses [those who keep her] with
peace of mind at every step they take” in doing their duty. “She leads them
safely to the perfection of love.” (Dom Guéranger, 7th
Sunday after Pentecost) Ecclesiasticus 15: 1-8 tells us that he who possesses
justice, shall lay hold of Wisdom: he shall find delights in that divine
Wisdom, which surpasses all that earth could give us.
To live an ordered and
happy life we begin with faith, then proceed to works of justice. This is how we
gain knowledge and wisdom. We do not understand all there is to know about God
or about other people, even those we love, but however much we do understand of
life, we will always have to labor for justice. This is a tiring life, but a
complete life that leads to freedom on earth and joy forever in the Kingdom of
our Lord.
In today’s Gospel, our Lord warns us to “Beware
of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they
are ravening wolves.” Catholics have been spoken of as sheep because throughout
history many have willingly gone to their deaths as martyrs rather than to sin
against God, like sheep going in for the slaughter. Jesus is not speaking here of Catholics who
believe something in error, like some today who hold that without baptism of
water there is no salvation. Some men
will do all in their power to replace the purity of the Word with their own
foolish ideas. The wolves, however, are those who mislead the faithful purely
for their own gain or in order to destroy the Church.
The Catholic
Church has had to put up with these wolves since its beginning. In Acts 20: 29 St. Paul
says, “I know that after my departure, ravening wolves will enter in among you,
not sparing the flock.” These false prophets apparently followed St. Paul
wherever he went, and they have been an irritant to the Church and the True
Faith right up until today. But it is in the battlefield of error that the
Church brings out the armor of God. Our combat against evil is not without dangers.
Our enemy, Satan, has many tricks and is a liar from the beginning. He can stir up in our soul many little
weaknesses, weaknesses which favor error. This may not result in extinguishing
our faith completely, but it can dim the bright life of faith in our lives. However,
we can triumph over lying. We can be faithful to the teachings of Christ and
His Church and in doing so we become ourselves a light to the world.
Prudence is
our guide in our battles against evil. If we practice prudence it becomes a
habit of the mind which allows us to easily tell the difference between false
teachers and the faithful interpreters of our Holy Faith. We study the rules of
our Faith, then Prudence applies our Faith to the circumstances we find
ourselves in at any time. Prudence is itself a virtue, but its function is to
lead us to the right practice of the other virtues. We can understand this when
we realize that without prudence the virtue of bravery will become
foolhardiness, the virtue of mercy will become weakness and the virtue of
temperance will become fanaticism. Prudence allows us to live a truly virtuous
life.
How do we know whether a
virtue we practice is real and will lead us to heaven? I must be sincere; do it
out of love for God. The virtue must be perfect, that is, we must practice all
the virtues not just the ones we are comfortable with. It must be free from
selfishness. Don’t practice virtue in order to look good in the eyes of men.
Lastly, our virtues must be steadfast, that is, we must continue to live a
virtuous life, all our lives and not just for a certain period of time. This is
because the devil will continue to tempt us and try to win us back right up to
our last breath. Apocalypse (Revelations) 2: 1-5
addresses the perfection and perseverance of virtue. Here God is commending the
Bishop of the Church at Ephesus for his many good qualities, but then goes on
to tell him, “But I have somewhat against you,
because you have left your first charity. Be mindful therefore from
whence you are fallen: and do penance and do the first works. Or else
I come to you and will move your candlestick out of its place, unless you do penance.” If God threatened the good bishop of Ephesus,
shouldn’t we be concerned about our own souls?
Many of us do not persevere. We go to confession and the next day commit
the same sins we just confessed. We love God with all our strength for a short
length of time, and then we forsake Him. Why? Look to Satan. Satan is extremely
angry at seeing one of his sinners now in a state of grace, after confessing
his sins and doing penance. We have a common expression that someone is “madder
than hell.” Well, that someone is Satan, and he’ll do everything he can to get
you back under his power where he hopes to keep you. +++
We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass
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