Sermon, 12th Sunday after Pentecost, August 19, 2012

12th Sunday after Pentecost – August 19, 2012

(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 Levite, who was schooled in the Law of Moses and stood up to tempt him today, was one of these. Because the Lord was accustomed to speak of eternal life to those who came to Him, the Levite makes use of this, hoping He might say something against Moses. Jesus 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)

          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. (See the lengthy lists in 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, also an example. As long as he obeyed God he was successful and happy. When he disobeyed his troubles began. His son Absalom got drunk and ran his brother through with a sword. Later David had to hide from Absalom who was trying to depose him as king. A plague killed off many of David’s subjects. King Solomon also: As long as he kept faithful to the commandments he enjoyed the admiration of the world, but when he was no longer faithful everything went wrong.

                                                                                     

If we wish to be happy, as far as we are able to be in this life, we have no other means but to faithfully keep the commandments of God. Our troubles arise when we violate the Law of God. 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 having heaven on earth. Daniel was obedient and still ended up in the lion’s den, but the prophet Habakkuk 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 Old 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 Levite gave the obvious answer when Jesus asked him which of the three was neighbor to the injured man.  Clearly it was the Samaritan, and the Levite answered, “He that showed mercy to him.” The dignity of the Priesthood and the learning of the Old Law, as represented by the Levite, are without profit to us unless it is confirmed by good works, and so Jesus instructed the lawyer, “Go, and do thou in like manner.”

          Our Lord wants to be called our neighbor because He made it clear to us that it was He who took care of the man lying half-dead by the wayside. Samaritan means guardian, and Psalm 120: 4 tells us about His coming: “Behold he shall neither slumber nor sleep that keepeth Israel; and in Romans 6: 9, for “rising again from the dead, [he] dieth now no more.”  The one who keeps Israel is its Guardian. That Jesus is this Guardian 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 He did not deny that He was the Samaritan, the Guardian of the weak.

          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 who are in need, and it doesn’t matter if they are Catholic, Protestant, 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 doing good works.

         

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We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass

Sermon, 11th Sunday after Pentecost, August 12, 2012

 11th Sunday after Pentecost – August 12, 2012

(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 which causes the “brethren to dwell together in unity . .. . For there the Lord hath commanded blessing, and life for evermore.” (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 asks God to forgive the sins that we are too afraid to ask pardon for and asks in a most delicate way that God will “pardon what our conscience fears, and . . . grant what our prayer presumes not to ask.”

            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 a state of holiness and sonship of God, humility allows him never to forget his past sins “because I persecuted the Church”, as he puts 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; and this in order to win over to [Christ] the minds and hearts of all who hear him.” (St. Augustine, Retractations 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 justification, and at the same time 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 a doubts or reservations, 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. 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, teaching us that more miracles are wrought through humility and modesty than through the vanity and pride of public performance. He could have cured the man with a simple word or thought alone, but instead, 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.

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.

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 say to them; Thus saith the Lord . . .” and so on. (Ezechiel 3: 10) In telling us today of the miracle of the deaf and dumb man Mark confirms the words of Ezechiel.

            One sentence in today’s reading is: “And the sting of his tongue was loosed; and he spoke right.” (Mark 7: 35) We would hope that we always speak right, but in speaking about our neighbor, do we not often speak wrong?  Do we not often detract our neighbor in criticizing, censuring and denouncing our neighbor’s acts? Of all bad habits, this is the most common and also the most vicious and most harmful. The harm caused by detracting another is so great that the Curé of Ars has said that it is the cause of most of the souls that go to hell.

Detraction means making known a defect or fault of another unnecessarily, and in such a way as to cause injury to his good name or otherwise. If we tell something bad about our neighbor that is not true, that is calumny. When we detract someone, don’t we invariably add something to the story to make it worse, to make it more interesting? That is calumny, a more serious sin than detraction. St. Francis de Sales warns against calling someone a sinner because he sinned in the past. When Simon saw Mary Magdalene weeping at our Lord’s feet he thought that if Jesus were indeed a prophet he would know that she is a sinner.  (Luke 7:  37) But Simon was wrong, because Magdalene’s sins had already been forgiven. In last week’s Gospel the Pharisee in the temple condemned the Publican in the back of church as being a sinner, but at that very moment the Publican through his humility was justified before God. We deceive ourselves when we think badly of our neighbor even if we have good reason for it. St. Francis de Sales, again, said that since God can forgive the worst of sins in a moment of time. How dare we say that the person who yesterday was a sinner is the same sinner today.

What is our best defense against sinning by detraction and calumny? It’s to keep our mouths shut. Do not spread tales, whether they’re true or not. And how do we confess this sin? It is not enough to say we have slandered someone. We have to say whether it was in humor, from hatred or revenge, or whether we wanted to injure someone’s good name. We must tell who we spoke against, our superiors, our family, persons consecrated to God, and whether we spoke against one person or many. All of this is required to make a good confession. Remember; when we detract someone there is always injury to that person, whether the injury is slight or serious. If someone detracts another person to you, walk away, excuse yourself and go pray for him and for the person he detracts. The Holy Ghost has told us that God hates six things; but the seventh he detests, and that is tale-bearing. (Proverbs 6: 16-19) When we die we will be asking God for mercy. So while we are alive, let us show mercy to our neighbors by not speaking evil of them.  +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass

Sermon, 10th Sunday after Pentecost, August 5, 2012

10th Sunday after Pentecost – August 5, 2012

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

            The destruction of Jerusalem, which we touched on last Sunday, closed out the prophetic Scriptures which were based on the history and institutions of that figurative period when the Chosen People lived under the Law of Moses. The figurative period, which we call the Old Testament, showed and indicated through people and events what was to come, the Messiah and His Church. An example of this is Melchisedech, who was a figure of Christ and His priests.

     Under the New Covenant established by the Messiah the true Mass gives us the unbloody recreation of the Passion and Death the Lord, and is the center of the Church where her life is fixed on God with Christ. The true Mass gives the Church her fruitfulness, her ability to spread throughout the world, showing that the Church is truly catholic, meaning universal.

     Starting today the liturgy departs from the historical books and moves on to the Sapiential Books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus.

     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 saints who had these gifts. The 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 resistance to the new Christian faith by the Roman Empire and by all other peoples was great, yet the Church quickly spread throughout the world.

St. Augustine observed three incredible things: 1) that Christ rose from the dead, 2) that the world believed He did, and 3) that a small number of men from the bottom 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 history of Jerusalem’s fall. “. . .  every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.” The Pharisee, representing the Jews, was proud. This pride destroyed the Jewish nation -- and made possible the salvation of the Gentiles. We today must take care not to fall into the same trap of pride because it 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 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 what we are 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 seek and He will lead us to an eternal Life of joy. +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass