Sermon, 9th Sunday after Pentecost, August 14, 2011

9th Sunday after Pentecost – August 14, 2011

(Luke 19: 41-47)

Our Lord’s love of Jerusalem is shown by the tears He shed over it. But He told His Disciples of the coming destruction of Jerusalem during what we now call Holy Week,. This happened in 70 AD, and Josephus, a Jew, an historian and a Roman citizen survived the onslaught and recorded what happened to Jerusalem, and his history is in exact accord with what was foretold by Christ. The city was completely uprooted by the Romans and not a stone was left on top of another stone. It was as if the city never existed. The new City of Jerusalem was built over the place where Christ was crucified.

The destruction of Jerusalem was Divine Justice. With few exceptions the people of Jerusalem abandoned the Law of Moses and had given themselves over to the things of this life with no care for their final  judgment. As many times as the books of Moses were read to them in the synagogue they drew a veil over their eyes to block out God’s rules and His mercy. We learn this from Jesus in today’s Gospel, “If thou also hadst known . . . the things that are to thy peace; but now they are hidden from thine eyes.” (Luke 19: 42) Their punishment was the complete destruction of Jerusalem “because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation.” Because they loved the things of this life, they could not recognize the Christ and therefore rejected Him. Read Deuteronomy 28 starting at v. 49 where Moses promised the horrors of 70 A.D. to the Hebrews if they did not obey God. Even the tears of the Son of God could not hold back the justice of God.

The high priest prior to the destruction was Ananus, brother-in-law to Caiphas. The Zealots and gangsters who flocked into Jeruusalem revolted and murdered most of the illustrious people in the city. They took control of the temple and changed the order of sacrifice and installed an ignorant peasant as high priest. Pressed by the troops of Ananus, the Zealots called in Idumean herdsmen to help. They came into the city at night and found the watchmen asleep and killed them. Josephus reports that Earth itself moaned at their approach. In the morning 8,500 bodies were found. It included Anannus the high priest. In the days following the Idumeans murdered 12,000 Jewish men.

Meanwhile, John of Gischala, an ally of the Zealots, broke away and allied himself with the Galileans, giving them permission to rob and murder at will. Jerusalem looked to one Simon, son of Gioras who had 60,000 cutthroat troops in his army. They cheered Simon as a savior when he arrived, and then he began murdering his hosts. John of Gischala and Simon then fought, and in their hatred they burned the massive stores of grain that would have fed both sides for some time. These two were greater enemies to their own people than were the Romans. This was the end of 69 A.D.

With the approach of Passover in 70 A.D. only armed men, old women and children were left in Jerusalem. This last Pasch was a noisy brawl. The Galileans took advantage of the party atmosphere. They disguised themselves and made their way into the Temple where they attacked and murdered as many as they could. Famine now set in on Jerusalem. One woman was found to have murdered her son and ate his remains. People were tortured to reveal where they might have hidden food. Bodies were left to rot in the streets.

Simon and John of Gischala held out for two months against Roman incursions. The Romans built a trench around the city, fulfilling the prophecy of Jesus. Many escaped the city but many of these were disemboweled by Syrians and Arabs who followed the Roman army because they heard that Jews swallowed their gold. In the space of a few months over 600,000 died in Jerusalem. In the Roman’s final assault the Temple was set on fire. The dead bodies were so numerous that the soldiers could not walk on the ground, but walked across the bodies. The city fell on September 1, 70 A.D., after the death of approximately 1,000,000 men.

There is a lesson learned by the destruction of Jerusalem which should never be forgotten: “that no blessing, no past holiness, is of itself a guarantee that the place thus favoured will not afterwards draw down on itself desecration and destruction” because of its sins. (The Liturgical Year, Abbot Guéranger, St. Bonaventure Publications, Montana, 2000.) The Israelites had only figures and a foreshadowing of the fullness of God’s grace and revelation. We have been given everything. Can we imagine what will happen to the Catholic Church because of the sins of its modernist heretics?

In their faithless diplomacy the High Priest and the Council tried to exploit Christ. They said, “If we let him alone [doing all these miracles] all men will believe in Him and the Romans will come and take away our city and nation. . . From that day therefore they devised to put him to death.” (John 11: 47-53) But God’s divine justice cannot be thwarted by men, and so they were destroyed.

In the face of what happened to Jerusalem and of what might happen to us, let us repeat the prayer from the Introit of today’s Mass: “O God, in thy name save me: and, in thy strength, deliver me.” +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass

8th Sunday after Pentecost, August 7, 2011

8th Sunday after Pentecost – August 7, 2011

(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 believe what our Mother Church teaches us, that men 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 into holy people and enriches those souls that 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, they made their whole virtue consist in the possession of the Law of Moses and thus rejected the Messiah, Who 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 reach Perfect Justice, the Lord, Jesus Christ, but the Gentiles, not following the Law of justice did reach Him. He 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.”

           

It’s the mark of a good teacher to place before his listeners, examples that will help them understand the lesson being taught and to apply it to their own lives. This is what Jesus does today in the Parable of the Unjust Steward, to encourage his disciples, and all of us who follow Him, to the practice of giving alms.

The giving of alms is a reminder that nothing we have in this life is truly ours. Rather, we are entrusted as stewards of the goods of our Lord – either to use these goods with thanks to God according to our needs, or to give them to our fellow servants according to their need. It is sinful to indiscriminately use the goods that have been given to us by extravagant spending.

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 not of our own choosing. He who is rich in this moment of time is a beggar in eternity. “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. In the end we all render an account of our stewardship to the Lord.

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 are riches that are full of poverty.

St. Gaudentius, who was 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 later hire him as a steward when he is let go. The Lord praises him – but not for his goodness. Rather, He praises him for his cunning, his craftiness, because he prepared his fraud with such subtle evil.  By the very phrase “unjust steward” the Lord condemns his wicked prudence.

Christ praises him in order to prepare His followers to be prudent, but not venomous; 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 it comprises all the riches of the world however they are obtained.  Consider blessed Job, that 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 superior to every temptation. When Job finally lost everything and stood naked on the Earth, he was truly rich because his heart was full towards God.  Life and wealth are passing things, but we are called to eternal life with our Creator. Eternal life with God is the kind of wealth that brings lasting security.

At the end of this parable Christ tells us to make “friends of the mammon of iniquity; that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting blessings.” So is Christ really telling us to make friends of ill-gotten wealth? Will we be received “into everlasting blessings” if we steal a million dollars and give 10% of it to the Church? Well, Christ is our Judge, and we can’t corrupt Him! So obviously that’s not what He means.

Who can receive us “into everlasting blessings”? Only the Lord.  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 everlasting blessings. Why make friends of the poor? Because the Lord is poor. Christ tells us in Matthew 25 that, “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 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 adds: “’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

Sermon, 7th Sunday after Pentecost ,July 31, 2011

7th Sunday after Pentecost – July 31, 2011

(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 also reckon ourselves “to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God.” Today St. Paul develops that fact.

Our first parents’ original sin carries down to all of us today. Our bodies, to one degree or another, are always at the call of Satan, who never lets us forget our vices. But death comes at last and our souls are set free. Satan then has no claim on us. The original sin carried by our bodies is the “old man”, as St. Paul puts it, and this old man is buried under the waters of Baptism. It’s obvious to adults who have reasoning minds that we must cooperate with the grace given us in Baptism, because our inclination to sin comes to life again and again by the slightest encouragement. St. Paul writes in Romans 6 that we were once servants of sin, but thanks to God we have been freed and made servants of justice. He tells us 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. Ecclesiasticus 15: 1-8 tells us that he who possesses justice, shall lay hold on Wisdom: he shall find delights in that divine Wisdom, which surpasses all that earth could give us. We work for justice as Jacob labored 14 years to obtain Rachel. The name Rachel means “vision of the beginning.” St. John’s Gospel tells us that “In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word was God,” that is, Jesus Christ. Laboring for justice is the Wisdom which shows us God. Justice means the Commandments, and the Commandments prescribe works of justice.

We do not understand all there is to know about other people, even those we love. Neither do we understand all about God, but we begin with faith. To live an ordered and happy life we begin with faith, then proceed to works of justice. We gain knowledge and wisdom, but however much we understand of life, we will always have to labor for justice. This is a tiring life of labor, but it is a complete life that leads to an eternity of joy 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 they have willingly gone to their deaths as martyrs rather than to sin against God, like sheep going in for the slaughter. Today our Lord is telling us to beware of hypocrites, the false prophets who preach a false religion.

Jesus is not speaking here of Catholics who believe something in error, like today’s Feeneyites, who hold that without baptism of water there is no salvation. Without going into the error of Feeneyism, the Church teaches the whole truth, that there is a Baptism of desire, a Baptism of blood and a Baptism of water. Our Lord today is talking about the ravening wolves that hide within and enjoy the peace of the Catholic Church. These are not the faithful who have been misled with false doctrine. The wolves 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. These wolves have included bishops, priests, deacons, brothers, nuns and countless lay persons. They clothe themselves in the garb of Catholics and call themselves Catholics, however, their hearts are not set on heaven but on the things of this life. Again, I am not talking about those who have been misled.

Today’s wolves, the so-called modernists, are especially good at corrupting the faithful with their feel-good religion that preaches that everyone goes to heaven, and their Machiavellian tactics of deception which were later adopted by the communists and so-called progressives. They take two steps forward, and if challenged by the truth, take one step back, and when the pressure is off, then another two steps forward, and one step back if challenged again, keeping this up until they reach their goal of total control and destruction of the One True Church. The wolves have repeated this false pretence of being Catholic and have now captured almost the entire Catholic Church organization. St. John Chrysostom said of these wolves: “There is nothing that so menaces what is good as pretence.”

But again, let’s separate these wolves from those who hold beliefs in error. It is easy to find much goodness in the lives of those who hold some beliefs in error. But among the wolves you will not find goodness. St. Augustine said that it must be the duty of the hierarchy, the Bishops and priests, to feed the flock of the Lord out of love, as Jesus told St. Peter three times in succession at John 21:15-17, “Feed my lambs … Feed my lambs … Feed my sheep.”  And consider further that, “those whose motive in feeding Christ’s sheep is to make them their own and not Christ’s, stand convicted of loving themselves and not Christ. They are moved by the desire to gain glory or power or wealth, and not [moved] by charity, which seeks to obey, to render service, to please God.”

The hypocrites, the ravening wolves, are hidden within the Church and so appear to be pious persons. But start taking away their glory or power or wealth and they will quickly take off the clothing of sheep, bare their fangs and show how great is their hatred of what is good. When they are called upon to walk in the footsteps of Christ, as St. Chrysostom says they are “easily detected because to walk in charity is painful to them. And a hypocrite does not readily choose what is painful. So I will end today by repeating the words of our Lord: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass

Missing 4th & 5th Sundays after Pentecost

I was on vacation and did not publish a sermons for the 4th or 5th Sundays after Pentgecost.

Fr. Rayt

6th Sunday after Pentecost - July 24, 2011

6th Sunday after Pentecost – July 24, 2011

(Gospel Mark. 8: 1-9)

(Epistle Romans 6: 3-11)

In his Epistle today, St. Paul speaks of how Baptism changes our lives through the forgiveness of sins, “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 also reckon ourselves “to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God.”

Three thousand years ago King David was established for us as a type of confession and repentance and of a person being “dead to sin, but alive to God.” After his sin with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband Uriah David was confronted with these sins by Nathan the Prophet. Despite his high position, despite all his wealth and power, David did not resent Nathan for chastising him, rather, he made an immediate and complete confession of his sins and wept with sorrow for what he did. There is a saying still in use today: How far the mighty fall. But it is not the might and wealth that makes great men fall, it is their pride that makes them fall so far. King David rejected that false pride and made a humble and complete confession and repentance of his sins. What we admire today of David is not his wealth and power but rather his humility of heart and love of God. That has survived these past three thousand years, and will continue to survive into the future. David’s wealth and power died with him as it does with all of us.

Today’s Gospel reading tells us of the miraculous multiplication of seven loaves and a few fish. A similar miracle occurred some time previous to this as reported by St. Matthew (Mt. 14: 13-21) and involved five loaves of bread and two fish. Our Lord didn’t always feed people through miracles. If He had, people would have followed Him for the sake of the food and not for what He had to say. In today’s reading we know He saw these people were in danger, because He said, “If I shall send them away fasting to their home, they will faint in the way; for some of them came from afar off,” and so He fed them.

The Apostles still were hesitant to believe in His power, even after the miracles He performed previous to this. And so they asked Him, “From whence can any one fill them with bread here in the wilderness?” Jesus did not rebuke them for their unbelief, and by not rebuking them He teaches us today that we should not rebuke those who are ignorant of the Truth or those who do not understand. Instead He asked his disciples, “How many loaves have ye?” 

After having the people sit down Jesus took the few loaves of bread and gave thanks to His Father – thereby teaching us to give thanks for our daily bread. After giving thanks He did not give the bread to the people Himself, but gave it to His Apostles to distribute, and the same with the fish. In doing this, our Lord shows us that His gifts, the Sacraments and especially the Eucharist, are to be dispensed by his priests, as His Apostles were later to become.

There is a fundamental lesson in today’s Gospel about who Jesus Christ is. He says to His Disciples,” I have compassion on the multitude.” In this statement we see the sympathy and pity of human tenderness that shows us Jesus was fully human. And in the miracle of feeding thousands of people with a few loaves of bread and a few fish we see our Lord’s Divinity. Today’s Gospel is a clear presentation of the truth that Jesus Christ has two natures, one human and one Divine.

Both miracles of the multiplication of loaves and fishes, the one reported by St. Matthew and the one from today’s Gospel, took place on a mountain. Seven hundred fifty years before these events Isaias the Prophet described the coming Messiah saying “the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains.” (Isaias. 2: 2) So long before the Messiah appeared his lofty bearing was described for us.

Who are those our Lord speaks of who “came from afar off?” Certainly some came from a great physical distance, but mystically, the meaning refers to those who after sins of the flesh, and sins of lying, thieving, murdering and whatever, have now repented and come to the service of the Lord. For the more a man sins, the further away from God he is. Those Jews who knew Jesus to be the Messiah came to Him from close at hand, because they had learned of Him through the Law and the Prophets. But the Gentiles who believed Christ, in a manner of speaking came from afar because no sacred writings from their past had prepared them to believe in Him.

A miracle is a supernatural event caused by God, but there are many so-called Modernists in the Church today who reject these miraculous occurrences.  I don’t know why we call them Modernists because there is nothing modern about a lack of faith. The world has suffered from these people throughout its history. Let us call them instead modern-errorists. They don’t believe  in miracles so they want to redefine the word “miracle,” and  tell us that the “miracle” that occurred on these mountains was really an act of sharing, that these people saw that Jesus and His disciples were willing to share whatever they had and so the people also opened their purses and shared the food they had and that’s how all the people were fed. That’s baloney!

This miraculous event is very clearly described for us in the Bible. But what if this event happened the way the Modern-errorists claim,? Then that means the Bible is in error. If the Bible is in error, then it is not the revealed Word of God, and if the Bible is not the revealed Word of God, then it is a short step to saying that Jesus Christ is a fraud and a liar. This shows us what happens when we depart from the faith given to us by Jesus Christ, and handed down to us by those appointed by Him, His Apostles and their successors, the true bishops and priests. When we depart from the True Faith we only end up worshiping ourselves as gods, false gods that is, because we have lost our faith in the true God.

Perhaps these modern-errorists proceed from good faith, or perhaps they want to deliberately destroy the True Faith. In either event, it is a peculiar form of madness when people start thinking they can contradict God, Who cannot be contradicted. +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass