Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. October 30, 2018

October is quickly upon us. I mention this because, in October, we celebrate Pro-life month. We celebrate the gift of life given to us by God through Jesus—the image of the Father. Indeed, then Life is something to celebrate.
When we think of Pro-life, when we are called to promote life, we can, however, easily slip into the tendency to think of all the things the Church is against. Many there are who today speak of the current pro-life movement, not a “pro,” but as an “anti-movement,” i.e., anti-choice, anti-abortion, movement, etc., etc., etc.

Now, it is essential to know all the things the Church is against - we are against the evils of abortion, we are against in-vitro fertilization, experiments on human embryos, embryonic stem cell research, we are against euthanasia, artificial contraception, abuse of any kind, and against any sin against the life of the human person. By why are we against these things? The reasons have to do with so much more than prohibitions or thou shall not’s. In fact, when one understands the Church’s teachings correctly, one actually desires to follow them, for they are Spirit and Life.

I remembered a beautiful pro-life talk given by Pope Emeritus, Benedict, when he celebrated a family life conference in Spain, shortly after being named Pope. In this talk, Benedict never once spoke of prohibitions, the things that the Church is against. Instead, he spoke of the beautiful love of family life, which is the beginning of life for the whole human race. He was asked by the reporters why at the conference he was not speaking of those things the Church condemns, the evils she speaks out against? Pope Benedict responded by saying that he desired to put the conversation on, the wonderful riches of family life.

Pope Benedict back then was reminding us all that we have much to say in the wealth of our teachings about life and the family, and not just the negative restrictions-Pope Frances does the same. Actually, if we cannot understand the beauty of the life of the family—the domestic Church, which is called to be a school of love, then we cannot understand why the Universal Church is against certain things, certain things which actually destroy the family, as intended by God, and leads to a destruction of the abundant life that God wishes to bestow on all human persons.
So Today, on the threshold of the month dedicated to family and life, I’d like to again stress the wonderful good news of family life. Even though this message is often neglected in our world, today the Church wants to give us the good news of life—the Gospel of Life!

The first good news about life is that we have been created by Love, in Love, and for Love. In the beginning, Adam was created alone. This being alone did not only mean that Adam was alone without eve, but that the human being (both male and female) was alone amongst all the other creatures of the earth. The Human being was alone because he was different from the animals. Only the human being was made in God’s image and likeness, and so only the human being was and is given freedom. But what is this freedom of the human person?

It is the freedom to choose to the good and not the evil, the truth and not lies, life and not death, the freedom to choose to love and not hate, the freedom to offer oneself as a gift to the other—which is the fundamental truth about love. In this freedom, man is self-determining, in other words, he can choose to love or to sin, and by his free choice he actually creates or determines who he becomes and whether he will live a truly authentic human life in happiness, not only in heaven but beginning here on earth.

Here we discover that choice is what defines Man. To love is to freely choose our friend, to live for the other more than our self-to freely choose to give our self as a gift to our friend! This choice to love our friend begins with our relationship with God; Our Lord said in the Gospel of St. John- (15:15-16), “…I have called you friends, ...You did not choose me, I have chosen you.” I want here to emphasize the word choose or choice.

Each one of us through the grace of baptism has entered into friendship with the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. We are grafted into the Life and Love of the Most Holy Trinity, because this God, out of love, chose us while we were still sinners; as a result, the Blessed Trinity at our baptism actually began to live within us. For us humans then, the greatest act of freedom for us is not only to choose our friend-but to choose our highest friend, who is God. We choose him by giving Him the gift of our self, in and through all of the actions of our life, freely chosen. St. Pope John Paul II, stressed this over and over again in His teaching on family life. He never wanted us to relinquish our stance as pro-choice but understood in this correct way.

So, for us then, we Catholics are anything but anti-Choice. But we must use our choice correctly, because it is possible for us to chose wrongly, to chose things knowingly or unknowingly that actually destroy our freedom, happiness, and even our eternal life. We must always use our freedom of choice, to choose the truth in love. We must use our freedom to choose the path of life, not death; this is what pro-choice really means.

Choice is a word we as Catholics do not want to surrender to the modern culture, which chooses “self” over the other, which chooses death over life. It elevates selfish “choice” above everything else. And by doing this we are really elevating ourselves--the one who makes the choice, and putting ourselves as equals with God. Then we apart from God, begin deciding what is good and what is evil-true & false, what is a good choice and what is a bad choice. We then deny that we can make bad Choices, choices which on the surface appear good but which are bad because they go against reality, against God’s original design and purpose for life

We, as Catholics, want to tell the world that the choice for love is the greatest act of freedom for the human person. We are only truly free when we freely choose to love by choosing life. However, we destroy human freedom when we make bad choices such as to kill the unborn child, the mentally or physically disabled, the sick or elderly person. But I would argue, these bad choices can be the result of a misunderstanding of Human life at its very source, the sexual embrace.

The most visible human choice of love is that of a friend- to choose a lifelong spouse. The Church considers this choice of love between a man and woman, a Sacrament. The spouses promise to love, honor and obey each other freely for the rest of their lives, to freely give of themselves as a gift to each other, to lay down their lives for the sake of the other. They then carry out this oath before God and His Church by consummating it in a Sacramental marital embrace where the two literally become one flesh. In this act, God Himself wants to be present so much so, that in this act of love, a new, unique and unrepeatable life is conceived. The Church therefore, is not against sex, it is pro-sex; it has raised sex the level of the Sacred, to the level of a Sacrament. But just like anything sacred it must be used in a sacred way, that is in accordance with God’s design and God’s plan or otherwise it becomes profane, secular and dirty.

This choice of love within marriage is a covenant, which means it symbolizes the very love that Christ the bridegroom has for His bride the Church. This a love in which Christ offers Himself, His life, totally to each member of the Church. And just as mysteriously, married love somehow reflects the very love and union between the members of the Holy Trinity-Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who eternally give of themselves totally one to the other.
The married couple, of course, struggles to live out this love-it entails much self-sacrifice. The great fruit of this work however, is their children, conceived in the physical act, yes, but an act which expresses their intimate love for one another (but by the way does not cause it). The husband and wife welcome new life into the world as a blessing, not as a curse.

As a priest, I have had the privilege to observe families as they welcome a new life into this world. As they asked me to bless this new life, my heart was filled with joy at seeing the new mom and dad absolutely amazed at the miracle of their baby. All of their self-sacrifice, their self-denying, for love of one another, as born fruit in life-a new creation, made in God’s own image and likeness.

I have also seen this love in couples unable to have their own children. In the face of such suffering, these couples had a difficult choice to make. In reflection and prayer, they decide to follow the wisdom of the Church by adopting children. They decide they do not want to use their choice to conceive children in a way that goes against God’s beautiful plan for the sexual embrace; they refuse to allow misdirected science to replace a child conceived within the sacramental, loving, self-giving marital embrace of a man and women.
The adopting couple know that to go outside of this Marital embrace, even if done so with the best intentions, removes conceiving a child from the act of a free choice between the husband and wife expressed in the self-giving act of love where two become one flesh. They know, with the Church, that new life can never be separated from the gift of self-giving expressed in the marital sexual act.

The sorrow of not being able to have their own child gives way to the joy of true parenthood. The joy and love of taking a child, who might have had a lonely or abusive life, and bringing that child into their home is wonderful. I have seen these adopted children drink in, soak in the love of their parents, truly becoming a son or a daughter who realize their adopted parents as their real, true parents, all of them together becoming a true family.

I have also seen the great gift of love in long married grandparents, even in their last days that are filled with sickness and sorrow. I recall reading about a man who cared for his wife during her long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. This man cared for his wife at home with the help of some family and friends. Towards the end of her life, the poor wife even forgot who her husband of more than 60 years was. Yet, the man said that he loved his wife in her pitiable state even more than the day they married. She was still the apple of his eye, his beloved wife. She later died in his arms, gently falling into the sleep of death. What a beautiful testimony of the choice of love, the choice of life.

Today the Church recalls us to the greatness of the love of family life. How beautiful the love of the family is, how many riches it holds; that is, the family lived in imitation of the family of the Blessed Trinity, always choosing to love, always choosing to be open to life, the members always struggle with the help of God’s grace to offer themselves as gift to the other. Truly, authentic Christian family life gives life to the world!

The Church too, in celebrating life, wants to speak to the hearts of those who have used their choice wrongly, whether intentionally or unknowingly. For those who have made mistakes and failed in the choice for love and for life, the Mercy of God is available to you! God’s mercy is always greater than any of our sins, if we but only seek it through sincere repentance. The redemptive power of Christ, who came not to condemn but to give life, is available to all of us in the Sacrament of Confession. In the Sacrament, there is healing for your pain and sorrow… Behold, in Christ, all things are made new.

Beginning today, and throughout the coming month of October, let us pray, in a special way, that family life would be strengthened and sanctified. The bonds of love lived out in authentic choice have been attacked in our culture of death; it is a culture of anti-life; but we are not, we are pro-life and pro-choice, we stand for the beauty and life-giving love of the family, we stand for and defend love, and offer ourselves as gift for the life of every human Person, from conception to natural death. Let us turn to the Holy Family for help.

Let us pray: Jesus Mary and Joseph of mercy on our families. Jesus Mary and Joseph, heal our families. Jesus Mary and Joseph, save our families! Amen.

Who do YOU say that the Son of Man is?

Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 16th, 2018

This past Friday we celebrated the feast day of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. It reminds us that it is by the Holy Cross of Jesus that we are saved. Jesus, true God from True God, begotten, not made, one in being with the father, from Whom, in Whom and through Whom, the Eternal Father created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, reached down to earth as one of us, in all things but sin, yet still remaining Who is He was, is and always will be, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity—The true and Living God. This Divine Person, allowed Himself to be betrayed by His own, suffer His Passion, and be crucified. He died and was buried, but on the third day rose again in the body in order to be present in the body in the Holy Eucharist as our Heavenly Food, our only Food, for eternal life.

In light of this Eternal Truth, today, Jesus ask us, as he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” Each of us can come up with our own answers to this question? But today Jesus also is asking us the next question that he posed to his disciples, “Who do YOU say that I am?

The answer to this question may require deeper reflection than we may at first suppose. We, who believe the above-mentioned statement—that Jesus was and is the Son of the Eternal Father, who died for us, can quickly reply with the words of Peter, “You are the Christ!”

I would like to suggest that today, Jesus is asking these same questions to you and me in a different way, precisely to get us to reflect more deeply. In a different way, yes, but yet, the answers to these questions posed differently are inseparable to our answer to, “who Jesus really is?”

And so, in a different way, the first question; Who do men say is the Catholic Church? Now, we could answer; “Some say, merely a human institution, created by men, to be the opium of the people and keep them down; others, it is an institution from which sprang Western Civilization, which is and has been the cause of all the atrocities in the last two thousand years and which has and is preventing the building up of the Kingdom of men, and so peace on earth;” Others, say, an organization, that though it has done some good things in the past, nevertheless, its time has come and gone?” And finally, others, “it is a corrupt, evil organization, filled with sexually perverted priests, and the bishops who cover for them, and it needs to be wiped off the face of the earth and done away with once and for all!”

And now the Second Question posed to us today, in a different way; Who do YOU say is the Catholic Church? The answer to this question as I said, is intricately connected to the answer to, “who is the Person of Jesus Christ?” And Jesus requires that each of us give him an answer. Today, has as always been the case in the Last two thousand years, it is impossible to be indifferent to his question personally posed to each of us.

For my part, today, I answer, “The Catholic Church is truly the Mystical Body of Christ on earth, inseparable from Her Head, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father. She is the Immaculate Bride of Christ, spotless and undefiled; She came forth from the pierced side of Jesus as He hung on the Cross, as Eve was brought forth from the side of Adam; And so, She is a Divine Institution, but made up of human children, who though sinners, some great, some small, have come forth from her maternal womb, the baptismal font, by being immersed in the blood and water still flowing from the Living Sacred Heart of Her Divine Spouse.

And so, She is our true Mother on earth. And Her faithful children love her no matter what evil some of her sinful members may be guilty of, for She is our Mother who from Her own breasts feeds and nourishes us through Her Sacraments of salvation, especially the most Blessed of which is Jesus, Her Risen Head, in the flesh, and so still present on earth in His body.

These same Sacraments were instituted by Christ Himself, and are administered by Him, to us her children, through the hands of sinful instruments like me; that is, through the men that He Himself has mysteriously chosen, and ordained and consecrated to be His Alter Christi on earth—His other selves, the priests and the bishops. The first twelve of whom, He posed the questions we heard in the Gospel today. And to the one who answer, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father,” Jesus chose him to be the head of the rest, the first Pope, St. Peter, who though he would go on to deny Jesus publically, nonetheless repented and followed where his master trod, himself being hung on a cross, albeit upside down. But also from whom, these first twelve bishops and priests, sadly, came Judas-a bishop and a priest and the one who would betray Jesus in secret, and with a kiss, abandoned Him up to the those who would crucify Him.

Today, Jesus begins to teach us anew, that like Him,

the Catholic Church must suffer greatly
and be rejected even by the elders, the bishops, and the priests,
and be killed, and rise after three days.

He speaks this today openly to all of us.

As His Mystical Body, The Catholic Church and her faithful members, especially Her faithful priests and bishops, will surely go where He Himself as trod. She too, and her faithful members, especially her faithful priests and bishops, like Her head, will be abandoned by their own, rejected by their own, betrayed by their own. She and her faithful members, especially her faithful priests and bishops, will enter into Her passion, and be crucified; for, Where I am there, surely there will my Disciples be. Jesus, as the Head, has suffered His passion and crucifixion, so too, the Holy Church.
But then, She, appearing to be dead to all the world, will rise again in glory and then through Her, as never before, Jesus, will draw all men to Himself, in and through the Holy Eucharist in which He is contain in all the fullness of His Humanity and in all the fullness of His Divinity.

The Church in these recent years has been truly been suffering her passion, and now it intensifies as never before, for Her crucifixion is near. She is, right now, truly being betrayed from within, from her own members, not only Her clergy but Her laity alike. But woe to whom the Holy Church, the bride of Christ is betrayed, “it would be better for them if they had never been born,” for betrayal of Her, is betrayal of Him (cf. Mt. 26;24). Being ransacked are Her sacred altars on which Jesus continues to pour out His precious blood as an offering to the Eternal Father for the sins of the whole world; Her tabernacles in which He waits day and night as a prisoner of love for souls to come to Him, are being abandoned….I ask you, “has there ever been a greater betrayal of love, of He who is Love, than this!

May we not be like Peter, and take Jesus aside and rebuke him: “Heaven forbid Lord that this happen to your Mystical Body. For Jesus will turn to us and rebuke us and say, "Get thee behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as men do."
In this light, if we are to remain faithful, Jesus summons us and tell us,

"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the gospel will save it."

It is impossible to love the Head without loving His Body, the Church. And he who does not have the Church for his Mother cannot have God for his Father (cf. Cyprian of Carthage, 258AD). Consequently, He who is not willing to give his life for his Mother is surely is not willing to give his life for Her Spouse--Jesus. And so, in persona Christi et capitis—acting in the Person of Jesus the Head, I ask you again, “Who do you say is the Catholic Church?”