This week we continue with the games of the Pharisees. Again they are trying to trap Jesus. One the favorite past times of the Pharisees, beside laying snares for Jesus, was to discuss among themselves which of the 613 commandments of the Jewish Law was the greatest. Today, we hear the Word of God in the flesh—Jesus, who is the author of all law, set the record straight. He points out the greatest; in fact, what lies at the very heart of the Law—LOVE.

The greatest Commandment is the first, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind and soul.” And the second is like it; you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The great St. Augustine commenting on the relationship between the two greatest commandments said, “If your ever confused, everything in the bible, and all of the Church teachings points to these two laws, everything else is nothing but commentary.” Everything else our stewardship, the living out of our mission, our apostolate, everything else is contained in these two laws, why? Because God is Love itself.

We, as Christians, have heard these greatest of commandments many times before, but have we really thought about them deeply? There is actually a proper order in following them, for you see you can’t love one without first loving the other. You can’t love your neighbor if you don’t first love your God, that is love Him totally, absolutely, first and above all else. Then second you can’t love God if you hate your neighbor, any neighbor, period.

How does one understand these two laws and the order and relationship between them? What does it look like to live them correctly and with a proper balance? Well the best way is to understand them and see them lived correctly is as always to look at the lives of the saints. And in our day, we don’t have to just look to the saints of old to see the proper order and living out of the first and second commandment, we have so many contemporary examples available to us, for instance, Saint Mother Theresa of Calcutta.

There is the example of Mother and a couple of her sisters coming across a poor man dying in the gutters along one of the streets of Calcutta. Now the gutters of the streets of Calcutta are actually the sewage system. And if it could be any worse, this man’s body was literally infested with worms and maggots. One could only image the stench and the repulsiveness of such a sight. Nevertheless, Mother and the sisters pick the man up, ignoring the stench, ignoring the sight, his dirty body soiling their pure white habits. They lovingly carried him back to the home where they cared for the poorest of the poor. There they cleansed this man and cared for his wounds picking out of his flesh the vermin that had infested it. And they did it which such care, as one observer noted; “that you would have sworn they were doing it to Christ Himself.” The man, shortly before He died, looked up at Mother and said, “Now I know that God exists, for no-one would have done what you did to me unless God was real and He and His love existed… With that he died in peace, not only with his body cared for, but his soul as well. Later a person said to Mother, “I wouldn’t have done what you did for a million dollars!” And Mother replied, “Neither would I, but I would do it for love of Christ.”

Mother, by her example, taught us the power we have as Catholic Christians to change hearts and souls when we love God before and above all else and then live that love by loving others as ourselves. She on many occasions gave us the practical secrets to living, not just a life of social work, but a life of true charity—loving others not just with human love, but with the divine love of Jesus, with Jesus, alive in one’s soul. On one occasion she said, “My sisters and I could never ever do what we do in the streets of Calcutta unless we begin every day with an hour of adoration before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, followed by Holy Mass and the worthy reception of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. She also once said, “You will never see Christ in the face of the poor, unless you first see Him (through faith) in the Holy Eucharist. She also said once to one of her sister’s; “It doesn’t matter who you see in the face of the poor, but who they see in your eyes! Do they see Jesus and His love alive in you?!” Mother on so many occasions said the same things in different ways, giving us the secret to her great power and holiness and a proper understanding of the two greatest commandments.

The great error of our day is actually a confusion of the proper order of these two commandments. It is a very attractive error. Many think that true religion consists primarily in loving and serving one’s neighbor, but they are wrong. True religion consists primarily in serving, loving and adoring God, first in our Worship of Him during the Sacred Liturgy of the Church, offered worthily and correctly, and then, by following His commandments and the teachings of His Church with the help of His grace offered to us in the Sacred Liturgy; including of course, all the Sacraments of the Church. The Sacraments give us the power, God’s power, to love God greater and to show that love by loving our neighbor as ourselves with God’s love not just our own. If only us Catholics truly began to comprehend the power of the Sacraments we would change our current world overnight…but they must be received with faith.

This contemporary error of putting service of neighbor before the worship of God, is shown by those who think they are righteous and good because they give food to the poor and do good works but then don’t worship God according to the third commandment so that Jesus and His Divine Love is alive in them through grace; and so aren’t able to truly live out the commandments and teachings of Church in the state of grace, that is with, in and through Jesus and His love in them.
This same error of and inversion of the first two commandments was shown in past years by some making the emphasis of our Religious Ed programs consist in service projects to the poor, but failing to teach our children to adore and then to live the doctrines of the church along with the Commandments. Don’t get me wrong, we need to have our kids do service projects, but we need most importantly to first lead them to a deeper faith in the Holy Mass which is the proper worship of God, the Sacraments (especially the Most Blessed Sacrament), as well as give them the doctrines of our Church for they are the truth that gives freedom and life—we can’t truly love God or neighbor with the doctrines of the Church.

I once heard a prelate in the Church comment that there is a danger in the growth of adoration of the Eucharist in our day. He said that the danger is that of making faith just about Jesus and me. While it is true that our faith cannot be only about Jesus and me, the problem is not found in adoring Jesus during Holy Hours of adoration or during Mass. While it is possible for one to adore Jesus in Holy hour and to receive Him at Holy Mass and then not go out and love ones neighbor, it is impossible to love one neighbor correctly with charity without adoring Jesus during Mass or Holy Hours and receiving Him worthily. Grace has to be cooperated with yes, but it must first be received. We have to come in contact with the very source of Love before we can truly love; and God is the source of love for He is Love Itself.

The first commandment is not only a commandment to Love God but to love Him through Adoration. Adoration is coming before God in humility realizing that we are the creature and He is the Creator and everything, everything is a gift from Him. We are but poor with nothing to offer Him except ourselves, our wills. And even this we don’t know how to do, because we are so attached to ourselves and what we have, especially our wills and so we lack docility to God’s will. To adore we need God’s help. And here is where the Holy Mass comes in.

At the Holy Mass we are able to be present at the greatest and only perfect act of adoration and love the world has ever seen, that of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. The Sacrifice of the cross was (and is) really God adoring God, because it was (and is) Jesus adoring the Father. Because the Holy Mass, by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the gift of the Sacred Priesthood, makes present in time and space the same sacrifice of Calvary, we can more and more offer ourselves to the Father along with, in and through Jesus’ own sacrifice, thus practically carrying out the first commandment, to love God above all else. We are then empowered by receiving Jesus Divine power and Love, by receiving His own Sacred Heart in the Holy Eucharist to go out and love our neighbor as ourselves.

But the Holy Eucharist only has the power to transform us to the extent we die to self, to our will, purify and clean ourselves in the sacrament of confession and then offer ourselves to Father through, in and with Jesus in loving response to the Father’s love in the gift of His Son in the Holy Eucharist. The more we die to self, the more we offer ourselves in adoration with great faith, trust and love, the more we can take the love of Jesus, Jesus Himself, out to all we meet in our homes, schools and work. The more we then live a life or purity, that is a life of holiness, the more then we can be transformed into love at Holy Mass.

That great orator and priest, Archbishop Fulton Sheen once describe this adoration at Holy Mass when he said, At the Holy Mass we come to the foot of the cross now transplanted from Calvary onto the altar of our own church and there Jesus hanging on the cross looks out over all present and says, I can no longer suffer and die for the souls of mankind, will you give me your human nature so that I can continue the work of the salvation of souls, suffering and dying for them and loving them in and through you.”

“No greater love is than this, than a man who would lay down his life for his friends.” Only by growing and perfecting in love the self-offering of ourselves in adoration to the Father through Jesus during the Holy Mass can we imitate the saints and fulfill the greatest of all commandments, that of Loving God first and out of love for Him, loving our neighbor as our self. Only then will they, the poorest of the poor, that is those who do not know God loves them, only then will they see Jesus in our eyes and in our smile. Our Lady of adoration, Mother of the Holy Eucharist and our Mother, help us to adore the Father, in Spirit and in Truth. Amen.

Ultimately to give to God what is God's means to give Him ourselves, for we are His and to Him we belong and are called to return; may we indeed be counted among those he has chosen and be instruments of salvations for others as well. Amen

Matthew 22, 15,21 Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time. October 18th, 2014

Today’s Gospel brings out the darkness of the hearts of those who opposed Jesus’ intrusion into their lives—they were religious in appearance only, but in their hearts they sought to live a life far apart from God—they refused to give to God what belonged to Him, namely their lives, their hearts and wills; in other words they refuse to adore Him, they refused to accept Him and his teachings and open their lives to His Divine Grace in order to begin to conform their lives in obedience to His Truth and His Will. And so, in order to justify themselves and to trap Jesus, these so-called religious pose a very clever question to try to get Jesus either to oppose the rights of God or the rights of the state.

In response, Jesus gives His enemies a very clever and profound answer, an answer that goes far beyond their twisted expectations. He doesn’t just give them a yes or no answer, He gives them the true perspective—“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. In other words, Jesus teaches them and us the proper relationship between church and state, and of our obligation to support both the Church and the state. Jesus puts back into order what was out of order. First and foremost, Jesus taught the Herodians and all those who were listening, that God is first, then the state.

Today then, Jesus teaches us that the state does not enjoy absolute power and dominion, absolute separation from God and His Church. Yes it has its own sphere of dominion, but it is limited. As a consequence, the rights of the state cannot usurp the rights of God and of His Holy Catholic Church, nor go against the dignity and sacredness of the human person created in the image and likeness of God. The government is called to uphold the proper order between Creator and creature.

Yes, us Christians have a duty to give to the state whatever material and personal services we are able in order to support the common good. But the state then has the corresponding responsibility to enact laws and govern with the greatest respect for the common good of all people including, and most especially, the most vulnerable; that is, those that cannot protect themselves. This obligation of the state includes the protection of the life of the human person from the moment of conception to natural death, the defense of the family; and consequently, the protection of marriage as an in-dissolvable union between one man and one woman as define by God and by natural law as a means to bring new life into the world to adore God. The state must protect the rights of parents, not the state, to be the primary educators of their children. The obligation of the state extends as well to the protection of religious liberty, which is the freedom of the human person to worship his Creator God and follow God’s laws and the Teachings of His Church. And so, the laws of the state, if they are to be just, can never contradict the Laws of God. Instead, the principles of God and the sacredness of the human person and the life of the human person should be the guiding light for the enactment of the laws of state.

So we must support the state so it can fulfill its earthly natural purpose or end--which is domestic peace and harmony, and only when it has these ends in view; but even more so, Jesus points out today as well, our higher obligation to support the Church so that it may carry out its supernatural purpose or end: which is to bring about eternal peace and harmony-better known as the kingdom of God, that kingdom for which man was created and for which he is to be saved. Politics alone cannot save society or man;Politics is meant to serve the human person not define him or her.

All of this points out very clearly what Christ does not mean by this verse, “give to Caesar what belong to Caesar and to God what belongs to God,” Christ doesn’t, does not, mean that we relegate our service to God, that is our faith to the private sphere. Christ did not intend to relegate religion to a private affair only carried out in the temple, but not in daily life in the world, as if the world could somehow develop apart from God’s law and Christian law and morality. Of course, that is an illusion; as we have said, the world trying to go along without God’s law is doomed to failure and collapse—God is God, He pervades the entire world—it is His and without Him it cannot exist. Religion is the necessary element that forms the consciences of citizens and brings about the “creation of an ethical consensus in society” (Pope Benedict). Religion is the conscience of a country and faithful Catholics are it’s soul, it fact they are the anima mundi—the soul of the world!

By the way, the political debate should be the means, the method we use to ensure God’s law is respected and human life is protected; and this is why we are obliged to promote the truth and fight unjust laws-laws which go against the common good of all. Like paying taxes, this is a duty we Christians owe to the state. The notion that we Christians should not and may not participate in the public forum and make our voices known is to exclude God Himself from the public square, Ultimately, it is man literally ignoring the existence of God, at its heart this is what communism and secularism does. In the words of the Second Vatican it is a practical atheism. This includes as well, the ideal that we can not use the pulpit to call the state to task and remind it of its obligations to the human person and to God; this ideal of silencing the pulpit is evil, not to mention un-American.

Every Christian, each one of us is called and challenged to be light and salt in the middle of the world. We are all called to love God, have an intimate and loving prayer with Him through prayer, study, and the Sacraments. And because of this love, we are call to go live our mission; to take the truth about God and man, and the truth about God’s love for man, out into the public arena, to all our neighbors. We are called to live as children of God in order to bring his light, his truth and his way into the halls of our schools, of our governments, our jobs as well as in the living rooms of our friends, and yes, a resounding yes, into the voting booth.

Ite missa est!!!, Not the Mass is ended go in peace, but go forth, fulfill your mission from God, take what you have received in the Holy Eucharist, namely Jesus, the God who is Love, and through Him, with Him and in Him, transform the world in which you live and work, transform it through Love. By our holiness of life, and with God’s love in us, we can transform the world, we can make it more humane, more human, changing our current culture of death into a culture of light and life, then and only then will we have peace and security.

Us Catholics Christians truly do have the answer for our modern age’s terrible moral and religious void and consequently its spiritual darkness, which is the very source of its current woes. Let us with the help of the blessed Virgin Mary mother of all nations, give unto God what belongs to God, our obedience to his truth in love and our entire life and everything in it for His honor and glory. Let us ask her to help us to pray in order to make reparation for the exclusion of God and His truth from our society. Ultimately to give to God what is God's means to give Him ourselves, for we are His and to Him we belong and are called to return; may we indeed be counted among those he has chosen and be instruments of salvations for others as well. Amen.

By your humble words, “Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.” “Let it be done to me according to Thy Word,” the Word became flesh and dwelt and continues to dwell among us in the Holy Eucharist…may your words become our own. Amen.

Matthew 22,1-14. Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time. October 12th, 2014

The Holy Spirit in our first reading describes the intimacy to which God calls each one of us. It is as a great feast, a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines, of food rich and juicy…The food that is prepared by the Lord for us however, is not just any food, but the food for which every human heart longs and desires; it is the only food that will ultimately satisfy the human heart. The great feast is really the Heavenly Wedding Feast for which all are invited but sadly in the end few respond.

What is the food the human heart longs for, the food that is served at the Heavenly Wedding Feast? It is the love of God; this is the only food that can satisfy. But we have to stop here before we go further. God does not have love; God does not possess love…God IS LOVE! As St. John tells us, Deus Caritas Est…God is LOVE! This means what the human heart ultimately longs for…every human heart…is God Himself. This brings up an important point that we can never hear enough.

God doesn’t just want to give us something, God wants to give us Some One…God wants to give us Himself, totally, and He is the God who is Love. In fact, God wants to actually wed our soul; He wants to make our souls one with Himself in the Wedding of all weddings, the wedding of the Bridegroom, Jesus who is God come to earth, to His bride, the Church, each one of us, the baptized.

Jesus, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity came to earth and continues to come to earth in order to wed our souls to His, our nature to His Nature. This is why He took an human nature, to be able to invite us to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb…This why He continues to take on a human nature in the Holy Eucharist so that at His wedding Feast the soul and God can become one…one in a union of love…one in a union with the God who is Love Itself. Imagine!, God wants to wed your soul…so much does He love you.

And so by your baptism you are called, invited, to this Wedding Feast that our Gospel today talks about. Where is this wedding Feast???…It is here at the Holy Mass. The Holy Mass is THE WEDDING, the wedding of all weddings; it is the Wedding feast of the Lamb where God wants, desires to wed you and take you to Himself. He is the source of everything, the source of your family, your possessions, your existence…and this God wants to give you something more than all of that, He wants to give you Himself.

The Holy Mass is the mountain of Holiness spoken about in our first reading, the meeting place of God and Man; it is heaven on earth, the Heavenly Wedding Feast on earth. It is where God continues to descend, to condescend to us by becoming one of us, in order to take us to Himself. The choice of all wines is His Precious blood to be poured out for us; the food is His body to be given up for us…By partaking of His flesh and blood, which is united to His soul and divinity, we can, through faith, enter into Comm—union with Him and through Him with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit. But it goes without saying that we have to show up at the wedding in order to be wedded to God!

We are told today that many who are invited never show up for the feast; but, we have to do even more than just show up…we have to come with ready to lift up our hearts to the Lord; that is, to offer them up to the Lord who offers His heart to us at Mass…The Holy Mass is an exchange of hearts, and exchange of persons, God gives us His Sacred Heart and we must open our hearts by offering our hearts to Him… How do we do this?

First our hearts have to be made worthy by the Lord Himself in the sacrament of Confession. We have to repent from our sins, confessing them in the sacrament of confession with a firm intention to leave sin behind in order become more fully one with God by following His Holy Will; and so His teachings and Commandments. Our hearts need to be cleansed and our souls dressed in the wedding garment of sanctifying grace, that is with the life of God restored, healed and alive in our souls from a good and honest sacramental confession. We have to come to the Wedding dress worthily. This includes our bodily dress, but most especially in soul. Our outward appearance should be a reflection of our inward appearance, the appearance of our soul before the Bridegroom, Christ. (We should bring Him as well the good works of our lives, and even our failures so He can transform them).

Second we have to realize that at the Wedding that is the Holy Mass, an exchange of hearts must take place. This is done just as it is done at a wedding, vows must take place (I spoke about his during the mini-Eucharistic conference I gave here at St. Peter’s last July). Just like at wedding between a man and woman, the couple exchanges holy and sacred vows…I do…that is I give myself totally to You for life by offering my life to you….These “I do” of the couples must be first and foremost an act of the will, in which each person intends to give the gift of Himself and Herself to one another. And they seal this intention with a Sacred Oath before God Himself and His Holy Church. Amen…so help me God to live this oath till death do us part…if one or more of the couple doesn’t say the words “I do” or doesn’t mean intentionally the words from the heart then the marriage is not valid and the two can not become truly one flesh at the consummation of the wedding vows which takes place in the marital act the night of the wedding.

So too with the Holy Mass…Holy vows must take place, an exchange of hearts, of persons giving of themselves totally in love to one another. God totally gives His “I do” by giving us Himself through the Sacred Heart of His Son in the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is the total gift of the Father to us because it is the gift of His Son, Jesus, who is everything that the Father is and possesses. But to receive this gift, we must in response to God’s “I do” give our “I do” that is the gift of our hearts, ourselves, all that we have and are to God. It only then that the consummation truly take place at the Marital act of the Holy Mass, Holy Communion.

We can only truly become one with God at Holy Communion to the extent that we give our “I do” to God…only to the extent we give the gift of our self in response to the gift of God’s entire self can we become “one flesh” with God through the reception of the flesh of God which we receive in Holy Communion. Only communion is far more intimate, unfathomably more intimate than the marital act between a husband and wife because in Holy Communion Jesus whole Body and all of His Blood comes into ours, along with whole Soul and His Divinity!!!

And finally, third, to actively, fully, consciously participate at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb and so bear the fruit of Holiness that is oneness with God, we have to turn to the mother of the Bridegroom-Jesus. We have to turn to the Blessed Mother of God to help us to offer our hearts. Interiorly at every Mass, we should ask her to help us adore the Lord, which really means to make of our selves a living oblation of love to Him.

We turn to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which is already perfectly one with the Sacred Heart of Her Son, and we entrust the offering of our hearts, our whole being into her hands. We ask her to place our hearts on the paten. In fact her hands become the living paten on which our hearts are offered up to the Father by the Hands of Her Son who is working in the person of the priest. She then magnifies the offering of our hearts, our lives, our works, joys and sufferings, our everything, by her Holiness and makes them acceptable to Her Son. He then accepts our hearts and our offerings as if they where His Mother’s own. As the great High priest Jesus then presents them as an acceptable offering to His Father, God the Father almighty who accepts our offerings as if they were Jesus own offerings. Our Father God then takes us to himself and Makes us more and more images and instruments of His love and Mercy for others—images of His Son.

With our hearts acceptable to the Father they become worthy to receive the heart of His Son Jesus in Holy Communion because by the power of the Holy Spirit that are transformed into images of Jesus’ own Sacred Heart. The fruit of this worthy reception of the Heart of the Son, which is the Marital act of the Holy Mass, is oneness with Jesus and through Him with the Father. Jesus then begins to live anew in the world in us, through us and with us. Our works become Jesus works, our acts of selfless love no matter how small become Jesus’s own acts of love. Our lives then bear the fruit of love which is oneness with Love Himself and this love effects not only our own lives, and our family’s lives, but the lives or countless of other souls as well. This is the fruit, the fruit of small souls living holiness; that is, oneness with God. It is these souls who accept the invitation to the wedding feast of the Lamb who will bring about our renewal of our families, our country and our world…they will be used by our Blessed Lord to bring a great renewal of the Church, and so of the world leading to an unprecedented era of peace through the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of His Mother.

Let us then end by turning to the blessed Mother for help. Dear Blessed Mother at this Holy Mass which is the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, help us to give our “I do” to the Lord as did you. By your humble words, “Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.” “Let it be done to me according to Thy Word,” the Word became flesh and dwelt and continues to dwell among us in the Holy Eucharist…may your words become our own. Amen.

This week is Respect-Life Sunday and it kicks off an entire month of support for the Pro-life moment. Our first reading and Gospel talk again about the vineyard of the Lord, and the fact that those to whom the vineyard was entrusted did not properly respond to the Lord or yield fruit for which he was looking. Instead they broke his covenant, creating a culture of death, by killing his prophets and eventually even his Son. Finally, they had the vineyard taken away from them for bearing no fruit, of the fruit of life. We too will all have to give an account of how we used what God has given us in the vineyard to produce good fruit. And at the end of our lives Jesus will question us about fruit of love. Did we use what we have primary for love of God and love of neighbor.

I believe included in this question of our love will be the question of pro-life. How even more so we will have to give an account of our efforts to support the Church’s work of protecting God’s greatest gift--the gift of life. Jesus will say to each one of us who lived in the current culture of death, “What did you do to defend life in my vineyard? I speak for myself but at this point in my life I will have to answer, “not enough Lord, not enough!” God has entrusted the life of every individual to his or her fellow human beings, brothers and sisters. We are to give of ourselves to each other in imitation of Christ who gave Himself totally to us. God asks us to bear fruits of life rather than to abuse our freedom with perversions of “choice” that end up taking life.

To work in the vineyard of the Lord means to stand for life and ‘to stand for’ means that we stand against whatever destroys life. And there is nothing in our society that destroys more human life than abortion—nothing at all, no crime, no disease, no natural disaster, no war. If you look at all the wars that we have ever fought in our nation’s entire history, you will see that we destroy more human lives by abortion in one year than we have destroyed by all the wars of our nation’s history put together. There’s an abortion in our country every 26 seconds, 3,300 a day.

The irony of this horror is that some promote this taking of human life under the slogan “freedom of choice”. But the women getting the abortions do not do so because of freedom of choice; they do so because they feel that there is no freedom and no choice. They feel trapped, abandoned, desperate, afraid…and sadly they feel that there is no one they can turn except the abortionist, who makes money, lots of money off their desperate situation.

The Church and the pro-life movement want to give you the “good news” that there are people ready to help, that there are better choices better than abortion. People are ready to provide help. Let us allow no one ever to feel that the only way to solve a problem is to have her child destroyed. As a country, as a people, we can do better than the destruction of 3300 children a day.

The sad thing is that so many who need this help don’t know it’s available. But that’s where we come in. Each of us can save someone’s life by spreading the Good News that there are alternatives to abortion. Over the next few weeks we are going share with you this and other information. Next week we will have in the bulletin, 55 practical suggestions of legal, peaceful, effective things that we can all do to help bring and end to abortion and help women in need. And at the top of this sheet you will find telephone numbers that can be called anytime of the day or night. There are children who are depending on us to do something. Children are alive today because churches just like ours learned what they could do and began to speak up when they had the chance by saying, “Don’t have an abortion…There’s help available!”

We also need to let people know that to oppose abortion does not mean to oppose those who have had them. To be pro-life means to be pro-woman. To love the baby does not mean we forget the mothers. We can love them both, protect them both, welcome and care for the both. We need to reach out to women who have had abortions. We need to let them know the doors of the church are open to you, the doors of God’s mercy is available to you. God is not and we are not against you; we’re on your side. There is a true case of a woman who had 24 abortions and even for her the doors of the Church are open. Open as well is Christ’s heart of divine Mercy!

It is also urgent that in our day we avoid being fooled by the slogans of our day, which are nothing more than lies. Some people talk about “safe and legal abortions” because they think that making it legal has made it safe and therefore to keep it safe and out of the back ally ways, we must keep it legal. This is a lie. First of all, safe for whom? It’s never safe for the child. The very purpose of the procedure is to destroy the child.

But what many people don’t realize about this lie is that it isn’t safe for the mother either. And that’s true not only because of the over 150 physical and emotional complications that can result from this procedure—But also, because legal abortion facilities in our country are the most unregulated surgical facilities in the nation. Women are injured, even killed and these things are being covered up; we are just not hearing about them. I personally have had many mothers share with me the pain and agony of their decision. They are devastated by the mistake they made. So often they struggle not with the fact that God can forgive them, they struggle instead to forgive themselves.

And what about the lie of the slogan “pro-choice.” The problem about this lie is that we don’t hear what the choice is. Is a particular choice right or wrong, good or bad, should it be allowed or prohibited? Doesn’t this slogan depend on what you’re choosing? Do I have the right to choose to steal from you, to abuse you, to kill you? Of course not—because my choices ends where your rights begin. And therefore the law protects (or should protect) your rights against my choice to harm you.
In abortion what is the choice? Some say it’s the choice whether to have or not have a child.

Certainly everyone one has a choice whether or not to have a child. We can all understand that there are circumstances in which some people should not have a child. But isn’t there a big difference between the choice of whether or not to have a child and the choice of whether or not to kill a child. When we talk about abortion, we are not talking about a child who might come into the world; we are talking about a child who is already in the world. Scientifically, life begins at the moment of conception and we were all embryos once, every one of us. So the question is not, “Should I bring a child into this world?” The question is, “May I throw a child out of the world?” And the answer is no!

Some people will say abortion isn’t my business. But as I said at the beginning, Love is our business, again when we face Jesus we will all be questioned about Love. Doesn’t love mean that when we can help another person in need or in danger we try to help them or at least speak up for them. If we witness a helpless child who is about to be run over by a car or is in danger of being abused by an adult, don’t we have a duty to intervene, a duty of love? What more helpless child is there than the child in danger of being aborted? He or she is the most helpless child in our world—is it not our business and duty to intervene?

In a short while we will offer ourselves at the Sacrifice of the Mass. Christ gives Himself away on the cross and, in the Holy Eucharist we find the meaning of love: I sacrifice myself for the good of the other person, I lay down my life for him. Isn’t it ironic that this is the perfect reversal of abortion and all crimes against life, which say instead, I sacrifice the other person for the good of myself? And isn’t it ironic, that the very same words that Jesus and His priests use to proclaim love, are used by the defenders of abortion: This is my body. Some say they control their bodies and so others must die; But Christ says, “This is my body given up for you in the Holy Eucharist, so that you may live.” Jesus gives His Body away, so others may live. This is my body, given up for you. In the power of these words, the culture of death will be transformed into the culture of life.

As we receive the fruit of these words, the Holy Eucharist-Jesus himself given up for us so that we may live, let us pray for openness to His power so that we may not be indifferent. Let us pray that we may have the grace to get actively involved in the effort to stop the killing of all children by not only abortion, but by all crimes against life. Holy Mary, Mother of Life, Mother of all mothers, and mother of the unborn, pray for us.

In our first reading today we hear from Ezekiel, one of the Old Testament Prophets who lived in the sixth century B.C. The word “prophet” refers to one who is chosen to speak for God, on God’s behalf. The prophet speaks the truth in words and in deeds in order to point the creature-man, back to his Creator. By his faithful witness, the prophet reminds man of his responsibility to respond to the Creator’s call, and then the prophet shows man how to respond and so how to find his way back to or to a fuller intimacy with God.
Responsibility was a recurring theme not only of Ezekiel, but also of all the Old Testament prophets. And so, is it not predicting the future that is the essential element of the prophet, but that of reminding man of his grave responsibility to God and of fulfilling that responsibility, by repenting; that is, by turning away from sin and back to God. Turning back to God entails being obedient to God’s Truth, to His Holy Word and to His Holy Church, and then struggling with the help of God’s grace in living that truth out in Charity-love, thus being obedient to God’s Holy Will. Simply put the true prophet shows the way to the Face of God by giving God’s people the truth…Hence, many times the prophet is not considered a nice guy…and is usually persecuted by some of those God has called to be His own.
Ezekiel’s message, as does the message today from St. Paul, focuses on this mystery of man’s responsibility. This same message of our first and second reading--responsibility, in fact personal responsibility, is also found as well in today’s Gospel: the parable of the two sons, asked by their father to perform a certain task, and the two sons’ differing replies or responses to their father’s request. In their differing responses, we discover the meaning of responsibility.
Responsibility comes from two words, “response” and “ability.” It literally means a capacity for replying to someone to whom a reply is due. For anyone with faith, for anyone who believes that man is God’s creature called to live with God forever, responsibility has to do with man’s reply to His Creator to Whom a reply is definitely due; in justice as well as in love. Responsibility as to do with God’s Holy Will for man, and man’s reply or response back to that Will as shown by man’s obedience, not only to God directly but also to the prophets that God sends.
In this loving response to God and His Will, we can discover, if we are of good will, that God’s will for us is not just a set of commands for command’s sake or rules for the sake of rules. No, God’s will for us is about a set or a body of directives all pointing to what is best for our welfare. It is a set of guiding principles and truths that actually point the individual to God, or better yet allow the individual the freedom to respond or reply to God’s initiative; for it was He who first called us; it was He who first loved us, not the other way around.
As you know, Christian responsibility is not always easy for the disciple of Jesus. Sometimes being responsible for right actions before God entails carrying a cross, even to the point of martyrdom if necessary. Such is thrust of today’s Second Reading, from St. Paul to the Philippians. Here we are reminded that Christian responsibility is a service to others, a suffering service, carried out in the footstep of the Suffering Servant Himself, Jesus of Nazareth. This is known as the martyrdom of love, were a man lays down his life for the sake of his friend, the first friend being, of course, Jesus-God Himself.
This martyrdom of love, while it can be expressed by the shedding of one’s blood, is mostly lived out fidelity to our ordinary daily duties, both materially and spiritually. Doing all, even the seemingly insignificant things, for the sake of and for the Love of God first, and then for neighbor for love of God; never living for one’s own sake but for the sake of and the good of the other. In this dying of self by dying to our self-will and selfishness in all things, do we alone find authentic freedom, authentic love and the fullness of life, for a martyrdom of love, leads us to the abundant life, life lived in union with God…..To he who is faithful in small things I will entrust larger ones…in this we discover we are all, by our baptism called to be prophets of God…
It’s important that we remember that we can only begin our grave responsibility to God (and neighbor) by our adoration of God—first things first!!! Adoration is the only proper reply that us creatures can give in response to God, in response to all that He has given to us, which is of course everything, even our very existence. We do not and cannot in any way fulfill our responsibility to God (and neighbor) without first adoring God…true religion is primarily about adoring and worshiping our Creator. This is why we must attend Mass which is the perfect act of Adoration because it is the adoration of God to God, Jesus to the Father on our behalf. If we don’t attend Mass we fail at the very deepest level in our responsibility to God. In fact, the Holy Mass is the primary source of “our ability” to give our response to God thus fulfilling our responsibility.
At Mass, through grace, we must trustingly offer to God in love, all that we are and all that we have. It is our responsibility, the responsibility of love, to do so, this is true adoration, a self-oblation before the Lord, not to be destroyed but to be assumed up into God’s love, becoming one with Him. In the Mass, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is re-presented to us; that is, made present for us today, here and now.
For our sake not for His, Jesus in obedience offers everything, his very life to the Father on the wood of the cross out of love for us; and then the Father through Jesus in the Holy Eucharist offers us His all, His everything to us by giving us the fullness of His Divine Son. We celebrated this, a couple of weeks ago at the feast of the Triumph of the cross. Jesus not only gives us the perfect example to imitate in order to carry out our responsibility, but also provides us with the wellspring of mercy and grace by giving us His very own Sacred Pierced Heart. And if we open our hearts and minds to It, To Him, by His gift of the Holy Spirit, we can be transformed into living images of Jesus for the world, giving our all for the Glory of God and the salvation of souls, in this we begin to truly serve our fellow man and “feed” the poor.
We in the manner of Jesus on the cross, make His prayer our own at the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer. The priest says, “The Lord be with you.” And you respond, “and also with you.” Then he says, “Lift up your hearts.” And you respond, “We lift them up to the Lord,” that is we offer them (Our hearts) to the Lord in adoration and in response to His great love for us. Finally, the priest says, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” You respond, “It is right and just to give him thanks and praise; in other words it our responsibility in justice and love to give Him thanks and praise by offering ourselves in love, giving our “I do” in response to His “I do”. With this prayer, we offer to God all that we are and all that we have—our whole heart, uniting ourselves to the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary which becomes truly present before us on the altar, responding to Father’s love by giving our all our very self back to Him through His Son, with His Son and in His Son, thus carrying out our primary responsibility to the Lord. This is the first, most profound and most personal act of adoration we can do; this is the primary source of the strength to love God and then to love our neighbor for love of Him.
We have all, at one time or the other been one of the two sons in the parable. Either we say we are disciples of God; that is, we say we will do what He demands; but instead, we do our own thing. Or we don’t do what we should, but hopefully repent and in the end do so. Today, let us be the third son not mentioned, the one who like Jesus, understands his great responsibility to his Father, and responds immediately by doing what is asked of Him. Love is always shown by deeds; that is, in loving obedience, doing the will of God, of following His Commandments and the Teachings of His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, without hesitation and without counting the cost. Adoration of God is our primary duty, and from it flows the grace, love and mercy to carry out our second; that is, to love our neighbor by serving him or her in and with the truth that comes from God and is given to us through His Catholic Church, and doing so with sanctifying grace, that is with, in and through Jesus and with His love alive in our hearts.
Today in the Holy Eucharist, God knocks at the door to our heart; let us discover that adoration is the key to unlock the door of our hearts to Christ; it is only through obedience to our responsibility that we can open our heart to Him. The Holy Eucharist is Jesus who longs come into our hearts, from Him alone we receive the capacity to be fill with His Love, which is His very Self. He alone is the source of our ability and capacity to “respond” in love to the call of our God, who is the God who is Love. To respond can only mean we offer our hearts in response to the God who offers us His Sacred Heart pierced for love of us and truly present and beating for love of us in the Holy Eucharist…Let us ask the Virgin to help us lift up our hearts; that is to, through her, offer them completely in love to the Lord…Amen.

The Virgin Mary is the perfect vine in the Lord's vineyard. From her there grew the blessed Fruit of Divine Love—Jesus, Our Savior. May she help us to respond always and with joy to the Lord's call, and to find our happiness in the possibility of toiling for the Kingdom of Heaven. (Pope Benedict’s Angelus Message September 21, 2008.

Matthew 20, 1-16 Twenty-four Sunday in Ordinary Time. September 21st, 2014

Today in our first reading God, through the prophet Isaiah, invites us sinners to gaze at the sky and see how far it is above the earth. Isaiah today is pointing out the reality that even vaster than the reaches of the universe, God’s ways are above our ways. So much is this true, that we are unable to grasp the infinite ways of God who continually invites us, and all sinners, no matter how big, to receive His forgiveness and His unearned, infinite, merciful love. Today’s psalm goes on to tells us that God is near to all who call upon Him.

In light of last week’s Gospel in which God our Lord commands us to forgive “always,” even those who most terribly trespass against us-sin against us, we can easily agree with Isaiah. So far are God’s ways above ours. This past week we of course celebrated the feast of the “Exultation of the Holy Cross.” This feast points out to us that God’s ways are definitely not ours.

We have a God who became man in order to suffer and die in order to forgive sins, to forgive even the worst sins and save even the most harden and evil sinner. Although the most innocent of all men, He allowed himself to suffer the most horrible torture and death by these same sinners, crying out to the Father, “forgive them for they know not what they do!” Here, Jesus, was not just speaking of those who tortured and killed him, but of all sinners throughout the ages, including you and me, all whom He would die for in order to offer the possibility of salvation, of eternal life, “by His stripes we have been healed.”

I think this, God’s merciful love, is the way to understand the parable in this week’s Gospel, which is by the way, I think, one of the hardest parables to accept. This parable seems to goes against our sense of justice, our sense of fairness! But when you look at it in terms of salvation it makes perfect sense. The “day” that the parable speaks about is really the day of a lifetime. Origen, one of the Father’s of the Church, said, “For the whole of this present life may be called one day, long to us, short compared to the existence of God.” To us life seems so long, but it is really just a “day” in the eyes of the Lord.

Our Lord desires that all men be saved, and so his patience is directed toward salvation. As long as one lives, God offers His Divine Mercy and love to the soul; and so even though, through the repentance of its sins, the soul comes to Christ late in life, God will, still draw near and take the soul to Himself; even though, the soul may need further purification of its selfishness. Every soul is precious in the eyes of the Lord.

With all that being said, this parable is also a warning for those of us in the Church already, for God’s Mercy is not separate from His Justice. Jesus is saying to us, “You have received the great privileged of having come into the Church already. In later days others will come in, but you must not claim a special honor and a special place because you came before them.” Again, all men, no matter when they come, are equally precious to God. This points out another deeper warning.

While we have to be in the vineyard, that is, in the Church in order to be with Jesus, we also have to toil in the vineyard, producing the fruit of leading souls to God through our faithfulness and holiness of life. We can’t be idle within the vineyard. Here’s what Pope Benedict said about this very parable:

It is clear that that denarius {used in this parable} represents eternal life, a gift that God reserves for everyone. Indeed, precisely those who are considered "last," if they will accept it, become "first," while the "first" can run the risk of becoming "last." The first message of this parable is in the fact itself that the owner does not tolerate, so to speak, unemployment: He wants everyone to work in his vineyard. And in reality, being called itself is already the first recompense: Being able to work in the Lord's vineyard, putting yourself at his service, cooperating in his project, constitutes in itself an inestimable reward, which repays all toil.

The Holy Father goes on to say:

But this is understood only by those who love the Lord and his Kingdom. Those who, instead, work solely for the pay will never recognize the value of this priceless treasure (Pope Benedict’s Angelus Message September 21, 2008.

To work for “pay” only, that is what we are going to get out of it, leads to seeing God’s great generosity of bringing souls into the vineyard and giving them the same pay and friendship with Him only as unjust or unfair.

If we are practicing stewardship, that is, giving of ourselves, our time, talent and treasure for the Kingdom of God, which subsists fully in the Catholic Church, of giving ourselves in its work of saving souls, living for love of God and neighbor for love of God, far from being jealous of new comers we will welcome them as members of the family, members whom we ourselves have worked hard to bring in, in order to join in the labor for other souls. It goes without saying then how much faithful stewardship has to do with the very essence of what it means to be Christ’s “faithful stewards.” Not to practice stewardship will ultimately lead us to becoming last in the Kingdom, not matter when we came in, and we will lose our eternal reward.

In the end justice will be fully served and we will receive our recompense for what we have done or, and especially, for what we have failed to do. Only those who come into the Kingdom and work and sacrifice themselves and their selfishness in the vineyard for love of God and for love and for the salvation of souls out of love for Him, only these will share in the fruit of the final harvest. And that fruit is eternal life, unbelievable happiness immersed in the eternal Family of God, in the love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit along with all the angels and saints. No wonder St. Paul was caught between going home to be with the Lord, which is far better, or staying in the flesh to continue to help in the vineyard for the Glory of God and the salvation of souls.

"The Virgin Mary is the perfect vine in the Lord's vineyard. From her there grew the blessed Fruit of Divine Love—Jesus, Our Savior. May she help us to respond always and with joy to the Lord's call, and to find our happiness in the possibility of toiling for the Kingdom of Heaven." (Pope Benedict’s Angelus Message September 21, 2008.

Through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, may we allow ourselves to be, along with the host, transformed into love, by Love in order to share Love, God’s love, God Himself with our World, transforming it and saving souls. Amen.

John 3; 13-17. Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. September 14th, 2-14

Today we celebrate the triumph of the Holy Cross. The cross was once the greatest symbol of shame. It was the instrument of the perfection of torture. As a consequence, Roman citizens could not be crucified. No, death by crucifixion was reserved for the lowest of criminals; in fact, for those who were deemed less than human; (isn’t it interesting that we always have to deny it’s a human person with inherent dignity in order to justify taking human life). And so, Jesus who was a fully divine came to earth as one of us; He became fully human in order to obtain our eternal salvation by dying the ignominious death, death on a cross; “This is my body, given up for you…).

As a result of His obedience to the Father’s Holy Will even unto death, Jesus turned the symbol of shame and suffering into a sign of everlasting hope. On the cross, He has taken on our sins so that we might be freed from the slavery and death of our sin; by his stripes we have been healed (cf. Is 53;5, 1st Peter 2;24). And as a result, death has now been destroyed and the symbol of the cross has now become for those who believe, adore, hope and love in Him the symbol of hope; because, the cross is the promise of sharing already in the victory that is now Christ’s. This is on of the reasons why us Catholic have and image of Jesus on the cross.

The cross is for the believer then, also the sign and symbol of authentic love: First, because Jesus’ Cross, makes visible the love of the God Who is Love. Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross makes visible the unfathomable love that each member of the Blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has for one another. While His death on the cross did nothing new with regards to how the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity live their intimate life together, it mysteriously made this Trinitarian love visible for us to behold.

The sacrifice of Christ on the cross, that complete offering of Himself for His friends, shows to us how the members of the Blessed Trinity give of themselves completely for one another eternally. Father, Son and Holy Ghost live totally for the other; sacrifice themselves in an oblation of love, a love that exists totally for the sake of the other. They live only for the other; and so, their love is so perfect, so complete, that it unites them in perfect unity, a unity of perfect Oneness. Love unites and so perfect love units perfectly. This Trinity of Persons is actually a family; in fact, The Family, perfectly united in love, the source of all Love.

The cross is for the believer, the sign and symbol of authentic love secondly, because as it makes visible to us the perfect love that each member of the Trinitarian family has for one another, it also makes present the love that the members of the Trinity have for each one of us. The Cross is then the visible sign of the invisible Trinitarian God’s love for each one of us. “For God so loved the world, that He sent His only Son… God who is so far beyond us, so beyond our comprehension and our reach, now draws near to us in love; in fact in the Son, condescends Himself, to become one of us, for our sake not His. And not only did He become one of us in Jesus, He did so in order to experience our human condition with all of its joys, struggles, and sufferings; and even to experience our death. And by Jesus’ death, death on a cross He, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, most especially shows us, proves to us and makes visible to us, His incredible love for us.

And finally, the cross is for the believer, the sign and symbol of authentic love because as it makes God’s love visible to us, it also calls us, invites us to participate in this Divine Love, first by our loving God above all things, and then by loving one another as God as loved us. In this we imitate and participate in God’s Trinitarian family, in Its inner Life and Love. This is what Jesus meant by following after Him. Picking up our cross means to imitate Jesus and so imitate God’s love, by offering our lives, our sufferings; all we say and do, our dying to self and selfishness; and finally, offering of our death with all of its pains and sufferings for love God, and because we love God for love of our neighbor and for our neighbor’s salvation, whether he be our friend or enemy. This is the perfection of love, perfect Charity; existing for the love of the other, for the good of the other, that is for God and for every single human person and doing so in Christ and in through and with His Divine Love which unites us to the Father in the Love of the Holy Ghost.

When we give of our self sacrificially to one another, first to God and then to neighbor, with the help of God’s grace and mercy, we partake in the very love of God, we continue to make God’s love visible in the world, as Jesus did, and we bring the unity of love to fruition. In a world that is hell bent on financial success at any cost, on comfort, ease, and personal gratification, especially with regards to sexuality, and finally hell bent on the acquisition of power and control over others, this is a hard message not only to hear, but also to accept. For this reason, St. Paul said, “The message of the cross is complete absurdity to those who are headed for ruin, but to us who are experiencing salvation, it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18). And the Power of God is the Power of Love which is defeats all sin and evil, and even death.

If the Cross of Jesus is a sign of love, God’s love, His inner love, His love for us and the love He calls us to, the reality of that love is the Holy Eucharist. I believe it was St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta who once said, “When we look at a crucifix we see how much God loves us, when we look at the Holy Eucharist we see how much God loves us now.” In the Holy Eucharist, through faith, we see the face of Jesus, the face of God. The Holy Eucharist, as the Sacrament of the Sacrifice of Jesus, the Sacrament of His true bodily presence and the Sacrament of our Communion with God, as a three-fold Sacrament, It makes the Holy Cross of Christ truly present in the world today, in our midst today. The Holy Mass makes it possible for you and me to be present, sacramentally, but literally and truly, at the foot of the cross along with the Blessed Mother and St. John.

It is here at this Holy Mass that we can come, as individuals united in a family of faith and love, before the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and share in its victory. It is the Holy Mass that makes truly present for us the Cross, because it is Jesus’ once and for sacrifice on Calvary, the sacrifice that made and makes visible to us the invisible love of our God. The Holy Mass makes visible to us now here in this place and time, the invisible love of God because it makes present for us the fruit of the Cross, the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is the Love of God for it is the God who is Love. Jesus died on the Cross in order to give us Himself, who is the fullness of God’s love, of God’s self, in Holy Communion. The Holy Eucharist is the complete gift of the Father, because it is the gift of His Love in the gift of His Son.

It is from the Mass which is the cross of Christ that we can draw from the unity and love of the Holy Trinity in order to live that love out in our families, parish families and in our World. It is in and through the Holy Eucharist the God first loves us and draws us into His love, for it is in the Holy Eucharist that Jesus is lifted up in our own age drawing all men to Himself. In fact, it is at the Elevation of the Holy Eucharist at Mass, after the words of Consecration, it is to this very moment that Jesus refers to in today’s Gospel so that anyone who believes in the Holy Eucharist will be saved...

With the Holy Eucharist Who is Jesus, we can with Jesus and for love of Him, if we have faith and desire it, carry our cross and continue to make visible the love of God to the world, and so continue the victory of the cross in the hearts of those who come to believe through our own sacrifice of love united to His. If at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth…what about before the very Person of Jesus truly present in the Holy Eucharist….Venite Adoremus Dominum…Come let us adore the Lord on bended knees and bended heart, let us open our hearts to His Divine love, to His Divine Heart by offering our hearts in return.

Tomorrow we celebrate the Feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows. Let us ask her for help. Let us pray: “Our Lady of Sorrows always united to the crucified Heart of your Son, help us to love Jesus with your love and so love one another as God as loved us. Help us, as you help St. John, to be and remain at the foot of the cross and there offer our heart, our very self and all that we have, on this altar, as victims of love to the Father in union with Jesus and His Sacrifice by the Power of the Holy Spirit. Through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary stationed at the foot of the cross, may we allow ourselves to be, along with the host, transformed into love, by Love in order to share Love, God’s love, God Himself with our World, transforming it and saving souls. Amen.