A SERMON FOR THE 18th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Last week, if you remember, was Rosary
Sunday. We noted at the time that the
Rosary is the story of our Redemption, and that it is a story that began before
the beginning of time when God, in his eternal and all-knowing goodness and
love, knew that he would create man with free will and that he would redeem man
from all his sins.
We looked at this eternal story
from the point of view of the angels, who share the dedication of the month of
October with Our Lady’s most holy Rosary.
We saw how the angels reacted to God’s declaration to them that man
would be his supreme creation, and that his Son would even become a man in
order to redeem him. We saw how most of
the angels glorified God and accepted their position as serving God and
man. And we saw how the greatest angel
of them all, Lucifer, refused this perceived affront to his dignity as an
angel, and rebelled against God. We saw
how the ensuing warfare that began that day in heaven, has continued to this
day, and will go on until heaven and earth shall pass away.
There are two great battle
grounds in this war between God and his rebellious angels. The first of these two battles started out in
a little town called Nazareth, when one of God’s loyal archangels, Gabriel,
appeared to the young woman Mary, a virgin who had been chosen by God from all
eternity to be his Mother. The Angel of
the Lord declared unto Mary, and she conceived by the Holy Ghost. This opening of our thrice-daily Angelus
prayer is also the subject of the First Mystery of the Rosary, "The Angel
of the Lord declard unto Mary, and she conceived by the Holy Ghost." The Rosary begins with an angel, and it is
with Gabriel’s words that we begin every single “Hail Mary”. “Hail Mary, full
of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women.”
Right from the start, angels are
instrumental in our Redemption, and God uses them time after time as his
go-betweens between God and man. When
St. Joseph found out that his betrothed was with child, he did not want to
expose her publicly as he was a just man, but wanted to put her away privately.
God sends an Angel to St. Joseph as he
slept, allaying his fears and telling him that the child who was conceived in
Mary was of the Holy Ghost. The Breviary
tells us that one of the reasons why it was important for Our Lady to be
betrothed to St. Joseph was so that Satan would not know that this was the
virgin birth prophesied by Isaiah for the coming of the Messiah, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive..." Satan was still unaware of the enormity of
the events taking place before him.
When the time comes for Our Lady
to give birth to the Son of God, the great joy of the occasion warrants the
sending of a “multitude of the heavenly
host” on that first Christmas night.
They appeared to the shepherds as they watched their flocks by night,
and sang the praises of God: “Gloria in
excelsis Deo”—Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of
good will." This was the expression
of the unparalleled joy of the angels, rejoicing that God’s holy plan of
redemption had been put into motion with the birth of this Son of God and Son
of Mary in Bethlehem. The angels proclaimed
to the shepherds that here was the “peace of God” restored to men—not all men,
let it be noted, but at least to “men of good will.” If we are of good will today, men of God's will and not our own, if we are
loyal followers of Christ and his commandments, if we are loyal children of the
One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, then we too will have this inner
peace. Despite the turbulence of this
world and the continuing war between God and his angelic and human rebels, we will
have the inner peace of knowing that our souls can now be saved for an eternity
of happiness with God.
The angels continue their
protection of the newborn King, appearing to the three wise men, and warning
them not to go back to Herod after they present their gifts to the Christ
child. Another angel appears to St.
Joseph warning him to flee to Egypt with his family, and later appears to him
again to let him know it's safe to return.
These angels of the joyful
mysteries play a pivotal role as the messengers of God. In the sorrowful mysteries they are present
again, but now in a more hidden way. The
sorrowful mysteries, alas, seem to be more the domain of the rebellious angels,
as they seek to triumph over the God-Man and thwart his plan of Redemption by
having him put to death on the Cross.
The good angels have no messages of joy to deliver at this time, and
their role is simply to comfort Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane, and to
mourn his death on Calvary. Our Lord
reminds his Apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane that he could call upon his
Father to send twelve legions of Angels to protect him, and yet he did not do
so. The battle would be won in a
different way, and the Redemption would be fulfilled in a way undreamt of even
by angels and prophets. Satan,
certainly, hadn't imagined the outcome of what he thought would be his triumph.
For three dreadful days the
sorrowful mysteries seem to be the domain of the legions of Satan. His hour has finally come, and he can taste
his triumph. He fully believes he will
now win a great victory by destroying this God-Man who had created him with
such great beauty, but who had decided to give dominion to a mere mortal woman
instead of to him. The leader of the
fallen angels makes himself busy, doing what he does best by tempting man to
move his plan forward. He uses greed to
tempt Judas, he uses hypocrisy to tempt the Sanhedrin, he uses fear and
political ambition to tempt Pontius Pilate, and he uses hatred and mob violence
to stir up the Jewish populace. Greed,
hypocrisy, fear and hatred—these are the tools of the devil. He is well acquainted with the vices of each
character in this spectacle, having had thousands of years of practice beguiling
these idiot mortals into doing his will.
In the Garden of Eden, he had first whispered his evil into the ears of
those willing to listen, and now again he seems to score one easy victory after
another. These mortals are no match for
his angelic cleverness. And so the Son
of God is scourged, spat upon, mocked, crowned with thorns, and nailed to a
cross. This was indeed the Devil’s hour.
Of course, what Satan had still
not grasped was that although he could easily manipulate the fallen nature of
man to do his bidding, he was still no match for the power and providence of
God. God simply used Satan with all his wicked devices, letting him do what he does
best in order to achieve not his plan
but God’s plan. And in the glorious mysteries of the Rosary
we see the fulfillment of that plan with the Resurrection. Now again the joyful angels reappear, first
at the empty tomb to announce to the holy women that, "He is risen as he promised," then
standing by at the Ascension of Our Lord, to prophesy of the Second Coming: “Ye men
of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken
up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go
into heaven.” Finally, they escort
Our Lady as she is assumed body and soul into heaven, and joyfully celebrate
her coronation as Queen of all Angels, Queen of Heaven and Earth.
I wish I could tell you that
there the story ended. However, you and
I are still fighting the battle for our own personal salvation. It is essentially part of the same war waged
in heaven by St. Michael against Satan to defend the honour of Our Blessed
Lady, the same war waged by Christ and his Blessed Mother in the events of the
Rosary. It is for this reason that we
pray to both Our Lady and St. Michael
every day in the Leonine Prayers after Mass.
We are no match for the Devil by ourselves. We need the help of our blessed Mother, St.
Michael and all the angelic forces to help us in our combat.
We recently celebrated the feast
of St. Michael, and also that of all our Guardian Angels, and I hope we all
used the occasion to pray for their help and protection. But did we notice that the very day after the
feast of these Guardian Angels, last Tuesday, we celebrated another feast not
unlike that of an angel. This feast day
even had the same Gospel as the feast of the Guardian Angels. It was the feast of St. Theresa of the Child
Jesus, someone so angelic in her character and behaviour, even in her very
nature, that she seemed to resemble one of the heavenly host.
And the message of the Gospel
that was read on both days? “Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as
this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” To be great in the kingdom of heaven, this
was what Lucifer sought and failed to find.
He failed because that greatness comes from humility and not pride. The virtue of humility is the very antithesis
to the pride of Satan, and is the key to our salvation. Look therefore to the humility of the unseen
angels who loved God and agreed to serve Man.
Take your inspiration from those like St. Theresa who resembled the
Angels in her great humility. It is a
virtue sadly lacking in the characters of Judas, Annas and Caiaphas, Pontius
Pilate, and the other instruments of Satan who dared raise their hands against
God and his Anointed. The good angels
and saints like St. Theresa humbly accepted the will of God, and it is only
through true humility like theirs that we can ever hope to achieve our final
victory in heaven. Never in pride—Satan
tried that and failed.
This coming Friday, the 13th of
October, marks the end of the 100th anniversary of the apparitions
of our Lady of Fatima. We should not
approach this solemn anniversary with superstition, expecting this or that
phenomenon or miracle to take place. Our
attitude should rather be one of humility, acknowledging our own faults before
God, our own unworthiness to receive the gifts he has given us. Instead of following the pride of Lucifer by
tempting God, demanding signs and miracles, we must imitate the good angels in
their humble acceptance of God's plan as he
wills it to unfold. We must imitate the humility
of our Blessed Mother, the lowliness of God's handmaid, whom he hath regarded
and magnified, that all generations should call her blessed. We must be equally ready to take our own
place in God's plan, by obeying her wishes at Fatima that we pray the Rosary frequently
and devoutly.
That Holy Rosary is the key to the
story of the Redemption in general, and our own redemption in particular. Its entire message is based on the vast chasm
between the pride of Lucifer and the humility of our Blessed Mother. Our salvation depends on choosing between
them, a choice we make every time we pray the Rosary and listen to the story it
tells. It's the story of a God who hath
put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. It is a story told by an angel.
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