Sermon, 20th Sunday after Pentecost, Oct 30, 2011

20th Sunday after Pentecost – October 30, 2011

(Jn. 4: 46-53)

“And prayed Him to come down and heal his son.”

          A reading of St. Luke’s Gospel will tell you that every step of the Lord was marked by an act of benefaction. A benefaction is the giving of a benefit. In Luke’s Gospel we see one miracle after another: curing diseases, raising people from the dead, preaching with the authority that only God could have. Everyone who came to him was helped, every sinner heard his consoling words, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.”

          What our Saviour was to the sick and needy while He walked on earth, he still is to them today. We are assured of this because St. Paul tells us, “Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today: and the same for ever.” (Hebrews 13: 8) He is still our consoler, helper, Savior and dispenser of grace in good times and in bad. Just as He once healed the sick with His own hands, so now he allows them to receive His grace and His aid in a Sacrament which He instituted and established for the consolation of the sick. This is the Sacrament of Extreme Unction.

          When we are ill and lying in pain and discomfort on our sickbeds we are in great need of consolation and aid and ease of mind. If we are very ill, thoughts of eternity fill our mind and our sins weigh heavily upon us. We are uneasy and anxious. We think of our coming judgment, and that is when we especially need a consoler to give rest to our suffering soul. We will find that consoler  with Jesus. “Come to me, all ye that are heavily laden and weary and I will refresh you.” (Matthew 11: 28)

          In His great charity, Jesus would not have left us without help and consolation in the most critical hour of our lives. That is why He instituted a special Sacrament for the sick and dying. St. James assures us that Extreme Unction is a Sacrament of the Church when he writes: “Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man: and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him.” (St. James 5: 14,15) These are the words in the Bible with regard to Extreme Unction.  Unction means an anointing. The Apostle James would not have instructed the faithful to turn to the priests of the Church so they might receive God’s grace and forgiveness for their sins through this Sacrament if they had not been empowered and ordered to do so by Jesus Christ. Consider also that the remission of sins is one of the chief effects of this anointing and prayer. No man, not even the Apostles, could order or establish a means to forgive sins. Only Christ, who has been given all power in heaven and in earth (Matthew 28: 18), could do this. Therefore, Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Extreme Unction.

          A partial listing of Church Fathers who wrote of this Sacrament includes: Tertullian (200 A.D.), Hippolytus of Rome (215), Origen (244), St. Ahtanasius of Alexandria (341), St. John Chrysostum (386), St. Ambrose (390), Cyril of Alexandria (412) and Pope Innocent (416).There were many others.

           Having first been absolved of his sins in the Sacrament of Penance, the first effect of holy Unction is an increase in sanctifying grace, bringing the person closer to God. The patient also obtains the mental relief of his sins and alleviation of his suffering. One effect then is that holy Unction will assist the patient in regaining health. It is also the will of God that we do all we can to heal our sickness. We should honor and obey our physician because he, too, was sent from God.

          “As sure as Christ is the son of God, so surely will He help a sick person in this Sacrament, if it is received in true faith, with a lively confidence and a contrite heart. Of course, many who have received Extreme Unction have not recovered, but that is not the fault of the Sacrament. They have either not received it in the proper spirit, or, it was not best for the salvation of their souls that they should be restored to health.” There are many who have led Godless lives and are thrown upon a sickbed to face eternity in order that they will reform and come to God. Many do come to Him in this situation, arriving at a knowledge of their sins and doing penance. Many of these God does not return to health because he knows that if they are healthy again they will return to their lives of sin and forfeit their inheritance, their salvation. (1 Peter 1: 3,4 & 10)

          If a sick person is unconscious and unable confess his sins to the priest, the Sacrament of Extreme Unction will also forgive those sins as St. James has told us. Holy Unction makes us worthy to be received into heaven, into which nothing impure shall enter. (Apocalypse 21: 27) All baptized Catholics have this Sacrament available to them, whereby we may partake of all the graces and mercies of our Lord, and which will “give us aid and consolation, relief and ease of mind, purification from our sins and courage to combat victoriously the terrors of death. Amen” +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass

Established in Perpetuity July 14, 1570, A.D., by Pope St. Pius V in his Bull Quo Primum Tempore.

19th Sunday after Pentecost, October 23, 2011

19th Sunday after Pentecost – October 23, 2011

[Gospel: Mathew 22: 2-14]

Drunkenness is a disgrace in the eyes of men and women. Many people make light of it and excuse it, but drunkenness is a sin. Very few of those addicted to drink will ever break themselves of it.

The consequences of drunkenness are so enormous to the drinker, to friends, family, co-workers, even strangers, that they cannot be fully traced and reported. The drinker ruins his health, his family and his career and brings upon himself the loathing of others. “When we want to persuade a sinner to renounce his sins, we hold up to him the example of Jesus Christ and of the saints; but the drunkard is so low that the example of beasts is held up to him,” telling him he could learn moderation from the beasts of the world.

In ancient Sparta, whose people are characterized by abstinence and moderation in food and drink, they would make a slave drunk and parade him in front of the young people of the city to show them how unreasonable this vice was of reasonable creatures. Even these pagans “would not give way to a passion which reduced man to such disgraceful condition.”

Drunkenness does not give way with old age. The reason is that intemperate people lose their faith, lose piety, have no respect for anything sacred, and almost nothing is capable of opening their eyes to their unhappy state. If you remind them of death, judgment and hell, or of the happiness that God has prepared for those who live a good life, you might get a scornful or patronizing smile, as if they tell you, “I am not a little child who believes everything he is told.” Their God is drink, and they cling to it.

St. Basil (329-379 A.D.) said a drunkard is a receptacle for the garbage of a saloon. The drunkard is often sickly and incapable of doing anything except ruining his health. He is so ignoble, so low, that even the world, as bad as it is, holds him in contempt and sees him as a public nuisance. Could you find a good father who would give his daughter in marriage to a drunk? Or a young girl who would accept marriage to a drunk? No respectable people want to be in their company.

The Council of Mainz (813 A. D.) proclaimed that drunkards violate all the Ten Commandments. You may even be acquainted with one who has done just that. “St. John Chrysostom said to the people of the City of Antioch: ‘Take care, my children, not to give way to drunkenness, because this sin so disgraces mankind, that it lowers them beneath the unreasoning animal. Alas, dear brethren, must not this sin be terrible in the sight of God?’”

All of this should give you an idea of the enormity of the sin of intemperance, but even so, we have a very limited knowledge of the widespread malice worked by this sin.

The drunkard turns every occasion into an occasion to drink, and always has an excuse for his misconduct. You say you drink to conduct business, to improve the ambiance of a social affair, but one drink impairs your ability to think clearly in business and lowers your resistance to sin in social affairs.   Arise from your stupor, drinker, to the cries of your wife and children whom you have treated poorly. How many times have you promised to change your life, each time the promise broken? What do you deserve for your drinking? Nothing better than hell. If you do not repent, you will be the victim of the justice of God which will fall heavily on you for all eternity. Go to Confession, do penance and cry to Heaven for mercy.

Ask God to preserve you from this awful sin, which makes it so difficult, in fact, almost impossible, for those addicted to alcohol to save their souls. Lead a temperate, good life, so that you become a treasured ornament to your faith, your community, and to your family. Follow the path that leads to eternal happiness.

Alcoholics Anonymous is your best hope for living a happy and sober life. Why is that? Because AA requires you, in order to stay sober, to change your whole life and it provides 12 steps to lead you to permanent sobriety and from there to a happier life.

The Parable of the Wedding Feast also tells us we have to change our whole lives. Its spiritual meaning is clear and easy to understand. The wedding of the King’s Son is the Church, as Origen tells us. The servants sent to call the guests are the Prophets. Those who were first called are the Jews, the Chosen People of God. Some of these ignored the invitation and went their own way, some others killed the Prophets. The king then sent “his army and destroyed those murderers and burnt their city.” This was accomplished by the Roman Army in 70 A.D. when it completely destroyed Jerusalem.

The highways in the parable refer to anyone outside the Jewish nation, so the second group called were any people among the Gentiles whom the Apostles could find who would accept the invitation of the King to come to the wedding feast, the Church. Anyone who gives ear to the Word of God is invited – it doesn’t matter who they were or what they did before the call. However, in coming to God’s Church, they must put on proper wedding garments, and these are listed by St. Paul in Colossians 3 as mercy, benignity, humility, modesty and patience. In short, to come into the Church means to change our lives from the sinful life we led before the call, to a life of mercy (love and charity), to benignity (kindness), to humility, modesty and patience. If we do not do this, the King will come to the Feast and see that we are still wearing our sins of the past, that we have not repented, and he will throw us into the exterior darkness which is hell. This tells us that before we are admitted to Heaven we will be judged on how we lived our life. We will stand silent in the face of our sins at our judgment, just as the man without the wedding garment stood silent because there is no defense of sin. +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass.

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