GOD: ALL-JUST & ALL-MERCIFUL

A SERMON FOR THE 7TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

A quick word today about that vexing question of who goes to heaven and who doesn’t.  Why vexing? Because, simply put, we have a hard time reconciling two of God’s attributes, namely, that he is both all-merciful and yet all-just.  If God is so merciful, how come he can condemn someone to hell for all eternity? But our Lord himself speaks of judgment and hell, and makes it perfectly clear that those who don’t follow the commandments will be thrown by the angels into the outer darkness where there will forever be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  It’s a hard image to reconcile with our statue of the Sacred Heart, and yet, we know by our faith that it’s true.

The problem is, we tend to judge others by the traits of our own character.  Even with God we try to think of him as having the same “good” characteristics that we have, whatever they may be.  We poor humans are all victims of our own personality, and whether we ourselves tend to the side of justice or the side of mercy, this is how we are going to think of God. Some people are very appreciative of the virtue of justice.  They feel that if someone commits a crime, he should pay the appropriate penalty, even including execution in some cases.  And you’d be right to expect that justice be observed and carried out.  These people have no trouble imagining hell, and just wonder how so many make it to heaven.  Others though are more the forgiving type.  They see the good in others, even the worst criminals, and go out of their way to find the mitigating factors in a person’s life that led him to commit his bad deeds.  His environment, an abusive father or negligent mother, poverty, genetics, whatever. When they think of prison, they don’t view it as retribution or punishment for the crime, but rather as an opportunity to rehabilitate the offender. 

Both of these approaches have their merits—justice and mercy are both virtues, after all.  But they also both have their drawbacks—either one can be taken to extremes.  Those who are overly just can become vindictive, and the punishment ends up not fitting the crime…  the abusive father who beats a child for taking a cookie.  The racist who lynches a black man for looking at a white woman.  Justice, the letter of the law, no room for mercy.  But there are also those who mistakenly think that’s it being charitable to try and always excuse and even ignore actions that are morally bad or detrimental to society. Focusing on the spark of good that exists in every man, they turn a blind eye to their evil deeds.  With this attitude, we would never enforce laws and society would collapse.  We can’t and shouldn’t open the prisons and let everybody out, and no more should we open the borders and let everybody in.  

Our own personalities draw us in one direction or the other, towards justice or towards charity.  And there’s always the danger of falling into one of these two extremes.  Instead, we should try very hard to find that perfect balance between them.  In doing so, we’ll very quickly realize that finding that perfect balance is impossible. We can make laws and we can enforce laws; we can apply them to society and demand that the individuals within that society obey them.  But how can we truly judge another human being, when we don’t have complete knowledge of his motivations, his personal history, his psychological state, or indeed any of those other factors that play a role in determining a man’s actions? Half the time we don’t even know why we ourselves do things.  So how can we possibly expect to judge others with that measure of perfect justice and perfect charity?  All we can do is judge the externals—the speech, the actions of individuals, but we can’t possibly know what’s going on in their conscience, or what’s going on in their mind when they speak or act.  Not even the Church can do that.  We make laws and judge people according to the externals, but we never, ever judge the soul of a man.  Take suicide for instance.  The Church can make a law and tell us that suicide is a mortal sin.  It can tell us we’re not permitted to provide a Catholic burial for someone who kills himself.  But the Church cannot tell us whether that man managed to say sorry to God as the overdose took effect or as he’s pulling the trigger.  The Church cannot tell us what his state of mind was, or whether it had got to the point where he was no longer responsible for his actions.  And the Church certainly can’t tell us for certain whether he ended up in heaven or hell.  The Church judges the external acts of a man, but never the internal thoughts and intentions.

The Church is not the ultimate judge.  Even less so is the State.  And thank God for that!  Thank God that he, God, will be our judge!  That in the end, there will finally be a judge who knows everything about us, not only the good and the bad acts we do, but more importantly the things that he alone knows, our internal disposition when we perform our good and bad acts.  He alone can judge with perfect justice and perfect mercy.

But is he really all-merciful? How can a loving God turn his back on a frail human being who, out of weakness has committed a mortal sin, condemning him to an eternity in hell?  How is that merciful?  It’s just, certainly, but how does it show God’s mercy?  The answer lies in free will, and God’s perfect knowledge of how each individual uses that free will.  It lies also in the nature of a mortal sin, which is the deliberate choice to abuse our free will to offend God by following our own will when it conflicts with his.  God doesn’t interfere in this process.  He didn’t give us free will so that he could then prevent us from doing something bad at the appropriate time.  God can’t prevent us from going to hell, because he has given us a will that is free.  It’s a beautiful gift that he has given us, this free will that allows us to love God freely, that puts us above the level of the animals.  But it’s a gift that has consequences.  It puts the choice between heaven and hell squarely on our shoulders. It is our own abuse of this beautiful gift that condemns us.  Effectively, God’s judgment is nothing more than the acknowledgment of what we ourselves have chosen.  It’s not God who sends us to hell.  We do.

For this reason, today’s Gospel is a warning to us that we must not judge ourselves too leniently.  We tend to think, “Here I am, Sunday Mass, I’ve doing my duty for the day, what a jolly good fellow I am.”  But our Lord tells us “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”  It’s just not enough to know that Christ is God.  It’s not enough to acknowledge Christ as our Lord and Saviour.  It’s not even enough to worship him, to pray to him every day, to adore and venerate and bless his holy Name.  All of these are good, but none of these is sufficient.  We must also love God.  And how do we do that?  “If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.”  

So when we’ve finished here this morning and leave this hallowed sanctuary, when we’ve done our duty by keeping the Third Commandment, we must then turn our attention out there to the other nine commandments, and keep them also. If we keep all ten commandments, we stand a chance of receiving mercy on Judgment Day.  And if we keep that greatest of all the commandments, the law upon which all other laws depend, in other words if we love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, then assuredly we will be saved.

THE KING OF LOVE MY SHEPHERD IS

A HYMN FOR THE 7TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By H.W. Baker, 1868

1 The King of love my shepherd is, 
whose goodness faileth never. 
I nothing lack if I am his, 
and he is mine forever.

2 Where streams of living water flow, 
my ransomed soul he leadeth; 
and where the verdant pastures grow, 
with food celestial feedeth.

3 Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed, 
but yet in love he sought me; 
and on his shoulder gently laid, 
and home, rejoicing, brought me.

4 In death's dark vale I fear no ill, 
with thee, dear Lord, beside me; 
thy rod and staff my comfort still, 
thy cross before to guide me.

5 Thou spreadst a table in my sight; 
thy unction grace bestoweth; 
and oh, what transport of delight 
from thy pure chalice floweth!

6 And so through all the length of days, 
thy goodness faileth never; 
Good Shepherd, may I sing thy praise 
within thy house forever.

THE GUILD OF ST. PETER AD VINCULA

A MESSAGE FOR THE 7TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

On Thursday of this week, we celebrate the Feast of St. Peter ad Vincula, or as it is more commonly called in this country, St. Peter-in-Chains.  It’s a strange name that refers to an event in the life of the chief of the apostles and first pope, St. Peter, when the evil King Herod imprisoned Peter with a view to executing him on the upcoming holiday.  But an angel appeared to St. Peter as he waited for death in his dungeon cell.  The angel broke St. Peter’s chains asunder and led him past the guards, out of the prison and back on to the streets of the city, a free man once more.

The idea of St. Peter being chained up in a dark prison cell is a grim foreshadowing of our Church today.  The Church, founded on the rock of Peter, is now itself in chains, locked in the vice of modernism.  The new conciliar Church is our prison, and the supposed successors of St. Peter have become the prison guards of the true Church instead of her defenders and our leaders.  We must rely once again on the intervention of God and his angels to lead us out of that prison which is the Conciliar Church, so that we can once again be free to worship and believe according to the way our Saviour taught us.

For these reasons, we chose the title of St. Peter ad Vincula for our society of priests and faithful.  For our motto we took the words Tibi Claves—“Thine are the keys”, words spoken by our Lord to St. Peter: “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”  We can use those same keys today to unlock the shackles of so many Catholics, unchaining them from their mistaken loyalty to a corrupted institution, and freeing them to be true Catholics once again.

Those of you who would like more information about our Guild of St. Peter ad Vincula are invited to our website at gspav.org. Here you will learn what we stand for, why we place so much emphasis on the liturgy, what we hope to do in the future, and how we pray daily for the restoration of our Church.  For “not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”  It is the objective of the Guild to make God’s will our own, not merely sitting back and wishing for better things to come, but actively working towards such a future.

If we produce “evil fruit” then you may judge the Guild as a “corrupt tree”.  But if our fruit is good, know that “a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit.” Make your judgment, and join us, if you will, in our battle against the false prophets.

SEVEN LOAVES AND SEVEN BASKETS

A SERMON FOR THE 6TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

This week, our Lord finds himself in what, for us, would be a pretty awkward situation.  It arises as he preaches to a great multitude, four thousand strong, who have followed him out into the wilderness.  What happens next is a very natural thing that you’d think someone would have planned for—the crowds haven’t eaten for three days, and they’re hungry.  The need for food is becoming not merely the desire to satisfy their appetite, but something far more urgent.  The elderly and infirm are becoming weak to the point that they would faint on their way home.  The situation is actually becoming critical—dangerous even.  The hunger of the crowd becomes more and more compelling. They have to eat.  Fully aware of what’s going on, our Lord provides us with the very obvious lesson that we should always trust in Divine Providence. How does he do that?  By miraculously feeding them.  But there’s another lesson that the Gospel writer deliberately includes in this story, and it’s this second, hidden lesson that concerns us today.

Let’s remember that this was the Son of God.  He can do all things, he knows all things.  So, we ask ourselves, before he performs this miracle, why does he want to know how many loaves of bread they have?  He would have no problem feeding the multitude whether they had a hundred loaves, or one loaf, or no loaves of bread at all.  And yet he asked them, “How many loaves have ye?  And they said, Seven.”

Think Church, think the number seven, and what comes to mind?  It is of, course, the number of the Seven Sacraments. Our Lord asked how many loaves they had, so that they would answer “seven” and it would be forever known and taught that, just as surely as our Lord and God fed his four thousand hungry followers in the wilderness, so now today does his Church feed her needy faithful with the seven sacraments. 

And how many faithful exactly will worthily receive these seven sacraments and save their souls?  Hopefully, more than the four thousand mentioned in today’s Gospel!  This number of four thousand is not meant to be applied literally to the number of the elect.  But let’s face it, it was a huge number of people who were just choosing to abandon their homes and workplaces for several days and walk miles, far out into the wilderness, without even packing a picnic lunch, just to hear someone preach to them. Any modern-day preacher would be thrilled to attract such crowds under such conditions.  After all, how many men and women since Adam and Eve have been prepared to make sacrifices like these so they can avail themselves of the seven sacraments?  I don’t know the exact number, but St. John writes in the Book of the Apocalypse: “I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues.”  Believe me, God appreciates the sacrifices you all make every Sunday to come here into this relatively pleasant wilderness of Urbana.  For many, it’s a long drive, but it’s worth it. Why?  Certainly not because you get to hear me preach!  You come here to be fed.  Not with just words, but with the sacraments.  The bread of life.  Yes, it’s worth the long drive, it’s worth the sacrifice.

How many graces will you receive?  They are infinite.  Seven loaves were distributed, but the crumbs that were left over filled seven baskets. There was more bread after they ate than there was before.  Another miracle.  And again, with the sacraments, no matter how many people partake of these seven sacraments, or how often, there remain at the end of the day the same infinite graces as there were in the beginning.  These graces have been distributed through the sacraments now for two thousand years, and today we have access to just as many of these infinite graces as those who stood at the foot of the Cross the day those graces began to flow from the sacred wounds of our Lord.  There’s enough grace for all of us, and there always will be enough.  No matter how much we need, and let’s face it, some of us need a lot!

Spare a thought finally for those souls who know no better but to reject the seven sacraments.  Instead of remaining loyal to the Son of God and staying with him in the wilderness, they have left our Lord and his words of truth to follow other preachers, mere men like Martin Luther, wandering off on their own, far from the pasture of the Catholic Church, to a dark place where there is nothing to eat.  Here they die, devoid of nourishment, devoid of life, devoid of grace.  They were Christian enough to follow our Lord into the wilderness, but apparently not Christian enough to trust him, to stay with him and receive the nourishment of the seven sacraments he established for our salvation. 

They claim not to need the Church, they don’t need sacraments given to them by priests.  They claim they want to be fed directly by Christ himself.  But that’s not what our Lord did, is it?  After he took the seven loaves, and he gave thanks, and he broke them, he was not the one who then gave the pieces of bread to the multitude. No, “he gave to his disciples to set before them, and they (the disciples) did set them before the people.” That’s the way our Lord wants it to be. He could have fed the multitude all by himself, but he didn’t.  He intends  to distribute these outward signs of inward grace visibly by priests of the Church, especially ordained for this very purpose.

Today we’re faced with a new problem.  Our former brethren of the Holy Roman Catholic Church imagine they’ve come up with better ways to confect the sacraments.  They’ve chosen to tamper with the words and ceremonies of the sacraments to the extent that we can no longer trust them to be valid!  It is the primary role of the papacy, given by Christ to St. Peter: “Feed my sheep!” He said it three times to make sure Peter understood.  And for almost two thousand years, he and his successors did understand.  Today though?

Are we so-called traditional Catholics perhaps the only ones left who still receive the graces of valid sacraments?  If so, then it falls to us to seek out those other poor lost souls who are trying to find food, but are being fed with nothing but rubbish, if not actual poison.  Seek them out!  Especially seek out those who seek!  Find those lost sheep who are trying to find their way home, and lead them back to the Good Shepherd.  Show them the way to the true sacraments, the true Mass.  And for the rest, the spiritually anorexic who refuse to eat, who refuse to partake of the true sacraments, pray for them.  Explain to them, if they’ll listen, the dangers they pose for their spiritual health, how refusing the sacraments is nothing less than a death-wish for their soul.  Point out their ingratitude to our Blessed Lord who seeks, continually, to care for them and make sure they don’t faint along the way.

Let’s be sure of remaining one of those four thousand, who stayed with Christ in the wilderness and were fed with the seven loaves.  And after we have been fed, fed with our Blessed Sacrament today, after we hear the priest’s words “Ite, missa est” we, like the four thousand, will return to our regular daily life.  Just as our Lord sent the multitude on its way home, we will also go home, not fainting on the way but strengthened by the sacraments.  Once we get there, we who have been fed with our seven loaves must now share with our neighbor the seven baskets that are left over. We must seek out a whole new multitude of faithful to share in the graces that come from the sacraments of Christ’s Church.  We may be small in number and there may be many against us, but don’t be afraid to seek them out and bring them in.  Believe me, there are enough graces to go round.

AND NOW, O FATHER, MINDFUL OF THE LOVE

A HYMN FOR THE 6TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By William Bright, 1874

1 And now, O Father, mindful of the love
that bought us, once for all, on Calvary's tree,
and having with us him that pleads above,
we here present, we here spread forth to thee
that only offering perfect in thine eyes,
the one true, pure, immortal sacrifice.

2 Look, Father, look on his anointed face,
and only look on us as found in him;
look not on our misusings of thy grace,
our prayer so languid, and our faith so dim:
for lo, between our sins and their reward

we set the Passion of thy Son our Lord.

3 And then for those, our dearest and our best,
by this prevailing presence we appeal:
O fold them closer to thy mercy's breast,
O do thine utmost for their souls' true weal;
from tainting mischief keep them white and clear,
and crown thy gifts with strength to persevere.

4 And so we come: O draw us to thy feet,
most patient Saviour, who canst love us still;
and by this food, so aweful and so sweet,
deliver us from every touch of ill:
in thine own service make us glad and free,
and grant us never more to part from thee.

OUR SACRAMENTAL LIFE

A REFLECTION FOR THE 6TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Today, we plan on introducing a new Christian into the Church of Christ, that Church he founded for the purpose of providing us with the means of salvation.  This sacrament of Baptism does more than merely wash away the stain of original sin from the soul.  It makes us a member of the Mystical Body of Christ, one that is thenceforth nourished by the other sacraments, whose graces stream forth from the Precious Blood of Christ flowing through that Mystical Body.

Without baptism, we are not permitted to receive any of the other sacraments.  First of all, the original sin we would still harbor within us would act as an obstacle to the very graces we’re trying to receive.  We must cleanse the soul from original sin, and only then is the way open to all the other, infinite graces of which we are invited to partake.

For the same reason, as we get older and are beset with temptations, the need for sacramental absolution takes on a greater role in our lives.  Original sin is replaced with actual sins that we ourselves commit, and it is only through the words of sacramental absolution that we can be assured that our sins are forgiven and we are able to continue receiving the graces of the other sacraments.

The sacrament of Confirmation strengthens us in our resolve to remain temples of the Holy Ghost.  Holy Communion becomes our primary source of sanctifying grace as we receive, as often as we can, the Body and Blood of Christ, the very source of grace himself.  Without this Communion, we will literally starve to death in the spiritual sense of those words.  Without the grace that comes from Communion we will, as our Lord himself tells us, “have no life” in us.

The special graces of Matrimony and Holy Orders ensure the continuation of Christ’s Mystical Body and the priests to administer the sacraments to them.  And as we transition from this life to the next, it is the sacrament of Extreme Unction which provides the grace for us to complete our journey.

So make use of these essential gifts of God, the seven sacraments.  They are there for the taking, they cost nothing, they provide everything we need for salvation. By accepting and receiving these gifts, we show our gratitude to our loving Father, from whose bounty the Church and each of us, her members, are supplied with all we need to save our souls.

STICKS AND STONES

A SERMON FOR THE 5TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

How many times do we look around us and come to the conclusion that we’re surrounded by idiots.  We try so hard to make things work, to get things done right, and yet, along the way, someone always seems to pop up and throw a monkey wrench into everything we’re doing.  Our reaction is usually not too pleasant.

If that’s the case, today’s Gospel should give us pause.  “Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall in danger of the judgment…. Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council… whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”  Here are three stern warnings from Christ himself to be very careful when we’re looking around at those “idiots” that surround us, or indeed, tossing any pejorative names at our fellow-man.  Nor should we fondly imagine that such names are limited to Raca and Thou fool.  When’s the last time you said that to your husband?  What the English translators of the Bible used to call each other back in the 1500s are not the same words that come spewing from our lips in 2019.  Our words of choice today are more likely to be idiot or moron or worse.  I tried to look up examples of more nasty names that convey the same sort of unkindness and spite, but the politically correct folks at Microsoft have put some kind of disabling mechanism on their thesaurus for words like these.  Maybe they’re behaving more like Christians than they realize.

The point is, though, that according to our Lord, we are actually placing ourselves in danger when for no good reason, no just cause, we call our neighbor unpleasant names, or even just get mad.  This danger increases according to the level of viciousness that motivates us. Thus, if we’re just mildly angry at someone, if we shake our fist at another driver who cuts us off on the interstate for instance, we’re probably not in danger of the worst punishment, which, as our Lord reminds us, is that of “hell fire”.  Such anger, if it arises out of mere frustration or from being in a bad mood—even if it’s for no good reason, no just cause—is usually a venial sin. We should avoid it, certainly, but we won’t go to hell for it unless we take it a step further.

That second step comes when we include contempt for the poor recipient of our unjust anger.  When, for example, we call him or her “Raca” or some modern equivalent.  The word Raca,by the way, means vain, empty or worthless. It’s derived from a word meaning “to spit”.  Not very nice. It’s used to express contempt for the person to whom we’re speaking.  It’s worse than just being angry at them, but most of the time it still doesn’t quite rise to the level of mortal sin.  We’re still not in danger of hell fire.  

That danger arises when we allow our anger to boil over into the third stage. This is when our name-calling or angry words rise to a level beyond contempt to actual hatred, where we wish to harm our neighbor, or for harm to befall him.  The harm could be physical, as for example when we tell someone to “drop dead” and mean it.  Or it could be spiritual as in “Go to hell.”  Any time we get so angry with our neighbor that it rises to this level of hatred, or we resort to out-of-control violence to express our anger, we are committing a mortal sin.    

Just a word in passing on bad language in general.  There’s no combination of letters or syllables in the English language, or any other language, that produces a word that is intrinsically evil.  Sure, there are unpleasant, coarse and vulgar words that do not become a gentleman or a lady of honour.  But these naughty words are not evil in themselves, they merely lower the tone of conversation and make the person using them sound like an uncouth brute. They certainly can be sinful depending on their context, for example by scandalizing children, or by deliberately offending decent people who prefer to maintain a higher sense of dignity and self-esteem.  So as Catholics, let’s try and avoid!

One such word, which can no longer be used in normal society without giving offence, is what is now referred to as the N-word.   There was a time when the word may have been acceptable in some quarters, but no longer.  We do often hear African-Americans calling each other by this name, and in their case, obviously, there is no hatred implied by their use of the word.  While we may question the prudence of calling each other this, it’s not really any different than a friend calling another friend a moron for acting stupid.  The sin in using the N-word comes when it is used as a tool of racism to express hatred for our neighbor who happens to have been born with a different skin color.  That’s not a just cause.  If that’s how we feel, and our contempt reaches the level of hatred, such anger is seriously offensive, not only to the recipient of our hatred, but to God also. 

I remember one example I heard about in a documentary about the Tuskegee Airmen, a squadron of black fighter pilots during World War II who were noted for their bravery and skill in warding off enemy planes from allied bombers.  When these brave volunteers were being transported by train across the United States to their ports of departure, the railroad had to put special curtains over the windows of their trains.  They learned very quickly that if they didn’t, whenever the trains stopped at a station, the residents would pelt the train windows with stones as soon as they saw a black person “presuming” to put on an American military uniform.  Here is true racism, racism that rises to the category of bigotry and mortal sin.  If this is how we think and behave, we truly are in danger of hell fire.

Unfortunately, and in spite of the huge strides forward made in race relations in this country, a certain element today has discovered another word, even more hate-filled than the N-word.  Let’s call it the R-word.  In fact, let’s just say it.  The word is “Racist.”  I’ve just given you a clear example of true racism.  But today, more and more innocent people are being accused of racism by the political left, even though there isn’t a racist bone in their body. I’m not interested here in why the left use this tactic.  It’s obviously to their political advantage somehow, in keeping the African-American voting block solidly Democrat.  What’s important for us, here today, to keep in mind, is that this use of the word “Racist”, when it’s used like this with no just cause, and with the vitriolic hatred that we so often see in the likes of Antifa and their ilk on the far-left, is just as bad as the N-word.  In fact, it may even be worse, because it’s based on an accusation that is false.  It’s being used to destroy people’s relationships, their careers, their lives.  If you are called a racist, a Nazi, or a white supremacist, you will find that it’s a name that sticks, and you’ll have a very hard time trying to prove that it isn’t true.  It’s a very clever diversion by God’s enemies to falsely accuse others of the very hatred they themselves are spewing forth by their very accusations.  Again, God is offended, and you can be sure he will be the ultimate judge of who is truly bigoted and who isn’t.

Our first lesson this morning is that we must never deliberately use words that convey the wrong kind of anger, in other words that display our contempt or hatred for someone.  Our second lesson is that we must also learn how to react properly when others use such words against us.  If you do find yourself a victim of such angry taunts, don’t let them disturb your inner peace.  Certainly, don’t ever return evil for evil, “railing for railing”, as St. Peter warns us in this morning’s Epistle.  Two wrongs don’t make a right.  More hatred is never the correct response for hatred aimed at us.  If we return angry words for angry words, we are never going to de-escalate the situation effectively, which should always be our aim. 

We’ve used racism as just one example this morning, but really it could be anything.  There is no limit to the ways in which angry words can be used to hurt others.  St. Peter, in his epistle today, tells us this: “If ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify Christ the Lord in your hearts.” And how do we sanctify Christ in our hearts?  By keeping his words firmly rooted in our own hearts, those powerful words of the Beatitudes he delivered during the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.”  

To sum up, our anger should never be a gut reaction.  We should give some consideration as to whether any anger is justified at all, and if so, the manner in which it should be expressed.  If we feel the more prudent course is to display anger, then let’s make sure we are on the side of the “Blessed”, the ones who are reviled and persecuted—never one of the revilers and persecutors.  Let the words of the 4^th Psalm be our guide: “Be angry, and sin not!”

THOU, WHOSE ALMIGHTY WORD

A HYMN FOR THE 5TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By John Marriott, 1813 

1 Thou, whose almighty word
chaos and darkness heard,
and took their flight;
hear us, we humbly pray,
and where the gospel-day
sheds not its glorious ray,
let there be light.

2 Thou, who didst come to bring
on thy redeeming wing
healing and sight,
health to the sick in mind,
sight to the inly blind,
O now to all mankind
let there be light.

3 Spirit of truth and love,
life-giving, holy Dove,
speed forth thy flight;
move on the water's face,
bearing the lamp of grace,
and in earth's darkest place
let there be light.

4 Holy and blessèd Three,
glorious Trinity,
Wisdom, Love, Might;
boundless as ocean's tide
rolling in fullest pride,
through the earth far and wide
let there be light.

REMEDIES FOR ANGER

A REFLECTION FOR THE 5TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Most of us don’t need anger management class. But we do need to manage our anger. Here are some tips from the Mayo Clinic, adapted to provide us with a more spiritual approach to our anger “issues”…

Think before you speak.  In the heat of the moment it’s easy to say something you’ll later regret.  Collect your thoughts and remind yourself of the virtue of patience.  Repeat the prayer Dona nobis pacem!

Don’t express your anger until you’re calm.  If you’re thinking clearly, it will be easier to love your neighbor as yourself by expressing your anger in ways that are less confrontational and more effective. Explain calmly and rationally why you’re angry.

Get some exercise.  Physical activity prevents stress from building up in the first place.  Catholic schools have always stressed that a healthy mind co-exists with a healthy body.  Fight gluttony and sloth especially.

Take a timeout.  When the day is becoming too stressful, give yourself a break. Use it to relax and prevent your nerves from tightening up.  Say a Rosary or some other prayers, do some spiritual reading.

Identify possible solutions.  Instead of focusing on what made you mad, work on resolving the issue at hand.  Pray that God turn your anger into something more productive.

Don’t hold a grudge.  Remember the words of the Our Father, and forgive those who trespass against you.

Use humour to release tension. De-escalate the situation by lightening it up.  People can’t laugh and be angry at the same time.  Seek out examples in the lives of the saints.

Know when to seek help.  Your anger is just one more temptation in life, and, as in any other test, our Blessed Mother and the saints are ready to intercede for us.  Just ask.

IT'S ALL WORTH IT IN THE END

A SERMON FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Did you ever wonder sometimes if it’s all really worth it?  We trudge our way through life, our dull routines rarely ever change.  In fact, when the daily routine does change, it’s usually not because something good has happened to interrupt it.  Sure, now and again, something nice and unexpected pops up to give us a moment or two of happiness.  But more often, it’s not so nice.  It might not be really serious, just bad enough to make life just that little bit more unpleasant.  You might have a nasty bout of allergies, or maybe your car breaks down on your way home from work.  These things are sent to try us, certainly, and very often we react to such inconveniences and annoyances with unnecessary anger or depression.  It’s important, though, to put these things in perspective, because, let’s face it, there are far worse things lurking round every corner of our life, which, if they were to take place, would be far, far worse than a stuffy sinus or a broken carburetor.

But today’s lesson is not to remind ourselves how bad life can be.  On the contrary, it’s a reminder that, no matter how bad, no matter how seemingly intolerable life may become, it’s all worth it in the end.  It’s a reminder, in other words, about the importance of maintaining the virtue of hope.

We place our hope in God.  We trust in him, that if we get through this vale of tears in one piece, that is, if we die in the state of grace, God will judge us worthy of entering his kingdom and being happy forever.  If we don’t have hope, then the ensuing vacuum in our psyche will be that tool of Satan known as despair.  Despair is when we lose all hope, when things seem so bad to us that we surrender to the thought that life just isn’t worth living any longer.  When it gets to that point, we find ourselves in a state of depression, we lose our interest in life, we don’t even want to get out of bed in the morning.  Our thinking becomes clouded and we often turn to chemical means, drugs and alcohol, just to get us through the day.  Or we try to distract ourselves by resorting to a life of meaningless pleasure and material possessions.  We see this all the time in the lives of “celebrities”, Hollywood actors, the rich and famous, who more and more these days seem to be filled with nothing but anger, hatred, upside-down thinking about morality and the common sense truths of this world.  They’re actually a very depressed bunch of lost souls, desperately trying to make sense of a life in which they have failed to seek God.  Sometimes, this kind of depressed state even leads to the ultimate act of despair which is suicide.  If life isn’t worth living any more, then why bother allowing it to continue? Let’s put an end to our suffering, they fondly imagine, sadly oblivious or indifferent to their eternity, or the judgment from God they should expect when they arrive there.

This is the opposite of the virtue of hope.  I mention it first because it’s easier to understand what hope is when you first see what the lack of hope is.  Despair, depression, unhappiness—these are utterly opposed to the idea of a loving God; to a God, who created us so that we can be happy with him forever in heaven; to a God who loves us so much he was prepared to become man and die for us.  This God does not want us to despair.   He has given us everything to hope for—not only the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but unlike the sadistic Irish leprechaun, he’s also given us the actual means of finding the end of the rainbow.  Or to use a different metaphor, he may have placed us in a tunnel, yes, but God IS the light at the end of the tunnel.  That tunnel, our path through life, is sometimes darker, sometimes a little brighter, depending on what’s going on in our life at the time.  We have our joys as well as our sorrows, after all, and that’s all part of God’s mercy as he allows us to suffer only to the extent he knows us to be capable.  But the light at the end of the tunnel is so very bright that it is only with the eyes of the beatific vision that we may safely behold it.  Meanwhile, we trudge along our way, bearing our crosses on our shoulders. Sometimes, they seem too heavy to carry, but, even then, we must not despair, rather “keeping our eyes on the prize,” on the end of the tunnel which gets nearer and nearer as we walk on through life. Instead of giving in to our cross, we must pray to him who showed us how to carry it, asking him either to make the burden lighter, or make us stronger so that we canbear it.

In today’s Gospel, we find St. Peter returning from a night of fishing.  He was a fisherman by trade, and the catch he brought in represented his livelihood, his means of putting food on the table and paying for life’s necessities.  On this particular morning, he was downcast. All night he had toiled and caught nothing.  Our Lord simply tells him, “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets.”  St. Peter’s answer to this was not so much an objection as an expression of frustration, perhaps even the onset of depression: “Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing.”  But St. Peter was a man of fortitude, and without further argument, he continued, “nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net.”  He put his hope, his trust, firmly, completely, and without question, in this man before him, as we must put our own trust in that man who is God.  As we see, the results of his perseverance were astounding—so many fish that their nets broke.

Hope in God is the difference between a life worth living and one that has lost all meaning.  I sometimes try to imagine why an atheist bothers to get out of bed in the morning.  Why should he?  What’s the point?  But for us, every new morning is an opportunity, the beginning of a new day in which we are called to love God in everything we do.  As St. Therese, the Little Flower, teaches us, every single act we perform during the course of the day can be an act of love for God, if only we perform it with the right disposition.  Hope gives us the incentive to have that disposition.  Hope keeps us centered on the very meaning of life, which must be to love God in everything we do.  This love is the reason we were given life by God, and it’s the true end of our hope. We do not hope for heaven because it sounds quite a lot nicer than hell.  We’re not picking where we’re going on vacation here—"let’s go to Hawaii, it sounds better than Detroit”.  It isn’t, or at least it shouldn’t be, a question of hoping to go to heaven because it would be better for us.  We hope for heaven because thereis the object of our love, thereis the One with whom we wish to spend our eternity.  We hope for heaven because we hope for God.  

This hope fulfills the words of today’s Epistle, which reminds us that God has subjected us to the virtue of “hope” because it delivers us “from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”  This is our life today then, and when we see it in this light, it’s really not so bad as we thought, is it?  With all its trials and misfortunes, we have been delivered from all that to become the children of God.  Our life is transformed into a wonderful world filled with expectation and hope for what will be ours if we live it as we should.  So this morning, let’s “launch out into the deep” once more.  Let’s cast down our nets, reaching for our crosses. Let these crosses be our “burdens”, because they are the gifts of God and give us hope for a brighter future in the next life.  Let’s carry these “burdens” of God with joy, because it is his will that we should: “Come unto me,” he says, “all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Our crosses may seem very heavy, so heavy in fact, that our nets break.  But with our hope in God pushing us along, we WILL get to the shore of heaven and enjoy the rewards of our labor. 

I HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY

A HYMN FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By Horatius Bonar, 1846

1	I heard the voice of Jesus say,   “Come unto Me, and rest; Lay down, thou weary one, lay down   Thy head upon My breast.” I came to Jesus as I was,   Weary, and worn, and sad; I found in Him a resting-place,   And He has made me glad.
2	I heard the voice of Jesus say,   “Behold, I freely give The living water: thirsty one,   Stoop down, and drink, and live.” I came to Jesus, and I drank   Of that life-giving stream; My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,   And now I live in Him.
3	I heard the voice of Jesus say,   “I am this dark world’s Light; Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise,   And all thy day be bright.” I looked to Jesus, and I found   In Him my Star, my Sun; And in that Light of life I’ll walk   Till trav’lling days are done.

ORTHODOX AND CATHOLIC

A REFLECTION FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Today we commemorate the feast of the two bishop brothers who brought the faith to Eastern Europe and Russia.  In other words to the lands that are now thought of as no longer belonging to the Catholic Church, but to the schismatic Orthodox.  Today, when we tend to view even the once solidly Catholic Church of Rome as being schismatic, a great cloud of obscurity has arisen in the minds of many, even traditional Catholics, who wonder who is really “of God” and who isn’t.  Many Catholics have even taken refuge in the rites of the East, and we ask ourselves, are they right to do so, or have they themselves fallen into schism?

It’s a complex situation, but it deserves to be explained briefly on this feast of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, so that we can understand a little better how to navigate our way through these apparent contradictions. Historically, when Christ founded the Church on St. Peter, it was just one Church, united in the faith.  As it spread farther and farther across the world, there arose variations in the form of worship each far-off land chose to re-enact the Holy Sacrifice.  Rome had its Latin rite, and yet, there were also a variety of eastern rites, equally valid, equally venerable, and equally pleasing to God.

The forms of worship may have varied, but for the first thousand years, the faith remained the same across the globe.  It was truly “catholic”—universal, believed by all true believers—“orthodox.”  But then came the Great Schism of 1054, separating the Roman Church from the Eastern Orthodox churches.  Each region of the East now had its own autonomous (self-governing) orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, and so on, all of which went their own way in matters of faith and worship.  They still exist today, and are regarded by Catholics as schismatic.  We may NOT participate in their services or sacraments, because these are not pleasing to God.  They are outside the true Church, where, as we know, there is no salvation. An exception may be made if we are in danger of death and cannot get to a Catholic priest for the Last Rites—their sacraments are at least valid, and God permits us to take advantage of them if our souls are at stake.

Making the situation more complicated, a great number of people in the east opted many years later to return to the fold of St. Peter. And so communities developed in these countries who were now loyal to Rome.  As they rejoined the true Church, they were allowed to keep their liturgical rites and practices and laws, and are known today as “Eastern Rite Catholics” or “Uniates.”  Their sacraments are not only valid, but, no longer outside the Church, are also pleasing to God.  On the surface, they are almost indistinguishable from the schismatic Orthodox, but because of their allegiance to Rome, we are permitted to receive sacraments from them, and they are held by the Church in the same esteem as the Latin Rite Church. Caution, though!  You mustmake the distinction between Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholic.  See the note on the following page.