We can't even pray the Hail Mary truthfully, if we don't recognize or sinfulness. For how can we say, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners", if we don't see the truth that we are sinners in need of her prayer?.....

Luke 18;9-14 Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. October 27th, 2013

For the past couple of weeks, the Church has given us readings about prayer, and today is no exception. Last week we were encouraged to persevere in our prayer; remember the story of the widow and the unjust judge. Today, Jesus teaches us an essential disposition of prayer- that of humility... to accept the truth, the real truth about ourselves in light of God and of His truth.

In the Gospel of St. Luke, we hear Jesus speaking to a group of believers, who convinced of their own goodness and their own self-righteousness, despise everyone else, the rest of humanity. The Pharisees thought they were righteous, and everyone else, especially Jesus and his disciples, were not. How would we translate this to our own day?

Well, it seems there was a priest who had given a moving homily on the Gospel we just heard, about this proud Pharisee and the humble publican or public sinner, tax collector. Everybody it seems was impressed with the priest’s homily, especially one man, who had developed a decided dislike for the Pharisee or any else who would brag: “God, I thank thee that I am not like other men.” Right after Mass, this man shook hands with the priest and told him: “Good sermon, Father.” Then he added: “Thank God, I’m not like that Pharisee.”

Unfortunately of course, this man was doing the very same thing the Pharisee was doing in the Gospel. It was clear in his comments to the priest, that this man was blind to the fact that he was committing the exact same sin of the Pharisee; the sin of self-righteous pride; that is, the sin of considering himself better than someone else or even everyone else; the sin of refusing to change his life according to the truth, that is the refusal to see his own sinfulness in light of the Gospel and the teachings of the Church in order to repent and convert his own life. It is the same sin of the Pharisee, which believes it’s everyone else who needs to change--the rest of humanity but not me. The self-righteous is one who never deals with his own sin. This reveals something else about self-righteousness.

A person who hasn't dealt with his own sins also becomes fixated on the real or imagined sins of others and constantly points them out. He expects perfection in everyone else, but not in himself. And then, when a person in his life fails to live up to the impossible standard of perfection he sets for them, he resents them for it. He ends up of with a long list of grudges. He even begins to project his own sins onto other people in order to keep himself from looking at his own imperfect life. Whenever a person doesn't deal with own his sins, his life gets caught up in trying to control others, to change others. And when they don’t change according to his standards this leads him to anger, resentment and even revenge against the other. (Be careful of those who talk angrily about the faults of others because so often the supposed faults of others belong in fact to the one who is pointing them out! It’s kind of like a thief who accuses someone else of thievery in order to pull the attention off himself)

My mom's mom, my grandma had a great saying, "Don't worry about the dirt on your neighbor's porch, you have enough to sweep off on your own." The truth is clear, we are all sinners. The great saints of the Church, such as St. Francis of Assisi, knew they were sinners. In fact, the closer they drew to Christ, the more they realized in His Divine Light how sinful they were and so the more they sought his forgiveness and so open themselves up to His Divine Mercy. The opposite is true, if we fail to realize that we are sinners the more we close ourselves off to the Mercy of God.

We have to be careful because if we are honest (and humble) we have to admit that there is a little Pharisee that lives in each one of us trying to justify our faults and failings; and at the same time, always wanting to point out the real or supposed faults and failures of others. And in light of our supposed perfection, “I am not like them,” we will then too want to react strongly against anyone, anyone, who would show us, through their words or through their holiness of life, the truth about our self; the truth about own real sins, faults and failures. And we can even go further and be like a thief and accuse a good man in order to take the attention off of our self.

Jesus showed the Pharisees the truth about their sins. He did so by His words and by his actions; the light of His divine continence removed the clouds of self-imposed blindness so they could see their sinfulness. But they didn't want to see it. And so instead, they projected their sin on Jesus. They falsely accused him, and in the end killed him, even though they knew Him to be just man. The very same thing happens every day, even in our Church, our parishes and in our families. Good people who are trying to live lives of holiness. By their actions they bring the light of Christ that convicts the guilty consciences of others, others who instead of repenting, attack the goodness in the one whose life convicts them, falsely accusing him or her of all sorts of misdeeds. In the end the falsely accused may not be killed physically, but they are killed nonetheless; their good name is killed-this happens especially to good and holy priests, but not only to priests. The true prophet, that is he or she who preaches the truth by word and most importantly by holiness of life, is always attacked and falsely accused by those who refused to admit the truth about their sinfulness and so refuse to repent and convert their lives to Christ. In the end the prophet can even be physically killed. And not just by the pagans, but even by those who claim to be followers of Christ and are within the Church --these are the wolves in sheep’s clothing that our Blessed Lord warns about and they can be bishops, priests or members of the laity.

Jesus for his part does not want to condemn anyone for sin. He wants to give us, through His Spirit, the confidence to face the hard facts- that we are indeed miserable sinners. But He doesn't do this so we beat ourselves up and despair, but instead so we will see our desperate need for His infinite mercy; and in light of this desperate need, and with great hope, open ourselves to His Divine Mercy by our repentance and conversion of heart.

God knows all our sins, from every omission to every thought and deed; He knows the truth about us. We may be able to fool others but not Him. Yet, nevertheless, he desires to forgives us and make us better. The publican knew this about God and so said- “have mercy on me a sinner.” This sinner believed that God was merciful and would pardon his sins, if he but beg for God's mercy. The publican didn't even have time to look at the sins of the Pharisees; in fact, and this is the other part of all of this, I am sure, the publican, in the recognition of his sinfulness and in light of God's mercy, realized his great need to beg for God's mercy, not only for himself, but for all of his fellow sinners..."have mercy on us and on the whole world!"

When we pray we can ask God to help us have this humble-truthful attitude about ourselves, saying like the publican, "have mercy on me a sinner!" Jesus knows our sins and He knows as well our fear of facing them. We for our part need to ask the Holy Spirit to show us how God's see us, not how we see ourselves- to reveal to us the true state of our soul as it stands before God’s Infinite holiness and perfection. The Holy Spirit will then reveal to us this truth ever so gently. He will peal back the scab so that we can see the infection that lies beneath the surface of our soul. As we become more and more aware of the infection of our sins, the Holy Spirit will tell us how much He loves us and how much He desires to heal the damage our sin has cause to our hearts. He will also point out how our sins have hurt all of the members of the mystical body of Christ, the Church; but now, that through us, He wishes to heal that damage as well in order to reconcile us to God and to one another, especially in our families and parish family!

We need to be humble; but as we all know, being humble is so hard for us. Jesus offers us so much help, but we need to us it. First He gives us the help of the sacrament of Reconciliation. Confession is one the most humble acts we as humans can do, that is why it can be hard for us.

To go before the priest acting in the person of Christ, or I should say, Christ acting in the person of the priest, is very humbling, that’s one of the reasons why we need to do it. The Pharisee would have never been humble enough to go to confession. He would have thought that with all his good and righteous deeds, like regular community outreach, church attendance, tithing and fasting he didn’t need to confess his sins to Jesus, much less to Jesus’ representative, the priest, that’s for other people. This can also happen to us; by thinking that with all of our many good deeds we no longer need confession, after all we haven’t “killed” anyone; at least we think…maybe not physically but have we killed their good reputation, through gossip, detraction and calumny?

Most people don’t decide one day they are never going to confession anymore. They just put it on the backburner, thinking they are righteous enough and before you know it, months turn into years and years into decades. And even for those who still go to confession a sense of pharisaical self-righteousness can easily creep into their confessions and hold them back from being totally truthful to the priest. They become like the person who said, “Father I stole a piece of paper.” What was on the piece of paper, asked the priest. “Well just some 1’s and 0’s aaannd a picture of Benjamin Franklin.” And so as a result of their self-righteousness they only see the real or imagined sins of others and not their own...and they too can then succumb to the lie, "why do I have to go to confession?" In the end, I guarantee you that the tax collector would have been the first in line to go to confession, and fall on his knees in order to confess his sins fully and truthfully.

To go along with confession, the Sacrament of God's mercy, forgiveness and healing, is the help that comes from the Holy Eucharist. One always leads a person to the other. The reality of the Holy Eucharist is the greatest of all helps to teach us humility. Jesus humbled himself to become a man and more deeply humbles Himself when he becomes our food in His great gift of the Holy Eucharist. Just think, Jesus, the Word incarnate, humbles himself to be present fully in the Eucharist- his body, blood, soul and divinity. This is the greatest act of humility the world has seen or will ever see!

If Jesus, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords can humble himself to become our food, we should have the same confidence and trust to open our hearts in humility to Him. We do this both by kneeling before Him in the person of the priest in the Sacrament of confession and by kneeling in adoration before His true substantial presence in the Holy Eucharist. His grace received through confession and through the reception and adoration of the Eucharist is our help to truly receive the gift of humility, to see ourselves as we are, so we can allow Him to strengthen and heal our hearts and so our communion of love with God and with one another.

The more in faith we adore God in the Holy Eucharist the more His light reveals to us our true self, the more then we see that we are sinners in need of his forgiveness and mercy. Yet at the same time, the more we see His great love for us; and as a result, the more we fall madly in love with His Divine Presence. The more as well, we see our connection with our brothers and sisters and Christ in our Church family throughout the world, and the Church family in our midst, the parish family, and our great need and responsibility to love them, to sacrifice for them and to pray for the healing of the damage our sin as cause the unity of the whole body of Christ, the Church, including St. Mary’s parish family.

Let us ask Jesus as we receive Him worthily today, to give us His gift of humility and prayer. Let us receive Him in Holy Communion not only for ourselves but also for our entire parish family, for the strengthening of the communion of love between all of its members in the Mystical Body of Christ. Let us say from the depths of our souls, “Domine non sum dignus intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea.” That is, “O Lord I am not worthy to receive you under my roof, but only say the Word and my soul shall be healed.”

And finally, let us turn to the Blessed Mother—the humble handmaid of the Lord. We can't even pray the Hail Mary truthfully, if we don't recognize or sinfulness. For how can we say, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners", if we don't see the truth that we are sinners in need of her prayer?.....Holy Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, Mother of our Parish family, pray for us sinners who have recourse to thee. Amen. God Bless you all!

It is through our devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that we best make this self-offering to God.

Luke 18; 1-8 Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time. October 20th, 2013

Last week we witnessed an important event in the history of our modern times. Pope Francis made an act of consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. By doing so, Francis, as the Vicar of Christ on Earth, renewed a previous act done by Blessed John Paul II back in 1984. This act of John Paul was made in order to fulfill part of a request given by the Blessed Virgin Mary in Fatima Portugal in the year 1917 to three little shepherd children when she asked that the pope in union with all the bishops of the world would consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart.

Importantly, according to the eldest of the Children, Sister Lucia, who just died in 2005, John Paul’s act of consecration did indeed fulfilled this part of the urgent request from heaven given by Our Lady of Fatima. The only problem with John Paul’s part of the act of consecration was that it was done some 67 years too late. Sadly, if Our Lady’s requests would have been fulfilled right away after she appeared in 1917, the twentieth century and now the twenty-first century would have been saved from wars, persecution, diseases, natural disasters and so from great suffering.

The important thing to understand however is not that the popes somehow failed us by not making sooner the consecration of Russia and the world to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. No, the popes did not fail us, we failed ourselves. In other words, not enough people took seriously the heavenly warnings given to the three little shepherd Children; people refused to repent of their sins. They failed to make their own personal consecration of their lives to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of His Mother in order to convert back to God. You see this too was part of Our Lady’s request—our own personal repentance and personal conversion.

The warning of Fatima is then so very current; it is for our day. The greatest of the prophecies of Fatima have not yet been fulfilled. Fatima is really a call to return to God and stop sinning. It is the same call of the Gospel: Repent and be converted. If not the world will experience a punishment from God of biblical proportion, greater than even the flood. But it will not be a punishment of the Father’s making but of man’s own making. Pope John Paul and now Pope Francis know that even though these warnings from heaven are serious, they are given to us as a message of Great Hope. But will we listen before it is too late? Will we make the same mistake, as did the majority of the world after Heaven’s visit in 1917 and ignore the warnings?

We are starting to see the warnings come true, something is happening to our world and it is not good and deep down everybody knows it. We are in trouble, already so much suffering. And there are greater trials ahead for everyone. Listen to what Blessed John Paul II said in November 1980 at Fulda, Germany:

“We must be ready to face great trials, which could also require the sacrifice of our life for Christ…the trials could be reduced through your and our prayer, but they can’t “anymore” be avoided, because a true renewal of the Church can take place only this way…Let’s be strong and let’s get ready, having faith in Christ and in His Mother. Let’s pray much and often the Holy Rosary.”

We have been given a way to lessen the severity of the trials and bring an error of peace to our world. It is through our own repentance and conversion through devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. God does not wish the purification of the world by fire, but by grace. And so, God wishes for you and I, by our holiness of life, to become instruments of His grace and His mercy, so He can use us to convert our world so steeped in the mire of sin and so death.

Fatima reminds us that Sin, not God, is what is the cause of all unhappiness into the world; sin causes all wars in our world, in our communities and families, sin causes division and a lack of peace even within our selves. It was sin that caused physical death to come into the world, and, if it is serious, sin can cause spiritual death, which if left unrepentant can cause eternal death. Is important to note that Mother of God actually showed these three little Children the reality of hell, that it does exist contrary to the denial of so many, even so many churchmen; those who deny it, risk ending up there. And so the Blessed Mother warns us her children of the great loss of souls that will occur if men do not heed heaven’s warning through her, and repent from their sins and convert, that is turn back to the All loving, but all Holy and Just God.

The modern world is really living in a dream world, which is quickly turning into a nightmare; it is ignoring the reality of sin and its devastating effects. One of the gravest of sins in our modern society pointed to at Fatima is what the Second Vatican Council referred to as practical atheism. Practical atheism is seen in the fact that while many say they believe in God, they in all practicality live their lives as if He doesn’t exist. For the most part they ignore him by how they live their lives, even though they may continue to give him “lip service.”

This practical atheism or we may call it secularism; this practical denial of God must be repented of. How….? By man paying attention to God. And the best way to do this is first of all by prayer. Fatima then, as the Gospel, is a call to pray always. For Man must pray to God the source of everything, talk to Him, meditation on Him and on His truths, and contemplate His mysteries all in an effort to achieve an intimate loving union with God. The goal of Prayer is not just to receive something from God; it is not just to talk to God; it is to become unite with God in a union of love where the soul seeks to become one with God as a drop of water becomes one with the ocean when the two meet.

It is God our heavenly Father who loves us and so who calls us into this union with Him. He initiates the contact, but we must in faith then give our response to His Call. And we must then pray to God not only for ourselves but also for all of the millions who ignore Him. We must seek Him on behalf of the indifferent souls who live their lives as if He didn’t exist and who never think of their death and the judgment that comes after, heaven or hell. We must try to love God in order to make up for all of those who don’t love Him; we must pray always in order to become instruments for the conversion of others, to become instruments of mercy for us and for our whole world, in order to help save souls from an eternal separation from God for ever.

Today Jesus desires to help us answer Fatima’s call to pray always in order to renew and save our world. In today’s Gospel, He uses the image of a widow in great need; she persistently bothers the unjust judge, who because of her constant supplication, finally gives into her request. Jesus makes a contrast here between the judge and our Heavenly Father; if even this unjust Judge will grant the widow’s request because of her perseverance, how much more will Our Father in heaven who loves us grant our requests when we persevere in our prayer to Him. The lesson is of course this, because prayer is that action which put us into direct Contact with the living God we must pray always, without ceasing or becoming weary.

Jesus himself gives us the example of praying always. Prayer was the connecting thread of his whole life. His mind was always on His Father, everything He did was done for love of His Father. So intimate was and is this conversation and relationship, that Jesus and his Father are one. Of Jesus, it is said that he prayed during the day, in the evening, early in the morning, and sometimes he passed the whole night in prayer. We are deceiving ourselves if we think that we can pray from the heart if we do not set aside every day, fixed times for prayer, times when we are free from every other distraction.

Jesus shows us that prayer should be the first act of our day and the last of act of our day, along with times in between to pray as well, including before and after meals. Part of our ceaseless prayer are those specific schedule times of our day, which should be devoted to contemplation and private prayer; It is during these times in the silence away from the cares of the world, if only for a little while, that we come to know God’s holy will for us and are strengthened to perform our daily duties in a way that is pleasing to Our Lord.

The call of Fatima and of the Gospels to pray always means then living in a personal, constant union with God. It doesn’t mean spending all day in church, and it certainly doesn’t mean neglecting our daily duties of life in order to pray. No, praying always is simply fulfilling our daily duties with our mind and heart centered on God and on our love for Him and His love for us. Your work, everything you do, no matter how insignificant is done for love of God and offered to God in love and for love of neighbor for love of God; your whole life becomes a living prayer and gives God glory. This begins with a morning offering; that is with an act of our will in which we offer all our thoughts, words and actions to God with a prayer such as: all for the Sacred and Eucharist heart of Jesus, all through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, all in union with St. Joseph. The key here is that as we offer our daily activities we do so with a desire to show our love for God who loves us beyond our imagining.

You see, prayer can never be about calculating the time we spend, or checking it off our list of things to do. Does a mother ask how often she should love her child or a friend how often he should love a friend? Does a Mother ever see it has a burden to talk to her child, or friend to talk to his friend, the one he loves. St. Augustine says that the essence of prayer is desire. And so, if the desire for God is constant, so also is prayer. But if there is no interior desire, then you can howl as much as you want – to God you are mute.

And so, praying always is above all is an act of love, and love takes great effort. We truly need the Holy Spirit's help to help us pray always, for we do not know how to pray, as we ought. Because we have a fallen human nature we are so weak and so easily become weary, we so often want to take the easy way out when prayer is a struggle, when we don’t feel anything or we don’t seem to get anything out of it. The devil too, gives us senseless reasons the enemy for abandoning our prayer, ‘I have no time’ – when we are constantly wasting it. ‘This not for me.’ ‘My heart is dry…’ and on and on.

Prayer however, is not a question of what we say or feel, but of love; it is a choice to love and be with the one we love; it is a matter of the heart; the whole person, mind, intellect and will…it rises above the emotions. The great effort is worth it. Many of our difficulties and obstacles in prayer will disappear if we just pause throughout our daily activities to consider that we are always in the presence of a God who loves us more than we love ourselves. He is at our side as much as with the ones who heard and spoke to him in today’s Gospel; in fact He is closer. He never leaves us and longs to enter into intimate conversation with us, not just once in while, but always.

Also an essential part of our scheduled daily prayer must be the prayer of the Holy Rosary. The three little shepherds (at Fatima) understood the value of the Rosary as a call to prayer and an easy way of responding to Jesus’ call to us to pray always. Sister Lucia, one of the children of Fatima wrote, “Those who say the Rosary daily are like children who, every day, manage to find a few moments just to be with their father, to keep him company, to show him their gratitude, to do some service for him, to receive his advice and his blessing. It is an exchange of love, the love of the father for the child and the child for the father; it is a mutual giving.”

The Rosary leads us to another essential part of how we pray always. In the Rosary, Our Mother leads us by the hand to a deep intimate loving encounter with her Son, Jesus. In the Rosary, we contemplate the mysteries of Jesus through the eyes of His Mother and our Mother; through her we learn to imitate the life of her Son. And so, the Rosary is really a Eucharistic prayer; if it is prayed correctly and with love and devotion it leads us to Jesus truly present in His human body and soul along with His divinity, in the Holy Eucharist. Love and devotion for the Eucharist is then an essential part of praying always, for the Eucharist is the only way to God, because it is God in His human nature and His human nature is the door way to His Divinity—Intimacy with the Eucharist is then the goal of prayer-for it is the way to oneness with God.

And so it is absolutely essential for our prayer that we set aside, as the Church as always done, a special day dedicated to worship, prayer and study, yes studying our faith is part of prayer. This special day is of course Sunday; it was previously known as the Lord's day, because it was suppose to be a day set aside for the Eucharistic Lord; by the way not just one hour, at Holy Mass but the whole day.

The whole day of Sunday should really be set aside for God, especially as families; that is families united together praying and focusing on the things of God to grow closer as family to God. The early Church did this; Sunday began with Mass, continued with catechism, learning about God, time for resting, recreation and relaxation with God, and then ended by the family returning to the Church for a holy Hour with God in the Eucharist. After the Sunday Holy Hour, families would then join the clergy in chanting Sunday Evening prayer. Every family did this in order to grow closer to God and one another. This is why in my former parish I held Family and Children Holy hour, to bring children and whole families to a privileged time outside of Mass to be with the one we love, Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.

If we are to pray always we must do whatever we can so that this day, Sunday, can return to being, as God intended, a day of serene joy that strengthens our communion with God, and through Him, with each other, in the family, and with emphasis, "the parish family." Out of this will flow a renewal of our whole society. We will never straighten out our Society and answer Fatima’s call to pray always without restoring Sunday as the Lord's day; again the whole day.

Let us today, each one of us take seriously heaven’s message of hope given at Fatima by responding to its call to pray always in order make up for the worlds great sin of ignoring God. With help of God grace, which comes to us only from Holy Mother Church through her Sacraments, let us struggle more to turn away from all sin and turn more fully to God who is already so greatly offended by the sins of the world. Let pray always as individuals and as a world turn to God by living our lives with greater fidelity to His Commandments and so with greater fidelity to all the Teachings of His One, Holy, True Catholic and Apostolic Church, which is the font of all grace that souls need in order to be converted and so be saved

The infinite grace made available by the most perfect of all prayers will help us. Fatima reminded us that the most perfect all prayers is of course the Holy Mass because it is the sacrificial prayer of Jesus to the Father on our behalf. But for Holy Mass to be effective in our lives, we must, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ, offer ourselves fully to the one we Love, God. This is the prayer of adoration in which we must surrender ourselves, consecrate ourselves, offer ourselves along with Jesus’s own self-offering to the Father. For it is the Father who out of His love for us, first offers us everything, even Himself, through the Spirit, in the gift of His Son; in order that we may one forever in the love and unity of the Triune God.

It is through our devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that we best make this self-offering to God. By praying her rosary and wearing her brown Scapular with faith in her Son and in Her, Her hands will become for us the living paten on which our hearts will become acceptable to Her Son and by Her Son through the Father. As the Spouse of the Holy Spirit she will obtain for us the strength we need to live this offering faithfully and fully and so become more and more transformed in other Christ’s for the conversion of others in our families, in our parishes and in our world. Our lives will then become lives of prayer in imitation of Christ, for the salvation of our world.

Heavenly Father the merciful heart of Your Son came into the world through the heart of Mary, through her loving yes, through her complete surrender to Your Holy Will.

Sunday October 13th, 2013

Today an event is happening in Rome, which will probably go unnoticed to most of the world. But it is an event that will have enormous consequences for everyone. Today our Holy Father, Pope Francis is consecrating the World to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Consecration means to make a solemn act of the will in which something or someone is set-aside exclusively for another. A man is consecrated to his wife in marriage, a priest is consecrated to the Church at his ordination, and a child is consecrated to God at his or her baptism. A consecration is an act of the will in which a person offers his or her entire self to another in a complete surrender of love.

The best of all consecrations is one in which each one of us, by a complete act of the will, gives our entire selves, all that we have and all that we are, in loving and complete surrender to God, who in His unfathomable love has given His entire self to us in the person of His only Son, Jesus Christ, who surrendered Himself to us in love on the cross, and who continues this renew this self-offering at every Holy Mass which is offered. In all of this we discover something fundamental.

Every act of true and authentic love is a consecration; it is a selfless gift of loving surrender of self to the other; of one person for another; of God for man and of man for God. And if this is so, then, an act of consecration must be constantly renewed by living it faithfully in every moment of our life. In this, we discover that God wants to save our troubled world through love; the answer to evil is love, the answer to sin is love, the answer to war is love, the answer to our longing hearts is love. We have been made for love, to be consecrated to God in love.

Pope Francis’ act of consecration today is actually faithfully following, as he has this whole past year, the itinerary of events that Pope Benedict schedule in order to celebrate this year, which is been set aside as the “Year of Faith.” This act of consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart is the second last event scheduled-the last event will occur on the Feast of Christ the King, which will bring to close the Year of Faith, which has brought untold graces on the People of God and the world.

In today’s act of Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart, Pope Francis, as the current Vicar of Christ, is renewing the act of consecration of the world offered by Blessed John Paul II back in 1984. This act was made in union with all the bishops of the world, thus fulfilling a request from heaven itself made by the Blessed Virgin Mary to three little shepherd children in an obscure hamlet named Fatima, in the Country of Portugal in the year 1917.

According to the oldest of these three Children, Lucia, who just died in 2005, Blessed John Paul did indeed carry out the consecration just as was requested. This is important to know because there are many who mistakenly think that it was not carried out properly. Not so said Sister Lucia “it has been carried out exactly has our Lady wished.

In 1917, the blessed Virgin requested that Russia would be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart. If this request would be carried out according to the wishes of her Son, Russia would be converted and great era of unprecedented peace would be granted to the world. She warned, “If not [Russia] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.” Unfortunately, this request of Jesus made through His most Holy Mother was not carried out until 1984. Russia, which was once a Catholic Country, did indeed spread her errors throughout the world through atheistic Marxist socialism and Communism. The last visit of the Mother of God to the Children occurred on October 13, 1917; the very same month we saw the Bolshevik Revolution and the coming of the Communists to power in Russia.

Many mistakenly think communism that great affront to the Creator God, is dead; but lest we forget, there are billions who still live under the shadow of this Atheistic Evil, an evil, which denies the rights of God and the basic rights of the Human person. And even more, the philosophy that lies behind communism, atheistic Marxism, is more alive today than ever. In fact, the great error of communism is actually coming to fruition in our own day throughout the world, even in our own country. This is seen by the almost complete exclusion of God and religion from the societies of one county after another. You can teach the teachings of Buddha, Mao Tse-Tung, Hinduism, Islam, and yes even the teachings of Karl Marx in Public Schools, but don’t you dare teach anything about Jesus Christ or His One true Church.

Atheistic Marxism is also seen today in the denial of the existence of God by the vast majority of the inhabitants of our world. Oh yes, many speak about God, but in fact live their lives in a practical atheism; that is, as if He didn’t exist. Throughout the world, millions no longer pray to God; millions, including Catholics, longer worship God, which is the primary duty in justice that the creature owes to its Creator. Sadly the vast majority of Catholics world-wide longer attend Sunday Mass, only 25% do so in our Country; in some countries it’s as low as 2%.

The errors of the Godless philosophy and of the most evil dictator of the world, Karl Marx, who is personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions through his disciples such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung and others, these errors are also shown in our time by the outright denial of sin as primarily an affront against God; as shown by our acceptance of actions that go directly against the Commandments of God and so go against the Rights of God; actions such as murder, abortion, artificial contraception, adultery, homosexual acts and so-called “homosexual marriage.” These grave sins which usurp the rights of God by going against the natural order of His creation and His Holy will, have been institutionalized, that is, made the law of the land in one country after another including sadly our own.

And as a result of the acceptance of these moral evils, the grave errors of Marxism is seen as well in the sin of the almost complete unrestraint of indulging in the pleasures of this world against the Holy Will of God. Whereas love is the giving up of one’s own selfish pleasure for the sake of the other, especially for God; now, many live only for themselves. But we can’t blame it all on the errors of Marx and the actions of his minions. It is primarily the rejection of the hearts of men to love of God as shown by their obedience to His Commandments and His Holy Will that has caused the great errors and sins of our day.

If we had only listened to our Lady’s Message of Hope giving at Fatima our world would be a different place. Most outright ignored Fatima when it occurred, even though it occurred during the first time in history that the entire world was at war, a war which killed untold millions, a war which saw in one single day’s battle over 100,000 people killed. Most ignored Fatima even though there occurred there during the last apparition of the Blessed Mother to the Children, 96 years ago today, the greatest public miracle since the Resurrection-the miracle of the Sun which was witnessed by over 70,000 people; and incidentally, covered by an atheistic communistic press who accurately published the miracle in the newspaper as matter of historical fact.

For three days it had been raining, the ground was saturated, everything and everyone was soak and wet. Yet at the moment our lady appeared, the skies parted and the sun was seen streaming through the clouds. At one part of the apparition Mary pointed to the sun, at that moment the sun began to dance in the sky and throw off many colors of light. Then it seemed to break out of its position and began to stream toward the earth in a death plunge, many fell to their knees thinking it was the end of the world. Those who where in the state of grace were filled with joy at the beauty; those who were in a state of mortal sin, fell on their knees horrified, confessing their sins out loud. And then just when it seemed like it was going to crash into the earth, the sun returned to its regular place in the sky. But it was immediately notice, that everything was completely dry, the ground, the peoples clothing everything. And again, even the members of the communist party and press that were present witness the events; in fact any one within a 25 mile radius witnessed this miracle of the sun.

The greatest public miracle since the Resurrection necessarily must have a message of the utmost importance for us and for our world. Yet it went unheeded and continues to go unheeded by most the inhabitants of the world including the catholic inhabitants; yet, it is a message given for our times. The message of Fatima was and is not one of gloom and doom but one of great hope. It was, and is, the same message of the Gospel; Repent and be converted; repent of sin which brings nothing but wars, death and unhappiness, and instead be converted to God Who brings nothing but peace, life and happiness; better yet, joy. It is really the message of Father that doesn’t wish the destruction of his sons and daughters, but instead their conversion and their happiness by being united to Him in love; but because he is such a loving Father, he will not idly stand back and let us destroy ourselves; he will not stand idly by and allow untold billions of souls to be separated forever from His love for them; He will intervene and soon. He will do whatever necessary to try to save them except force them against their will.

Today on the very anniversary of the last apparition of Fatima we are being given a choice; either we will heed God’s warnings and accept His mercy and forgiveness, or He will punish this world in a way never seen before, in way greater than even the flood. We are simply being offered again the way of life or death as presented throughout the Scriptures; a purification of the world by grace or by fire; the choice is given to us to choose freely in love. We can imitate the Blessed Virgin and give God our own personal Fiat, our complete yes to God in love, and so bring His mercy upon us and upon our whole world through us, or we can imitate the communists, and all the other egomaniacs and despots in the history of the world and give God our no, that is, our own personal “I will not serve” just as did satan and all the other fallen angels. Either way, our Lady promised at Fatima that in the end, the world would be converted to God; Her Immaculate Heart would triumph and the next greatest miracle since the Resurrection would occur, an era of unprecedented peace would be granted to the world. And era in which love of God and love of neighbor would fill the hearts of all the inhabitants of the world know as the Eucharistic Reign of Jesus.

Before Blessed John Paul first fulfilled the request of our Lady of Fatima when He consecrated the world to Jesus through her Immaculate Heart, a request that Pope Francis will renew today, John Paul had never read what was known as the third secret of Fatima, a secret that was to be made known to the world in 1960 but which for some reason was not. It was not until after the failed assignation attempt on May 31, 1981, incidentally an assignation attempt which remarkably occurred on the anniversary of the first apparition of Fatima and during the very hour of that appearance of the Heavenly Mother to three children; it wasn’t until he lay in hospital bed narrowly and miraculously having escaped what should have been sure death, that JP called for the envelope containing the secret to be brought to him at the hospital.

As he read the secret, that he would later make public, he saw that He himself was the man dressed in white that the secret revealed would be shot dead. And so he realized that the prophetic warnings of Fatima were conditional, that the grave prophecies that included even the annihilation of whole nations and so the death of billions were not etched in stone. They were made conditional to our personal response to the warnings from heaven. Yes, we had not listened, War World II came, Russia’s errors spread across the globe, untold millions had died, but it was still not too late. We could avoid the worst of the dire predictions. Our world could be converted, renewed by grace and not by fire; and even more, souls could be saved from the everlasting fire. It was up to us; it is up to each one of us; there is yet great hope.

By reading the message of Fatima, John Paul discovered that during the assassination attempt, one hand had fire the bullet but another had guided it. It was the hand of the Blessed Virgin Mary; she had saved him through the prayers of her small faithful remnant of believers who struggled to lived the gospel message of Fatima, of repentance and conversion; those who had consecrated themselves to Jesus through Mary, who wore the brown scapular as a sign of that consecration and lived that consecration with Mary’s help in the thousand of daily acts of everyday life…faithful disciples who sacrificed their own wills in countless ways by being faithful to their daily duties according to the state of life; who daily prayed the rosary; kept the 5 first Saturdays in honor of, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And it by was faithful disciples who came before the Holy Eucharist in imitation of the Angel of Fatima, falling on their knees and even their faces before the living God praying daily thrice the adoration prayers taught to the children of Fatima, “O my God I believe in Thee, adore Thee, I hope in Thee and I love Thee, and I beg pardon for all of those who do not believe in Thee, who do not adore Thee and who don’t love Thee. These, who lives were living consecrations of love, these where the ones who brought down the mercy of God which saved the life of John Paul which the prophecy of Fatima had warned would be taken if men did not repent.

In the third secret of Fatima, John Paul the most Marian pope in the history of the Church and the Pope of Divine Mercy, saw that Fatima was indeed a message of our times. He had seen clearly that even though his life had been saved by the few who had listen, not enough had still yet responded in order to avoid the chastisements that the Father was already beginning to allow upon the world due to men’s sins. It is not a punishment of the Father’s making but of our own making. As a result, JPII who himself had experienced two of the greatest evils the world had ever saw, Nazism and Communism, he saw then very clearly the connection between the message of Fatima and the Message of Divine Mercy given to St. Faustina. God does not desire the death of men. God does not desire the purification of the World by the fire of his Divine Justice. No, God desires that the world be renewed by His Mercy. In this, John Paul saw that evil has a limit, and that limit is God’s Mercy.

The message of Fatima is then the, THE Formula for drawing down the Divine Mercy upon us and upon the whole would. The Devotion to the Immaculate Heart that Jesus wished to be established at Fatima is indeed that formula. And the devotion of Her sorrowful heart, sorrowful from the loss of so many souls, this devotion is brought about by those souls who give God their yes, their fiat in imitation of her and through her to Jesus—this is called consecration, consecration to Jesus through Mary…And this devotion is lived by the grace of the Sacraments by loving faithfulness in the everyday duties of our state in life. By the making of, and the offering of everything we do as a sacrifice for love of Jesus, through Mary for the conversion of sinners, for the holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate heart of Mary…which are sins that greatly offend the heart of her Divine Son. Their very lives become acts of “penance, penance, penance” asked by the angel in the third secret of Fatima, acts of penance which bring down God’s mercy and grace upon the whole and envelope it in the heart of His Son.

John Paul made the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in order to renew our sinful world, to avoid the punishment rightly in justice due to our sinful world, and most of all to save souls. Today Pope Francis renews this consecrations for “all times and for all peoples” But something yet is still missing; the consecration is not yet complete…the request of heaven made at Fatima through the three young seers has not yet been fulfilled, we are still on a collision course for a flood of fire falling from the sky consuming a greater part of humanity prophecy by the sun streaming toward earth at Fatima and now totally possible with nuclear weapons.

The popes are making an objective act of consecration on our behalf, however what is missing is for us to make a our own personal act, that is to give our own personal and complete yes,-Fiat to Jesus through Mary. What is missing is for us then to live this consecration out in our lives, in our families, by everything we do, by living according to God’s truth, doing all for love of Jesus, through love of Mary for the salvation of soul. “It is not how much we do, but how much we love (mother Theresa of Calcutta).

Father Parker and I will help you in the days and months to come to come to understand more fully this act of personal consecration and help you to learn how to live it out faithfully in you lives. We will give you an opportunity to make a more in depth and better-prepared personal consecration. We will help you to be sure that you and your families are spiritually protected with the Brown Scapular of Our Lady by being enrolled in it as a sign of your personal Consecration and as a way of getting on the current Ark to escape the deluge of evil. We will offer to you opportunities to grow in the truths of our Beautiful Catholic Faith so you can live them in love. But we must act now; let us not again ignore the vital message of Fatima for the lives of billions of souls are at stake. So let us in the depths of our hearts and with as must faith, trust and love we can muster, make an act of will and consecrate our selves to Jesus through Mary. Fr. Parker will lead you at the end of Mass in a short consecration prayer to Jesus through Mary….Let us pray:

Most Holy Family, unite my daily life with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Accept all of my spiritual and material possessions as my seed of sacrifice offered to the Sacred and Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, in union with St. Joseph. This shall be my commitment in life, in death, and in eternity. Heavenly Father the merciful heart of Your Son came into the world through the heart of Mary, through her loving yes, through her complete surrender to Your Holy Will. Strengthened by the Holy Spirit, may Your Mercy come anew on the face of the earth through my own fiat, through my own complete surrender to You and Your holy will. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Holy Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, Mother of the poor, pray for us, Help us to realize more fully that we can’t love God unless we also love our neighbor, for whatever we fail to do to the least of these we fail to do unto Jesus.

Luke 16 Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. September 29th, 2013

Today we hear what lies at the very heart of being a faithful loving disciple of Jesus Christ; it can be summed up in the following: “What ever you did to the least of my brethren you did unto me and whatever you failed to do unto the least of my brethren you failed to do unto me.” This is also what is at the heart of the social justice message found in the Gospel. But how the social justice message has been misunderstood in the past 40 years or so! Today’s gospel helps us to see the message clearly.

The great sin of the rich man in today’s Gospel, was not that he was rich, for nowhere in the scriptures does Jesus condemn the mere possession of earthly goods as such. But the great sin of this man was that he failed to use his riches to help another in need. Jesus thus harshly condemns all those who use their earthly goods in a selfish way. The rich man was condemned then because he failed to even take notice, in justice, of the poor man Lazarus, who was definitely in need.

The rich man probably did nothing wrong as he amassed his fortune. He probably was not responsible for the wretched poverty of Lazarus, at least not in any direct way. And He probably did not take advantage of the situation to exploit Lazarus. Nevertheless, the rich man had a definite lifestyle. It might be summed up with the words, “he feasted magnificently.” In other words, He lived for solely for himself as if God did not exist, as if there was no judgment after death. He had completely forgotten the fact that we are not owners of what we have, but only administrators and we must look out for the needs of others-we are indeed our brother’s keeper.

The rich man in the Gospel did not know how, or better yet, did not care, to share what God had blessed him with. St. Augustine commenting on this parable, said that Lazarus was not received into heaven because he was poor, but because he was humble. And wealth itself was not what kept the rich man from eternal bliss after all who was Abraham? Abraham himself was the riches of all men while He was on earth. No, the rich man’s punishment was for his selfishness and disloyalty. The sadness of this story is even more increased when we realized that the rich man knew Lazarus by name, for he tells Abraham to send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue and begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his father's house and to his five brothers, so that Lazarus may warn them, lest they too come to his place of torment.

Each one of us needs to have this parable of the rich man and Lazarus present in our memory; it must form our conscience. When we are in need, when we are not living in luxury, faith and trust in God become paramount; people worry more about their eternal salvation. Yet, paradoxically, when we have enough and more than enough and are lying in our comfort, we can become as the book of Amos says, complacent. In our complacency the last thing on our mind is our eternal salvation, not to mention the salvation of our neighbor. Our hearts can then become hardened to the point that even someone rising from the dead will not convince us of the truth.

Christ however, demands openness to our brothers and sisters in need—openness from the rich, the affluent, the economically advantaged; openness to the poor, the underdeveloped and the disadvantaged, openness to those who are the most vulnerable in our society, not only those who are poor economically, but those who like the unborn, the disabled and the elderly are unable to protect themselves. But this openness also extends to those who are being treated unjustly among us, those who are being bullied, those who are the victims of gossip, rumors or unjust accusations. These too are the poor we are called to assist. How many there are who care for the physical poor but yet can turn a blind eye to other injustices in their own communities, families or even in our church family; even though they may work to fill the poor man’s belly, nevertheless they are still like the rich man; it is still all about them.

Mother Theresa, that great champion of the poor, said that the poorest country she had ever been in, even more so than Calcutta, was the United States. She said the reason that U.S. was so poor was not because it’s people lacked material goods, obviously we are the richest country in the world materially speaking, but that so many in our country do not know the Love and knowledge of Jesus Christ, and so are literally starving for His love. She saw ours as a land of great injustice made apparent in its legalization of killing the unborn. And as such there is no peace, no great joy. The person may die in Calcutta poor but he does so with joy.

The fact is, is that everyone is looking for love, looking for happiness, but billions are looking for it in all the wrong places. Our greatest mission as believing Catholics is to lead souls who are staving for love and happiness to Jesus Christ the source of all real love and true happiness. We ourselves are actually called to make up for the lack of love of God in the world; we must love others for love of God. We are called to stand up to all injustices if we want peace; and if we want peace we must stand up and defend the dignity and the life of all human persons no matter their condition; and if we want life we must proclaim the fullness of the truth of the Gospel as found in the Teachings of the Church, the truth that brings life (c.f. John Paul II). In this way we bring God’s love to our poor brothers and sisters, whether they be materially poor or rich, and in doing so we bring them to Jesus and to his truth which leads them to happiness. By our love, we remind them and ourselves that it is only faith in Jesus as the Son of Living God as shown by our faithful obedience to His Commandments out our love for Him and for neighbor that brings us true and abiding happiness.

But before we can be enabled, empowered, to do any of this, before we can bring Jesus’ love to the poor and lead the poor to Him, we must first recognize Jesus’ presence among us and go to Him. In other words, we just can’t bring Jesus and His love to other’s if we don’t recognize that Jesus is truly, corporally present in the Holy Eucharist. We can’t love others as Jesus loves us without coming into the God who is love present in the Holy Eucharist. The Eucharist is the source of all love and the source of all power to love. And so we can’t lead others to the love of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist unless in faith we ourselves first come adore and love Him present there, as the true and living God. Once we realize through faith that the Eucharist is really Jesus Himself—God among us, then we will realize as did Mother Theresa and all the saints, that the truly poor of this world, are those who do not know Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and so are apart from the very fount of the living water of God’s love and mercy poured out for them.

The rich man knew Lazarus by name, and yet he didn’t give Him food. We too know so many modern day Lazarus’ by name; they may even bear the name of our parents our brothers and sisters, children, coworkers and friends, Lazarus’ that do not know the truth that the food for which they are starving for is the food of the Holy Eucharist. We can’t be like the rich man and fail to give the Lazarus’ of our lives what they need most in this world, and that is the truth that the Eucharist is Jesus, God still among us, who in His unfathomable love for us, gives us Himself as our food in order to fill our hunger and quench our thirst for love. Without faith in this Heavenly food, there can be no true justice in our world, no true peace and no fullness of life nor any true happiness or joy.

A few years back, Pope Emeritus Benedict wrote a instruction about the Holy Eucharist as the Sacrament of Charity.” The instruction was entitled Sacramentum Caritatis and it was written to the to the bishops, clergy, consecrated persons and the lay faithful. I want to end share with you an important paragraph of this beautiful document. Close you eyes and ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to this great truth; in fact this section has the heading: “The food of truth.”

2. In the sacrament of the altar, the Lord meets us; men and women created in God's image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:27), and becomes our companion along the way. In this sacrament, the Lord truly becomes food for us, to satisfy our hunger for truth and freedom. Since only the truth can make us free (cf. Jn 8:32), Christ becomes for us the food of truth. With deep human insight, Saint Augustine clearly showed how we are moved spontaneously, and not by constraint, whenever we encounter something attractive and desirable. Asking himself what it is that can move us most deeply, the saintly Bishop went on to say: "What does our soul desire more passionately than truth?" (2) Each of us has an innate and irrepressible desire for ultimate and definitive truth. The Lord Jesus, "the way, and the truth, and the life" (Jn 14:6), speaks to our thirsting, pilgrim hearts, our hearts yearning for the source of life, our hearts longing for truth. Jesus Christ is the Truth in person, drawing the world to himself. "Jesus is the lodestar of human freedom: without him, freedom loses its focus, for without the knowledge of truth, freedom becomes debased, alienated and reduced to empty caprice. With him, freedom finds itself." (3) In the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus shows us in particular the truth about the love which is the very essence of God. It is this evangelical truth which challenges each of us and our whole being. For this reason, the Church, which finds in the Eucharist the very centre of her life, is constantly concerned to proclaim to all, opportune importune (cf. 2 Tim 4:2), that God is love.(4) Precisely because Christ has become for us the food of truth, the Church turns to every man and woman, inviting them freely to accept God's gift.

Let us end with a prayer:

Holy Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, Mother of the poor, pray for us, Help us to realize more fully that we can’t love God unless we also love our neighbor, for whatever we fail to do to the least of these we fail to do unto Jesus. Helps us to see then, that Love of neighbor is a path that leads us to God, and that closing our eyes to our neighbor also blinds us to God.” (Pope Benedict, “Deus Caritas Est.”) Help us as well to accept more fully, in faith, God’s greatest gift and so our greatest treasure, His Gift of the Most Holy Eucharist. Help us to realize that because we have Jesus in the Holy Eucharist we are truly the richest of the rich. Feeding on this Sacrament of Charity at the Holy Mass, help us to then share our riches with the poor; in other words, help us to share the love of God we receive in this great Sacrament with the poor around us and lead them to feast as well at the Feast of God’s love—the Holy Eucharist, which is Jesus Himself who literally gives Himself as food for our soul. Amen.

Holy Mary, Mother of the servants of God, Mother of our True Happiness, Mother of Light because you are the Mother of He who is the Way, the Truth and the Life , Pray for us sinners who have recourse to thee. Amen.

Luke 16, 1-13 Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time September 22, 2013

We have had discipleship as a constant theme of our readings these past few weeks. Today is no exception; Jesus tells us a parable about a dishonest steward that has an ending we would not expect. We might think that the steward was a dishonest man, but the situation was not so cut and dry. The steward was very prudent in his dealings and Jesus praises him for it. Let’s take a closer look.

In the ancient Greco- Roman world, the rich man was most likely an absentee landowner, who owned the land as a business. He was most likely a foreigner from another country who had conquered the land he now owned. The foreign landowners would then rent the land to the people who actually used to own the land charging them outrageous rent. And then to rub their faces in it even more, when they couldn’t pay such high rent, the so-called “landowners” would then make loans to them, charging them exorbitant interest on their loans, such as measures of oil or wheat. So the steward’s job was to make as much money for the landowner as possible, no matter what it took. So probably this steward in our Gospel was really dealing very fairly with the local people, as usury, interest, was forbidden in the Jewish Law. In other words, he was probably charging them just the original amount of the loan without the interest.

This news would have of course, made it to the ears of the unjust landowner and infuriated him. In order to secure his profits, the landowner would come and remove the steward in order to replace him with someone who would maximize the profits by oppressing the poor borrowers. The steward would have known this, and so he went around discounting the amount owed. In this way he was prudent and wise- both for trying to not exact usury, which was unjust interest, and also for trying to gain friends when he knew he was about to lose his job.

The people in today’s Gospel would have understood Jesus well, as they were in the same situation as the people of the parable because they were conquered people, conquered by the Roman’s who occupied their country and taken procession of their land, only to unjustly rent it back to them. They would have sympathized with the steward because he was treated in an unjust way; after all he was just looking out for himself and his family. They would have understood why even the landowner recognized the shrewdness of the steward.

Jesus then addresses this crowd. He knew the thoughts of their hearts. It would seem that many of them would have actually liked to have been the landowners themselves, for they had avarice in their hearts, that is a sinful desire and love for wealth, a disordered desire for worldly riches instead of the riches of heaven. Perhaps there were some that were even trying to justify their own unjust dealings with others. They had their hearts set on wealth as an end in itself; they were about the business of the world but not of God. From this we see that money is not the root of all evil, but the disordered desire for it and for the power that comes from it, is certainly the root of all evil, and so it fails to bring any true lasting happiness.

Jesus reminds the people that to be happy they must serve God alone and then neighbor with the gifts that come from God. What do they possess, and what do we possess that has not come from God. Everything we have is really a gift from God, including our very being, our very existence. Jesus is reminding us all that God is the giver of all the good gifts we have in the first place. So we must love the giver of the gifts more than the gifts he gives. Jesus tells us rather directly, “No servant can have two masters. He will hate one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other.” The more we love God, the more we see that all we have, all that we possess is from Him and such, we don’t want to put anything before our love for God and His holy Will.

God has given us all so many gifts and He waits patiently to see what we will do with them. Will we treat them as ends or will we use them as means. In a sense, He has left the world uncreated to a certain degree, in order that we would take upon ourselves, with his help, to great task of finishing His work of creation. He has given others more so that they would help those who have less. He has given one a great talent, so that they would help some one who is not so talented. To one he has given wealth so that they might share with someone who is poor. And most all he has given some the greatest of all treasures-Faith, Hope and Love, so that they would be instruments of God’s mercy to those whose faith, hope and love have been weakened, damaged or even destroyed by sin, whether by their own sin or the sin of others.

This is what our current Holy Father Francis is telling us. Contrary to what some might think or say, it’s the exact same message of Pope Benedict, Blessed John Paul II and the others. It’s not a radical shift; He is not changing any of the Church’s moral teachings; He can’t do that and he won’t. In fact as he himself said, “The teaching of the Church is clear and I am a son of the Church.” And so, He is not saying that the Church’s teaching are not important or that we need to quit preaching them; they in fact, are the only way to authentic love and happiness. But what He is saying is that we must first and foremost be dispensers of God’s mercy. We must first and foremost bring the Love of God to those who are suffering either physically or most importantly spiritually. God died for all men so that all men might have the hope of salvation.

Francis knows that we are living in a world where so many people, in fact where all of us are wounded by the sin around us; so many are crying out in the darkness for the light of God’s love and yes, God’s truth, even if they don’t realize it. So many are longing for love, true and authentic love based on the truth; so many are longing to be loved even in their weakness, dysfunction and sinfulness—so many are seeking true happiness. Francis says:

I see clearly that the thing the Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the Church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about his level of blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds….and you have to start from the ground up.

But this is what the Church as always taught even if some have not always emphasized it; she is to be a "hostel for saints and hospital for sinners." In others words, using the example of the prodigal son and the merciful father from last weeks parable, before pointing out the moral errors that the son committed which got him into such trouble and led him to such unhappiness, the Father first ran to his son, threw his cloak around him, put rings on his fingers and covered him with kisses. The father didn’t say the sins didn’t matter because obviously they did; they were the very cause of the separation of son from the Father, the cause of so much misery; but first, the father showed the son Love so that he could then show the son Mercy.

We must preach the fullness of the Gospel’s truth, unadulterated and not water down; but, as Blessed John Paul taught us, as Benedict taught us and now as Francis is teaching us, we must do it with Love, better yet with Charity, that is with God’s love and His TRUTH alive in our hearts. We must first show God’s love and life alive in us. And to be able to do this we must live the Gospel truth, which is the same thing as saying we must accept and live the fulness of the teachings of the Church, even the tough ones, with the help of God’s grace, in order that we become living Gospels sharing God’s love and then light of His truth with others. In this we become ministers of God’s mercy to all…Let’s listen to his Holiness, Pope Francis, once more:

The church’s ministers must be merciful, take responsibility for the people and accompany them like the good Samaritan, who washes, cleans and raises up his neighbor. This is pure Gospel. God is greater than sin. The structural and organizational reforms are secondary—that is, they come afterward. The first reform must be the attitude. The ministers of the Gospel must be people who can warm the hearts of the people, who walk through the dark night with them, who know how to dialogue and to descend themselves into their people’s night, into the darkness, but without getting lost.

“…Without getting lost….,” that is without being too rigid or too lax. To, as the Church as always taught, "to love the sinner but to hate the sin." To hate the sin which is causing the sinner so much pain, suffering, darkness, despair, and loneliness, the sin which causes separation from God and from others. Yes we must condemn the horrible sins of homosexual acts, contraceptive methods and the other moral sins. And yes, we must condemn in the strongest way the sin of abortion, which Francis blasts as being “part of a throw away culture.” But we must first be willing to sit in the night, in the darkness with a woman who has had an abortion or who is contemplating one, because only darkness could lead her to such a terrible horrible lifeless decision. And to sit with her not condemning her but bringing her the light and love of Christ and yes, then truth of Christ. As one writer put it,

The Good Shepherd knew that, first of all He had to bind the wounds of the lost sheep and place them on His shoulders, and then they would listen. He entered towns healing the sick, casting out demons, opening the eyes of the blind. And then He would share with them the Gospel, including the moral consequences of not heeding it. In this way, Jesus became a refuge for sinners. So too, the Church must be recognized again as a home for the hurting.

We can not be about the business of the world, which is not just about making money, but which is also about condemning others—it is the world that condemns not Jesus or His Catholic Church. We must be about the business of spreading God’s love and God’s healing to everyone, no matter who they are; believer or unbeliever, friend or enemy, rich or poor, saint or sinner. We must be willing to meet people where they are at in order to lift them up not tear them down; But, but, to meet them where they are at, not to leave them there, but to give them the truth, the truth which leads them to happiness, and not just the happiness that this world offers, but to Beatitude; that is, to share already on earth, out of this world heavenly happiness, which is union with God who is Love, Truth and Light Itself.

Let us then at this Holy Mass which makes present the God who is Love in our midst, let us be about this business, the business of love, the business of God. By the grace of Love Himself who is offered to us in the Holy Eucharist, let us be about the business of helping in the salvation of souls which is healing them and restoring them to God by restoring them to His Holy Catholic Church and her teachings, which are teachings of love, which alone lead us to true happiness and the fullness of life. “For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that One died for all; therefore, all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who love might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised. (2 Cor 5:14-15). So let us all ask the Holy Spirit, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to help us to be faithful disciples about the business of God:

Holy Mary, Mother of the servants of God, Mother of our True Happiness, Mother of Light because you are the Mother of He who is the Way, the Truth and the Life , Pray for us sinners who have recourse to thee. Amen.

Holy Mary, Mother of the lost and forsaken, and so Mother of sorrows, pray for us. Your hands were the very first paten on which the Son of God was offered to the Father, through the priest, in the temple at Jerusalem....

Luke 15;1-32 Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time September 15th, 2013

The parables of the Gospel today, the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son, are all very familiar to us. The parables of the lost sheep and prodigal son are so popular that you can see in many people’s homes pictures of Jesus with a sheep on his shoulders or the Father receiving the prodigal son. We have read some fairly difficult Gospels the last few weeks on discipleship- topics like humility two weeks ago, and last week's taking up your cross each day, are not easy ones.

In light of the seriousness of these topics, certainly, many of us have tried to respond anew, and with greater intensity to Jesus’ call, and have started to put into practice what he asks-like giving God the first part of our day making an act of adoration and prayer the first thing we do in our day. Perhaps you made a firm resolution to do this, and low and behold, you missed a couple of mornings. It is certainly hard to develop new habits or virtues, and we can easily become discouraged and disheartened. Even though in our hearts we long to follow Christ fully and to do the right thing, we know we are very weak and live in world where it is so very difficult to do the right thing. And so, it’s really easy to become discouraged in our efforts and say, “Oh, what’s the use- I’ll never get this right!”

Well today, through the readings, God speaks to our discouragement. He desires to help us to be faithful in our desire to be good and faithful disciples. He wants us to know that He is merciful God, a God who is patient and kind. He is a generous and understanding God; quick to forgive those who are contrite of heart. He is a God who never keeps score or tallies our iniquities. No, He is not a scorekeeper but a promise keeper. Being well aware of our human weakness, He prefers not to condemn us; after all He has presented us with his greatest gift imaginable, the gift of His only Son, who he offers to us in and through all the Sacraments of the Church, especially the Holy Eucharist because it is Jesus in the flesh.

In each of the parables in the Gospel today, the central figure is then God Himself. He is God who is on a “search and rescue” mission. He is a God who does everything He can to recover those of His children who have succumbed to temptation and so have separated themselves from Him and His love for them.
God is in fact, the Good Shepherd who misses the sheep gone astray by sin, seeks it out in order to bring it back to the fold. Once he has found it, He carries it on His shoulder, since it is trembling and weak from its disobedience and the great burden of its sins. God also seeks us, similar to the actions of a woman who having lost a coin of great value, lights a lamp and searches the whole house diligently and patiently until it is found. As well, God is a loving father who longs for the return of His son, going out daily, scanning the horizon to see if His son is coming so that as a Father He can run to His returning son and throw His arms around him and cover him with kisses.

Yes, these beautiful images of God are given to us to encourage us in our daily struggles. But at the same time they are given to us as an example to follow in our discipleship. They let us know that discipleship involves nothing less than taking into our hearts the qualities of God Himself-we are called to be God-like through divine grace.

We are to have a merciful, forgiving heart like God, a heart that desires that none be lost, that all be found and saved. And if we are to take on the qualities of the Father's heart, our discipleship then, includes a sharing in God’s own mission, which again is a search and rescue mission. It is a sharing in the mission of the Father, through, with, and in the Sacred Heart of the Son, of finding the lost sheep and bringing them back into the one fold, His one true Church.

The Second Vatican council applies the image of the Good Shepherd, and so this search and rescue mission, especially to priests when it states: “They (the priest) should be mindful that by their daily conduct and solicitude they display the reality of a truly priestly and pastoral ministry both to believers and unbelievers alike, to Catholics and non-Catholics; that they are bound to bear witness before all men of the Truth and of the Life, and as good shepherds seek after those too who, whilst having been baptized in the Catholic Church, have given up the practice of the sacraments, or even fallen away from the faith.”

But the Second Vatican council doesn’t limit this rescue mission merely to priests. It reminds us that we have all been the lost sheep at some time in our lives. And because we have all been searched for and found by the Mercy of our God, we are now all call to imitate God in His search and rescue mission by answering the call to faithful discipleship from our Lord. With full, active, conscious and fruitful participation we are to seek out the lost, and rescue them by our lives of holiness bringing them the light, love and life of Christ alive in us.

Our sharing in God's search and rescue mission for lost souls is known as the apostolate. This is what Vatican II said is the true role of the laity, the role of the apostolate. And this role of yours begins and has its source and summit here at Holy Mass. All of us are called to take a full, active, conscious, fruitful participation in the Sacred Liturgy of the Holy Mass. What does this mean?

Well it doesn’t mean just to sing or say the responses louder, although we should do that. It doesn’t mean that we have to become Extra-ordinary ministers of Holy Communion or to bring up the gifts more often. But what it really means, is that we are to participate with full mind, heart, body and soul, and with our whole strength and being in the once and for all sacrificial offering of Jesus Christ the High Priest to the Father which is made truly present here on the sacred altar through the Sacred Priesthood.

In other words, we are to participate in the perfect act of adoration of Jesus to His Father, which is perfect because it is the adoration of God by God. How do we do this type of participation? By an act of our will in which we place our self as a victim of love on the paten, as an offering to God the Father; so that along with the bread that will be change in to the Divine Victim of Love, the very Person of Jesus, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, we too can be offered and so transformed, changed through holiness, into another Christ for the renewal and salvation of the world.

Here at Holy Mass all of us are to understand (conscious participation) that we are to offer our whole self, both as individuals and as a parish family (full participation) by an interior act of our will (active participation), to the Father, in union with the Son, by the Power of the Holy Spirit. In this act of sacrificing of ourselves to God, (not to be destroyed, but to be one with Christ, the body united to the head), we offer the Father perfect praise and adoration in Christ through the Holy Spirit. We then become more and more in union with God, one with God, and are transformed more and more into His image and likeness and become, not just channels of grace for the world, but reservoirs overflowing with grace for the world and so for souls (fruitful participation), to bring them to the Father and His love for them. In other words, by our actual participation at each Mass we become more and more divinized; we become more fully "other Christ's, active and full members of His mystical body," who are empowered take what we have been given, literally the love of God, God Himself alive in our hearts through Holy Communion, out into our sinful world to the lost and forsaken sheep.

The truth is, is that it is only the Holy Mass offered properly according to God’s ordinance, which can save the world and the souls in it. Because the Holy Mass is first and foremost the action of the Head, Jesus Christ offering perfect adoration, through the once again offering of His life to the Father for us, the Mass is the primary source of all the grace that comes into this world. In fact no grace, none, comes into the world except through the Holy Mass. But this infinite grace, the grace of each and ever Holy Mass by God’s ordinance, can only flow out into the world through the Mystical body of Christ, that is through us, if we are open to it by joining fully, actively, consciously in this same self-offering of Jesus Christ to the Father. This is the universal call to holiness. Holiness is not just for ourselves, but it is to be fruitful that is, our personal holiness, brought about by our true participation at the Holy Mass, is to be the very means by which God desires to seek and rescue and so to save lost souls and renew our world which is being destroyed by the sins of mankind.

In the Holy Mass, through the Son in the Holy Eucharist, the Father embraces each of us in love and covers us with His kisses; but then He calls us to go out and bring other sheep to Him here at the Holy Mass, so He can embrace them as well with His divine Love and Life. The result will be great joy, because our brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and now has been found.'" We will be with him celebrating and rejoicing here, in praise and adoration of our God, at this sacred feast, the Holy Mass where heaven and earth unite, eternity breaks into time, and Man begins to share already in that for which he was created, sharing in the Oneness, in the Love, in the very Being of the Blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the glory of God, man fully alive.

Let us turn to the Blessed Mother for help:

Holy Mary, Mother of the lost and forsaken, and so Mother of sorrows, pray for us. Your hands were the very first paten on which the Son of God was offered to the Father, through the priest, in the temple at Jerusalem. Today may your hands present us as well, at this Holy Mass and every Holy Mass, placing our hearts on the paten to offered up by the priest to the Father in union with the Son for the salvation of the world. Help us to make this sacrificial offering of ourselves fully in love and so without fear; obtain for us the grace to be empowered to live this life-offering out in all aspects of our daily life, so that we may glorify our Father by being fully alive, thus becoming the means for others to live in the Joy of His Holy Will which is love and mercy itself. Amen.

Our Lady, mother of the faithful disciples of the Lord, today is your birthday, we give you our hearts, pray for us. Amen.

Luke 14, 25-33 Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time. August 8th, 2013

Last week’s readings were very much about the virtue of Humility; and so were also about it’s opposite vice—pride. A good concise definition of pride is, “doing your own will." We don’t have to feel prideful in order to be prideful; if we do our own will, very simply we are prideful. However, if pride is doing our own will, then, Humility is simply doing God's will.

Today’s Gospel reminds us that each day when we wake up, if we listen closely and humbly, we can hear Jesus asking us to be his faithful disciples to a greater degree than we were yesterday. Are we willing to put our love and obedience to Him before anything or anyone? For example, will we love Jesus today even more than our closest loved ones, our father, mother, wife, brothers and sisters, children and even ourselves? This brings up three important points of what it entails to be a faithful disciple of Christ in our everyday life.

First, being a faithful disciple of Jesus entails a daily struggle. Practically, this struggle begins the very first thing in the morning when we wake up. Do we put our love for God first in our day? We struggle with getting out of bed and we struggle even more to do that first act of adoration of our day. Our minds can quickly turn to other things- like “I’ve got to get everyone else up and breakfast prepared.” “What time is that first appointment of the day?—augh, better to hit the snooze alarm just one more time...at least!

How quickly our minds can become filled with the preoccupations of our day. These things are important, but in spite of them, will we love God first and put Him first in our day? Instead of these things, the very first thing our minds can focus upon, immediately when awakening, is on God. We can then make the sign of the cross and get out of bed quickly, falling on our knees in order to make the first act of our day an act of adoring God saying, “O God Creator of my soul, Father of my soul, I adore Thee and I love Thee, please help me to adore Thee and love Thee more this day.” We have to start off each day right by putting God first if we are to keep Him first throughout our day—first things first. This first act of our day, which only takes a few minutes, can end by quickly praying a prayer to our Lady and our Guardian Angel before we get up and get physically ready for the day.

We can then end our day as we began it, humbly on our knees. There we ask the Holy Spirit to help us for just a few minutes each night to truthfully examine our day, to examine those times in which we failed to put God first by fulfilling His Holy Will, namely our sins; and also to examine those times in which we carried out, albeit in our poor way, God’s Holy Will, so that we can thank Him and give Him the glory for the good work He has accomplished through us. We ask the Holy Spirit then to point out for us what specific thing He wants us to work harder on tomorrow, with His assistance of course. We follow by making an act of contrition, saying a night prayer to our Lady; and then, as the very last thing done before climbing into bed, we humbly bow our selves in body and souls before God with another act of adoration, saying a prayer such as the Glory Be or the adoration prayer we started our day with…God Creator of my Soul, Father of My Soul, I adore You.

Second point: When we realize that being a faithful disciple of Jesus entails daily struggle, we also understand that we must pick up the cross that Jesus gives us each day. Jesus never promised us Christians a rose garden, especially one without thorns. All of us have some sort of suffering in our lives and these are our cross that we must carry daily. Some crosses are big, many are small; perhaps, ours is an illness, or an illness in the family. Maybe it’s troubles in the family- the children are misbehaving, a relative in trouble. Or maybe it’s the daily troubles at work- that bothersome coworker, a heavy workload. Perhaps it’s being out of work, or maybe just the humdrum and contradictions of everyday life.

Whatever our sufferings may be, they are something that God has allowed in our life in order to make us into great saints, that is great friends, faithful disciples of Jesus. We can carry any cross if we do so for love of Jesus and for the salvation of souls; he will help us if we daily pray to Him…we can then say, not, why me? But rather, Why not me?”.

And the third point, when we understand being a faithful disciple of Jesus means daily carrying our cross, we also discover that we must also daily renounce all of our possessions if we are to follow Him. However, before we can do so, we must first understand what it means to renounce all of our possessions. Not that we give up everything we own, but that we don't put any of it before God and His Holy Will; and that we detach our heart from anything that does. Humility of soul is what we are talking about rather than a lack of worldly goods.

And so, possessions are anything, anyone that might separate us from God. The list can be long. We immediately think of material goods. The question we can ask ourselves to see whether or not something posses us is, “do I possess this thing or does it possess me?” Does it possess me to the point that my heart is more attached to it than to God? Our world is so full of materialism and consumerism that it is a struggle to not be possessed by the things of this world.

But possessions are more than just material things. We especially need to get rid of our greatest of all possessions, as I said before, the possession of our own will. We cannot do the any of the three points I just mentioned until we sacrifice our will; again this is at the essence of what it means to carry one's own cross. We love to have things our own way in the many events of everyday life. Interiorly, we can all sometimes act like spoiled children; “It’s my way or the highway.” Instead, we sacrifice my way for God’s way, by making daily sacrifices for love of God and others, for our family, for our parish family, and for our larger family the Church. In this we discover, that what really counts in this life, the path to true fulfillment, security and joy, is not the fulfillment of our personal desires, but he fulfillment of God's will. Fulfilling God's will in our life is only that which will fulfill our personal desires fully.

So to review the three points to following Jesus more faithfully: First each and everyday, we must make an act of adoration to God, in which we give to Him all that we are and all that we have. And in those things, which are most difficult to let go of, those things that hold possession over our hearts, we ask the Holy Spirit to slowly help us to renounce them. And finally we accept and carry our cross with great love for Jesus and for our neighbor out of our love for Jesus..

These three points can be summed up with this fact, that ultimately, being a true discipleship of Christ involves sacrifice; that is, surrendering ourselves fully to Christ. This is what love does it sacrifices, surrenders it's will, itself, for the sake of the other, for love of the other, in order to be one with the other!!! When we surrender ourselves in sacrificial love to Christ we are not destroy.

Unfortunately the world today really only understands sacrifice in a negative way, as a way of destruction. Not at all. As Pope emeritus Benedict tells us, Sacrifice to God doesn't entail destruction or non being; its not throwing ourselves or our being thrown into a volcano in order to appease the gods. No, sacrifice to God is rather, self surrender; or better yet, it is total abandonment to an all-good and all-loving Father. It entails a way of being. We give ourselves totally to God, freely and with trust, so that we are no longer separated from Him; we no longer live for ourselves, but for Him alone, for His Holy Will which is Love and Mercy itself!

Only when we lose ourselves for God, is it possible to find ourselves. True sacrifice transforms us; when we freely surrender ourselves to God, far from losing anything, we become like God, one with God, we share in God's own nature, which is the nature of love; far from being destroyed, we become fully who we are meant to be and desire to be

It goes without saying then that the supernatural help we need to carry these three points out in our lives comes only from frequent and worthy reception of the Sacraments and through intimate daily prayer. And so do we seek the strength of His grace frequently through the Sacraments of the Church, especially the Holy Eucharist and Confession? Do we spend intimate time with Him in prayer daily, especially that most efficacious of prayer, which is prayer before His truly presence in the Holy Eucharist either at Holy Mass or outside of Mass before the tabernacle or during times of Eucharistic adoration?

Let us turn to the most perfect of all the Disciples of Christ for help, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our sacrifice of self is offered here at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. She will help us to surrender ourselves to God and to His Holy Will, all in union with the Sacrifice of Her Divine Son, which becomes truly present here on this sacred altar. She will, if we ask her, obtain from Him the grace we need to live our life offering, each and every day in all areas of our lives, thus becoming like her, a faithful disciples of the Lord, bringing God's healing love into the midst of our broken world.

Our Lady, mother of the faithful disciples of the Lord, today is your birthday, we give you our hearts, pray for us. Amen.