Sixth Week in Ordinary Time. February 13th, 2010
Two weeks ago we heard Jesus’ incredible teaching know as the Sermon of the Mount. In these teachings Jesus tells us what we must do, how we must live, what our hearts and mind must be like if we are going to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Last week, Jesus said we must live the Beatitudes not only so we can make it to heaven but also so that we can help our neighbor, that is our family members, parish family members, our friend’s coworkers, and even strangers and our enemies make it to heaven. Charity dictates, “Either we seek the salvation of others or we will not be saved ourselves.”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus continues with the Beatitudes by teaching us more very strong lessons on how we must live our lives; and even more deeply, what must be in our minds and our hearts if we are to truly live the beatitudes and not merely give God lip service. Jesus today is reminding us that the Beatitudes are not suggestions, they are commands, commands that must be follow if we are to fulfill the great Commandment of Love, loving God above all things and our neighbor as our self for love of God.
And so the commandments that Jesus gives us today are linked to the Beatitudes, they are more details in the living of the Beatitudes. Let’s look at the connection between the Beatitudes and the commandments of Jesus in today’s Gospel:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit.” This poverty goes far beyond merely living simply or doing with out, it extends even to living spiritually without an eye or a hand if either “causes you to sin.” Poverty of spirit requires a radical detachment from anything that would send us to hell and keep us from the paradise of heaven. And poverty requires a radical detachment from anything that would prevent us from being solicitous in helping our neighbor do the same.
“Blessed are they who mourn.” Among the sorrowing, are those who suffer from other people’s sins. Being injured by our brother, and the resulting experience of mourning that results, cannot lead us to hate but to forgiveness. When our brother injures us we must initiate the reconciliation between us if we are to bring our offering to the altar. If we forgive them, then with this act of self-emptying comes the grace to be able to worship worthily the God who will forgive us only to the extent we forgive others.
“Blessed are the meek.” Those who are truly the meek, are those lowly enough to put aside their own ideas and opinions in order to accept humbly the commandants of God in all of their fullness. The meek accept the truth that comes from God and is revealed to us through the teachings of His One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and her Magisterium. Those who accept the teaching of the Church, and strive to live them with the grace of the Sacraments, are “called the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”
“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” These are those who have no duplicity of life. They aren’t Catholic in name only. They again strive to live their life according to the Creed they profess. These are those who hunger and thirst for holiness and so strive to live integrity of life. Their yes, means yes and their no means no. We must believe what we read in the Gospel, we must proclaim it to others, and we must live what we proclaim. Anything else is from the evil one
“Blessed are the merciful.” How easy it is to not be merciful and to let our anger overcome us, to control our life. Yet, if we become angry with our brothers and sisters we become “liable to judgment,” the judgment in which we can expect the same lack of mercy from God that we showed to others. If we call another, “you fool,” we will become the fool instead. However, if we are merciful, we will receive the Mercy of the Father-Jesus, who is the Divine Mercy of the Father.
“Blessed are the clean of heart.” The pure of heart are those who realize that sin begins in the heart and so realize that adultery and impurity begins in one’s heart. As a result they realize the importance of guarding our heart. Only the clean of heart shall see God and the things of God; only the clean of heart shall see things the way God sees them, other words the way things really are; only the pure of heart will see their neighbor as another Christ and not as an object for self-gratification. But being pure of heart also causes others to see Christ and his love in us.
“Blessed are the peacemakers.” Peacemakers will go to any lengths in order to settle things quickly with their opponents. They don’t hold grudges; they don’t seek to settle the score. They are truly children of God at peace with Him for they are at peace with one another.
“Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.” This includes those who stand up for that which is Good, True and Beautiful, those who teach the commandments and teachings of God and his truth with a righteousness that surpasses the Scribes and the Pharisees, that is that surpasses the self-righteous. And, “Blessed are you when they insult you and…utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.” If us Catholic Christians refuse to take false oaths; if we refuse to give into that spirit of the world that opposes God and His Catholic Church; if we accept the truth even if no else does and refuse to accept lies if every else does; if we by our holiness of life show that right is right even if no one is doing it and wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it, then we can expect, for sure, to be vilified by the world, a world which is utterly threatened by anyone who lives a life of uncompromising integrity without a shred of care for what anyone else thinks, save for God the Almighty. Thus persecuted however, we should rejoice for our reward will be great in heaven.
In order to receive the grace and love we need to live the Beatitudes and experience what they promise we must believe, adore, hope and love, and pray for other to believe, adore, hope and love the Teacher of the Beatitudes in the Holy Eucharist the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. The Holy Eucharist is the very source of the Beatitudes; the very source of Heavenly Happiness for it contains the physical presence of Jesus Himself. And where Jesus is there not only is happiness, there is Beatitude, for there is Heaven Itself. Our Lady of the Beatitudes, Mother of the Eucharist, pray for us Sinners, now and at the Hour of our death. So we can enter into heavenly Beatitude. Amen.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
We have lost our taste, and who can restore it?
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. February 6th, 2011
In Last Sunday’s Gospel we heard Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. The Beatitudes are the very conditions that Jesus lays down for entering the Kingdom of Heaven. In the Beatitudes, Jesus demands that we live what we believe if we are to be happy, better yet, blessed. The Beatitudes reminds us that love consist not just in avoiding sin, but in doing acts of love in order to show forth our love of God and love of neighbor. In other words, love is shown by deeds not by sweet words.
Today Gospel follows on the heals of Jesus’ teaching of the Beatitudes. It reminds us that living the beatitudes is not just for our own spiritual well-being, but for the well-being of other souls as well. Every single Christian is called to strive for holiness by living the beatitudes in order to be a witness to the whole world to God’s truth and love. By our lives of holiness we are called to seek not only our own salvation but also the salvation of others. As one Jesuit priest put it, “Either we seek the salvation of others or we will not be saved ourselves.”
Vatican II, reiterating the ancient teachings of the Church, called this vocation of ours of using our life to seek the salvation and the sanctification of others, the apostolate. We are to be witnesses throughout the earth by living the beatitudes that is living lives of holiness in order to lead others to God so that they may be saved and so enter into a eternal union of love with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the apostolate; living our lives for love of God and love of neighbor, and love of neighbor consist primarily in working to save our neighbor, even given our lives for the sake of their salvation if necessary. “Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose it, shall preserve it.”
Today, Jesus teaches us this by using the images of salt and light. In the old days, as my mom as told me many times, there were no refrigerators, or freezers, the only way meat was kept from spoiling was to store it in salt. Salt preserves food from spoiling; it also brings out the flavor of food and makes its more pleasant. So too, with the world. The world is only kept from spoiling by us Christian Catholics being the salt of the earth, by having the light and the life of Christ alive in our souls.
The holiness of Christians also gives flavor to life in this world, for we, if we live our Catholic faith authentically, remind the world and it’s inhabitants of meaning and goal of man’s existence. Man has been created by God for God; the world is God’s good creation; it sprung forth from the Word of God, and through that same Word it is redeemed and called to return back to the God from which it came. We, you and me, are called to save the world through our holiness of life, witnessing to the world the truth of God and taking the light and life of Christ out into its darkness. We are to help in leading the world back to God, by bringing His grace out into the world.
Jesus today however, also reminds us that salt can lose it taste; it other words we are called to be salt to the world by our lives of holiness but if we fail to become holy we loose our taste, that is we fail to be witnesses to the world. What good are we then, but to thrown out and trampled under foot. And so, if it is possible for us to lose our flavor, our Divine Grace, and to be thrown out, how then to we guard from losing our taste, the taste of holiness. How can we be truly light for our world? How can we give the hungry bread to eat?
It is by the Holy Eucharist received and adored with faith weekly, and if possible even daily, that keeps the salt from losing it taste; It is the holy Eucharist approached with love and devotion that helps our light shine before Men, for our light is Jesus, He who is the Eucharist. The Eucharist is our daily bread, better yet our super-substantial bread, the Bread of Life by which we can feed the world. The world is hungry for the Eucharist, starving for the Eucharist.
The Father’s of the Church wrote that Faithful Catholics who participate fully, actively and consciously in weekly Mass, and receive the Holy Eucharist worthily and in the state of Grace are the anima Mundi, that is, the “soul of the world.” In other words, the world would die in its sins if not for Catholic Christians with the life of Christ, Christ Himself alive in their souls. This life is called charity and we are to share it with the entire world in order that it might be saved.
When we take part in the Eucharistic action, we allow the Holy Spirit to apply to us the salvation won for us on the cross by God the Son. When we share in the Eucharist, we cooperate in the continuing process of our salvation, which must continue during our whole lives if we are not only to be saved, but become one with God. And in our union with God, lead others into this same union, a union of love with Love.
When we pray the preface of the Eucharist, the priest, in Christ’s name, asks us to lift of our hearts, and we respond, we lift them up to the Lord. It is a wonderful gift of offering ourselves completely to God in, through and in union with Christ’s offering on the cross. By the power of the Holy Spirit, this unites us to Christ fully and we become his witnesses, just like the apostles and all of the saints. What an awesome calling we have been given, this is how and only how, we can be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
It must be said that this awesome gift comes an awesome responsibility as well. It brings to light why every Catholic must attend Holy Mass every single Sunday and every single Holy Day of obligation, unless he is prevented from doing so by a serious reason, like an illness. To too, brings up the constant teaching of the Church that it is a very serious sin to deliberately miss Sunday Mass or a holy day of obligation, it is actually a mortal sin; and it is a complete failure in Charity. When Catholic miss Mass deliberately, they turn our backs on Christ and on the process of their redemption, they refuse to carry out Christ’s command to, “do this in commemoration of me”, and they refuse to receive him and his salvation and thus become salt that has lost its flavor. They can no longer feed the world by bringing it the light of Christ and His Divine Love.
The utter folly of what we do by willfully ignoring our Mass obligation is somewhat analogous to a deep-sea diver’s putting a crimp in his air line so that no air can come through to keep him alive. By a decision to miss Sunday Mass or a holy day of obligation the operation of sanctifying grace is suspending in the life of a Catholic, the life of charity in their soul dies, and they can no longer bring the light of Christ to those we meet in our daily lives.
Even our good acts, become devoid of the power to lead others to Christ, because they become merely our own acts, devoid of Christ’s power to elevate them to acts of Charity. Our good human acts are only Charity when the life and light of Christ is alive in our souls. Thus to bring the light of Christ back alive in our souls after we have deliberately missed Mass, and for the sake of our eternal salvation, we must go to confession in true contrition as soon as possible and take the crimp out of air line, so to speak, allowing sanctifying grace again to flood our souls.
But we must do more than just attend Holy Mass we must participated it in with full hearts, minds and voices. We must enter into it sacred mysterious, experience them and allow ourselves to be transformed by them. To do this we must offer ourselves to the Father in union with the offering of Jesus being made truly present on the Sacred Altar by the power of the Holy Spirit and through the gift of the Sacred Priesthood. We must place ourselves on the paten next to the bread, that with we too might be transformed into the Body of Christ, for the sake of the whole world.
What I am about to say is not easy to say. We Catholic Christians are called to be salt and light to the world; we are called to give the hungry of the world some of our bread. If our world is falling into darkness, the problem is not with Governments, politicians, the economy, the terrorists, the radical Muslim, or some great power in this world; no, the problem lies with us Catholics. We have then lost our taste, and who can restore it? Only Jesus, Jesus Truly Present In the Holy Eucharist, the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, Jesus who truly continues to offer Himself on the Sacred Altar of every Mass, while at the same looking for those who will give themselves to Him so that He can use them to continue his saving work out in the world by leading souls back to the God who loves them.
As we approach the holy season of lent, let us ask our Lord for the grace to turn from sin and to draw ever closer to Jesus Christ, truly present in the Holy Eucharist. Let us pray too for the grace to enter into the Holy Mass each and every Sunday with deep devotion and deep love, offering ourselves there, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to the Father in union with Jesus’ offering on the altar of Sacrifice.. Let us realize the awesome gift we have been given by being able to attend Mass and to receive Jesus, the light of the world, every time we receive Holy Communion, so that we can truly be salt for the earth, and light for the world. And let us make our offering with and through the intercession of the Blessed Mother, help of Christians...Amen.
In Last Sunday’s Gospel we heard Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. The Beatitudes are the very conditions that Jesus lays down for entering the Kingdom of Heaven. In the Beatitudes, Jesus demands that we live what we believe if we are to be happy, better yet, blessed. The Beatitudes reminds us that love consist not just in avoiding sin, but in doing acts of love in order to show forth our love of God and love of neighbor. In other words, love is shown by deeds not by sweet words.
Today Gospel follows on the heals of Jesus’ teaching of the Beatitudes. It reminds us that living the beatitudes is not just for our own spiritual well-being, but for the well-being of other souls as well. Every single Christian is called to strive for holiness by living the beatitudes in order to be a witness to the whole world to God’s truth and love. By our lives of holiness we are called to seek not only our own salvation but also the salvation of others. As one Jesuit priest put it, “Either we seek the salvation of others or we will not be saved ourselves.”
Vatican II, reiterating the ancient teachings of the Church, called this vocation of ours of using our life to seek the salvation and the sanctification of others, the apostolate. We are to be witnesses throughout the earth by living the beatitudes that is living lives of holiness in order to lead others to God so that they may be saved and so enter into a eternal union of love with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the apostolate; living our lives for love of God and love of neighbor, and love of neighbor consist primarily in working to save our neighbor, even given our lives for the sake of their salvation if necessary. “Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose it, shall preserve it.”
Today, Jesus teaches us this by using the images of salt and light. In the old days, as my mom as told me many times, there were no refrigerators, or freezers, the only way meat was kept from spoiling was to store it in salt. Salt preserves food from spoiling; it also brings out the flavor of food and makes its more pleasant. So too, with the world. The world is only kept from spoiling by us Christian Catholics being the salt of the earth, by having the light and the life of Christ alive in our souls.
The holiness of Christians also gives flavor to life in this world, for we, if we live our Catholic faith authentically, remind the world and it’s inhabitants of meaning and goal of man’s existence. Man has been created by God for God; the world is God’s good creation; it sprung forth from the Word of God, and through that same Word it is redeemed and called to return back to the God from which it came. We, you and me, are called to save the world through our holiness of life, witnessing to the world the truth of God and taking the light and life of Christ out into its darkness. We are to help in leading the world back to God, by bringing His grace out into the world.
Jesus today however, also reminds us that salt can lose it taste; it other words we are called to be salt to the world by our lives of holiness but if we fail to become holy we loose our taste, that is we fail to be witnesses to the world. What good are we then, but to thrown out and trampled under foot. And so, if it is possible for us to lose our flavor, our Divine Grace, and to be thrown out, how then to we guard from losing our taste, the taste of holiness. How can we be truly light for our world? How can we give the hungry bread to eat?
It is by the Holy Eucharist received and adored with faith weekly, and if possible even daily, that keeps the salt from losing it taste; It is the holy Eucharist approached with love and devotion that helps our light shine before Men, for our light is Jesus, He who is the Eucharist. The Eucharist is our daily bread, better yet our super-substantial bread, the Bread of Life by which we can feed the world. The world is hungry for the Eucharist, starving for the Eucharist.
The Father’s of the Church wrote that Faithful Catholics who participate fully, actively and consciously in weekly Mass, and receive the Holy Eucharist worthily and in the state of Grace are the anima Mundi, that is, the “soul of the world.” In other words, the world would die in its sins if not for Catholic Christians with the life of Christ, Christ Himself alive in their souls. This life is called charity and we are to share it with the entire world in order that it might be saved.
When we take part in the Eucharistic action, we allow the Holy Spirit to apply to us the salvation won for us on the cross by God the Son. When we share in the Eucharist, we cooperate in the continuing process of our salvation, which must continue during our whole lives if we are not only to be saved, but become one with God. And in our union with God, lead others into this same union, a union of love with Love.
When we pray the preface of the Eucharist, the priest, in Christ’s name, asks us to lift of our hearts, and we respond, we lift them up to the Lord. It is a wonderful gift of offering ourselves completely to God in, through and in union with Christ’s offering on the cross. By the power of the Holy Spirit, this unites us to Christ fully and we become his witnesses, just like the apostles and all of the saints. What an awesome calling we have been given, this is how and only how, we can be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
It must be said that this awesome gift comes an awesome responsibility as well. It brings to light why every Catholic must attend Holy Mass every single Sunday and every single Holy Day of obligation, unless he is prevented from doing so by a serious reason, like an illness. To too, brings up the constant teaching of the Church that it is a very serious sin to deliberately miss Sunday Mass or a holy day of obligation, it is actually a mortal sin; and it is a complete failure in Charity. When Catholic miss Mass deliberately, they turn our backs on Christ and on the process of their redemption, they refuse to carry out Christ’s command to, “do this in commemoration of me”, and they refuse to receive him and his salvation and thus become salt that has lost its flavor. They can no longer feed the world by bringing it the light of Christ and His Divine Love.
The utter folly of what we do by willfully ignoring our Mass obligation is somewhat analogous to a deep-sea diver’s putting a crimp in his air line so that no air can come through to keep him alive. By a decision to miss Sunday Mass or a holy day of obligation the operation of sanctifying grace is suspending in the life of a Catholic, the life of charity in their soul dies, and they can no longer bring the light of Christ to those we meet in our daily lives.
Even our good acts, become devoid of the power to lead others to Christ, because they become merely our own acts, devoid of Christ’s power to elevate them to acts of Charity. Our good human acts are only Charity when the life and light of Christ is alive in our souls. Thus to bring the light of Christ back alive in our souls after we have deliberately missed Mass, and for the sake of our eternal salvation, we must go to confession in true contrition as soon as possible and take the crimp out of air line, so to speak, allowing sanctifying grace again to flood our souls.
But we must do more than just attend Holy Mass we must participated it in with full hearts, minds and voices. We must enter into it sacred mysterious, experience them and allow ourselves to be transformed by them. To do this we must offer ourselves to the Father in union with the offering of Jesus being made truly present on the Sacred Altar by the power of the Holy Spirit and through the gift of the Sacred Priesthood. We must place ourselves on the paten next to the bread, that with we too might be transformed into the Body of Christ, for the sake of the whole world.
What I am about to say is not easy to say. We Catholic Christians are called to be salt and light to the world; we are called to give the hungry of the world some of our bread. If our world is falling into darkness, the problem is not with Governments, politicians, the economy, the terrorists, the radical Muslim, or some great power in this world; no, the problem lies with us Catholics. We have then lost our taste, and who can restore it? Only Jesus, Jesus Truly Present In the Holy Eucharist, the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, Jesus who truly continues to offer Himself on the Sacred Altar of every Mass, while at the same looking for those who will give themselves to Him so that He can use them to continue his saving work out in the world by leading souls back to the God who loves them.
As we approach the holy season of lent, let us ask our Lord for the grace to turn from sin and to draw ever closer to Jesus Christ, truly present in the Holy Eucharist. Let us pray too for the grace to enter into the Holy Mass each and every Sunday with deep devotion and deep love, offering ourselves there, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to the Father in union with Jesus’ offering on the altar of Sacrifice.. Let us realize the awesome gift we have been given by being able to attend Mass and to receive Jesus, the light of the world, every time we receive Holy Communion, so that we can truly be salt for the earth, and light for the world. And let us make our offering with and through the intercession of the Blessed Mother, help of Christians...Amen.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Just as nothing on earth can give us the happiness that every man seeks, if we are united to God nothing can rob us of it
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. January 30th, 2011
Today in our Holy Gospel we hear the teaching of the Beatitudes from our Blessed Lord. The Beatitudes are the very conditions Jesus lays down for entering the Kingdom of heaven. The Beatitudes take the negatives commands of the Ten Commandments-“Thou shall nots,” and they elevate and present these demands of Jesus on his followers in a positive way, “Blessed are they who do these things.” For the fullness of love of God consist not merely avoiding things, like sin but in doing things, in backing up our words of love with deeds of love.
The Beatitudes are a promise of salvation that extends, not to just to particular kinds of persons, such as the poor or rich, but to everyone whose religious dispositions of heart and moral conduct meet these great demands of Jesus. In other words, salvation is promised to all of those who are poor in spirit, who are meek, who mourn, who hunger and thirst after righteousness, are merciful, pure in heart, are peacemakers and those who suffer in their search for holiness. And so these differing demands of the Beatitudes cover everyone, no matter what their position in life might be, every one who wants to be a true disciple of Christ and inherit His promise of Salvation, which is union with God forever.
Last week I spent the weekend with the youth in Washington D.C. at the March for Life; An event that I wish you could all experience. This event and others like it, remind us how our love for Jesus must move us to protect and defend and witness publicly to the dignity of human life from conception until natural death. And beg out Lord in the Holy Eucharist for the graces of conversion of our country and our world. Only when more Catholics do these acts of love will we defeat the culture of death, and turn it into a culture of life, a culture at peace, where we are all truly blessed.
Perhaps, we can better understand the Beatitudes if we compare them to the corresponding attitudes currently found within the culture of death, which is sadly so prevalent in our world today.
1) Where Christ advocates poverty-being poor in spirit, the culture of death in the world despises the poor, not just the physically poor but also especially the spiritually poor; and instead it canonizes those who are rich and famous, movie stars, politicians and sports figures, no matter how they live their lives.
2) Where Christ praises gentleness always seeking the good of others by serving instead of being served, the world belittles meekness and extols those who succeed by using or removing anyone, even through murder, that stands in the way; using people as means to get what they want; Non-Servium! I will not serve.
3) Blessed are those who mourn:--Where Christ encourages mourning and sorrow for our sin and penance as a way to atone for sin in order to show God we are sorry.-- the world instead revels in pleasure, comfort and the noise of empty laughter. The world here refuses to see the suffering in this world as a consequence of sin and refuses to repent of its crimes, seeking forgiveness and the grace to amend one’s life.
4). Where Christ promises true Joy only to those who seek justice and peace by seeking holiness, that is those who accept the truth and strive to conform their lives to it, the world and it’s culture of death offers satisfaction in the enjoyment and pleasure of sin and so living one’s life in accordance to lies.
5) Where Christ bids us forgive and show mercy to those who have offended us, to forgive just has the Heavenly Father does to our offenses when we ask for forgiveness; the world for it’s part will not let go of the past, it seeks vengeance, and its law courts are filled with demands for retribution.
6) Where Christ blesses those who are pure of heart and promises that they alone shall see God, the world scoffs at chastity, makes a mockery of purity and makes a god of sexually immorality.
7) Where Christ tells the peaceful that they shall be rewarded, the world teaches just the opposite in constant rebellion, disobedience, violence and massive preparation for war.
8). Where Christ teaches the incredible doctrine of accepting persecution and resignation to God’s Holy Will. The world dreads nothing more than criticism, rejection and loss of human respect, which means acceptance by society and one’s peers is the moral norm without any concern for what God thinks.
In all of this we come to understand that striving with the help of God’s grace to live the Beatitudes is the only way to sanctity, happiness and life. The Beatitudes are Jesus’ promise that there will be no obstacle to happiness and joy for those who truly seek to follow Him, not just in sweet words but most especially in deeds. He says to us, even if men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account, instead of sorrow, rejoice and be glad, your reward will be great in heaven.
Just as nothing on earth can give us the happiness that every man seeks, if we are united to God nothing can rob us of it. Our happiness and our fulfillment come from God alone, the God who became man to share in our in our existence, to share in both the happy and sad moments of our life. One saint put it this way, “Oh you who feel the weight of the cross bear more heavily on you! You who are poor and forsaken, you who mourn, who are persecuted for the cause of justice, you who pass silently by, who suffer pain unknown to others, take heart---You are the best loved in God’s kingdom, the kingdom of hope, of goodness and of life. You are brothers of the suffering Christ, and together with him, if you wish, you can save the world.”
When in our search for happiness we men attempt to follow other ways, other than those willed by God—other than those marked out by the master, we instead find only loneliness and sadness. In other words, apart from God and His ways, there is no lasting happiness, but only loneness and death, the source of our current culture of death. Contrastingly, those who trust in God and humbly pray to Him especially during times of despair and anguish move His divine heart to compassion—God then accompanies them in every instant of their lives.
Even in times of great distress, natural disasters and wars, the person that turns to God’s ways and walks humbly in His paths of righteousness, discovers the loving face of God before him. Before God’s continence this man joyfully discover that God never abandons those who love Him, but guarantees that, notwithstanding trials and tribulations, in the end good always triumphs over evil, life over death; in other words all things work out for the best, for those who love God.
Holy Mary, Mother of the beatitudes, at the end of our life, we will be judged on our love, pray for us so that we may be blessed in the eyes of your Son and receive the reward of eternal life. Help us in faith to see the source of our eternal happiness and so our eternal beatitude is truly present in the Holy Eucharist, the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. You told us at Fatima that by coming on bended knee before this God hidden in the little with host, and adoring and loving Him there we could bring peace upon the earth. So help us dear Lady, to live your Message of Fatima, which is the message of the Gospel, all the days of our life, and so turn our culture of death into a culture of life by praying for the conversion of poor sinners everywhere, those in our own homes and in our own families, most especially that sinner who looks at us each morning in the mirror. Amen.
Today in our Holy Gospel we hear the teaching of the Beatitudes from our Blessed Lord. The Beatitudes are the very conditions Jesus lays down for entering the Kingdom of heaven. The Beatitudes take the negatives commands of the Ten Commandments-“Thou shall nots,” and they elevate and present these demands of Jesus on his followers in a positive way, “Blessed are they who do these things.” For the fullness of love of God consist not merely avoiding things, like sin but in doing things, in backing up our words of love with deeds of love.
The Beatitudes are a promise of salvation that extends, not to just to particular kinds of persons, such as the poor or rich, but to everyone whose religious dispositions of heart and moral conduct meet these great demands of Jesus. In other words, salvation is promised to all of those who are poor in spirit, who are meek, who mourn, who hunger and thirst after righteousness, are merciful, pure in heart, are peacemakers and those who suffer in their search for holiness. And so these differing demands of the Beatitudes cover everyone, no matter what their position in life might be, every one who wants to be a true disciple of Christ and inherit His promise of Salvation, which is union with God forever.
Last week I spent the weekend with the youth in Washington D.C. at the March for Life; An event that I wish you could all experience. This event and others like it, remind us how our love for Jesus must move us to protect and defend and witness publicly to the dignity of human life from conception until natural death. And beg out Lord in the Holy Eucharist for the graces of conversion of our country and our world. Only when more Catholics do these acts of love will we defeat the culture of death, and turn it into a culture of life, a culture at peace, where we are all truly blessed.
Perhaps, we can better understand the Beatitudes if we compare them to the corresponding attitudes currently found within the culture of death, which is sadly so prevalent in our world today.
1) Where Christ advocates poverty-being poor in spirit, the culture of death in the world despises the poor, not just the physically poor but also especially the spiritually poor; and instead it canonizes those who are rich and famous, movie stars, politicians and sports figures, no matter how they live their lives.
2) Where Christ praises gentleness always seeking the good of others by serving instead of being served, the world belittles meekness and extols those who succeed by using or removing anyone, even through murder, that stands in the way; using people as means to get what they want; Non-Servium! I will not serve.
3) Blessed are those who mourn:--Where Christ encourages mourning and sorrow for our sin and penance as a way to atone for sin in order to show God we are sorry.-- the world instead revels in pleasure, comfort and the noise of empty laughter. The world here refuses to see the suffering in this world as a consequence of sin and refuses to repent of its crimes, seeking forgiveness and the grace to amend one’s life.
4). Where Christ promises true Joy only to those who seek justice and peace by seeking holiness, that is those who accept the truth and strive to conform their lives to it, the world and it’s culture of death offers satisfaction in the enjoyment and pleasure of sin and so living one’s life in accordance to lies.
5) Where Christ bids us forgive and show mercy to those who have offended us, to forgive just has the Heavenly Father does to our offenses when we ask for forgiveness; the world for it’s part will not let go of the past, it seeks vengeance, and its law courts are filled with demands for retribution.
6) Where Christ blesses those who are pure of heart and promises that they alone shall see God, the world scoffs at chastity, makes a mockery of purity and makes a god of sexually immorality.
7) Where Christ tells the peaceful that they shall be rewarded, the world teaches just the opposite in constant rebellion, disobedience, violence and massive preparation for war.
8). Where Christ teaches the incredible doctrine of accepting persecution and resignation to God’s Holy Will. The world dreads nothing more than criticism, rejection and loss of human respect, which means acceptance by society and one’s peers is the moral norm without any concern for what God thinks.
In all of this we come to understand that striving with the help of God’s grace to live the Beatitudes is the only way to sanctity, happiness and life. The Beatitudes are Jesus’ promise that there will be no obstacle to happiness and joy for those who truly seek to follow Him, not just in sweet words but most especially in deeds. He says to us, even if men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account, instead of sorrow, rejoice and be glad, your reward will be great in heaven.
Just as nothing on earth can give us the happiness that every man seeks, if we are united to God nothing can rob us of it. Our happiness and our fulfillment come from God alone, the God who became man to share in our in our existence, to share in both the happy and sad moments of our life. One saint put it this way, “Oh you who feel the weight of the cross bear more heavily on you! You who are poor and forsaken, you who mourn, who are persecuted for the cause of justice, you who pass silently by, who suffer pain unknown to others, take heart---You are the best loved in God’s kingdom, the kingdom of hope, of goodness and of life. You are brothers of the suffering Christ, and together with him, if you wish, you can save the world.”
When in our search for happiness we men attempt to follow other ways, other than those willed by God—other than those marked out by the master, we instead find only loneliness and sadness. In other words, apart from God and His ways, there is no lasting happiness, but only loneness and death, the source of our current culture of death. Contrastingly, those who trust in God and humbly pray to Him especially during times of despair and anguish move His divine heart to compassion—God then accompanies them in every instant of their lives.
Even in times of great distress, natural disasters and wars, the person that turns to God’s ways and walks humbly in His paths of righteousness, discovers the loving face of God before him. Before God’s continence this man joyfully discover that God never abandons those who love Him, but guarantees that, notwithstanding trials and tribulations, in the end good always triumphs over evil, life over death; in other words all things work out for the best, for those who love God.
Holy Mary, Mother of the beatitudes, at the end of our life, we will be judged on our love, pray for us so that we may be blessed in the eyes of your Son and receive the reward of eternal life. Help us in faith to see the source of our eternal happiness and so our eternal beatitude is truly present in the Holy Eucharist, the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. You told us at Fatima that by coming on bended knee before this God hidden in the little with host, and adoring and loving Him there we could bring peace upon the earth. So help us dear Lady, to live your Message of Fatima, which is the message of the Gospel, all the days of our life, and so turn our culture of death into a culture of life by praying for the conversion of poor sinners everywhere, those in our own homes and in our own families, most especially that sinner who looks at us each morning in the mirror. Amen.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
This Weekend I am in D.C. for the March for Life. Below, In place of a homily, I thought I'd share my bulletin Article for this weekend.
My dear parish family,
As you read this bulletin article this Sunday, I will be with the youth from our parish participating in the annual March for Life in Washington D.C. You will undoubtedly hear very little about the March on T.V. And this very limited coverage is always quite bias. Sadly, last years coverage on the major media networks was nothing more than a travesty.
Sadly this year will probably be no different. You will hear very little about the March. Or the media will cover only the small, very small group of Anti-lifers (they are called by the Media, Pro-Choice or Abortion right proponents, while the pro-lifers are called anti-choice or abortion right opponents. A man being trained to write for a local newspaper told me just the other day that he was instructed to write with this language when referring to the pro-life moment. He was told basically to use negative language when referring to the pro-life movement and positive language when referring to the anti-life movement). In fact, last year one couldn’t find any pro-death supporters. However, even so the media was able (and they really had to look) to find one small group of them (about six of them). Even so, the picture of this small group holding pro-death signs were plastered on the front page of many newspapers and magazines across the country with no accompanying picture of the more than 350, 000 pro-lifers that were marching. Why doesn’t the media have the courage to cover this annual event honestly?
I wish everyone had the opportunity to march in the PRO_LIFE crowd, of mostly young energetic and joyful people. One media outlet said last year that the crowd was made up of mostly people over the age of sixty and that in a couple decades all them will be dead. Another said that what was obviously missing from the “protesters” were young women. While I was there, and any one in our group can tell you, that the majority of the participants where not over 60, but under 30 (and probably under 20). And, there where more teenage girls and young woman than any other demographic group present at the march. Why does the media have to lie? What are they afraid of? LIFE???
It is interesting that during the Civil Rights time in the 60's the media covered "the largest march in history" when Dr. M.L. King spoke his famous speech. It was the biggest media blitz ever. There were only 250,000 there. Yet, at the Pro-Life march on Washington last year over 350,000 people were there but no media cameras and not a word on TV news? One media outlet showed a picture of a sparse crowd taken either way before the march began or after many of the marchers had dispersed.
Please keep our young people in your prayers as they courageously and publically stand up for life. Also watch the coverage on EWTN if you want to get a true picture of this momentous event that takes place every year, and yet is ignored for the most part, or given mere lip service by the media and our government. Eventually, the Pro-life movement will when if not simply by attraction. The pro-deathers are either killing their babies or avoiding them by contracepting; while the pro-lifers are allowing all of their children to live and are remaining open to all the life, the babies, the human persons, that God wishes to bless them with. However, how many souls will be lost in the meantime until the culture of death dies?
We are on the side of life and so we are on the winning team!!! Let us pray and do penance that every single Human person would be defended and protected from conception to natural death. Let us especially spend time before LIFE Himself, Jesus truly present in the Holy Eucharist, begging Him to convert our current culture of death into a culture of life and holiness.
*I want to share with you a response of Cardinal Canizares Llovera when He was ask about the connection between life and Belief, adoration, hope and love for the Holy Eucharist. The Cardinal began by saying, “ There is no doubt about the connection.”
He went on to say, “To recognise what is the Eucharist is to recognise Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Son of God that became man. Christ is the most absolute 'yes' of God to man. He is the revelation of God and the revelation of the truth about man. Man cannot be separated from God; man was created in the image and likeness of God.
In creation, God manifests Himself as love in favour of man. In His Son, the true image of the Father, we have been created in the image of the Son. For that reason, all human beings have a greatness and a dignity that cannot be separated or violated.
Jesus Christ shows the face of God that loves man to the utter extremes. The biggest demonstration of this love of Jesus for Man is seen on the cross, dying for man. But this love could not be destroyed or chained by death. It has triumphed over death. The love of Jesus, Son of God, brought to an extreme on the cross, shows how all men are loved by God with a love from which nothing and no one can separate us. Each man has been saved or repurchased by the blood of Christ, which is the blood of God. This is how much every human being is worth, the blood of God.
For that reason, between the Eucharist and the defence of life there is a link that cannot be separated. To live the Eucharist, is to enter in communion with Jesus Christ and as a consequence with His love. This is a communion of life and makes us participate in the life, which is Christ. Divine life, eternal life, but at the same time it makes us be givers or carriers of love and defenders of life.
If the Christians would live all that the Eucharist means, we would be defenders of life in every moment. (My emphasis !!!)
Formerly Archbishop of Toledo, Spain, Cardinal Cañizares is the current Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, that has competence over the way in which Mass is celebrated throughout the world. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI.
As you read this bulletin article this Sunday, I will be with the youth from our parish participating in the annual March for Life in Washington D.C. You will undoubtedly hear very little about the March on T.V. And this very limited coverage is always quite bias. Sadly, last years coverage on the major media networks was nothing more than a travesty.
Sadly this year will probably be no different. You will hear very little about the March. Or the media will cover only the small, very small group of Anti-lifers (they are called by the Media, Pro-Choice or Abortion right proponents, while the pro-lifers are called anti-choice or abortion right opponents. A man being trained to write for a local newspaper told me just the other day that he was instructed to write with this language when referring to the pro-life moment. He was told basically to use negative language when referring to the pro-life movement and positive language when referring to the anti-life movement). In fact, last year one couldn’t find any pro-death supporters. However, even so the media was able (and they really had to look) to find one small group of them (about six of them). Even so, the picture of this small group holding pro-death signs were plastered on the front page of many newspapers and magazines across the country with no accompanying picture of the more than 350, 000 pro-lifers that were marching. Why doesn’t the media have the courage to cover this annual event honestly?
I wish everyone had the opportunity to march in the PRO_LIFE crowd, of mostly young energetic and joyful people. One media outlet said last year that the crowd was made up of mostly people over the age of sixty and that in a couple decades all them will be dead. Another said that what was obviously missing from the “protesters” were young women. While I was there, and any one in our group can tell you, that the majority of the participants where not over 60, but under 30 (and probably under 20). And, there where more teenage girls and young woman than any other demographic group present at the march. Why does the media have to lie? What are they afraid of? LIFE???
It is interesting that during the Civil Rights time in the 60's the media covered "the largest march in history" when Dr. M.L. King spoke his famous speech. It was the biggest media blitz ever. There were only 250,000 there. Yet, at the Pro-Life march on Washington last year over 350,000 people were there but no media cameras and not a word on TV news? One media outlet showed a picture of a sparse crowd taken either way before the march began or after many of the marchers had dispersed.
Please keep our young people in your prayers as they courageously and publically stand up for life. Also watch the coverage on EWTN if you want to get a true picture of this momentous event that takes place every year, and yet is ignored for the most part, or given mere lip service by the media and our government. Eventually, the Pro-life movement will when if not simply by attraction. The pro-deathers are either killing their babies or avoiding them by contracepting; while the pro-lifers are allowing all of their children to live and are remaining open to all the life, the babies, the human persons, that God wishes to bless them with. However, how many souls will be lost in the meantime until the culture of death dies?
We are on the side of life and so we are on the winning team!!! Let us pray and do penance that every single Human person would be defended and protected from conception to natural death. Let us especially spend time before LIFE Himself, Jesus truly present in the Holy Eucharist, begging Him to convert our current culture of death into a culture of life and holiness.
*I want to share with you a response of Cardinal Canizares Llovera when He was ask about the connection between life and Belief, adoration, hope and love for the Holy Eucharist. The Cardinal began by saying, “ There is no doubt about the connection.”
He went on to say, “To recognise what is the Eucharist is to recognise Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Son of God that became man. Christ is the most absolute 'yes' of God to man. He is the revelation of God and the revelation of the truth about man. Man cannot be separated from God; man was created in the image and likeness of God.
In creation, God manifests Himself as love in favour of man. In His Son, the true image of the Father, we have been created in the image of the Son. For that reason, all human beings have a greatness and a dignity that cannot be separated or violated.
Jesus Christ shows the face of God that loves man to the utter extremes. The biggest demonstration of this love of Jesus for Man is seen on the cross, dying for man. But this love could not be destroyed or chained by death. It has triumphed over death. The love of Jesus, Son of God, brought to an extreme on the cross, shows how all men are loved by God with a love from which nothing and no one can separate us. Each man has been saved or repurchased by the blood of Christ, which is the blood of God. This is how much every human being is worth, the blood of God.
For that reason, between the Eucharist and the defence of life there is a link that cannot be separated. To live the Eucharist, is to enter in communion with Jesus Christ and as a consequence with His love. This is a communion of life and makes us participate in the life, which is Christ. Divine life, eternal life, but at the same time it makes us be givers or carriers of love and defenders of life.
If the Christians would live all that the Eucharist means, we would be defenders of life in every moment. (My emphasis !!!)
Formerly Archbishop of Toledo, Spain, Cardinal Cañizares is the current Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, that has competence over the way in which Mass is celebrated throughout the world. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Our Lady of Fatima showed the three children hell and told them that in our age souls where falling into it like snowflakes.
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time. January 16th, 2011.
Last week we celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. We recalled that Baptism is one of God's most beautiful and magnificent gifts because it is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit and the door which gives us access to the other sacraments. This is why baptism is necessary for salvation.
Today we begin ordinary time with the same event, but this time from the Gospel of St. John. The Church has done this quite deliberately—to get our attention on how important Baptism really is. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons and daughters of the all mighty and every living God. By our baptismal grace we become members of the family of the Most Blessed Trinity; and we become members of Christ, are incorporated into His Mystical body the Church, are made sharers in the Church’s mission of the salvation of souls, and we incredibly actually become partakers of the Divine Nature of God.
With the joy of Christmas still fresh in our minds and hearts, last week we also spoke about being faithful to our baptismal graces. The eternal life we all received at our baptism will remain ours only if are faithful and obedient to these graces by being faithful to the Catholic Church and her teachings. God’s promise to us will remain valid for us, in other words, if we bring the purity of our baptismal souls, unstained to that day when we stand face to face with Jesus our redeemer--the day of our judgment, the most important day of our life.
If this is all so, and it is, then we should often reflect on our own faithfulness to our baptism. This week let us take a deeper look at our faithfulness by asking ourselves some very important questions. First, have we been faithful to the graces we have received at our baptism? In what ways have we not been faithful? Have we in the sacrament of confession frequently asked our God for forgiveness for these sins and with the help of His grace repented of them and struggled to amend, that is change our lives for the better?
These questions remind us that losing the gift of our eternal life is really the only thing in this life that we should ever fear because it is to be separated from God forever in the pains of hell. Yes, to live out or not to live out our Baptismal graces each and every day has major consequences, even eternal ones. We cannot be lulled into thinking that once we are baptized, we are automatically going to enjoy heaven for eternity. For by being unfaithful we show our rejection of God, we make our choice against Him and He will not interfere with our free choice.
I recently read an article in Homiletic and Pastoral review, a very reputable Catholic magazine. The article spoke about the denial of many of the possibility of ever losing the gift of eternal life. This article pointed out that there are many Catholics that don’t so much deny the existence of hell, but they deny that there are any human beings there or that any human beings can go there. To put the matter in another way, many Catholics now believe that every one is saved, that all go to heaven. This belief is often referred to as “universalism”; perhaps we could call it “salvation universalism.” Either way the Church from the beginning has condemned it.
This article went on to point out that ideas have consequences in peoples lives and in our world. Catholics who think that no one will go to hell will ultimately have a lax view of morality. As a result they will not work out their salvation with fear and trembling and they will definitely not be concerned about converting non-believers to the Catholic faith. For if all are saved, what does it matter what you do, why confess your sins, do penance and amend your life--why pray, do penance and sacrifice for those who are apart from God and His Church. The truth is however that this is not being faithful to our baptismal graces, and it is not fulfilling our part in the Mission of the Church to cooperate in the salvation of souls.
If a Catholic, or anyone else for that matter, thinks that no one is in hell and that no one will go there, it will have a profound effect on his view of morality and the Ten Commandments and so will effect how he lives his life. All of us are subject to temptations, and a strong and good motive for resisting temptations to lust, envy, revenge, theft, etc is the fear of going to hell. Our blessed Lord actually mentions Hell in the Gospels at least 30 times; there are only a few things he mentions more often. St Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises recommends the fear of hell as a good motive for avoiding sin, if one’s love for God is not strong enough to resist temptation. Also the existence of Hell is a unanimous teaching of all the early Church Fathers. While the Church has never definitively said that a certain person is in hell, she as definitively stated that are souls right now in hell. The Church teaches infallibly, that is with the authority of God Himself, that the souls of those who die in personal grievous sin descend immediately into hell, where they will be tormented by the pains of hell—that is the pain caused by eternal separation from our all loving God.”
By the way, Our Lady of Fatima showed the three children hell and told them that in our age souls where falling into it like snowflakes. She said that many souls go to hell because there is no one to pray for them. She then told the children to pray much for sinners, to fast and do penance for the conversion of poor sinners. She also pointed out that sin, that turning away from God has dire consequences for our whole world. She said, “If mankind does not turn away from its sin and stop offending God who is already grievously offended, the world would descend more and more into hell. Isn’t this happening to our world troubled by so many problems- abortion, promiscuity, divorce, all kinds of discrimination, social injustices, great violence (a member of congress shot in the head, along with ten other injured and six killed including a nine year old girl) terrorism, war and general unhappiness and despair. This is not an accident-the world is more and more rejecting God and it is slowly is being transformed into a “hell”. In the end our Blessed Mother said God would intervene and would if necessary purify the world by fire. In in the end, she said, her Immaculate Heart would triumph, but not before much suffering and misery and loss of life, both physical and eternal.
Let’s look at the issue of Hell practically. If heaven is to spend all eternity in an intimate embrace with the object of our faith, Jesus Christ and through Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit (to be wedded to God), how can anyone expect to enter into this embrace when they have not cultivated an intimate friendship throughout their lives with Jesus by doing what Jesus Himself said one must do be his disciple, his beloved friend? Some believe that they will just repent at the end of their lives and choose Jesus then. But how can one chose Christ at the end of his life, if he has never chosen him throughout His life? This would be like a man saying to a woman, “I never talked to you; I treated you poorly when I spent time with you; I messed around with other women all the time. In my actions I never showed you I loved you, now let’s get married.” Love just doesn’t work that way.
The article in Homiletic and Pastoral review goes on to mention that the notion of universal salvation has invaded the Catholic Church on all levels and that maybe this is one of the main reasons the Church is in such a state of crisis at the present time. It reminded that it is a constant teaching of the Church that Hell exists and that those who die in the state of mortal sin will condemn themselves to hell for all eternity, whether they are catholic or non-catholic.
It is interesting that in many countries, including our own, Catholics are leaving the Church in droves to join Evangelical Churches, which preach regularly about the existence of hell, demons, & Satan. While it is true that many times these Churches don’t speak enough about the mercy of God, is it not also true that maybe these people are leaving because they don’t hear enough about the justice of God in our Catholic Churches and that there are consequences to ourselves, others and our world because of our sins.
By the way, speaking of evangelicals, I once heard an Evangelical preacher on the radio that was reminding his congregation that all of us like to come to church to feel good, to listen and sing to the music, to meet our brother and sister, to embrace them and pray with them. However, He said that sometimes we need to be reminded about things we don’t like to think about or talk about. And then he told them that a fireman would not be much of fireman if he didn’t warn people about fire, or a doctor would not be much of a doctor if he didn’t warn people about disease, and that he as a preacher sure wouldn’t be much of preacher if he didn’t warn his people about hell; nor by the way, would he, would I, be loving them the way we should.
How many loves have been lost because the lover became careless and he neglected and ill treated the one he loved because of complacency, never believing he could ever lose the love of his life? It is not true that we can only realize the great gift of our baptism, if we believe that it is possible for us to lose it if we neglect it? Let us not make that mistake; let us never be complacent in our love for the greatest Lover the world has ever seen, Jesus Christ, who wills all men be saved. Let us beg Him at this Holy Mass for his grace to not only remain faithful, but to become more faithful to the grace of our baptism. Let us beg Him in the Holy Eucharist for his help to believe, adore, hope and love Him more.
God doesn’t want us to love Him just because we fear hell; He wants us to love Him because He is worthy of all our love; He wants us to be saved and spend and eternity of loving bliss within His eternal embrace, a joyful bliss which can begin on this earth; this is why He sent His only Son to die for us in order to be able give us Himself in the Holy Eucharist. But we for our part must chose Him, and we do that by being faithful to Him and to His Holy Catholic Church.
Let us trust in His mercy and His love, by leaving sin behind and turning to Him completely, so that on the day of judgment we may hear those most blessed of all words, “Well done my Good and faithful servant enter now into the joy of your master house.”
Last week we celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. We recalled that Baptism is one of God's most beautiful and magnificent gifts because it is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit and the door which gives us access to the other sacraments. This is why baptism is necessary for salvation.
Today we begin ordinary time with the same event, but this time from the Gospel of St. John. The Church has done this quite deliberately—to get our attention on how important Baptism really is. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons and daughters of the all mighty and every living God. By our baptismal grace we become members of the family of the Most Blessed Trinity; and we become members of Christ, are incorporated into His Mystical body the Church, are made sharers in the Church’s mission of the salvation of souls, and we incredibly actually become partakers of the Divine Nature of God.
With the joy of Christmas still fresh in our minds and hearts, last week we also spoke about being faithful to our baptismal graces. The eternal life we all received at our baptism will remain ours only if are faithful and obedient to these graces by being faithful to the Catholic Church and her teachings. God’s promise to us will remain valid for us, in other words, if we bring the purity of our baptismal souls, unstained to that day when we stand face to face with Jesus our redeemer--the day of our judgment, the most important day of our life.
If this is all so, and it is, then we should often reflect on our own faithfulness to our baptism. This week let us take a deeper look at our faithfulness by asking ourselves some very important questions. First, have we been faithful to the graces we have received at our baptism? In what ways have we not been faithful? Have we in the sacrament of confession frequently asked our God for forgiveness for these sins and with the help of His grace repented of them and struggled to amend, that is change our lives for the better?
These questions remind us that losing the gift of our eternal life is really the only thing in this life that we should ever fear because it is to be separated from God forever in the pains of hell. Yes, to live out or not to live out our Baptismal graces each and every day has major consequences, even eternal ones. We cannot be lulled into thinking that once we are baptized, we are automatically going to enjoy heaven for eternity. For by being unfaithful we show our rejection of God, we make our choice against Him and He will not interfere with our free choice.
I recently read an article in Homiletic and Pastoral review, a very reputable Catholic magazine. The article spoke about the denial of many of the possibility of ever losing the gift of eternal life. This article pointed out that there are many Catholics that don’t so much deny the existence of hell, but they deny that there are any human beings there or that any human beings can go there. To put the matter in another way, many Catholics now believe that every one is saved, that all go to heaven. This belief is often referred to as “universalism”; perhaps we could call it “salvation universalism.” Either way the Church from the beginning has condemned it.
This article went on to point out that ideas have consequences in peoples lives and in our world. Catholics who think that no one will go to hell will ultimately have a lax view of morality. As a result they will not work out their salvation with fear and trembling and they will definitely not be concerned about converting non-believers to the Catholic faith. For if all are saved, what does it matter what you do, why confess your sins, do penance and amend your life--why pray, do penance and sacrifice for those who are apart from God and His Church. The truth is however that this is not being faithful to our baptismal graces, and it is not fulfilling our part in the Mission of the Church to cooperate in the salvation of souls.
If a Catholic, or anyone else for that matter, thinks that no one is in hell and that no one will go there, it will have a profound effect on his view of morality and the Ten Commandments and so will effect how he lives his life. All of us are subject to temptations, and a strong and good motive for resisting temptations to lust, envy, revenge, theft, etc is the fear of going to hell. Our blessed Lord actually mentions Hell in the Gospels at least 30 times; there are only a few things he mentions more often. St Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises recommends the fear of hell as a good motive for avoiding sin, if one’s love for God is not strong enough to resist temptation. Also the existence of Hell is a unanimous teaching of all the early Church Fathers. While the Church has never definitively said that a certain person is in hell, she as definitively stated that are souls right now in hell. The Church teaches infallibly, that is with the authority of God Himself, that the souls of those who die in personal grievous sin descend immediately into hell, where they will be tormented by the pains of hell—that is the pain caused by eternal separation from our all loving God.”
By the way, Our Lady of Fatima showed the three children hell and told them that in our age souls where falling into it like snowflakes. She said that many souls go to hell because there is no one to pray for them. She then told the children to pray much for sinners, to fast and do penance for the conversion of poor sinners. She also pointed out that sin, that turning away from God has dire consequences for our whole world. She said, “If mankind does not turn away from its sin and stop offending God who is already grievously offended, the world would descend more and more into hell. Isn’t this happening to our world troubled by so many problems- abortion, promiscuity, divorce, all kinds of discrimination, social injustices, great violence (a member of congress shot in the head, along with ten other injured and six killed including a nine year old girl) terrorism, war and general unhappiness and despair. This is not an accident-the world is more and more rejecting God and it is slowly is being transformed into a “hell”. In the end our Blessed Mother said God would intervene and would if necessary purify the world by fire. In in the end, she said, her Immaculate Heart would triumph, but not before much suffering and misery and loss of life, both physical and eternal.
Let’s look at the issue of Hell practically. If heaven is to spend all eternity in an intimate embrace with the object of our faith, Jesus Christ and through Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit (to be wedded to God), how can anyone expect to enter into this embrace when they have not cultivated an intimate friendship throughout their lives with Jesus by doing what Jesus Himself said one must do be his disciple, his beloved friend? Some believe that they will just repent at the end of their lives and choose Jesus then. But how can one chose Christ at the end of his life, if he has never chosen him throughout His life? This would be like a man saying to a woman, “I never talked to you; I treated you poorly when I spent time with you; I messed around with other women all the time. In my actions I never showed you I loved you, now let’s get married.” Love just doesn’t work that way.
The article in Homiletic and Pastoral review goes on to mention that the notion of universal salvation has invaded the Catholic Church on all levels and that maybe this is one of the main reasons the Church is in such a state of crisis at the present time. It reminded that it is a constant teaching of the Church that Hell exists and that those who die in the state of mortal sin will condemn themselves to hell for all eternity, whether they are catholic or non-catholic.
It is interesting that in many countries, including our own, Catholics are leaving the Church in droves to join Evangelical Churches, which preach regularly about the existence of hell, demons, & Satan. While it is true that many times these Churches don’t speak enough about the mercy of God, is it not also true that maybe these people are leaving because they don’t hear enough about the justice of God in our Catholic Churches and that there are consequences to ourselves, others and our world because of our sins.
By the way, speaking of evangelicals, I once heard an Evangelical preacher on the radio that was reminding his congregation that all of us like to come to church to feel good, to listen and sing to the music, to meet our brother and sister, to embrace them and pray with them. However, He said that sometimes we need to be reminded about things we don’t like to think about or talk about. And then he told them that a fireman would not be much of fireman if he didn’t warn people about fire, or a doctor would not be much of a doctor if he didn’t warn people about disease, and that he as a preacher sure wouldn’t be much of preacher if he didn’t warn his people about hell; nor by the way, would he, would I, be loving them the way we should.
How many loves have been lost because the lover became careless and he neglected and ill treated the one he loved because of complacency, never believing he could ever lose the love of his life? It is not true that we can only realize the great gift of our baptism, if we believe that it is possible for us to lose it if we neglect it? Let us not make that mistake; let us never be complacent in our love for the greatest Lover the world has ever seen, Jesus Christ, who wills all men be saved. Let us beg Him at this Holy Mass for his grace to not only remain faithful, but to become more faithful to the grace of our baptism. Let us beg Him in the Holy Eucharist for his help to believe, adore, hope and love Him more.
God doesn’t want us to love Him just because we fear hell; He wants us to love Him because He is worthy of all our love; He wants us to be saved and spend and eternity of loving bliss within His eternal embrace, a joyful bliss which can begin on this earth; this is why He sent His only Son to die for us in order to be able give us Himself in the Holy Eucharist. But we for our part must chose Him, and we do that by being faithful to Him and to His Holy Catholic Church.
Let us trust in His mercy and His love, by leaving sin behind and turning to Him completely, so that on the day of judgment we may hear those most blessed of all words, “Well done my Good and faithful servant enter now into the joy of your master house.”
Friday, January 14, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Jesus was manifested to reveal to us that we are called through our baptism to participate in the Divine life and love of God Himself.
Baptism of the Lord January 9th, 2011
This Sunday, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, marks the end of the Christmas season. It is also the last of the three feasts, which celebrate three manifestations of our Lord, Christmas, Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord. And at each of these three manifestation of Jesus there is testimonies given by reliable persons to the fact that Jesus is the invisible God made visible in the flesh; in other words, that Jesus is the Son of the Living God…God Himself become man.
On Christmas, Jesus the mighty one was made manifest in the flesh when he became visible to the entire world as a humble, poor, defenseless little child. This manifestation of God in the flesh was testified by an Angel who said to poor shepherd “for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Then on epiphany, this savior was revealed and manifested as the light of the nations. This was testified by the adoration of the three wise men and their gifts all of which pointed to the divinity of the Christ child. And then on this great feast day, the Baptism of the Lord we really have the greatest manifestation of Jesus because of Who it is who testifies to the identity of Jesus. And who testifies is not angels, nor wise men, but God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Theirs’ is obviously the definitive testimony of the person of Jesus Christ because it is the definitive testimony of God Himself.
These three manifestation of Jesus to the world testify to the truth of the incarnation: that in the person of Jesus Christ, God came in the flesh, that Jesus is the Son of God become Man, the invisible God became visible as one of us. But these testimonies were given not only to manifest to the world who Jesus is, but in the light of Jesus’ identity who we are as well; to manifest our great calling and vocation as baptized Christians. Jesus was manifested to reveal to us that we are called through our baptism to participate in the Divine life and love of God Himself.
At Christmas, Jesus the love of the Father came down from heaven to earth in order to raise us up to the love of heaven and unite us to the Heavenly Father. This is what the incarnation of Jesus, that is His coming in the flesh, is really all about. The divine came down from heaven as a man in order to lift men up to the divine. St. Leo the Great put it this way, "The Son of God ... joined himself to us and joined us to himself in such a way that the abasement of God to the human condition became a raising of man to the heights of God."
Our Holy Father pointed this out in Rome last Wednesday during his weekly audience with Pilgrims of Rome. Benedict declared that Christmas must be rescued from an "overly moralistic and sentimental mask. He said that "The celebration of Christmas does not propose to us only examples to imitate, such as the humility and poverty of the Lord, and his benevolence and love for men," he said. "But it is rather an invitation to allow oneself to be totally transformed by him who entered into our flesh."
Christmas is an invitation to a total transformation wrought by participation in divine nature of God, which because of Christ’s coming we can enter into and participate in here and now. And so, Benedict says that when we celebrate Christmas we don’t just remember the birth of Jesus and his incarnation, but we experience a mystery present to us here and now, a mystery to experience and be transformed by here and now.
Our Holy Father points out the fact that in the liturgical celebrations of these holy days of the Christmas season we live in a mysterious but real way the entrance of the Son of God into the world and we are illumined once again by the light of His brilliance. Benedict said that each celebration of this Holy Season is an actual presence of the mystery of Christ and in this mysterious presence is prolonged the history of salvation.
And so, our Holy Father said that God's manifestation has its purpose in our participation in divine life, in the realization in us of the mystery of his Incarnation. This mystery is the fulfillment of man's vocation. Man is called to share in the life of God, not just in heaven, but even now here on earth.
On this feast of the baptism we discover that Jesus didn’t receive baptism for his sake, for He was God without sin, but Jesus was baptized for our sake. By his own baptism he imparted to the waters of baptism the power not only to wash away sin, but to rebirth or regenerate the Children of men in to the Children of God, partaking in the divine life and love of the Family of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Each one of us, through the waters of our baptism made holy by Jesus own baptism, have now become adopted Sons and daughters of the Father being able to call him Abba, or daddy. The baptism of Jesus manifest that we are children of God and so we are! We hear this so many times, we say the Our Father so many times, that we can easily become complacent to what it really means to be a Child of God-image we are children of the almighty and all-powerful God-Creator of all things!
Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
Just as the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and produced in her the God-man-Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit now descends on the Church and produces in her maternal womb, which is the baptismal rite, the rebirth of the children of men into the children of God. By the waters of baptism God fills each one of us with his own supernatural love and by doing so he raises our human love to a divine level and imparts to us divine life, eternal life.
We are not only reconciled to Him, we now have new life, which is a share in his very life. We become divinized, we become like God, we share in His divine love and life, and so share in His own eternal happiness. We are also empowered to share that love and life with others around us by living our baptismal promises.
Through our baptism, we are also members of God’s family on earth, the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. As a result, our baptism opens up for us the sacramental graces we need to be nourished in order to grow and reach maturity. Fed by Jesus’ own body and blood in the Holy Eucharist at Holy Mass, which makes present for us the birth of Christ and all the mysterious of Christ life, we begin to be transformed more and more into His image and likeness, and thus begin to already here on earth share in His Divine glory.
O’ Christian soul realize you dignity, realize your great worth and realize you great responsibility to live like the child of God that you are. St Leo the Great put it his way, “Recognize O Christian, your dignity, and, made participant of the divine nature, be careful not to fall again, with unworthy conduct, from such greatness into primitive baseness.'"
It is possible for us to lose the graces of our baptism and so lose our friendship and eternal life with God. If we are children of God we must not commit any acts that go against our adopted divine nature. When we purposely, intentionally and with full knowledge commit serious sin, mortal sin, the divine life within us actually dies. And lesser sins, although not destroying, damage this life and so our closeness to God. God the Father has chosen us His beloved Sons and daughter, and so we must choose Him by our love for Him by avoiding anything that offends Him and doing those things that please Him.
At our baptism we were given an incredible gift, but one in seed form. It is up to us whether that seed, the seed of eternal life and happiness dies within us or whether it grows to the maturity of holiness and eternal life forever in union with God and the saints. Lets us ask God for forgiveness for our failures to live our baptismal promises. Let us implore the mercy of God by making frequent use of the Sacrament of Confession, which restores us to our original state of baptismal purity if we have lost it through mortal sin, heals it if we have damaged it with venial sin and strengthen us to live more deeply our baptismal promises.
Let us turn to our Blessed Mother for help. Blessed Mother, Queen of the Angels, please help us to become like children because children are poor and humble. And when we are poor and humble we can then truly adore and love Our Heavenly Father and Jesus his only Son whom He sent to redeem us all in order to be united with them both, the Father and the Son in the Love of the Holy Spirit. O God, creator of our souls, Father of our soul, we adore you we love you, help us to love you more, fill us with your love; we are your children, help us to be with you both now and forever. Amen.
This Sunday, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, marks the end of the Christmas season. It is also the last of the three feasts, which celebrate three manifestations of our Lord, Christmas, Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord. And at each of these three manifestation of Jesus there is testimonies given by reliable persons to the fact that Jesus is the invisible God made visible in the flesh; in other words, that Jesus is the Son of the Living God…God Himself become man.
On Christmas, Jesus the mighty one was made manifest in the flesh when he became visible to the entire world as a humble, poor, defenseless little child. This manifestation of God in the flesh was testified by an Angel who said to poor shepherd “for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Then on epiphany, this savior was revealed and manifested as the light of the nations. This was testified by the adoration of the three wise men and their gifts all of which pointed to the divinity of the Christ child. And then on this great feast day, the Baptism of the Lord we really have the greatest manifestation of Jesus because of Who it is who testifies to the identity of Jesus. And who testifies is not angels, nor wise men, but God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Theirs’ is obviously the definitive testimony of the person of Jesus Christ because it is the definitive testimony of God Himself.
These three manifestation of Jesus to the world testify to the truth of the incarnation: that in the person of Jesus Christ, God came in the flesh, that Jesus is the Son of God become Man, the invisible God became visible as one of us. But these testimonies were given not only to manifest to the world who Jesus is, but in the light of Jesus’ identity who we are as well; to manifest our great calling and vocation as baptized Christians. Jesus was manifested to reveal to us that we are called through our baptism to participate in the Divine life and love of God Himself.
At Christmas, Jesus the love of the Father came down from heaven to earth in order to raise us up to the love of heaven and unite us to the Heavenly Father. This is what the incarnation of Jesus, that is His coming in the flesh, is really all about. The divine came down from heaven as a man in order to lift men up to the divine. St. Leo the Great put it this way, "The Son of God ... joined himself to us and joined us to himself in such a way that the abasement of God to the human condition became a raising of man to the heights of God."
Our Holy Father pointed this out in Rome last Wednesday during his weekly audience with Pilgrims of Rome. Benedict declared that Christmas must be rescued from an "overly moralistic and sentimental mask. He said that "The celebration of Christmas does not propose to us only examples to imitate, such as the humility and poverty of the Lord, and his benevolence and love for men," he said. "But it is rather an invitation to allow oneself to be totally transformed by him who entered into our flesh."
Christmas is an invitation to a total transformation wrought by participation in divine nature of God, which because of Christ’s coming we can enter into and participate in here and now. And so, Benedict says that when we celebrate Christmas we don’t just remember the birth of Jesus and his incarnation, but we experience a mystery present to us here and now, a mystery to experience and be transformed by here and now.
Our Holy Father points out the fact that in the liturgical celebrations of these holy days of the Christmas season we live in a mysterious but real way the entrance of the Son of God into the world and we are illumined once again by the light of His brilliance. Benedict said that each celebration of this Holy Season is an actual presence of the mystery of Christ and in this mysterious presence is prolonged the history of salvation.
And so, our Holy Father said that God's manifestation has its purpose in our participation in divine life, in the realization in us of the mystery of his Incarnation. This mystery is the fulfillment of man's vocation. Man is called to share in the life of God, not just in heaven, but even now here on earth.
On this feast of the baptism we discover that Jesus didn’t receive baptism for his sake, for He was God without sin, but Jesus was baptized for our sake. By his own baptism he imparted to the waters of baptism the power not only to wash away sin, but to rebirth or regenerate the Children of men in to the Children of God, partaking in the divine life and love of the Family of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Each one of us, through the waters of our baptism made holy by Jesus own baptism, have now become adopted Sons and daughters of the Father being able to call him Abba, or daddy. The baptism of Jesus manifest that we are children of God and so we are! We hear this so many times, we say the Our Father so many times, that we can easily become complacent to what it really means to be a Child of God-image we are children of the almighty and all-powerful God-Creator of all things!
Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
Just as the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and produced in her the God-man-Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit now descends on the Church and produces in her maternal womb, which is the baptismal rite, the rebirth of the children of men into the children of God. By the waters of baptism God fills each one of us with his own supernatural love and by doing so he raises our human love to a divine level and imparts to us divine life, eternal life.
We are not only reconciled to Him, we now have new life, which is a share in his very life. We become divinized, we become like God, we share in His divine love and life, and so share in His own eternal happiness. We are also empowered to share that love and life with others around us by living our baptismal promises.
Through our baptism, we are also members of God’s family on earth, the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. As a result, our baptism opens up for us the sacramental graces we need to be nourished in order to grow and reach maturity. Fed by Jesus’ own body and blood in the Holy Eucharist at Holy Mass, which makes present for us the birth of Christ and all the mysterious of Christ life, we begin to be transformed more and more into His image and likeness, and thus begin to already here on earth share in His Divine glory.
O’ Christian soul realize you dignity, realize your great worth and realize you great responsibility to live like the child of God that you are. St Leo the Great put it his way, “Recognize O Christian, your dignity, and, made participant of the divine nature, be careful not to fall again, with unworthy conduct, from such greatness into primitive baseness.'"
It is possible for us to lose the graces of our baptism and so lose our friendship and eternal life with God. If we are children of God we must not commit any acts that go against our adopted divine nature. When we purposely, intentionally and with full knowledge commit serious sin, mortal sin, the divine life within us actually dies. And lesser sins, although not destroying, damage this life and so our closeness to God. God the Father has chosen us His beloved Sons and daughter, and so we must choose Him by our love for Him by avoiding anything that offends Him and doing those things that please Him.
At our baptism we were given an incredible gift, but one in seed form. It is up to us whether that seed, the seed of eternal life and happiness dies within us or whether it grows to the maturity of holiness and eternal life forever in union with God and the saints. Lets us ask God for forgiveness for our failures to live our baptismal promises. Let us implore the mercy of God by making frequent use of the Sacrament of Confession, which restores us to our original state of baptismal purity if we have lost it through mortal sin, heals it if we have damaged it with venial sin and strengthen us to live more deeply our baptismal promises.
Let us turn to our Blessed Mother for help. Blessed Mother, Queen of the Angels, please help us to become like children because children are poor and humble. And when we are poor and humble we can then truly adore and love Our Heavenly Father and Jesus his only Son whom He sent to redeem us all in order to be united with them both, the Father and the Son in the Love of the Holy Spirit. O God, creator of our souls, Father of our soul, we adore you we love you, help us to love you more, fill us with your love; we are your children, help us to be with you both now and forever. Amen.
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