Luke 9;51-62. Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. June 26th, 2016
Today’s readings have the theme of discipleship. To be a disciple means that we follow a master or someone who teaches us a skill, a trade or a knowledge that we ourselves do not have. In our first reading, Elijah calls Elisha to follow him as a disciple. Although Elisha desires to settle his affairs first, Elijah demands that he come immediately. It would seem here that Elijah was being harsh. This was not the case however; Elijah was really testing Elisha to see if he really desired to become his disciple. And so, when Elijah saw Elisha’s heart, a heart desiring to be led, Elijah waited for Elisha.
In our Gospel, Jesus also calls people, in fact all people, to follow him. Just as Elijah demanded an immediate response, so too does Jesus. Jesus also tests the “would be” disciples to know their hearts; he knows the hearts of those He called in the Gospel. He knows that their hearts were “divided.” It wasn’t just a matter of returning to bury a father or say goodbye to a family, it was a matter of their wanting to follow the Lord later, when it was more convenient to them. The father of the one who said, “let me first go and bury my father,” was still very much alive. So what was really meant was, when my Father dies in ten or twenty years then I will follow you…!
Jesus desires us as well to be his disciples, but it would seem the price is very high. Jesus makes no bones about the commitment necessary to follow Him faithfully. Jesus assures us that discipleship will present its challenges and that it will require a great commitment. But it is a commitment in which Jesus never forces anyone to follow him. In the end the choice is our; it is a free choice. Jesus for His part however, wants no divided hearts, only our whole heart.
And so, when we stop to count the cost of being a disciple of Jesus we realize that the cost is indeed high-it is everything, everything we have, are and possess. We must spiritually detach ourselves from everything and everybody to be Jesus’ disciple-we must live our lives for Him alone. Everything we do, must be done for love of Jesus. Even when we serve others, it must be done primarily for love of Jesus.
During World War II, a German Protestant minister, Dietrich Bonheoffer wrote a book on this cost of discipleship; the book was entitled, “Cheap Grace; the cost of discipleship.” Bonheoffer said that to be a disciple of Jesus meant that everything in your life must be centered on Jesus, and lived for Jesus alone, and that this commitment in the end would cost you everything. He condemned the notion of “Cheap Grace” and preached the truth about “Costly Grace.” To quote Bonheoffer in his own words, “cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”
Discipleship did indeed cost Bonheoffer everything, as he was killed in a Nazi concentration camp for his faith, for his discipleship. Perhaps the Lord might not be calling us to give up our very life as a martyr (although in our day it seems to be a very real possibility), but Jesus does ask us to intentionally (that is from our heart) give up our lives to him today completely, fully and without reserve, without looking back—for love is always the complete gift of self to the other with nothing held back.
We hear a lot of God’s Mercy in our day, but we hear very little about the need to repent of our sins in order to accept this Mercy. We hear very little about the need to be about being “just” toward our neighbor and very little about how we can’t be just without accepting and living the truth. As in Bonheoffer’s day, we hear a lot about “Cheap Grace” but very little about “Costly grace.” Grace is costly; how much so, just look at a crucifix. It may be free but it isn’t cheap! (the same can be said about mercy)
And so, to follow Jesus, to accept His mercy and to show His mercy to others we must give up many things. We must give up what we think, give up what we feel about things, we must give up “being right, “ and we must submit ourselves to He who is the Truth, Jesus.
We submit ourselves to Jesus by following His teachings as expressed through the teachings of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church which He founded to proclaim His truth in all of its fullness. This necessarily means we make changes in our lives and in our family in order to conform ourselves more closely to Christ--this requires daily change, which is the same as saying daily conversion, daily repentance a daily turning away from sin and turning more fully toward Jesus. And to follow Jesus, then we must give up not only our sins, but also our own will, our very self and commit ourselves to Him and His Holy Will (Thy Will be done).
Practically we do all of this by committing ourselves to pray intimately each day to the Master, Jesus, doing all we do for love of Jesus, and love of our neighbor for love of Jesus. Also, we commit ourselves to conform the way we worship at Holy Mass to the mind of the Church, which is the mind of Christ himself, (for it is Jesus who primarily offers the Holy Mass, not us). We must commit ourselves as well to receive the Sacraments more frequently, especially that of Confession. And we renew in ourselves a commitment to treat others with Justice and so with the dignity and respect they deserve as children of God; only in justice can we show mercy and we can only show mercy in justice with the truth, the truth that comes from God and is proclaimed fully and without error by His Catholic Church.
Just like in today’s gospel, over the next few Sundays, we will see different reactions of people in their call to discipleship of Jesus. Some drop everything and follow immediately and wholeheartedly while others find it much more challenging to respond to the invitation given. But regardless of people’s reaction to Him, Jesus invitation or call to follow him goes out to everyone regardless of their situation in life. It is personal call, to follow the master immediately and without reserve.
We know that as Christians, every one of us is called as well. It is call for which each one of us was created. Each one of us is called to a specific vocation or a unique path that will lead us to our fullest perfection in our life’s journey towards God’s kingdom-only by answering this call fully and completely will we have happiness, will we have peace. When we give ourselves fully to Jesus with great trust, we lose nothing of ourselves but gain everything besides. Jesus is calling us today; He may not repeat the call tomorrow; now is the acceptable time.
As the crucifixion of Jesus is re-present at this Holy Mass in a few moments, let us intentionally, that is in our hearts, renew our own discipleship and our own offering to Jesus as our Lord and our Master. During the Mass, we pray, “let us lift our hearts to the Lord; we lift them up to the Lord.” This is what we are being called to do. We are called to freely sacrifice our whole life for Jesus, in union with him- following him as he offers himself and makes present for us this offering on the cross for us. We are called to place our heart completely on the paten along with the host to be offered to God. We are called to adore and beg God for the grace to live this complete self-offering out in all the events of our daily lives. This offering entails change, radical change for each and every one of us if it is to lead to faithful discipleship and union with the Most Blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Change is hard for all of us; let us, through the immaculate heart of Mary, ask Jesus for his free but costly divine grace to help us become closer disciples of His. The Virgin Mary, was the one disciple who never looked back, who was always faithful, who offered herself totally to God, in word and in deed even to the piercing of her own soul with a sword at the foot of the cross. Let us place our heart on the Paten at this and every Holy Mass through her hands. She will help us to cut any strings holding our hearts to this earth. Through her intercession she will help us to never look back and to live totally for Jesus as His faithful disciples. In this, through the Holy Spirit we will be transformed and He will renew the face of the earth. God Bless.
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Only the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierce for our transgressions, knows the pain and misery within the human heart, within in our own heart.
Luke 7; 11-17 Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. June 5th, 2016
In Today’s Gospel we hear of the widow of Nain, who had lost hear only Son, and we see the great compassion and mercy of Jesus, in response to her cry. In Jesus, we truly have a God who knows what it is to suffer; to suffer the loss of a loved one, to suffer death, for He alone has entered fully into the human condition. Today as well, along with our Saviors loving response in the Gospel, we hear a call for us to share His compassion and mercy to others, to be His instruments of Divine Mercy for the world.
I am convinced that there is a sound that is unlike any other in the universe. It is sound that is louder than any explosion, louder than any supernova star exploding. It is sound that pierces a man to the very core of his being. Once heard it is a sound that you never forget. And that sound is the sound of mother who weeps over the loss of her child.
Having at one time served on a rural ambulance I have heard that cry. I remember hearing a mother cry over the loss of all four of her young children, and I will never forget her weeping. Having been a priest for over 14years I have too often heard that same weeping, especially in these years that I have been a priest/chaplain at this hospital. Yet, even though I have heard it too often, it is sound that one never gets “use to;” it is a sound that moves one’s heart to feel compassion on a mothers heart, that like the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate heart over the death of her Child, is pierced by a sword.
In Jesus” response to this weeping mother, we learn the meaning of true compassion. Jesus does not, as our Gospel reading says, have “pity” on this poor mother. The translation used in today’s Gospel is, dare I say, not the best one, a better one would be compassion. In Latin “compassion,” means not pity, but rather, “com” –“Passion”—with passion; in others to suffer with, to accompany another in their suffering in their passion. This is not to show them pity, but MERCY!
We are call to response to suffering with the Love and mercy of Christ, to love others, not merely in words, not merely with emotion (which is merely pity), but to love others by merciful deeds. We should love others with merciful deeds even though we may not get “anything” out of it, even thought it may not make us “feel good.” Sadly, too often “good deeds” or done out of vainglory. Truly, we are called to love other with Jesus own Heart alive and beating in us, our heart united to His Sacred Heart.
We are called to care for the bodily needs of those our Lord puts in our way, first out of love for God and then for the sake of the other out of love for God. And so, we are call to care for, to love, even those we don’t like, even our enemies…for we must do good even to those who hate us.
This care for the bodily needs of others is expressed in the Corporal works of Mercy as found in Sacred Scripture and expounded on and explained in the Teachings of the Catholic Church. We are to: Feed the Hungry; Give drink to the Thirsty; Cloth the Naked, Give Shelter to the Homeless; Visit the Imprisoned, Visit and Care for the Sick; and finally, To bury the Dead (by the way to bury the dead in the ground and not keep their ashes, their cremated body in our homes or sprinkle them somewhere).
But our call to reach out to others in need, to do good to others, goes far beyond supplying merely for their material needs. We are to care for their body, yes, but we are called to be even more solicitous for their spiritual needs, for their spiritual poverty and hunger—we, as followers of Jesus, are called to even lay down our life for their spiritual needs.
This primary care, the care for the soul, is expressed in the Spiritual Works of Mercy, which are primary over the corporal works; in fact if we only do the corporal works and ignore the spiritual works we will be judged harshly by Jesus. Many there are who will say to Jesus on the Last day, “but `Lord, when did we see Thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to Thee?' (Mt 25; 35-46)” And Jesus will response to them, “ ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." In other words, these will be those who may have provided for the bodily needs of others, but failed to care for or ignored the care of their eternal soul by carrying out the Spiritual works of mercy. This is why they will be so shocked by Jesus response because they will think, “…but Lord we were good.”
The Spiritual works are, to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish the sinners, comfort the afflicted; forgive offenses; bear wrongs patiently; pray for the living and the death.
Man was not made merely for this world but for the world to come. In the life to come is where man’s true hope lies. This is what is so wrong with our modern materialistic ideologies, which tried to convince us that this world is all there is, and that all we need to do is work for peace and justice, striving to illuminate poverty and suffering this world especially by getting rid of any unjust social structures that stand in our way. Yes, it is true, we need to do what ever we can to prevent suffering, to eliminate poverty and to spread happiness to who ever we can, but despite our best efforts, “the poor we will always have with (cf. Mt 26;11). But this is not to really go about doing the ultimate good to others; in fact striving for this alone deceives man robbing him of his true hope leading him, sooner or later, into the depths of despair. For no matter how hard we try, we will never eliminate poverty in this world, we will never eliminate suffering in this world, and so, we will never eliminate death.
Jesus, in today’s gospel, shows that the true and principal good of others does not consist in any material or worldly good but consist in their union with God, which will lead them one day to total happiness in heaven. This is not a matter of having pity for another but being moved with compassion, being with those who suffer, and rejoicing with those who rejoice, giving them that hope which comes from knowing that they are indeed children of Almighty God and coheirs to Christ and to eternal life, no matter what the situation in this present life may be. This is to show them God's mercy!!!
This leads us to a even greater deception in our world today, not one which tries to convince that this world is all there is, but a deception that tries to convince that everyone goes to heaven, that there is no hell or if there is, no one goes there. This error leads to a loss of missionary spirit in the Church, a loss for concern of another eternal salvation. It sees then suffering only as something to be overcome but not as something to be embraced on a personal level in order to united it with Jesus’ own suffering for the sake of His body the Church (cf. Col. 1;24); and so, for salvation of souls.
In the weeping mother, we are then pointed to another Mother who weeps for her children who are more profoundly dead than the son of this weeping widow in today’s Gospel. This other “Mother” is Holy Mother Church who weeps for her children who are dead to sin, who are “deader” than any bodily corpse. It is this Holy Mother who weeps with great sorrow not only for the loss of their earthly life but also for the loss of their eternal life. She offers to these “poorest of the poor.” the mercy and forgiveness of Jesus. And in Christ’s name, she beckons us to do the same.
While I have never experienced the loss of a child, I have experienced the loss of the spouse. To lose someone we love for a lifetime is harder, harder than anything we will ever experience, but what is to lose someone forever…what does it mean to lose a soul for eternity. I really do believe that if we understood this, even a little, if we were too see heaven and to see hell we would suffer the worst suffering we could on this earth and do it many times over in order to save even our worst enemy.
The Blessed Virgin Mary in her apparitions to the three little of children actually showed these little ones, the youngest of which was just six years old…she showed them hell and souls who were there. St. Lucia, the oldest of the Children said later, “if not that our Lady was with us, I think we would have died of fright.”
The children, especially the youngest-Jacinta, were so profoundly affected by the horrors of hell that they begin to offer up any suffering the could for the salvation of poor souls. They even took on voluntary mortifications like sleeping on the floor or wearing a coarse cord around their waist in order to atone for the sins of poor souls and so earn for them from Jesus and Mary the grace of their conversion.
Only the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierce for our transgressions, knows the pain and misery within the human heart, within in our own heart. It is only in the wounds of His Heart that we can find the solace and refuge we are looking for. Today, at this Holy Mass, Jesus invites us to entered more fully into His most loving and compassionate Heart through a deeper faith in the Holy Eucharist—the Divine Mercy of the Father. The Holy Eucharist is truly His Most Sacred Heart made available for us in the Miracle of the Holy Mass. He offers His entire Heart to us, may we through the Immaculate Heart of Mary offer ours in return, so that in the Spirit, three Hearts may be as one. Then and only then can we become Instruments of God’s Divine Mercy, sharing His compassion with others, bringing them the Love, healing and Salvation of Jesus.
In Today’s Gospel we hear of the widow of Nain, who had lost hear only Son, and we see the great compassion and mercy of Jesus, in response to her cry. In Jesus, we truly have a God who knows what it is to suffer; to suffer the loss of a loved one, to suffer death, for He alone has entered fully into the human condition. Today as well, along with our Saviors loving response in the Gospel, we hear a call for us to share His compassion and mercy to others, to be His instruments of Divine Mercy for the world.
I am convinced that there is a sound that is unlike any other in the universe. It is sound that is louder than any explosion, louder than any supernova star exploding. It is sound that pierces a man to the very core of his being. Once heard it is a sound that you never forget. And that sound is the sound of mother who weeps over the loss of her child.
Having at one time served on a rural ambulance I have heard that cry. I remember hearing a mother cry over the loss of all four of her young children, and I will never forget her weeping. Having been a priest for over 14years I have too often heard that same weeping, especially in these years that I have been a priest/chaplain at this hospital. Yet, even though I have heard it too often, it is sound that one never gets “use to;” it is a sound that moves one’s heart to feel compassion on a mothers heart, that like the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate heart over the death of her Child, is pierced by a sword.
In Jesus” response to this weeping mother, we learn the meaning of true compassion. Jesus does not, as our Gospel reading says, have “pity” on this poor mother. The translation used in today’s Gospel is, dare I say, not the best one, a better one would be compassion. In Latin “compassion,” means not pity, but rather, “com” –“Passion”—with passion; in others to suffer with, to accompany another in their suffering in their passion. This is not to show them pity, but MERCY!
We are call to response to suffering with the Love and mercy of Christ, to love others, not merely in words, not merely with emotion (which is merely pity), but to love others by merciful deeds. We should love others with merciful deeds even though we may not get “anything” out of it, even thought it may not make us “feel good.” Sadly, too often “good deeds” or done out of vainglory. Truly, we are called to love other with Jesus own Heart alive and beating in us, our heart united to His Sacred Heart.
We are called to care for the bodily needs of those our Lord puts in our way, first out of love for God and then for the sake of the other out of love for God. And so, we are call to care for, to love, even those we don’t like, even our enemies…for we must do good even to those who hate us.
This care for the bodily needs of others is expressed in the Corporal works of Mercy as found in Sacred Scripture and expounded on and explained in the Teachings of the Catholic Church. We are to: Feed the Hungry; Give drink to the Thirsty; Cloth the Naked, Give Shelter to the Homeless; Visit the Imprisoned, Visit and Care for the Sick; and finally, To bury the Dead (by the way to bury the dead in the ground and not keep their ashes, their cremated body in our homes or sprinkle them somewhere).
But our call to reach out to others in need, to do good to others, goes far beyond supplying merely for their material needs. We are to care for their body, yes, but we are called to be even more solicitous for their spiritual needs, for their spiritual poverty and hunger—we, as followers of Jesus, are called to even lay down our life for their spiritual needs.
This primary care, the care for the soul, is expressed in the Spiritual Works of Mercy, which are primary over the corporal works; in fact if we only do the corporal works and ignore the spiritual works we will be judged harshly by Jesus. Many there are who will say to Jesus on the Last day, “but `Lord, when did we see Thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to Thee?' (Mt 25; 35-46)” And Jesus will response to them, “ ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." In other words, these will be those who may have provided for the bodily needs of others, but failed to care for or ignored the care of their eternal soul by carrying out the Spiritual works of mercy. This is why they will be so shocked by Jesus response because they will think, “…but Lord we were good.”
The Spiritual works are, to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish the sinners, comfort the afflicted; forgive offenses; bear wrongs patiently; pray for the living and the death.
Man was not made merely for this world but for the world to come. In the life to come is where man’s true hope lies. This is what is so wrong with our modern materialistic ideologies, which tried to convince us that this world is all there is, and that all we need to do is work for peace and justice, striving to illuminate poverty and suffering this world especially by getting rid of any unjust social structures that stand in our way. Yes, it is true, we need to do what ever we can to prevent suffering, to eliminate poverty and to spread happiness to who ever we can, but despite our best efforts, “the poor we will always have with (cf. Mt 26;11). But this is not to really go about doing the ultimate good to others; in fact striving for this alone deceives man robbing him of his true hope leading him, sooner or later, into the depths of despair. For no matter how hard we try, we will never eliminate poverty in this world, we will never eliminate suffering in this world, and so, we will never eliminate death.
Jesus, in today’s gospel, shows that the true and principal good of others does not consist in any material or worldly good but consist in their union with God, which will lead them one day to total happiness in heaven. This is not a matter of having pity for another but being moved with compassion, being with those who suffer, and rejoicing with those who rejoice, giving them that hope which comes from knowing that they are indeed children of Almighty God and coheirs to Christ and to eternal life, no matter what the situation in this present life may be. This is to show them God's mercy!!!
This leads us to a even greater deception in our world today, not one which tries to convince that this world is all there is, but a deception that tries to convince that everyone goes to heaven, that there is no hell or if there is, no one goes there. This error leads to a loss of missionary spirit in the Church, a loss for concern of another eternal salvation. It sees then suffering only as something to be overcome but not as something to be embraced on a personal level in order to united it with Jesus’ own suffering for the sake of His body the Church (cf. Col. 1;24); and so, for salvation of souls.
In the weeping mother, we are then pointed to another Mother who weeps for her children who are more profoundly dead than the son of this weeping widow in today’s Gospel. This other “Mother” is Holy Mother Church who weeps for her children who are dead to sin, who are “deader” than any bodily corpse. It is this Holy Mother who weeps with great sorrow not only for the loss of their earthly life but also for the loss of their eternal life. She offers to these “poorest of the poor.” the mercy and forgiveness of Jesus. And in Christ’s name, she beckons us to do the same.
While I have never experienced the loss of a child, I have experienced the loss of the spouse. To lose someone we love for a lifetime is harder, harder than anything we will ever experience, but what is to lose someone forever…what does it mean to lose a soul for eternity. I really do believe that if we understood this, even a little, if we were too see heaven and to see hell we would suffer the worst suffering we could on this earth and do it many times over in order to save even our worst enemy.
The Blessed Virgin Mary in her apparitions to the three little of children actually showed these little ones, the youngest of which was just six years old…she showed them hell and souls who were there. St. Lucia, the oldest of the Children said later, “if not that our Lady was with us, I think we would have died of fright.”
The children, especially the youngest-Jacinta, were so profoundly affected by the horrors of hell that they begin to offer up any suffering the could for the salvation of poor souls. They even took on voluntary mortifications like sleeping on the floor or wearing a coarse cord around their waist in order to atone for the sins of poor souls and so earn for them from Jesus and Mary the grace of their conversion.
Only the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierce for our transgressions, knows the pain and misery within the human heart, within in our own heart. It is only in the wounds of His Heart that we can find the solace and refuge we are looking for. Today, at this Holy Mass, Jesus invites us to entered more fully into His most loving and compassionate Heart through a deeper faith in the Holy Eucharist—the Divine Mercy of the Father. The Holy Eucharist is truly His Most Sacred Heart made available for us in the Miracle of the Holy Mass. He offers His entire Heart to us, may we through the Immaculate Heart of Mary offer ours in return, so that in the Spirit, three Hearts may be as one. Then and only then can we become Instruments of God’s Divine Mercy, sharing His compassion with others, bringing them the Love, healing and Salvation of Jesus.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
“o My God I believe in Thee, I adore in Thee, I hope in Thee and I love Thee and I beg pardon for all of those who do not Believe in Thee, do not adore Thee do not hope in Thee and to not Love Thee.
This past Sunday, as you know, we celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Blessed Trinity. The true God is not an isolated Being but a Trinity of Divine Persons so intimately and perfectly united in Love that they are One God. And we, each one of us, are called to share in this intimate union of the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity; we are called to unity, to communion, to be one with God and one another in Love through grace.
And what is the source of this Grace? The answer to this question brings us to today’s great Solemnity. The source is Jesus Christ, truly and physically present in the Holy Eucharist, the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. It is the source of all grace, because the Holy Eucharist is Jesus, along with His Sacred Heart pierced for love of us. It is from this pierce Heart that flows the Sacramental Graces, the living waters needed for the healing and salvation of the world. It is through this pierce Heart, therefore, that God calls all men to Himself.
God, the Most Blessed Trinity, is by His Nature inaccessible to us and to our sinful human nature. And so the Father—the first Person of the Blessed Trinity, in His infinite Mercy and love for us sent His Son, Jesus—the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, to take on our Human Nature, in order to redeem it, to heal it of its sinfulness, to save it and then elevate it to God through the Power of the Holy Spirit--the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. It is through the Holy Eucharist then that our love is elevated and united to Divine Love so that we can live and love with Charity—God’s love and life alive in our hearts, our heart one with His. The Holy Eucharist is the Doorway to the Blessed Trinity.
And so, today’s Feast reminds us of our core belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist makes the incarnation of Jesus truly present in our time and in midst because it makes Jesus present in the flesh, Jesus in His human Nature, God as man truly present in our midst. This Presence is the “presence par excellence,” of Jesus Christ to the Catholic Church (The Mystery of Faith no. 39 Paul VI).
Jesus as God, in His divine nature is truly present everywhere, it is true. But Jesus as man, Jesus in His corporal body and blood, Jesus in His human nature, the human nature by, through and with which we are truly saved, is only present in the Holy Eucharist. And this true Presence occurs at the Holy Mass and only at the Holy Mass through the words of consecration, “This is my body,” “This is my blood,”.
At these words said by a priest (and only by a priest), by the power of the Holy Spirit, the miracle of Transubstantiation takes place. In this Miracle of all miracles, “… the physical host is changed into the “physical reality” of Jesus Christ, which is “bodily present”—“whole and entire God and man.” There is a physical change—i.e., Christ Himself replaces the physical bread, which no longer exists (no 46).
“This a true miracle—awesome and unexplainable in human terms. It is the most complete manifestation of God’s love for the world. It is God saying to us, ‘I love you! I will not leave you alone. I will be with you until the end of time, yes, even in my physical body!’ (Fr. Regis Scanlon O.F.M. Cap).” I think it was Blessed Theresa of Calcutta who said, “When we look at the crucifix we see the love that God had for us, when we look at the Holy Eucharist we see the love God has for us.”
A few weeks ago, on May 13th, we celebrated the 99th anniversary of the first apparition of the Blessed Mother to the three shepherd Children of Fatima. The message of Our Lady of Fatima to these three children—Lucia, Francesco and Jacinta is more relevant today than ever before. Why? Well because our Lady warned that if mankind did not turn away from sin and back to God the world would face a dire crisis resulting from a loss of faith. This crisis would lead to a “great chastisement on the world; it would be a punish of man’s own making which would be in scope, “greater than the flood.”
But this “loss of faith,” would be not just a loss of faith in the existence of God, but more particularly a loss of faith in Holy Eucharist as the true and living God in the flesh, in His human nature among us. This would be the great apostasy of John 6:66, seen on a world wide level…(Jn6:66; when the 5,000 men left him after the teaching of the Holy Eucharist). The majority of men and woman would lose faith in Jesus in the Holy Eucharist and so follow Him no more…this loss of faith in the Holy Eucharist as the true and living God in our midst would be proceeded by a loss of a faith by many members of the clergy (as foretold by Our Lady at LaSalette France).
To prevent this from our occurring out Lady told the world through these little Children that our Lord wished to promote devotion to the Mary’s Immaculate heart. By devotion to her Immaculate Heart she would lead those who consecrated themselves to Jesus through Her to offer themselves fully to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist so that they would enter more and more into a loving union with God and with one another.
By this loving union, these “little ones,” of hers would be transformed through adoration of the Eucharist into living images of Jesus thus becoming in their daily lives instruments of mercy for their families, friends, communities and for the world. Through these instruments of Divine Mercy God would transform the world. Pope Emeritus Benedict put it this way when discussing adoration of the Eucharist in relation to changing the world: “Without adoration there is no transformation.”
As we loose our emphasis on the Real Presence in our day, as so many lose the faith in this fundamental truth of our Catholic Christian faith—the reality of Jesus Christ, truly in our midst—we lose the very Light that illuminates our world, the light that illuminates the way we must go in this world, because we lose faith in the He who is the Truth in our midst, Jesus Christ truly and physically present in the Holy Eucharist.
Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is the light of humanity…which shines out visible from the Catholic Church (Dogmatic Constitution of the Church no.1). Jesus is the Son of the Father and so the Son of the Living God. Jesus—God, light from light, true God from True God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father…The Holy Eucharist is this Jesus-the Holy Eucharist is God! And so the Holy Eucharist is the center of everything; He holds all things together; He is our source and He is our goal; He is our beginning and our end…An it is only through Jesus that anyone can come to the Father; and so, it is only through the Holy Eucharist that anyone, anyone can go to the Father.
Mankind was made for the Son, by the Son and through the Son. All men and woman whether they know it or not were made for relationship and communion with Jesus and through Jesus with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit; it is a communion of love with Love Itself—the Blessed Trinity. And this communion with the Blessed Trinity is brought about through, with and in Jesus truly present in the Holy Eucharist the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. But we for our part must have a true and living faith, we must take Him and His word (see John 6) and believe that He is really there.”
One little know fact about the apparitions of our Lady of Fatima is that a year before our lady appeared to the little Children (100 year anniversary of which is this year), a Angel of God appear to the children first. In fact the angel appear three times, each time emphasizing the real presence of God in the Holy Eucharist. During one of these apparitions the Angel suspended in mid air a consecrated Host over a chalice containing the Most Precious Blood of Jesus.
The Angel then, did not bowed, did not kneeled but prostrated Himself before Jesus, the God-Man truly and physically present before Him. And then the angel cried out three times the following prayer, a prayer which the Children heard in the depths of their soul: “o My God I believe in Thee, I adore in Thee, I hope in Thee and I love Thee and I beg pardon for all of those who do not Believe in Thee, do not adore Thee do not hope in Thee and to not Love Thee.
IN this prayer we make an act of faith that the Holy Eucharist is Our Lord and our God truly present, We adore Him as the true and living God, trusting Him completely by offering ourselves, our lives, all that we have and possess in and oblation of love. And at the same time, making an act of atonement for all of those who (including our own lack of) faith, adoration, trust and love. This prayer is the essential action of the Holy Mass in which we are to offer our total self to God in union with the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus offered on our behalf to His heavenly Father.
Until enough souls, until you and I, become little children of our Lady, taking her hand and letting her lead us to offering ourselves total Her Son in the Holy Eucharist, our world will continue its downward spiral into disunity, darkness and despair. St. Peter Julian Eymard, who is known as the “Apostle of the Holy Eucharist” said, “Let us never forget that an age prospers or dwindles in proportion to its devotion to the Holy Eucharist.”
Our Lady of Fatima continues to speak to our hearts today, and through her Divine spouse, the Holy Spirit, she points us to the Truth, that her Son Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is the only answer to the world’s problems; especially the problems in the family, which is at the heart of our world’s problems. In the end her Immaculate will Triumph and the world will be converted to the Holy Eucharist. Let this conversion begin with us. Let us adore, hope and love Jesus in the Holy Eucharist so that He can change our hearts like unto His own, so that He can transform out lives in order that we may live them in imitation of His, thus becoming His instruments of Divine Mercy on the world. Then on only then will our world be changed.
And what is the source of this Grace? The answer to this question brings us to today’s great Solemnity. The source is Jesus Christ, truly and physically present in the Holy Eucharist, the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. It is the source of all grace, because the Holy Eucharist is Jesus, along with His Sacred Heart pierced for love of us. It is from this pierce Heart that flows the Sacramental Graces, the living waters needed for the healing and salvation of the world. It is through this pierce Heart, therefore, that God calls all men to Himself.
God, the Most Blessed Trinity, is by His Nature inaccessible to us and to our sinful human nature. And so the Father—the first Person of the Blessed Trinity, in His infinite Mercy and love for us sent His Son, Jesus—the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, to take on our Human Nature, in order to redeem it, to heal it of its sinfulness, to save it and then elevate it to God through the Power of the Holy Spirit--the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. It is through the Holy Eucharist then that our love is elevated and united to Divine Love so that we can live and love with Charity—God’s love and life alive in our hearts, our heart one with His. The Holy Eucharist is the Doorway to the Blessed Trinity.
And so, today’s Feast reminds us of our core belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist makes the incarnation of Jesus truly present in our time and in midst because it makes Jesus present in the flesh, Jesus in His human Nature, God as man truly present in our midst. This Presence is the “presence par excellence,” of Jesus Christ to the Catholic Church (The Mystery of Faith no. 39 Paul VI).
Jesus as God, in His divine nature is truly present everywhere, it is true. But Jesus as man, Jesus in His corporal body and blood, Jesus in His human nature, the human nature by, through and with which we are truly saved, is only present in the Holy Eucharist. And this true Presence occurs at the Holy Mass and only at the Holy Mass through the words of consecration, “This is my body,” “This is my blood,”.
At these words said by a priest (and only by a priest), by the power of the Holy Spirit, the miracle of Transubstantiation takes place. In this Miracle of all miracles, “… the physical host is changed into the “physical reality” of Jesus Christ, which is “bodily present”—“whole and entire God and man.” There is a physical change—i.e., Christ Himself replaces the physical bread, which no longer exists (no 46).
“This a true miracle—awesome and unexplainable in human terms. It is the most complete manifestation of God’s love for the world. It is God saying to us, ‘I love you! I will not leave you alone. I will be with you until the end of time, yes, even in my physical body!’ (Fr. Regis Scanlon O.F.M. Cap).” I think it was Blessed Theresa of Calcutta who said, “When we look at the crucifix we see the love that God had for us, when we look at the Holy Eucharist we see the love God has for us.”
A few weeks ago, on May 13th, we celebrated the 99th anniversary of the first apparition of the Blessed Mother to the three shepherd Children of Fatima. The message of Our Lady of Fatima to these three children—Lucia, Francesco and Jacinta is more relevant today than ever before. Why? Well because our Lady warned that if mankind did not turn away from sin and back to God the world would face a dire crisis resulting from a loss of faith. This crisis would lead to a “great chastisement on the world; it would be a punish of man’s own making which would be in scope, “greater than the flood.”
But this “loss of faith,” would be not just a loss of faith in the existence of God, but more particularly a loss of faith in Holy Eucharist as the true and living God in the flesh, in His human nature among us. This would be the great apostasy of John 6:66, seen on a world wide level…(Jn6:66; when the 5,000 men left him after the teaching of the Holy Eucharist). The majority of men and woman would lose faith in Jesus in the Holy Eucharist and so follow Him no more…this loss of faith in the Holy Eucharist as the true and living God in our midst would be proceeded by a loss of a faith by many members of the clergy (as foretold by Our Lady at LaSalette France).
To prevent this from our occurring out Lady told the world through these little Children that our Lord wished to promote devotion to the Mary’s Immaculate heart. By devotion to her Immaculate Heart she would lead those who consecrated themselves to Jesus through Her to offer themselves fully to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist so that they would enter more and more into a loving union with God and with one another.
By this loving union, these “little ones,” of hers would be transformed through adoration of the Eucharist into living images of Jesus thus becoming in their daily lives instruments of mercy for their families, friends, communities and for the world. Through these instruments of Divine Mercy God would transform the world. Pope Emeritus Benedict put it this way when discussing adoration of the Eucharist in relation to changing the world: “Without adoration there is no transformation.”
As we loose our emphasis on the Real Presence in our day, as so many lose the faith in this fundamental truth of our Catholic Christian faith—the reality of Jesus Christ, truly in our midst—we lose the very Light that illuminates our world, the light that illuminates the way we must go in this world, because we lose faith in the He who is the Truth in our midst, Jesus Christ truly and physically present in the Holy Eucharist.
Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is the light of humanity…which shines out visible from the Catholic Church (Dogmatic Constitution of the Church no.1). Jesus is the Son of the Father and so the Son of the Living God. Jesus—God, light from light, true God from True God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father…The Holy Eucharist is this Jesus-the Holy Eucharist is God! And so the Holy Eucharist is the center of everything; He holds all things together; He is our source and He is our goal; He is our beginning and our end…An it is only through Jesus that anyone can come to the Father; and so, it is only through the Holy Eucharist that anyone, anyone can go to the Father.
Mankind was made for the Son, by the Son and through the Son. All men and woman whether they know it or not were made for relationship and communion with Jesus and through Jesus with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit; it is a communion of love with Love Itself—the Blessed Trinity. And this communion with the Blessed Trinity is brought about through, with and in Jesus truly present in the Holy Eucharist the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. But we for our part must have a true and living faith, we must take Him and His word (see John 6) and believe that He is really there.”
One little know fact about the apparitions of our Lady of Fatima is that a year before our lady appeared to the little Children (100 year anniversary of which is this year), a Angel of God appear to the children first. In fact the angel appear three times, each time emphasizing the real presence of God in the Holy Eucharist. During one of these apparitions the Angel suspended in mid air a consecrated Host over a chalice containing the Most Precious Blood of Jesus.
The Angel then, did not bowed, did not kneeled but prostrated Himself before Jesus, the God-Man truly and physically present before Him. And then the angel cried out three times the following prayer, a prayer which the Children heard in the depths of their soul: “o My God I believe in Thee, I adore in Thee, I hope in Thee and I love Thee and I beg pardon for all of those who do not Believe in Thee, do not adore Thee do not hope in Thee and to not Love Thee.
IN this prayer we make an act of faith that the Holy Eucharist is Our Lord and our God truly present, We adore Him as the true and living God, trusting Him completely by offering ourselves, our lives, all that we have and possess in and oblation of love. And at the same time, making an act of atonement for all of those who (including our own lack of) faith, adoration, trust and love. This prayer is the essential action of the Holy Mass in which we are to offer our total self to God in union with the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus offered on our behalf to His heavenly Father.
Until enough souls, until you and I, become little children of our Lady, taking her hand and letting her lead us to offering ourselves total Her Son in the Holy Eucharist, our world will continue its downward spiral into disunity, darkness and despair. St. Peter Julian Eymard, who is known as the “Apostle of the Holy Eucharist” said, “Let us never forget that an age prospers or dwindles in proportion to its devotion to the Holy Eucharist.”
Our Lady of Fatima continues to speak to our hearts today, and through her Divine spouse, the Holy Spirit, she points us to the Truth, that her Son Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is the only answer to the world’s problems; especially the problems in the family, which is at the heart of our world’s problems. In the end her Immaculate will Triumph and the world will be converted to the Holy Eucharist. Let this conversion begin with us. Let us adore, hope and love Jesus in the Holy Eucharist so that He can change our hearts like unto His own, so that He can transform out lives in order that we may live them in imitation of His, thus becoming His instruments of Divine Mercy on the world. Then on only then will our world be changed.
Saturday, May 21, 2016
O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity...
Solemnity of the Most Blessed Trinity. May 22nd, 2016
Today, the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, is the first Sunday after Pentecost, the Great Fifty Days of Easter. We are back to what is called “Ordinary Time” in the Church’s calendar. But there really is no “ordinary time” in the life of the Church, because a single Holy Mass offered anytime of the year is of infinite value. The Holy Mass is the primary source of the Living Waters of God’s Love, of His Mercy and Grace.
Every Mass brings down upon us the infinite treasures of grace won for us by Jesus’ sacrificial offering of Himself on Calvary; every Holy Mass allows us to adore and receive Jesus in His human resurrected, ascended, glorified, body, blood, soul and divinity; and every Holy Mass gives us the opportunity to come in intimate contact with the entire Blessed and Holy Trinity so that we can become more perfectly united to the Son and through the Son to the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit.
Our Final Goal in this life is in fact, the Blessed Trinity. We have come from the Trinity, everything we have including our loved ones have come from the Trinity. The Blessed Trinity has brought us into being and keeps us in existence; and we are called to return to the Holy Trinity, now through grace, and forever in the life to come—In the Holy Trinity alone do we truly live and move and have our being.
And this is the reason why the truth of the Holy Trinity is the key pillar of the Christian faith and why we celebrate today’s great Solemnity. However, from what we just said, let us never forget that every single Holy Mass on Sunday or even on a weekday is a celebration of the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity.
It took a few centuries for Church to try to discuss and explain the Trinity in ways that are true to the mystery. As a result, we say correctly that the Trinity consists of Three Divine Persons with one Divine Nature, united in perfect unity—Three Persons in One God.
Personally, we can have a great deal of trouble trying to contemplate this Mystery of all mysteries and so it is very easy to just say, “it is a mystery,” and want to leave it at that; however, this is not what God desires. He, the Trinitarian God, wants us to begin now to grow in our understanding of His Divine Nature so that we can grow in our love for Him, and in loving Him that we can serve Him, in order to be happy with Him in this life and fully in the life to come; and be used by Him for others to do the same.
Perhaps the best way to begin to contemplate the Mystery of the Holy Trinity Family is by contemplating marriage and the Human family; that is, the marriage and human family as God has created it and ordained it to be. Marriage and the Human family are meant to actually be a reflection of the Blessed Trinity and a witness to the Love between the members of the Holy Trinity themselves.
But before we begin, we must state from the onset, that God is not like a family--God is THE Family and so the source of all families. And our families are called to be, as much as possible, like God’s Family. God has actually given us our human families on earth so that we might learn to love as the Trinity of Divine Person love amongst themselves. It is in the family that we are to learn agape love, sacrificial and selfless love for another person and to grown closer to God. And it is by the Trinity that we can receive God’s own love alive in our hearts in order to love our family with a divine Love known as Charity—human and divine love united.
So, try to think of the Father and the Son’s love for each other being absolutely perfect (we may never experienced perfect love but we long for it and can contemplate the ideal of Perfect Love which is God Himself). In this perfect divine love, the Father gives all He is and has to the Son and the Son gives all He is and has to the Father and this love between the two of them is so perfect so complete it is actually another person, a divine person who is the Love between the Father and the Son. And these Three Persons are so totally united in perfect love that they are one (the Trinity can only begun to be understood through love, not through mathematics).
Now let us look at a man who truly loves a woman. They so love each other that they unite themselves together in sacred bond called marriage. In this love for one another they give of themselves totally (dare I say sacrificially) to each other in a vow, a sacred oath before God and His Church, in which the two become one. This oneness is shown not only in sacred words at the Altar, but also by the two becoming one flesh on their wedding night through the marital act. In this holy act the two literally become one flesh, and in this one flesh with God’s cooperation they can become one flesh in another person, a child that is the fruit of their love for one another, a child who is in a sense the image of the father and the mother. Now there is a trinity of persons, but still one family.
The family actually reveals to us THE Family that is God. And it is within the human family that the Blessed Trinity desires that we learn to love as He does within His Divine Family; it is in the family that we are to perfect our love for God and one another.
A week ago from this past Friday we celebrated the feast day of our Lady of Fatima and the 99th anniversary of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother to the three shepherd children of Fatima. The Blessed Mother warned the world at Fatima that a great battle was beginning to be waged on earth such as never before in the history of mankind. She said that this battle would be primarily waged against the family. She called for families to pray the rosary daily and wear the brown scapular always as a sign of our personal and our family’s consecration to Jesus through Her Immaculate heart. She called for us to regularly participate in the Sacraments, to remain in the state for grace and to be faithful in our daily duties, among other things, all in order to be able to victorious over the forces of evil, which threatened to divide and so destroy our families.
Can anyone deny that we are indeed truly living this time of a great attack on the family—we are truly living during an all out demonic onslaught on the very nature of the family, which is meant to be lived in the image and likeness of THE FAMILY the Most Blessed Trinity. The attack on the family seeks to create a utopia on earth without God and His plan-will for us. This is really what is at the heart of the gender ideological war which denies and seeks to destroys in our culture and in our minds the very essence of man as God has created man to be, that is, “as man and woman, as male and female He created them.”
Cardinal Sarah, who is the Prefect for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacrament, recently reminded us that,
“..every human being, like the Persons of the Trinity, has the capacity to be united with other persons in communion through the…bond of charity of the Holy Spirit. The family is a natural preparation and anticipation of the communion that is possible when we are united with God…this is why the devil is so intent on destroying the family. IF the family is destroyed, we lose our-God given anthropological foundations and so find it more difficult to welcome the saving good news of Jesus Christ: self-giving, fruitful love.”
In other words, the Cardinal is reminding us that if the family is destroyed we lose what it means to be human, lose what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God, lose what it means to truly love and live to the full in this life and in the life to come in and through communion with God and with one another, this communion which begins in the family itself; in reality if the family is destroyed we begin to lose ourselves.
Cardinal Sarah went on to say that, “the rupture of the foundational relationships of someone’s life—through separation, divorce or distorted impositions of the family, such as cohabitation or same-sex unions—is a deep wound that closes the heart to self-giving love (unto) death, and even leads to cynicism and despair.” He continued, “These situations cause damage to little children through inflicting upon them a deep existential doubt about love. They are a scandal—a stumbling block—that prevents the most vulnerable from believing in such love, and a crushing burden that can prevent them from opening to the healing power of the Gospel.
The cardinal characterized the family as “a natural preparation and anticipation for the communion that is possible when we are united with God. To combat the attacks on the family and Christianity for that matter, Cardinal Sarah offered “three humble suggestions” he urged Catholics to be “be prophetic; be faithful and pray; and do not be afraid to proclaim the truth with love, especially about marriage according to God’s plan. With a voice of resounding hope, the cardinal said, “Perhaps only the beauty of the family can re-awaken the longing for God…and heal the wounds inflicted on our humanity by sin.”
As Christians we know that it is through baptism that God invites us into His own family of love. At Baptism we are baptized into the very mystery of the Holy Trinity. When the Priest pours Holy water over the head, he does it in the name of the Trinity--that is in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It is by the grace of baptism that we actually begin to share in communion, share in the Divine family life of the Blessed Trinity.
But then we must cooperate with this baptismal grace and be faithful to it. We are called to participate and grow in that Trinitarian love through our faithfulness to God, to His commandments and by following the teachings of Jesus found in the Scriptures and in the Church. In other words, we must live our belief and love for the Trinity. Daily and intimately, we must pray each of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity and through our love of Them, assisted by the grace we receive in the Sacraments, we can grow ever deeper in Their love, sharing that love with others, beginning with the members of our family and going out from our families to others.
The Church places today’s Solemnity after Pentecost in order to show how much we need the help of the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds ever deeper into the great mystery of the Blessed Trinity. We need His divine help to understand that God is a Divine Family of persons so totally united in love that they are one. Assisted by His divine power, the more we worship and adore this great mystery the more we will learn to love in order to share in the love between the Divine Persons who make up this Divine Family. Then, we will be able to love one another as God loves us. Our families will become holier and stronger families, families that are in love with most Blessed Trinity and as a result are in love with one another.
O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.
Today, the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, is the first Sunday after Pentecost, the Great Fifty Days of Easter. We are back to what is called “Ordinary Time” in the Church’s calendar. But there really is no “ordinary time” in the life of the Church, because a single Holy Mass offered anytime of the year is of infinite value. The Holy Mass is the primary source of the Living Waters of God’s Love, of His Mercy and Grace.
Every Mass brings down upon us the infinite treasures of grace won for us by Jesus’ sacrificial offering of Himself on Calvary; every Holy Mass allows us to adore and receive Jesus in His human resurrected, ascended, glorified, body, blood, soul and divinity; and every Holy Mass gives us the opportunity to come in intimate contact with the entire Blessed and Holy Trinity so that we can become more perfectly united to the Son and through the Son to the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit.
Our Final Goal in this life is in fact, the Blessed Trinity. We have come from the Trinity, everything we have including our loved ones have come from the Trinity. The Blessed Trinity has brought us into being and keeps us in existence; and we are called to return to the Holy Trinity, now through grace, and forever in the life to come—In the Holy Trinity alone do we truly live and move and have our being.
And this is the reason why the truth of the Holy Trinity is the key pillar of the Christian faith and why we celebrate today’s great Solemnity. However, from what we just said, let us never forget that every single Holy Mass on Sunday or even on a weekday is a celebration of the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity.
It took a few centuries for Church to try to discuss and explain the Trinity in ways that are true to the mystery. As a result, we say correctly that the Trinity consists of Three Divine Persons with one Divine Nature, united in perfect unity—Three Persons in One God.
Personally, we can have a great deal of trouble trying to contemplate this Mystery of all mysteries and so it is very easy to just say, “it is a mystery,” and want to leave it at that; however, this is not what God desires. He, the Trinitarian God, wants us to begin now to grow in our understanding of His Divine Nature so that we can grow in our love for Him, and in loving Him that we can serve Him, in order to be happy with Him in this life and fully in the life to come; and be used by Him for others to do the same.
Perhaps the best way to begin to contemplate the Mystery of the Holy Trinity Family is by contemplating marriage and the Human family; that is, the marriage and human family as God has created it and ordained it to be. Marriage and the Human family are meant to actually be a reflection of the Blessed Trinity and a witness to the Love between the members of the Holy Trinity themselves.
But before we begin, we must state from the onset, that God is not like a family--God is THE Family and so the source of all families. And our families are called to be, as much as possible, like God’s Family. God has actually given us our human families on earth so that we might learn to love as the Trinity of Divine Person love amongst themselves. It is in the family that we are to learn agape love, sacrificial and selfless love for another person and to grown closer to God. And it is by the Trinity that we can receive God’s own love alive in our hearts in order to love our family with a divine Love known as Charity—human and divine love united.
So, try to think of the Father and the Son’s love for each other being absolutely perfect (we may never experienced perfect love but we long for it and can contemplate the ideal of Perfect Love which is God Himself). In this perfect divine love, the Father gives all He is and has to the Son and the Son gives all He is and has to the Father and this love between the two of them is so perfect so complete it is actually another person, a divine person who is the Love between the Father and the Son. And these Three Persons are so totally united in perfect love that they are one (the Trinity can only begun to be understood through love, not through mathematics).
Now let us look at a man who truly loves a woman. They so love each other that they unite themselves together in sacred bond called marriage. In this love for one another they give of themselves totally (dare I say sacrificially) to each other in a vow, a sacred oath before God and His Church, in which the two become one. This oneness is shown not only in sacred words at the Altar, but also by the two becoming one flesh on their wedding night through the marital act. In this holy act the two literally become one flesh, and in this one flesh with God’s cooperation they can become one flesh in another person, a child that is the fruit of their love for one another, a child who is in a sense the image of the father and the mother. Now there is a trinity of persons, but still one family.
The family actually reveals to us THE Family that is God. And it is within the human family that the Blessed Trinity desires that we learn to love as He does within His Divine Family; it is in the family that we are to perfect our love for God and one another.
A week ago from this past Friday we celebrated the feast day of our Lady of Fatima and the 99th anniversary of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother to the three shepherd children of Fatima. The Blessed Mother warned the world at Fatima that a great battle was beginning to be waged on earth such as never before in the history of mankind. She said that this battle would be primarily waged against the family. She called for families to pray the rosary daily and wear the brown scapular always as a sign of our personal and our family’s consecration to Jesus through Her Immaculate heart. She called for us to regularly participate in the Sacraments, to remain in the state for grace and to be faithful in our daily duties, among other things, all in order to be able to victorious over the forces of evil, which threatened to divide and so destroy our families.
Can anyone deny that we are indeed truly living this time of a great attack on the family—we are truly living during an all out demonic onslaught on the very nature of the family, which is meant to be lived in the image and likeness of THE FAMILY the Most Blessed Trinity. The attack on the family seeks to create a utopia on earth without God and His plan-will for us. This is really what is at the heart of the gender ideological war which denies and seeks to destroys in our culture and in our minds the very essence of man as God has created man to be, that is, “as man and woman, as male and female He created them.”
Cardinal Sarah, who is the Prefect for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacrament, recently reminded us that,
“..every human being, like the Persons of the Trinity, has the capacity to be united with other persons in communion through the…bond of charity of the Holy Spirit. The family is a natural preparation and anticipation of the communion that is possible when we are united with God…this is why the devil is so intent on destroying the family. IF the family is destroyed, we lose our-God given anthropological foundations and so find it more difficult to welcome the saving good news of Jesus Christ: self-giving, fruitful love.”
In other words, the Cardinal is reminding us that if the family is destroyed we lose what it means to be human, lose what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God, lose what it means to truly love and live to the full in this life and in the life to come in and through communion with God and with one another, this communion which begins in the family itself; in reality if the family is destroyed we begin to lose ourselves.
Cardinal Sarah went on to say that, “the rupture of the foundational relationships of someone’s life—through separation, divorce or distorted impositions of the family, such as cohabitation or same-sex unions—is a deep wound that closes the heart to self-giving love (unto) death, and even leads to cynicism and despair.” He continued, “These situations cause damage to little children through inflicting upon them a deep existential doubt about love. They are a scandal—a stumbling block—that prevents the most vulnerable from believing in such love, and a crushing burden that can prevent them from opening to the healing power of the Gospel.
The cardinal characterized the family as “a natural preparation and anticipation for the communion that is possible when we are united with God. To combat the attacks on the family and Christianity for that matter, Cardinal Sarah offered “three humble suggestions” he urged Catholics to be “be prophetic; be faithful and pray; and do not be afraid to proclaim the truth with love, especially about marriage according to God’s plan. With a voice of resounding hope, the cardinal said, “Perhaps only the beauty of the family can re-awaken the longing for God…and heal the wounds inflicted on our humanity by sin.”
As Christians we know that it is through baptism that God invites us into His own family of love. At Baptism we are baptized into the very mystery of the Holy Trinity. When the Priest pours Holy water over the head, he does it in the name of the Trinity--that is in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It is by the grace of baptism that we actually begin to share in communion, share in the Divine family life of the Blessed Trinity.
But then we must cooperate with this baptismal grace and be faithful to it. We are called to participate and grow in that Trinitarian love through our faithfulness to God, to His commandments and by following the teachings of Jesus found in the Scriptures and in the Church. In other words, we must live our belief and love for the Trinity. Daily and intimately, we must pray each of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity and through our love of Them, assisted by the grace we receive in the Sacraments, we can grow ever deeper in Their love, sharing that love with others, beginning with the members of our family and going out from our families to others.
The Church places today’s Solemnity after Pentecost in order to show how much we need the help of the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds ever deeper into the great mystery of the Blessed Trinity. We need His divine help to understand that God is a Divine Family of persons so totally united in love that they are one. Assisted by His divine power, the more we worship and adore this great mystery the more we will learn to love in order to share in the love between the Divine Persons who make up this Divine Family. Then, we will be able to love one another as God loves us. Our families will become holier and stronger families, families that are in love with most Blessed Trinity and as a result are in love with one another.
O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.
Saturday, May 14, 2016
Come Holy Spirit come by means of the powerful intercession of the Sorrowful and Immaculate heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Thy well beloved spouse.
Pentecost Sunday. May 15th, 2016
In the Season of Easter the Gospels have been concentrating on the Great commandment of Jesus, that is the commandment to love one another as He has loved us, with an agape love, a sacrificial love. To love this way we must keep His Word. In other words we must accept His truth, which comes to us in the teachings of the Church and then strive to live it out in our lives with the help of His grace, which comes to us through the Same Church. If we do this then we can love one another, not only with our own human love, but also with His divine love alive in us known as Charity, which goes beyond even agape love.
In this One Great Command of Jesus, we can quickly realize that being a faithful follower of Jesus is demanding. Christianity—Catholic Christianity in particular, is a hard religion; in fact, it is the hardest religion in the world, by far; that is, if it is lived correctly and fully. Christianity is the only religion that calls us to love, not just our friends but our enemies as well.
And we are not just to love our enemies as we love our friends, but we are to be willing to lay down our life for them as well, to sacrifice our self for love of even them. Even more, we are to love of enemies with our human hearts elevated to and filled with the very love of Jesus himself. As Jesus says, “But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…(Luke 6;27). For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them...(Luke 6;32) This is what it means to, “… be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful.” (cf. Luke 6;36). I ask you, what other religion is there that places any such demands on its disciples, to demand that its disciples love with their human love elevated to the divine level?
And so, where can we, you and I, find the strength to love not only our friends, but also even our enemies and to do so with a human-divine love? Well before we give love, we must receive love. One can not give what one does not posses. In his great encyclical Deus Caritas Est-God is love, Pope Emeritus Benedict reminded us of this.,
“Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift. Certainly, as the Lord tells us, one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7:37-38). Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God.” (¶#7).
So how do we do this? How do we go to the source and receive the love of God as the Holy Father says? In and through the Sacraments received with proper disposition; that is with faith and in a state of grace.
It is in the Sacraments that we are able to enter into the very Heart of Jesus and literally come in contact with the living waters of His love and so be transformed in order to become ourselves a source of this living water of his love to others. In fact, the Holy Eucharist is indeed this pieced human and divine heart of Jesus from which flows the love of God, the Love of God Who is the Holy Spirit. Or as the Benedict put it, the Holy Spirit is the living water that flows from the heart of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
The Holy Eucharist is therefore the source of the strength we need to love even our enemies and to give our self in sacrifice for love of God and love of neighbor and to do it all with the love of God alive in our hearts, which is Jesus loving others in us, through us and with us…which is Jesus saving souls through us. So it goes with out saying we have to come before the Holy Eucharist in faith whenever we can to receive, and be filled to overflowing with the Love of Jesus (if you look at the divine mercy picture you see the rays of God’s mercy and love flowing from the heart of Jesus…the Divine mercy image is a picture of the Holy Eucharist. When you are in the presence of the Holy Eucharist those same rays come forth from the Eucharist and they penetrate hearts that believe, adore, hope and love.
At our Holy Baptism, we received the Capacity to receive the Holy Spirit of God into our Souls, to become living temples of the Holy Spirit, temples not made by human hands but by the hand of God. At our confirmation we confirmed in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit given to us at our baptism and we were thus given the power to use these same gifts of the Holy Spirit fully in our daily lives. At our first Holy Communion (and all our Holy Communions since) Jesus gave (and gives) Himself to us Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in order to bring us the Holy Spirit to perfect us in Love and so to become one with God in a unity of love.
At every Holy Communion Jesus comes for a little while sacramentally and then He says to us, “it is better for you that I go, for if I do not go, I can not send you the promised advocate, that is the Holy Spirit. Receiving the Holy Spirit, if we listen to His promptings, He then gently, but firmly, convicts of our failures to love, namely our sins, and He leads us to the Sacrament of Forgiveness. In Confession, the Sacrament of God’s Mercy, Jesus forgives us these same sins in the Person of the Priest who has receive this divine power, as did the Apostles, from the Holy Spirit (see Jn 20;20). And by removing our sins makes way for a deeper and fuller indwelling of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, Who is the Love between the Father and the Son.
Notice in our Gospel today that the first Pentecost occurred on the first day of the week, that is on Sunday. In other words, Pentecost occurred at Holy Mass. If as the Church teaches us, every Sunday Mass is Easter, so too, every Holy Mass is a Pentecost. However to receive this power from on high which comes to us anew at every Holy Mass, we must through a deeper faith open our hearts to this Divine Guest of our souls. We must ask Him to help us repent more fully of our sins, especially our hidden ones, and we must ask for His help to offer ourselves fully to God on this altar of Sacrifice. Then as the Holy Spirit descends from heaven by the prompting of the priest, He will also transformed our hearts as he transforms the bread and the wine into the Heart of Christ, so that we may live only for Jesus, through Jesus and with Jesus, loving every soul we meet, friend or enemy, with the very love of God alive in us.
So today at this Mass let us ask the Holy Spirit to inflame our heart in the love of God, so that we can truly love as Jesus Himself loves. The Advocate will help us to worship and adore God in Spirit and in truth in order to come in contact with the very source of the living waters of Love. He will help us to “lift up our hearts” that is to offer them fully to God in complete trust and so draw closer and develop an more intimate relationship with the Father, through the Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit.
When Karol Wyvotiva, the future St John Paul the Second was still living at home with his father, his father said to the future pope, “you do not pray enough to the Holy Spirit.” John Paul’s father then directed the young John Paul to pray daily to the Holy Spirit. To help him, John Paul’s father gave him the following prayer, which St. John Paul prayed every day for the rest of his life:
Holy Spirit, I ask you for the gift of Wisdom to better know You and your Divine perfections; for the gift of Understanding to clearly discern the spirit of the mysteries of the holy Faith; for the gift of Counsel that I may live according to the principles of this Faith; for the gift of Knowledge that I may look for counsel in You and that I may always find it in You; for the gift of Fortitude that no fear or earthly preoccupations would ever separate me from You; for the gift of Piety that I may always serve Your Majesty with a filial love; for the gift of the Fear of the Lord that I may dread sin, which offends you, O my God. Amen.
Come Holy Spirit come by means of the powerful intercession of the Sorrowful and Immaculate heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary Thy well beloved spouse. (3x).
In the Season of Easter the Gospels have been concentrating on the Great commandment of Jesus, that is the commandment to love one another as He has loved us, with an agape love, a sacrificial love. To love this way we must keep His Word. In other words we must accept His truth, which comes to us in the teachings of the Church and then strive to live it out in our lives with the help of His grace, which comes to us through the Same Church. If we do this then we can love one another, not only with our own human love, but also with His divine love alive in us known as Charity, which goes beyond even agape love.
In this One Great Command of Jesus, we can quickly realize that being a faithful follower of Jesus is demanding. Christianity—Catholic Christianity in particular, is a hard religion; in fact, it is the hardest religion in the world, by far; that is, if it is lived correctly and fully. Christianity is the only religion that calls us to love, not just our friends but our enemies as well.
And we are not just to love our enemies as we love our friends, but we are to be willing to lay down our life for them as well, to sacrifice our self for love of even them. Even more, we are to love of enemies with our human hearts elevated to and filled with the very love of Jesus himself. As Jesus says, “But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…(Luke 6;27). For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them...(Luke 6;32) This is what it means to, “… be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful.” (cf. Luke 6;36). I ask you, what other religion is there that places any such demands on its disciples, to demand that its disciples love with their human love elevated to the divine level?
And so, where can we, you and I, find the strength to love not only our friends, but also even our enemies and to do so with a human-divine love? Well before we give love, we must receive love. One can not give what one does not posses. In his great encyclical Deus Caritas Est-God is love, Pope Emeritus Benedict reminded us of this.,
“Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift. Certainly, as the Lord tells us, one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7:37-38). Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God.” (¶#7).
So how do we do this? How do we go to the source and receive the love of God as the Holy Father says? In and through the Sacraments received with proper disposition; that is with faith and in a state of grace.
It is in the Sacraments that we are able to enter into the very Heart of Jesus and literally come in contact with the living waters of His love and so be transformed in order to become ourselves a source of this living water of his love to others. In fact, the Holy Eucharist is indeed this pieced human and divine heart of Jesus from which flows the love of God, the Love of God Who is the Holy Spirit. Or as the Benedict put it, the Holy Spirit is the living water that flows from the heart of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
The Holy Eucharist is therefore the source of the strength we need to love even our enemies and to give our self in sacrifice for love of God and love of neighbor and to do it all with the love of God alive in our hearts, which is Jesus loving others in us, through us and with us…which is Jesus saving souls through us. So it goes with out saying we have to come before the Holy Eucharist in faith whenever we can to receive, and be filled to overflowing with the Love of Jesus (if you look at the divine mercy picture you see the rays of God’s mercy and love flowing from the heart of Jesus…the Divine mercy image is a picture of the Holy Eucharist. When you are in the presence of the Holy Eucharist those same rays come forth from the Eucharist and they penetrate hearts that believe, adore, hope and love.
At our Holy Baptism, we received the Capacity to receive the Holy Spirit of God into our Souls, to become living temples of the Holy Spirit, temples not made by human hands but by the hand of God. At our confirmation we confirmed in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit given to us at our baptism and we were thus given the power to use these same gifts of the Holy Spirit fully in our daily lives. At our first Holy Communion (and all our Holy Communions since) Jesus gave (and gives) Himself to us Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in order to bring us the Holy Spirit to perfect us in Love and so to become one with God in a unity of love.
At every Holy Communion Jesus comes for a little while sacramentally and then He says to us, “it is better for you that I go, for if I do not go, I can not send you the promised advocate, that is the Holy Spirit. Receiving the Holy Spirit, if we listen to His promptings, He then gently, but firmly, convicts of our failures to love, namely our sins, and He leads us to the Sacrament of Forgiveness. In Confession, the Sacrament of God’s Mercy, Jesus forgives us these same sins in the Person of the Priest who has receive this divine power, as did the Apostles, from the Holy Spirit (see Jn 20;20). And by removing our sins makes way for a deeper and fuller indwelling of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, Who is the Love between the Father and the Son.
Notice in our Gospel today that the first Pentecost occurred on the first day of the week, that is on Sunday. In other words, Pentecost occurred at Holy Mass. If as the Church teaches us, every Sunday Mass is Easter, so too, every Holy Mass is a Pentecost. However to receive this power from on high which comes to us anew at every Holy Mass, we must through a deeper faith open our hearts to this Divine Guest of our souls. We must ask Him to help us repent more fully of our sins, especially our hidden ones, and we must ask for His help to offer ourselves fully to God on this altar of Sacrifice. Then as the Holy Spirit descends from heaven by the prompting of the priest, He will also transformed our hearts as he transforms the bread and the wine into the Heart of Christ, so that we may live only for Jesus, through Jesus and with Jesus, loving every soul we meet, friend or enemy, with the very love of God alive in us.
So today at this Mass let us ask the Holy Spirit to inflame our heart in the love of God, so that we can truly love as Jesus Himself loves. The Advocate will help us to worship and adore God in Spirit and in truth in order to come in contact with the very source of the living waters of Love. He will help us to “lift up our hearts” that is to offer them fully to God in complete trust and so draw closer and develop an more intimate relationship with the Father, through the Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit.
When Karol Wyvotiva, the future St John Paul the Second was still living at home with his father, his father said to the future pope, “you do not pray enough to the Holy Spirit.” John Paul’s father then directed the young John Paul to pray daily to the Holy Spirit. To help him, John Paul’s father gave him the following prayer, which St. John Paul prayed every day for the rest of his life:
Holy Spirit, I ask you for the gift of Wisdom to better know You and your Divine perfections; for the gift of Understanding to clearly discern the spirit of the mysteries of the holy Faith; for the gift of Counsel that I may live according to the principles of this Faith; for the gift of Knowledge that I may look for counsel in You and that I may always find it in You; for the gift of Fortitude that no fear or earthly preoccupations would ever separate me from You; for the gift of Piety that I may always serve Your Majesty with a filial love; for the gift of the Fear of the Lord that I may dread sin, which offends you, O my God. Amen.
Come Holy Spirit come by means of the powerful intercession of the Sorrowful and Immaculate heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary Thy well beloved spouse. (3x).
Saturday, April 30, 2016
if you want truly peace, come in silence before the Holy Eucharist and in faith adore and love the living resurrected Jesus silently but really present there.
John 14; 23-29. Fifth Sunday in Easter. May 1st, 2015
The last few weeks we have been speaking about the deepest form of love known to man, that of Agape love. Agape love is a sacrificial love, a human love elevated to the divine. Agape love is only possible in a human heart to the degree that that human heart offers itself in love to the God who loved us first- this begins at our baptism and grows through worthy reception of the other Sacraments, along with intimate daily prayer and the living out of our beautiful Catholic Faith.
Our Gospel today shows us how God loved us first. Our Lord here, is preparing to enter into His passion and death in which he would prove his love for us with the greatest act of agape love the world as ever seen. Jesus in divine love would totally pour Himself out sacrificially for love of each one of us on the Cross-God would die on the cross for us.
And so, it is in the preparation for His passion that Jesus says to us, “If a man love me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we shall come to him and make our home with him.” Loving Jesus first and foremost and above all else is the key to the Father’s Love.
But this love for Jesus must be shown and expressed through action. After all, love is shown in deeds, not in sweet words. And so as Jesus says, love for Him is shown in obedience to God's Holy Word. Obeying God’s Holy Word means keeping His commandments and living according to His teachings, which come to us through His Holy Catholic Church. It is in and through the Church that we have been promised the Holy Spirit to help us understand this truth and to be our Diving Helper in living it in our lives. If we do our part, the Holy Spirit will help us to learn and understand the Church’s teaching so we can apply them in everyday life.
It is this obedience to the truth in our lives that brings us the peace that the world cannot give. Because the world rejects this truth and refuses to live in obedience to God’s Truth, the world has no peace. Rejection of the truth is ultimately a refusal to love God, by refusing to live one’s life in obedience to the truth that comes from God. The result is a lack of peace. And if there is one thing that defines our world today, it is a lack of peace; not just exterior peace but most especially inner peace, peace of soul.
I think it was Pope VI that once said; “Peace is much more than just a lack of conflict or war.” Many people in the world mistakenly think that all of our advancements in technology are going to give us peace and make us happy. Instead, in the last thirty to forty years the increases in the amount of crime, violence, and moral degradation in our society have surpassed what many of us ever dreamed possible, not to mention the fear of terrorism and war. Peace is more elusive than ever. And what takes its place is a general feeling of insecurity and outright fear. Everyone deep down knows things are not as they should be, and this leads to an even greater increase of fear, fear of what the future may hold.
As result, we see a fear of giving oneself in agape love to another, especially to God. We see this manifested in fear of making lifelong commitments to one’s vocation, whether in marriage or the religious life; fear of bringing new life into the world; and above all, fear of not being loved. Psychiatrists and other therapist are literally swamped with clients, depression is rampant, and suicide is on the increase, in fact epidemic especially among our youth, who have more material goods than any other generation in history.
And what is the remedy that most turn to in order to alleviate this fear, fear which stems from a lack of peace? Diversion; noise, lots of noise, TV, music, sex, computer games, pornography, drugs- baseless entertainment and amusement, the list is long. Our generation craves diversion, because it lacks peace. What is the solution?
The solution is to turn back to the love of God. This begins by setting the diversions aside, especially the diversion of noise and returning in silence to the One who speaks in silence…the living and true God. In silence, alone with oneself and alone with God, we can hear the voice of God who speaks in the silence to our heart; and we can respond to Him still small voice with ours through intimate prayer, heart speaking to heart; heart giving itself to heart.
A few years ago, you may remember there was an interesting movie that was all about silence before God. It was actually entitled, “Into the Great Silence.” This three-hour movie about the lives of Carthusian monks in the French alps had hardly any spoken words at all, and yet, the movie was a surprise hit. What is it that made this movie about silence so appealing to such a noisy world?
One of the comments about the monks in the movie is that they live in no fear…they live with peace, the peace that they have acquired through the years of silently nurturing their relationship with God. They have deepened their faith that they are indeed sons of a loving Father who loves them, each of them with a unique unfathomable love. If we only knew what it means to be a beloved
son and daughter of God we would have no fear only trust.
In their faith in Jesus Christ and their striving to live in obedience to His words found in Sacred Scripture and interpreted by the Holy Spirit speaking through the Church, the monks have found that solace that the human heart looks for, the solace that comes from living the world behind and living for love of God alone. And this is really the test in this life isn't it?; whether we turn to human beings and to the things of this world for our solace, or turn to God…Jesus I trust in you.
I am not suggesting we become Carthusian monks, but we do enter more into silence in the presence of God, and we have to have the living obedient faith of Carthusian monks. In other words, we need show our love for Jesus by obeying His words, His commandments and teachings and trusting in Him alone.
And like the Carthusian monks, we need to come in contact whenever and however much we can with God in silent prayer before God in the Holy Eucharist both at Holy Mass and whenever we can before His physical presence in the tabernacle. The Holy Mass is the Sacrament instituted by Christ in order to bring the world peace because it makes truly present in the Holy Eucharist the One who is the King of Peace, along with His sacrifice of Agape love for us.*(see note below).
In reality, the more that faith in the Mass and the Holy Eucharist is lost, the more the Mass and the Eucharist is ignored or treated as a time for feel good noisy entertainment, instead of a time for a silent intimate reverential encounter with the living God in adoration and worship, the more we will lack peace and live in fear. This is why the Church has reminded us over and over again to make ample time for periods of sacred silence during Mass. But so sadly us moderns often try to fill every moment of the Mass with noise.
Thomas Merton summed this all up nicely when he wrote, “Silence is not a virtue, noise is not a sin, it is true, but the turmoil and confusion and constant noise of modern society are the expressions of the ambiance of its greatest sins—its godlessness, its despair. A world of propaganda, of endless argument, vituperation, criticism, or simply of chatter is a world without anything to live for…Mass becomes racket and confusion; prayers—an exterior or interior noise” (Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas).
Therefore if you want truly peace and to live without fear, come in silence before the Holy Eucharist and in faith adore and love the living resurrected Jesus silently but really present there. It’s hard for us to do this because of the silence. The Eucharist makes no earthly noise, it is true, but it is in that sacred silence before the living God truly present in the Holy Eucharist that we will find the peace that we are looking for, the peace that the world cannot give because it is in the Holy Eucharist that we will find the strength to love God with deeds, in obedience to His truth. And then, then we will be able to love Him with an agape love and love others with a agape love for love of Him, for He will come and make His Home in us, and place His own love alive in our souls and in our hearts; then and only then will we truly have peace.
I want to end with a saying from Mother Theresa of Calcutta. She learned agape love in adoration, in silent contemplation before the Eucharist. There she learned to see the true face of God in every suffering human being and showed her love for God by obedience to His word which resulted in her life of peace, lived in service to God and neighbor. Mother of Theresa said…
The fruit of silence is PRAYER.
The fruit of prayer is FAITH.
The fruit of faith is LOVE.
The fruit of love is SERVICE.
The fruit of service is PEACE.
And I would dare to add, the fruit of peace is complete trust in and abandonment to God and His Holy Will without fear!!
********************************************************************************************************************************
*By the way, this is what is meant at the sign of peace during the Mass. The sign of peace is not just about us sharing our peace with one another…it is about receiving Christ’s peace. The priest looks down at Jesus truly present in the Eucharist (or at least he should) as he says, “Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, I leave you peace my peace I give you…and then the priest receives it from the Eucharist and offers it to the people whose hearts are open to receive it, by saying, "the Peace of Christ be with you…(literally)". He then invites those present to share Jesus' peace (they have just received) with one other.
The Holy Father once reminded us that this action is not meant to be a free for all…first and foremost we are sharing Jesus peace with one another, not our own peace. For this reason the sharing of the peace of Christ is to be done in a subdued manner with person next to you, who passes it on…it is not suppose to be an attempt to shake every single person’s hand around you. It’s not about us, it’s about Christ; the peace comes from Christ, not from each other and so our attention should stay on the Eucharist, not on each other.
The peace of Christ that comes to us is an assurance of spiritual, saving strength that goes beyond a simple gesture or simple words. The peace of the Lord is not given as the world gives peace. Christ’s peace is not an absence of conflict or suffering. It is a peace that comes from knowing that we are God’s children who depend totally on Him for everything-everything and that we will never have true peace until we turn to him for everything and love him above everything, above everything this world has to offer. It is a peace that comes from loving God and showing this love by living in obedience to his commandments and His Catholic Church.
The last few weeks we have been speaking about the deepest form of love known to man, that of Agape love. Agape love is a sacrificial love, a human love elevated to the divine. Agape love is only possible in a human heart to the degree that that human heart offers itself in love to the God who loved us first- this begins at our baptism and grows through worthy reception of the other Sacraments, along with intimate daily prayer and the living out of our beautiful Catholic Faith.
Our Gospel today shows us how God loved us first. Our Lord here, is preparing to enter into His passion and death in which he would prove his love for us with the greatest act of agape love the world as ever seen. Jesus in divine love would totally pour Himself out sacrificially for love of each one of us on the Cross-God would die on the cross for us.
And so, it is in the preparation for His passion that Jesus says to us, “If a man love me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we shall come to him and make our home with him.” Loving Jesus first and foremost and above all else is the key to the Father’s Love.
But this love for Jesus must be shown and expressed through action. After all, love is shown in deeds, not in sweet words. And so as Jesus says, love for Him is shown in obedience to God's Holy Word. Obeying God’s Holy Word means keeping His commandments and living according to His teachings, which come to us through His Holy Catholic Church. It is in and through the Church that we have been promised the Holy Spirit to help us understand this truth and to be our Diving Helper in living it in our lives. If we do our part, the Holy Spirit will help us to learn and understand the Church’s teaching so we can apply them in everyday life.
It is this obedience to the truth in our lives that brings us the peace that the world cannot give. Because the world rejects this truth and refuses to live in obedience to God’s Truth, the world has no peace. Rejection of the truth is ultimately a refusal to love God, by refusing to live one’s life in obedience to the truth that comes from God. The result is a lack of peace. And if there is one thing that defines our world today, it is a lack of peace; not just exterior peace but most especially inner peace, peace of soul.
I think it was Pope VI that once said; “Peace is much more than just a lack of conflict or war.” Many people in the world mistakenly think that all of our advancements in technology are going to give us peace and make us happy. Instead, in the last thirty to forty years the increases in the amount of crime, violence, and moral degradation in our society have surpassed what many of us ever dreamed possible, not to mention the fear of terrorism and war. Peace is more elusive than ever. And what takes its place is a general feeling of insecurity and outright fear. Everyone deep down knows things are not as they should be, and this leads to an even greater increase of fear, fear of what the future may hold.
As result, we see a fear of giving oneself in agape love to another, especially to God. We see this manifested in fear of making lifelong commitments to one’s vocation, whether in marriage or the religious life; fear of bringing new life into the world; and above all, fear of not being loved. Psychiatrists and other therapist are literally swamped with clients, depression is rampant, and suicide is on the increase, in fact epidemic especially among our youth, who have more material goods than any other generation in history.
And what is the remedy that most turn to in order to alleviate this fear, fear which stems from a lack of peace? Diversion; noise, lots of noise, TV, music, sex, computer games, pornography, drugs- baseless entertainment and amusement, the list is long. Our generation craves diversion, because it lacks peace. What is the solution?
The solution is to turn back to the love of God. This begins by setting the diversions aside, especially the diversion of noise and returning in silence to the One who speaks in silence…the living and true God. In silence, alone with oneself and alone with God, we can hear the voice of God who speaks in the silence to our heart; and we can respond to Him still small voice with ours through intimate prayer, heart speaking to heart; heart giving itself to heart.
A few years ago, you may remember there was an interesting movie that was all about silence before God. It was actually entitled, “Into the Great Silence.” This three-hour movie about the lives of Carthusian monks in the French alps had hardly any spoken words at all, and yet, the movie was a surprise hit. What is it that made this movie about silence so appealing to such a noisy world?
One of the comments about the monks in the movie is that they live in no fear…they live with peace, the peace that they have acquired through the years of silently nurturing their relationship with God. They have deepened their faith that they are indeed sons of a loving Father who loves them, each of them with a unique unfathomable love. If we only knew what it means to be a beloved
son and daughter of God we would have no fear only trust.
In their faith in Jesus Christ and their striving to live in obedience to His words found in Sacred Scripture and interpreted by the Holy Spirit speaking through the Church, the monks have found that solace that the human heart looks for, the solace that comes from living the world behind and living for love of God alone. And this is really the test in this life isn't it?; whether we turn to human beings and to the things of this world for our solace, or turn to God…Jesus I trust in you.
I am not suggesting we become Carthusian monks, but we do enter more into silence in the presence of God, and we have to have the living obedient faith of Carthusian monks. In other words, we need show our love for Jesus by obeying His words, His commandments and teachings and trusting in Him alone.
And like the Carthusian monks, we need to come in contact whenever and however much we can with God in silent prayer before God in the Holy Eucharist both at Holy Mass and whenever we can before His physical presence in the tabernacle. The Holy Mass is the Sacrament instituted by Christ in order to bring the world peace because it makes truly present in the Holy Eucharist the One who is the King of Peace, along with His sacrifice of Agape love for us.*(see note below).
In reality, the more that faith in the Mass and the Holy Eucharist is lost, the more the Mass and the Eucharist is ignored or treated as a time for feel good noisy entertainment, instead of a time for a silent intimate reverential encounter with the living God in adoration and worship, the more we will lack peace and live in fear. This is why the Church has reminded us over and over again to make ample time for periods of sacred silence during Mass. But so sadly us moderns often try to fill every moment of the Mass with noise.
Thomas Merton summed this all up nicely when he wrote, “Silence is not a virtue, noise is not a sin, it is true, but the turmoil and confusion and constant noise of modern society are the expressions of the ambiance of its greatest sins—its godlessness, its despair. A world of propaganda, of endless argument, vituperation, criticism, or simply of chatter is a world without anything to live for…Mass becomes racket and confusion; prayers—an exterior or interior noise” (Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas).
Therefore if you want truly peace and to live without fear, come in silence before the Holy Eucharist and in faith adore and love the living resurrected Jesus silently but really present there. It’s hard for us to do this because of the silence. The Eucharist makes no earthly noise, it is true, but it is in that sacred silence before the living God truly present in the Holy Eucharist that we will find the peace that we are looking for, the peace that the world cannot give because it is in the Holy Eucharist that we will find the strength to love God with deeds, in obedience to His truth. And then, then we will be able to love Him with an agape love and love others with a agape love for love of Him, for He will come and make His Home in us, and place His own love alive in our souls and in our hearts; then and only then will we truly have peace.
I want to end with a saying from Mother Theresa of Calcutta. She learned agape love in adoration, in silent contemplation before the Eucharist. There she learned to see the true face of God in every suffering human being and showed her love for God by obedience to His word which resulted in her life of peace, lived in service to God and neighbor. Mother of Theresa said…
The fruit of silence is PRAYER.
The fruit of prayer is FAITH.
The fruit of faith is LOVE.
The fruit of love is SERVICE.
The fruit of service is PEACE.
And I would dare to add, the fruit of peace is complete trust in and abandonment to God and His Holy Will without fear!!
********************************************************************************************************************************
*By the way, this is what is meant at the sign of peace during the Mass. The sign of peace is not just about us sharing our peace with one another…it is about receiving Christ’s peace. The priest looks down at Jesus truly present in the Eucharist (or at least he should) as he says, “Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, I leave you peace my peace I give you…and then the priest receives it from the Eucharist and offers it to the people whose hearts are open to receive it, by saying, "the Peace of Christ be with you…(literally)". He then invites those present to share Jesus' peace (they have just received) with one other.
The Holy Father once reminded us that this action is not meant to be a free for all…first and foremost we are sharing Jesus peace with one another, not our own peace. For this reason the sharing of the peace of Christ is to be done in a subdued manner with person next to you, who passes it on…it is not suppose to be an attempt to shake every single person’s hand around you. It’s not about us, it’s about Christ; the peace comes from Christ, not from each other and so our attention should stay on the Eucharist, not on each other.
The peace of Christ that comes to us is an assurance of spiritual, saving strength that goes beyond a simple gesture or simple words. The peace of the Lord is not given as the world gives peace. Christ’s peace is not an absence of conflict or suffering. It is a peace that comes from knowing that we are God’s children who depend totally on Him for everything-everything and that we will never have true peace until we turn to him for everything and love him above everything, above everything this world has to offer. It is a peace that comes from loving God and showing this love by living in obedience to his commandments and His Catholic Church.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
If anyone enters the sheepfold through me he shall be saved, he shall go freely in and out and shall find good pasture.” Let us at this Holy Mass through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, offer our Hearts fully and with complete trust to the One who offers His Sacred Heart fully to us in the Holy Eucharist.
Fourth Sunday in Easter-Good Shepherd Sunday.
Today we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday. Without doubt one of the most popular images of Jesus Christ is that of the Good Shepherd. It is an image that is easy for us to understand especially when we are depressed and sad. It is an image that is very consoling especially when it feels like God has abandoned us. And for some of us, it was a consoling image when we ourselves had strayed away from God. A God that actually leaves the other sheep for the sake of “one,” is a God that is not so frightening, but very compassionate, very merciful to the sheep who but turns to Him for forgiveness and confesses its sins. Jesus as the Good Shepherd is an image of God that makes the person who has strayed, actually want to be found.
Jesus is indeed the Good Shepherd who freely chooses to lay down his life for his sheep.” Jesus has laid down his life for His sheep. And it is only because of Jesus’ own suffering and death that we can be saved. His sacrifice is how He saved us when we were lost sheep. His sacrifice is how we are still being saved and protected while we are in the unsafe pastures of this world. And His Sacrifice is our hope of final salvation in order to reach the eternal pastures of heaven.
And His once-and-for-all Sacrifice is being re-presented, that is made truly present, at this and every Holy Mass in order to continue to save and protect us. This means that the Holy Mass is the very same Sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary made present in our midst and in our time, alone with Its saving power. This brings us to the deepest meaning of Christ the Good Shepherd, one that many may not have heard before.
The very idea of shepherd in the Old Testament and the New was always connected to priestly service. In other words, shepherding in the biblical understanding was priestly work. The priest is one who offers Sacrifice and worship on behalf of the people, interceding to God for the sake of the people.
Jesus was and is the true priest who offers the perfect sacrifice and so perfect worship and adoration on behalf of the people. It is perfect because Jesus is God who offers Himself to God—God adores God. Jesus offers Himself on our behalf to the Father, in order to take away our sins and to provide for us the grace needed to union with God now and in the life to come.
Jesus is also the perfect priest as the One who offers and at the same time the perfect victim, the One Who is being offered. Only through His perfect offering of Himself to the Father on our behalf can we or anyone be saved. In the Holy Mass, Jesus the God-Man offers to God the Father the one perfect and so acceptable act of adoration for the salvation of the world, the self-same act on the cross. The Holy Mass is then the source of all the grace, ALL GRACE, that comes into this world.
Jesus the Good Shepherd continues to carry out His saving work as the Good Shepherd in the Sacred Liturgy. Therefore, the work of the Liturgy is first and foremost the work of the Good Shepherd (It is only secondarily our work. In fact, we can only do our work of adoration and worship in union with the perfect worship and adoration of the Son present at every Holy Mass). We must always remember that it is really Jesus Christ who offers the Holy Mass in the person of the priest. Jesus in other words, carries out his shepherding in and through the Sacred Liturgy, which includes the Holy Mass and all the other sacraments, which flow from It.
This means then that Jesus the High priest carries out His priestly work of Shepherding through the Church and it's Sacred Priesthood. When the Sacraments are offered it is really and truly Jesus Himself who baptizes, forgives, confirms, heals, marries, ordains and as I said, offers priestly sacrifice. To carry out His saving priestly work, Jesus the Good Shepherd actually depends on other shepherds who He has given a share in His priestly office. And they for their part, place their voice, their hands, their bodies, themselves at the disposable of the Good Shepherd. Through the Church, they are to shepherd God’s people in Christ's name and with His own Divine Power by offering sacrifice; and so, they shepherd in Christ stead, by sanctifying, teaching and by governing the sheep all with the divine authority of the Head, Jesus, in whose Name they have been called and ordained.
Through the ordained priesthood, Jesus the Good Shepherd is always with us, as close as any Catholic Church, were he waits on our sacred altars and in our tabernacles night and day for any lost sheep who but calls out for him. He gives us His Holy Church led by His Pastors, a Church whose teachings are the very voice of the Good Shepherd. “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I will give them eternal life...”all through the Holy Eucharist.
Jesus’ love for his sheep is a sacrifice of love; it is agape love to the ultimate extreme. And so, we learn from Jesus what love really means; love ultimately means sacrifice laying down ones life for one’s friend; and Jesus has laid down His life for His friends, you and me, and literally continues to do so at the Holy Mass, to provide us with the means to love like Him.
Jesus continues to shepherd us through the priesthood of His Church that he founded and through which he continues to bring his work of redemption into every age including our own. Jesus shepherds us through His shepherds the priests, in whose person HE continues to lay down His life for us through them. In the Holy Eucharist made present by the Priest and the Holy Spirit working through the priest, Jesus give us, offers us His own divine Love and Life in the Eucharist so that we can love with his own heart, that is so we can love with the very love of God, a divine love know as Charity. But for our part we must open our heart to His; that is, offer our heart in response to the offering of His. The Holy Mass is truly meant to be the place on earth where not only heart speaks to Heart, but where heart offers to Heart.
“If anyone enters the sheepfold through me he shall be saved, he shall go freely in and out and shall find good pasture.” Let us at this Holy Mass through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, offer our Hearts fully and with complete trust to the One who offers His Sacred Heart fully to us in the Holy Eucharist. Through the Holy Eucharist, Who is the Good Shepherd in our midst, let us enter into His Love so that we may by the Power of the Holy Spirit, take on in our self, in our lives and for our world the image of the same Good Shepherd, being used by Him to seek out the lost and becoming united to Him, and through Him with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit along with all the angels and saints, forever and ever. Amen.
Today we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday. Without doubt one of the most popular images of Jesus Christ is that of the Good Shepherd. It is an image that is easy for us to understand especially when we are depressed and sad. It is an image that is very consoling especially when it feels like God has abandoned us. And for some of us, it was a consoling image when we ourselves had strayed away from God. A God that actually leaves the other sheep for the sake of “one,” is a God that is not so frightening, but very compassionate, very merciful to the sheep who but turns to Him for forgiveness and confesses its sins. Jesus as the Good Shepherd is an image of God that makes the person who has strayed, actually want to be found.
Jesus is indeed the Good Shepherd who freely chooses to lay down his life for his sheep.” Jesus has laid down his life for His sheep. And it is only because of Jesus’ own suffering and death that we can be saved. His sacrifice is how He saved us when we were lost sheep. His sacrifice is how we are still being saved and protected while we are in the unsafe pastures of this world. And His Sacrifice is our hope of final salvation in order to reach the eternal pastures of heaven.
And His once-and-for-all Sacrifice is being re-presented, that is made truly present, at this and every Holy Mass in order to continue to save and protect us. This means that the Holy Mass is the very same Sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary made present in our midst and in our time, alone with Its saving power. This brings us to the deepest meaning of Christ the Good Shepherd, one that many may not have heard before.
The very idea of shepherd in the Old Testament and the New was always connected to priestly service. In other words, shepherding in the biblical understanding was priestly work. The priest is one who offers Sacrifice and worship on behalf of the people, interceding to God for the sake of the people.
Jesus was and is the true priest who offers the perfect sacrifice and so perfect worship and adoration on behalf of the people. It is perfect because Jesus is God who offers Himself to God—God adores God. Jesus offers Himself on our behalf to the Father, in order to take away our sins and to provide for us the grace needed to union with God now and in the life to come.
Jesus is also the perfect priest as the One who offers and at the same time the perfect victim, the One Who is being offered. Only through His perfect offering of Himself to the Father on our behalf can we or anyone be saved. In the Holy Mass, Jesus the God-Man offers to God the Father the one perfect and so acceptable act of adoration for the salvation of the world, the self-same act on the cross. The Holy Mass is then the source of all the grace, ALL GRACE, that comes into this world.
Jesus the Good Shepherd continues to carry out His saving work as the Good Shepherd in the Sacred Liturgy. Therefore, the work of the Liturgy is first and foremost the work of the Good Shepherd (It is only secondarily our work. In fact, we can only do our work of adoration and worship in union with the perfect worship and adoration of the Son present at every Holy Mass). We must always remember that it is really Jesus Christ who offers the Holy Mass in the person of the priest. Jesus in other words, carries out his shepherding in and through the Sacred Liturgy, which includes the Holy Mass and all the other sacraments, which flow from It.
This means then that Jesus the High priest carries out His priestly work of Shepherding through the Church and it's Sacred Priesthood. When the Sacraments are offered it is really and truly Jesus Himself who baptizes, forgives, confirms, heals, marries, ordains and as I said, offers priestly sacrifice. To carry out His saving priestly work, Jesus the Good Shepherd actually depends on other shepherds who He has given a share in His priestly office. And they for their part, place their voice, their hands, their bodies, themselves at the disposable of the Good Shepherd. Through the Church, they are to shepherd God’s people in Christ's name and with His own Divine Power by offering sacrifice; and so, they shepherd in Christ stead, by sanctifying, teaching and by governing the sheep all with the divine authority of the Head, Jesus, in whose Name they have been called and ordained.
Through the ordained priesthood, Jesus the Good Shepherd is always with us, as close as any Catholic Church, were he waits on our sacred altars and in our tabernacles night and day for any lost sheep who but calls out for him. He gives us His Holy Church led by His Pastors, a Church whose teachings are the very voice of the Good Shepherd. “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I will give them eternal life...”all through the Holy Eucharist.
Jesus’ love for his sheep is a sacrifice of love; it is agape love to the ultimate extreme. And so, we learn from Jesus what love really means; love ultimately means sacrifice laying down ones life for one’s friend; and Jesus has laid down His life for His friends, you and me, and literally continues to do so at the Holy Mass, to provide us with the means to love like Him.
Jesus continues to shepherd us through the priesthood of His Church that he founded and through which he continues to bring his work of redemption into every age including our own. Jesus shepherds us through His shepherds the priests, in whose person HE continues to lay down His life for us through them. In the Holy Eucharist made present by the Priest and the Holy Spirit working through the priest, Jesus give us, offers us His own divine Love and Life in the Eucharist so that we can love with his own heart, that is so we can love with the very love of God, a divine love know as Charity. But for our part we must open our heart to His; that is, offer our heart in response to the offering of His. The Holy Mass is truly meant to be the place on earth where not only heart speaks to Heart, but where heart offers to Heart.
“If anyone enters the sheepfold through me he shall be saved, he shall go freely in and out and shall find good pasture.” Let us at this Holy Mass through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, offer our Hearts fully and with complete trust to the One who offers His Sacred Heart fully to us in the Holy Eucharist. Through the Holy Eucharist, Who is the Good Shepherd in our midst, let us enter into His Love so that we may by the Power of the Holy Spirit, take on in our self, in our lives and for our world the image of the same Good Shepherd, being used by Him to seek out the lost and becoming united to Him, and through Him with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit along with all the angels and saints, forever and ever. Amen.
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