WHAT TO WEAR AT MASS

A SERMON FOR THE 19th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

We will soon be coming to the end of this long season of Trinitytide, which extends from Trinity Sunday in May until Advent in December.  Very often during Trinitytide, the Sunday Gospel recounts a story told by our Lord, in which he seeks to teach a lesson to the simple folk who followed him.  Today, we sophisticated folk of the 21^stcentury hear the same stories, and I hope that with all our modern education, our technology, and our highly developed powers of comprehension, we are able to recognize more easily the meaning of these parables of our Lord, and come away with a more profound understanding of what he was trying to teach.

However…  Let’s be realistic and recognize rather that with all our modern intelligence, both natural and artificial, we are actually less likely to realize the significance of these parables.  Why? Mostly, I think, because with all the distractions of our modern life, we just can’t be bothered to try.  We’re more interested in this afternoon’s football game or what we’re going to have for dinner to have to start worrying about what someone said two thousand years ago.

But I think that if our Lord meant to give us a lesson, we belong taking the time to find out what that lesson is.  After all, it’s not obvious what he’s getting at, when he tells the story of the great lord who invited so many to his wedding feast, but in the end had to force people to come.  And the ones who are finally dragged in from the highways and byways, what about that poor guest who gets kicked out because he isn’t dressed properly?  I mean really!—first somebody grabs him off the road where he was probably on his way to work, in his work clothes, then they drag him off to some wedding of someone he doesn’t know, only to suffer the indignity of being thrown out because he isn’t in a tuxedo?  Doesn’t seem quite fair does it?

Here’s one interpretation of our Lord’s parable.  It is “an” interpretation, not necessarily “the” interpretation.  The point of a parable is that each of us can apply the lessons hidden within its words to our own lives, and find a meaning that applies specifically to ourselves. So my interpretation is really only one of many, but I hope it will at least serve to kick your own minds into gear, as it were, and start you thinking.

First, the marriage feast.  Marriage, as we all know, is the union between a man and a woman.  This union is traditionally recognized as symbolizing the union between Christ and his Church.  The Church is often referred to as the Bride of Christ, and we, who are members of that Church, are of course the offspring of that union, or in other words the Children of God.  The great lord in the story, of course, represents God, who calls people to the wedding feast between Christ and his Church.  That wedding “feast” is the Mass.

The sacramental fulfillment of the Mass occurs at our communion with God, in our reception of his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist. This “communion” between God and his children, in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, is our own individual participation in that same union between Christ and his Church.  The Mass is, in other words, that wedding feast to which all are invited, but which, alas, so many do not attend.

Is it any wonder the enemies of the Church are so filled with hatred for the Mass?  Deep down, they recognize it as the symbol of God’s union with his (Catholic) Church, and as the enemies of that Church, they cannot abide it, nor allow it to abide. One of the few things that unite all the various Protestant sects is their denial of the Mass.  The first thing most of the reformers did was to abolish it. These are the men whom the great Lord invites to his wedding feast, but who come up with every excuse imaginable why they won’t attend.  In refusing the Mass, however, they insult the great Lord who invited them, the Lord God himself, in fact, who went so far as allowing his only-begotten Son to be tortured and put to death so that we may have this opportunity of uniting with him in Holy Communion.  Alas, so many who are called, end up not being chosen.

If there’s one lesson we should learn from history, it is that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.  The modernists of Vatican II did not learn from the Protestant revolution and the abolition of the Mass.  They repeated the same mistake, even inviting those Protestants to help them write their new Mass.  They substantially altered the whole meaning of the Mass, eliminating the sacrificial aspect altogether, and watering down the sacramental meaning to the point where that most sacred act of union between God and man is now performed without any solemnity whatever.  No longer do people kneel to receive their God.  They just take it in their hands from some “Eucharistic minister” in jeans and t-shirt, as though they were at they were at the local fast-food drive-thru being handed a bag of chicken mcnuggets.

And what about that guest who gets thrown out for not being dressed properly for the wedding feast?  Do I refer again to those who would come to church in jeans and t-shirt?  No.  We spoke last week about hemlines and necklines and the danger of falling into a pharisaical and hypocritical over-sensitivity to these things.  In passing, I would say this much, that we should wear our Sunday best when we come to Mass on Sunday, and not insult our Lord by wearing our grubbies.  The nuns in England used to compare it with being invited to afternoon tea by The Queen, “you wouldn’t wear jeans and t-shirt to have tea with The Queen, would you?” But what if you were on the night shift at the factory on Saturday night, and the only way you can make it to Mass is on the way home, wearing your overalls, or your scrubs if you’re a nurse, or your uniform if you’re a police officer.  This idea of not being dressed right for the wedding feast is obviously not meant to be taken literally as the clothes we wear.  It wasn’t the fault of that poor guest, grabbed from the hedgerows, that he wasn’t in morning dress and a top hat.

No, that’s not it at all.  Our Lord is referring to our interior clothes, the ones in which our soul is wrapped. Here we are this morning, at the wedding feast.  We were invited, and we showed up.  So far, so good.  But what clothes are we wearing on our soul?  What is preoccupying our soul and mind as we sit here, attending our weekly wedding feast.  I guarantee you that if it’s this afternoon’s football game, or our shopping list, or our social engagements, or in fact anythingother than the awesome recognition that here we are, in the presence of God, preparing to receive him in Holy Communion, consummating that union between God and his Church—if it’s anything but holy thoughts of the real reason we are present at God’s wedding feast, then regrettably, we really don’t belong here, and are worthy only to be thrown out.

Of course, no one here is God, and no one is going to know your state of mind and soul except yourself.  So don’t worry, no one is going to throw you out.  But please, let each of us in his own way, and to the extent necessary, regret inwardly for our bad choice of spiritual dress, and confess to our great Lord in heaven that we are sorry.  Sorry for our distractions, especially the deliberate ones, sorry for our attachments to the material world and its allurements, sorry for our poor, lukewarm version of what should be love for God.  As we approach the communion rail, let’s wake up to what we’re saying: Domine, non sum dignus, “O Lord, I am not worthy.”  It’s our way of changing clothes, and wrapping our soul in that love of God, This way, not only do we show our appreciation that we are called, but we actually make that final necessary step towards being chosen.

ANGEL VOICES EVER SINGING

A HYMN FOR THE 19th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By Francis Pott, 1861 

1 Angel voices ever singing
round Thy throne of light,
angel harps, forever ringing,
rest not day nor night;
thousands only live to bless Thee
and confess thee Lord of might.

2 Thou who art beyond the farthest
mortal eye can scan,
can it be that Thou regardest
songs of sinful man?
Can we feel that Thou art near us
and wilt hear us? Yea, we can.

3 Yea, we know Thy love rejoices
o'er each work of Thine;
Thou didst ears and hands and voices
for Thy praise combine;
craftsman's art and music's measure
for Thy pleasure all combine.

4 Here, great God, today we offer
of Thine own to Thee;
and for Thine acceptance proffer,
all unworthily,
hearts and minds and hands and voices
in our choicest melody.

5 Honor, glory, might, and merit
Thine shall ever be,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
blessed Trinity:
of the best that Thou hast given
earth and heaven render Thee.

PROXIMITY TO GOD

A MESSAGE FOR THE MONTH OF OCTOBER

The hierarchy of creation depends on the proximity of the creature to God.  In this complex structure that is the universe, there are many kinds of creature, and we rank them according to that intimacy which they share with their divine Creator.  

Thus the lowest level of creature is the mineral world, those inanimate objects which compose the planet on which we walk, and the other astral bodies in our heavens. Mountains, oceans, stars—down to the simple grains of sand on a beach.  The next rank up from these inaminate creatures is the lowest form of animate life, the plant world.  Fruits, vegetables, trees, all those beings who possess the power of reproduction but not of locomotion.  Animal life occupies the next highest rank—living, breathing, moving beings who have material bodies only, but no immortal soul.  Highest of the animals is man, who actually occupies a rank on his own, by virtue of his ability to reason, and of course his immortal soul.

The Angels occupy the highest rank among God’s creatures.  Blessed with an angelic nature that entertains none of the vicissitudes of man, angels are able to make a single and permanent decision—to give priority to God, or to themselves.  Thus, the angels were divided sometime in prehistory into two camps, those led by St. Michael the Archangel, who would serve God, and the cohorts of Lucifer, who would have the affrontery to place themselves on the level of God.

One of the roles of the Angels is to be messengers between God and man.  We see this at the Annunciation for example, when St. Gabriel the Archangel appeared to the Blessed Virgin Mary to announce to her that she had been chosen as the Mother of the Saviour.  The Angels, by their ranking as the highest of the creatures, and by this role of messenger, stand between God and man.  The good angels stand between God and man, and try to help man reach up to God.  The fallen angels, known of course as demons, stand between God and man as a barrier, attempting throughout our lives to keep us apart from God, and to divide man from his brother.

Yesterday, we celebrated St. Michael, who with his flaming sword, is our great protector against the forces of darkness.  Tuesday is the feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, assigned to each of us to protect our individual souls from the attacks of the devil.  We owe so much to St. Michael and our Guardian Angels, and yet are barely aware of their presence and influence.  The Month of October gives us the annual opportunity to renew our devotion to the angels, as well of course as our devotion to the Highest Ranking Creature of all, the Queen of the Angels, our Blessed Lady, whose proximity to God is matchless among the heavenly host.  October begins tomorrow, and we should make our resolutions today to redouble our prayers to our blessed Mother, St. Michael and our Guardian Angels, as they, more so than any other creatures, are our loyal and loving guides through this world and into the next, raising our unworthy souls to the closest possible proximity to God of which we’re capable.

FINDING FAULT IN OUR NEIGHBOR

A SERMON FOR THE 18th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Have you ever noticed that whenever Our Lord does something good, there’s always someone in the background ready to tear him down? If he heals a sick person, suddenly a Pharisee will appear to point out that it’s the Sabbath.  Or take today, when he shows that he has power to forgive sins by healing a man with the palsy.  Do the scribes acknowledge this power to forgive?  Do they even give him credit for ending the suffering of another human being?  No, they can find nothing better to do than murmur amongst themselves that “he blasphemeth.”

How many times do we act like these wicked scribes? How many times do we see nothing but the bad in other people?  Are we so clean and free from sin ourselves, are we so perfect, that when someone is trying their best to do good, all we can do is point out whatever we can find to complain about them?  Today’s Gospel story couldn’t come at a more opportune time.  You don’t have to go any further than your TV set to find the hypocrisy of the Pharisees alive and well, thriving amongst the politicians of Washington. I don’t like to be political from the pulpit, but when I’m looking for bad examples to warn you against, our politicians do seem to provide an endless source.  So my apologies for the politics, but let’s remember that by observing the bad example of others we are better equipped to avoid repeating their sins.

I’m referring to the controversy now raging in Washington regarding the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanagh to a seat on the Supreme Court. When you look back at previous years, we see overwhelming bi-partisan Senate majorities approving the judges nominated by either party.  The conservative Antonin Scalia, for example, was approved 98-0, while the liberal Ruth Bader-Ginsburg was confirmed by a 96-3 vote.  Voting for Supreme Court Justices is supposed to be based on their abilities and judicial record, but alas, it has now been transformed into yet another mini civil war between Republicans and Democrats.  The latest developments in this war have reached a new low recently, and this is where the supreme hypocrisy of one party has become one and united with that of the Pharisees themselves.  For some reason, just one single unsubstantiated accusation of an indiscretion allegedly committed when Judge Kavanagh was a high school student under the influence of alcohol is being used to assert that the man is therefore ineligible to serve on the Supreme Court.  Note too, that the rush to judgment and condemnation from the Democrats comes even prior to any evidence, let alone proof, of Kavanagh’s guilt.  But it’s all pure hypocrisy.  How do we know?  Because these same Democrats who can’t wait to destroy Kavanagh’s reputation and career remain obstinately silent in the face of far worse accusations made against members of their own party.  In the case of the Chairman of the Democratic Party, Keith Ellison, for instance, there is far more evidence to support a case of moral impropriety on his part.  But in spite of the wealth of witnesses, accusers, police reports and so on, the Democrats not only defend him, but because he is one of their own, heap praise and veneration on him.  And let’s not forget the countless murders, rapes, extortion, and embezzlement committed by the Clintons, and the wholehearted support given to them by their own party both then and now.

In other words, the revulsion and shock the Democrats show for Judge Kavanagh is not based on their own devoutly held moral values at all, but simply on their hatred for those who don’t agree with their own evil plans to overturn God’s laws.  It’s hypocrisy at its very worst, and we should have no qualms in calling the Democrats by the same names our Lord gave to the Pharisees in his own day: “serpents, brood of vipers, whited sepulchers” and so on.

How do the Democrats try to justify their attack on the character of Judge Kavanagh?  It appears that they think  that if you have ever done anything wrong in your life, it renders you ineligible to perform any good act afterwards.  That’s an interesting and unique twist on Catholic teaching, and one that you won’t find in any moral theology manuals.  In fact, the Church teaches the complete opposite, and we have many examples in the lives of the saints—saints who became saints after being sinners. Think of St. Mary Magdalene or St. Augustine.   Should we dismiss the writings of St. Augustine, Doctor of the Church, on the basis that he had been a bit of a reprobate in his youth?  Or should we join the Pharisees who complained against St. Mary Magdalene as she anointed her Lord’s feet and wiped them clean with her hair?  Or should we recognize ourselves as the sinners we are, and give up all hope or pretense of improving ourselves?

The fact is we are all prone to a bit of finger-pointing. It’s easy, and sometimes entertaining, unfortunately, to find fault with other people.  But we really should have a good reason for doing so.  That good reason should be only to protect the greater common good.  For example, if we find out that a teacher in a school is a child molester, it would be our duty to bring this to the attention of the appropriate authorities.  If they failed to act, then, and only then, should we consider warning the parents of the children in his class.  But we had better have moral certitude that we are right. And our motivation must be to protect the common good and not simply to ruin someone’s reputation to score political points, or any other facetious reason. It’s not always wrong to point out the errors of others, especially when their errors threaten the common good, or are made openly and are therefore already subject to public comment.  Otherwise, a person’s private life is nobody’s business but his own, and there exists no qualifying reason for destroying his reputation or declaring open season on the misdeeds of his past or other hidden sins. 

We should always remember that we humans are complex beings with different emotions, medical conditions, sleep patterns, the weather, family life, and a host of other things influencing our behavior.  When we’re tempted to find fault in anybody for any reason other than obvious and grievous public sin, the best thing to do is give them the benefit of the doubt.  We should have the attitude where we are more inclined to overlook the faults of our neighbor, rather than setting ourselves up as their judge, jury and executioner.  We are usually wrong anyway.  Very like we will misjudge their motivation, or we won’t know about  the mitigating circumstances, or we don’t know how to apply a moral principle to a particular circumstance.  And even when we’re right, what good do we really think will come from a reaction of feigned scandal and hypocritical zeal?

If we always look for the bad in other people and what they do, surely this is diametrically opposed to our Lord’s commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.  After all, we do love ourselves, and part of that self-love is not to paint ourselves in the worst possible light?  On the contrary, we hide our bad behavior from others, and then we make excuses for it if we’re caught.  We always seem to be making ourselves look better than we are, and definitely better than others are!  Let’s try and switch things around, let’s praise others, make excuses for their ill deeds, while at the same time we humbly acknowledge before God, our neighbor, and ourselves that we are worse sinners than they are.  And let’s avoid the trap of being “proud of our humility”—the devil loves to trick us into the pompous sanctimony of the Pharisee, uncovering our weaknesses only for the purpose of showing the world how much better we are.  Our self-criticism should be a genuine acknowledgment of and repentance for our own very real faults. 

Again, remember what Christ said: “Physician, heal thyself.”  Take the mote out of your own eye before complaining about the splinter in your neighbor’s eye.  Hypocrisy, constant sanctimonious criticism of our fellow Catholics, and a very unpleasant tendency to see ourselves as “holier than thou” all this has become a serious blight on the reputation of those of our faith.  Let us look to our own conscience on this matter, and try to heal any wounds we may have caused by a vicious tongue or pen.  I have been in traditional Catholic churches where newcomers, even an eighty-year-old veteran of World War II, have been prevented by the ushers from going to Communion, simply because they weren’t wearing a jacket over their shirt and tie on a hot day.  Where nuns stand at the door of the church to keep out and send home girls whose neckline or hemline are a centimeter beyond the rules they have established.  What do these churches stand for?  Is it zeal for the salvation of souls?  I think not. Does our observance on the virtue of modesty in others take priority over the virtue of charity we must have for them? This is what our Lord described as “straining at gnats, while they swallow a camel.”  Think again of those Democrats who strain and swat at gnats like Judge Kavanagh and the unsubstantiated attacks on his character, while they swallow whole the vile deeds of the Clintons, the Obamas and their ilk.  “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.”

Above all, let us find our supreme example in the Blessed Virgin Mary.  She is the Mirror of Justice, and we would do well to look into that Mirror of Justice, so that when we find fault, we behold it only in ourselves.

THOU, WHOSE ALMIGHTY WORD

A HYMN FOR THE 18th 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.

CORRECTING OUR NEIGHBOR

A MESSAGE FOR THE 18th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

The eighth commandment is a particularly difficult commandment to understand fully, and there are a lot of distinctions that come into play when we are faced with the option of revealing something about the darker side of our neighbor.  The safest way to act is by always having a pure motive whenever we feel we have something unpleasant to say about or to another person.

Above all, let’s remember what Our Lord said: “Physician, heal thyself!”  Hypocrisy is a particularly disagreeable vice, and one alas, that traditional Catholics seem to have a disproportionate tendency to fall into.  We have the true faith, we’ve read the catechism, we know right from wrong in this world where morality has been turned on its head.  And so we sometimes see ourselves as the guardians of truth and virtue.  In a sense we are.  However, we need to be guardians by remaining faithful ourselves to those truths and virtues, rather than by accusing those who don’t.  We are not God’s policemen.  Our first role should be more like doctors, or physicians.  Physicians who must concentrate first and foremost on healing ourselves, as Our Lord says, not on wandering through the world seeking the faults of others so that we may criticize them and drag them through the mud. Our mission is to heal the souls of our neighbor, not to attack him.

It’s easy to fall into these kind of obsessions, in the name of virtue.  And yet, how much more Christ-like would it be to welcome those we perceive to be sinners (whether in reality they are or not) and gently guide them to a greater appreciation of those virtues we hold so dear? This kind of training often takes time and patience.  But the results are worth the effort, and it is far more effective than criticizing and humiliating people.

Sometimes, it is our duty to correct others.  This occurs particularly if we have some kind of authority over the offender, if we’re a parent, spouse, teacher, employer, priest, religious or military superior, for example.  But there are times too when we feel the need to correct one of our peers.  We call this fraternal correction.  The word “fraternal” tells you that it must always be made with charity.  This type of correction must always be done in private, not in front of friends, family, or the general public.  Embarrassing people is very rarely the most effective way to correct their faults.  And that, after all, is the whole purpose of the correction, isn’t it?  To correct someone’s behavior.  Never simply to chastise, to ridicule, to embarrass, or to criticize them.  When we correct, it is to help someone overcome a fault in themselves.  Maybe they’re unaware of these faults, or have developed the habit of committing them without thinking.  When we bring  such acts to their attention, it’s to remind them, as gently as possible, that their behavior is unacceptable and must be curtailed.  It must always be made with the aim of helping that person become a better person, more charitable to his neighbor, and most importantly, more pleasing to God.  And in daring to correct someone else, we must always remain aware that our own faults, especially those hidden faults that only we know, are just as grievous, if not more so, than those of our neighbor.  Let’s never forget that the virtue of humility is the key to practicing fraternal correction.

PRISONERS OF THE LORD

A SERMON FOR THE 17th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

At the very beginning of today’s Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul describes himself as the prisoner of the Lord.  That’s an interesting choice of words, “prisoner...”  It’s a word that normally conjures up images of captivity behind bars, being held against our will and punished.  What does it mean then, to be the prisoner of the Lord?

For a start, we must revisit the idea of captivity being necessarily against our will.  We are all prisoners, for example, of the laws of nature.  Take gravity for instance.  When I put my cup of coffee down on the table I can be assured that it won’t go floating off up the ceiling.  It’s the law of gravity, and I’m a prisoner of it.  Is that against our will?  Would I prefer to have to float around trying to find where my coffee went?  And then trying to pour hot coffee down my throat would be an even more unpleasant adventure.  So you see, even though we are prisoners of gravity, it’s not the kind of captivity we want to be released from.

God created nature, with its laws.  And God can suspend these laws if he sees fit.  We have an example of that this coming Tuesday with the feast of St. Joseph Cupertino.  This Franciscan friar was granted the very unusual gift by God of floating up into the air whenever he prayed.  I’m not sure why God dispensed him from the law of gravity, but there’s no question that he did, thanks to the large number of reliable witnesses.  Maybe it was simply to show us that God can suspend the laws of nature when he wants.  

We are captives also of other laws.  Laws which not even God can change.  “What’s that, you say, Father?  There’s something that God can’t do?  I thought God is almighty, omnipotent?  He can do anything he wants, surely?”  The answer is simple.  Yes, he can do anything he wants.  But he is incapable of wanting something that would be contradictory.  God could never wantto create a square circle for example.  He could never make two plus two equal anything other than four.  To do so would go against his own nature, which is Truth.

So if not even God can change the fact that two plus two equals four, no amount of imagination or fancy calculation on our own part can ever change this basic fact.  We are prisoners, if you like, of this simple truth.  But let me ask again:  is that against our will.  Would we want the answer to a simple mathematical question to be capable of being different each time we asked it?  How could we live in such a world?  How could we measure length and breadth?  How could we ever build a bridge over a river, or even a simple house to live in, without the consistency of the laws of mathematics?

No, truth is truth.  There’s no way to change truth.  Nor should there be.  The universe is made in the image and likeness of God, and God is truth.  And we can’t change God.  Many have tried, mind you.  From the Arians who wanted to change the idea of the Trinity, to the Protestants and more recently the Modernists, who want to change our Lord’s new covenant with man.  They refuse the idea of only one true Church founded on Peter, they reject the true meaning of every sacrament, and they have abolished the daily and perpetual sacrifice of Calvary that takes place in the traditional Holy Apostolic Mass.  The imagination of man can invent a new God, a new one-world church, a new Mass.  But they exist only as fantasies, while the real God, the “true” God, watches their fantastic dreams, and continues, the same yesterday, today and forever.

The truth that is God extends to all those things he has revealed to us. We don’t have to find those truths for ourselves—God’s only-begotten Son has established a Church to tell us what those truths are.  If the Church teaches us something dogmatically, we don’t have to figure out for ourselves if it’s true or not.  Individual theologians might discuss certain things and try to get to the truth of something, but until the Church pronounces on the matter, their conclusions may correct or they may be wrong.  And what these theologians absolutely cannot do—they cannot declare something true that isn’t. Neither can the Church. But the difference is that once the Church declares something true, we may be sure that it is true, and we must give that teaching the assent of our faith.  When evil men like Pope Francis declare there is no hell, he speaks as an individual, not as the Church.  Not only are we not bound to believe his heresies, we have two thousand years of Church teaching plus the words of our Lord himself to tell us that we must believe in hell, and all the other things that Francis denies.  It is as St. Paul says in today’s Epistle—One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.  And we are prisoners of that one Lord.  We are prisoners of that one faith.

Prisoners?  Yes, because we are held captive by the very fact that God is God, that our faith is of God who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Held captive against our will? No, hopefully not!  Hopefully, we are willing prisoners of the Lord, accepting all the truths he has revealed to us through his Church.  And we would never dream of denying any of those dogmas any more than we would deny that two plus two equals four.

Nor should we be tempted to stray from the truth for the reason that so many other opinions exist. There is only one truth, but an infinite number of falsehoods.  The fact that there are so many, or that a majority of people reject the truth, does not make a lie out of the truth.  We can say that two plus two equals any number we care to make up, 5, 18, 3472, whatever!  But there is only one truth.  And we can declare, dogmatically in a certain sense and with full confidence, that the only true answer is four.  Similarly, if the Church teaches dogmatically that the Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, then so it is.  So it must be.  This is the one truth.  There can be no other, and all the false teachings of a hundred thousand protestant sects will never change that one truth.

The destruction wrought by Vatican II has contributed more than anything else to this new world where falsehoods spread like viruses to the uneducated masses.  No longer is there a Pope in Rome who speaks with the infallible voice of authority.  Francis has “freed” himself from being a prisoner of the Lord, and now speaks as just one other voice of false opinion, spreading his poison among us, and leading souls away from God.   Many Catholics who were once proud to be prisoners of the Lord, willing captives of the one faith taught by the Catholic Church, now attempt to follow their pope and escape from their bondage.  They want to believe whatever truths this modern age invents for us, not the truths that God has revealed to us.  They are like foolish men who would exchange the imagined bondage of the open fields and the majestic mountains for a the narrow walls of a prison cell.  When women demand to be liberated by being ordained as priests, they do not realize they are losing their freedom by rejecting the laws of God.  When they claim the right to do as they want with their own bodies by murdering their unborn children, they become slaves to their own unnatural desires and aspirations.  Men too refuse to accept the truths of God, and imagine they can redefine the sacrament of marriage, behaving as though the revelations of God and the sacred commands of holy Scripture and the Church don’t exist.  So many today refuse those beautiful chains that tie us to our Lord and Saviour, they rebel and then find themselves prisoners of their own silly or wicked inventions, prisoners of Vatican II, and of Francis with his bewildering and never-ending series of lies and crazy fantasies.  It is up to the few of us who have been given the grace to recognize these lies for what they are, to remain prisoners of the Lord, keeping the one faith, and with it, our sanity.  For any new invented laws that contradict reality can never work.  The logical end of such wholesale denial is the abolition of all established order in the world.  And that will drive us mad.  

So keep the faith, prize it as the great gift from God that it surely is.  And most importantly, we should not just “say” we’re keeping the faith, but get to know our faith, and accept all the consequences of our faith, the first of which can only be what our Lord tells us in today’s Gospel, namely, to loveGod with all our heart and soul and mind. Our captivity to mathematical truths frees us to measure and design a house.  Our captivity to the truths of nature keeps our feet on the ground and our expectations realistic.  Our obedience to these natural truths help us in one way or another.  But only our voluntary captivity in the faith can free us to truly love God and save our souls.

BE THOU MY VISION

A HYMN FOR THE 17th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Translated from the Old Irish Hymn, "Bí Thusa 'mo Shúile"by Mary E. Byrne, 1880-1931

1 Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
be all else but naught to me, save that Thou art;
be Thou my best thought in the day and the night,
both waking and sleeping, Thy presence my light.

2 Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
be Thou ever with me, and I with Thee, Lord;
be Thou my great Father, and I Thy true son;
be Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

3 Be Thou my Breastplate, my Sword for the fight;
be Thou my whole Armor, be Thou my true Might;
be Thou my soul’s Shelter, be Thou my strong Tow’r,
O raise Thou me heav’nward, great Pow’r of my pow’r.

4 Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise;
be Thou mine inheritance, now and always;
be Thou and Thou only the first in my heart,
O high King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

5 High King of heaven, Thou heaven's bright Sun,
O grant me its joys, after vict'ry is won;
Great Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
still be Thou my vision, O Ruler of all.

A LAWYER ASKS A QUESTION

A MESSAGE FOR THE 17th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Over the past few months, the question of whether President Trump should submit to being “interviewed” by Robert Mueller and his team of lawyers has been consistently in the news.  Will the President or won’t he sit down and be cross-examined by lawyers, whose agenda goes beyond  accessing information only he can provide, and seeks rather to entrap him into some form of contradiction or even perjury?

We may learn from the arguments that go back and forth in this debate that lawyers, especially when they are asking questions, are not to be trusted.  The reason for this is obvious—their agenda is to shed light on  something they think a person is hiding, and thereby to prove their own case.  The prosecutor’s role in the courtroom is to prove the defendant guilty; the defence lawyer’s task is to demonstrate (or manufacture!) the reasonable doubt sufficient to acquit him.  The two legal teams can’t both be right, but with the truth hidden as it is, their path to that truth is fraught with trickery, manipulation, and frequently outright deception.

In today’s Gospel, it is a lawyer who asks our Lord what is the greatest of the commandments.  It seems like a good question, and yet the Evangelist tells us that the lawyer was tempting Jesus.  Apparently, this lawyer was so accustomed to his world of legal manipulation that he was incapable of asking a sincere and honest question.  And yet our Lord gives him an answer, that ‘thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.’ 

Ironically, this answer does the exact opposite of what the lawyer intended. Instead of revealing any ignorance, or stupidity, or wickedness on the part of our Lord, it exposes the lawyer as the charlatan he is—someone who has no interest in loving God or neighbor, but a narcissist who has only his own self-importance at heart.  He doesn’t love God, he doesn’t even love his neighbor—but he does love his own perceived cleverness and self-importance.

The lesson is clear: when we ask a question, let it be one whose humble purpose is simply to learn the truth! 

THEY WATCHED HIM

A SERMON FOR THE 16th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

In today’s Gospel, we read how Our Blessed Lord heals a man suffering from dropsy—on the Sabbath! It reinforces a lesson we have often heard, that it is far far more important to observe the spirit of the law than the letter of the law.

Our Lord has been invited to someone’s house for dinner. Not just anyone’s house, certainly not a friend’s house where he could relax and just sit down and enjoy a good meal in good company. He has been invited to the home of one of the chief Pharisees. Now why do you suppose one of these chief Pharisees had invited Jesus to dinner? They hated him. And he wasn’t too fond of them either, calling them hypocrites and vipers, whited sepulchers and other names. No doubt they did a lot of whining about calumny and detraction, and their reputations as priests and great men. And yet they invited him to dinner. Was this simply to try and make up with Our Lord, to try and convince him that they weren’t as bad as he made them out to be? Or was it for some far more devious reason? A hidden agenda by which they could expose Our Lord either as a fraud and a charlatan, or failing that, as one who had contempt for the sacred Jewish law…

Note carefully the phrase at the beginning of the Gospel: “And it came to pass, as Jesus went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath day, THAT THEY WATCHED HIM.”

They were watching him. Watching very carefully to see what he would do. And lo and behold, there “just happened” to be a man there who “just happened” to have the dropsy.  He "just happened to need healing. Healing? Ah yes, but it was the Sabbath day...

As Catholics, many of us are not aware to what lengths practicing Jews will go, even today, to avoid any kind of manual work on the Sabbath. You may be familiar with the neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York, known as Williamsburg. This area is still ethnically almost entirely Jewish—Orthodox Jewish. From sunset on Friday night (the eve of the Sabbath) until sunset the following day, the streets of Williamsburg are quiet. The Jews are not allowed to drive a car, or turn on a light switch, or cook a meal. Many of these Jews hire Irish girls to come to their home on the Shabbat, to cook for them. These girls are paid even to flush their toilets for them, because to do so themselves would be to break the Sabbath.

And so now Our Lord is faced with this dilemma. If he does not heal the man with the dropsy, they will label him a fraud and say he can’t heal the sick, or worse yet, that he doesn't have compassion for the sick. If he does heal the man, they will label him not a fraud but a criminal, one who has broken the Sabbath, broken the sacred Jewish law. And you can be assured that the Pharisees were watching Our Lord very carefully to see what he would do. Nothing would give them greater pleasure than to quote the words of God from the Book of Esdras where he reprimanded his people, saying: “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath Day?” 

Whether the man with the dropsy was a plant or not, we do not know, the Gospel doesn’t say, and it doesn’t really matter. What matters is how Our Lord resolves the dilemma. There is no ambiguity about what he does next. He heals the man. Sabbath or no Sabbath, he heals him.

So… did Our Lord profane the Sabbath Day? Let us remind ourselves once more that there is a big difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” And this is what Our Lord points out to the Pharisees, who of course, are too hard-hearted and thick-headed to even listen. They just chalk it up as another reason why they need to get rid of this man.  Our attitude towards this healing on the Sabbath should not reflect this hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who claimed that Our Lord was contemptuous of the law. Yes, there is a law. And yes, we must obey it. But we must obey the spirit and not the letter of the law, never failing to place the law of charity above the merely disciplinary law of attending Mass.  We cannot leave a sick relative to fend for himself so that we can go to church and forget about him.  But unless we have such a good reason as this, our very first obligation should be to attend Mass. If we are sick ourselves, or if there’s no traditional Mass within a reasonable distance, or if our job obliges us to work on Sunday morning (law enforcement officers, medical professionals, and so on) then there is no sin if you can't attend Mass.  But if we have no such reasonable pretext to prevent us from attending, “remember”, says the Third Commandment, “rememberto keep holy the Lord’s day by going to Mass.  Otherwise you jeopardize your very salvation by committing the MORTAL sin of omitting to obey this commandment of God.  It is so important, that God adds the word “Remember” at the beginning: Remember, that thou keep holy the Sabbath of the Lord.” Remember, don’t forget, it’s important to do this.

Remember to do what? Not drive a car? Not switch on a light or flush a toilet? No, for these things belong to the Jewish law, the Torah, and that law is the law of the OLD covenant. Our Lord became Man to die on the Cross, to redeem us, to open the gates of heaven, to fulfill this OLD law and give us instead a NEW law, a law of grace, where we must above all “love God with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, and our whole strength.” And if we love God, we will keep his commandments—including the Third.

In the Old Testament, the Sabbath of the Lord was observed on the last day of the week. This, of course, was because God rested after the six days of creation. What is less well known is that it was on the seventh day of the week that Israel was led out of the land of Egypt, out of bondage. It was their day of redemption, and every Saturday was a solemn commemoration also of that event. But then Our Lord came to fulfill the old law and give us a new covenant. He came to fulfill the prophecies and symbols of the old testament. The deliverance of Israel from the land of Egypt was merely a foreshadowing of the deliverance of God’s children from sin. And to commemorate this new, this true deliverance, the Apostles, instructed by Our Lord and guided by the Holy Ghost, substituted the first day of the week for the last, they replaced Saturday as the Sabbath with Sunday. After all, it was on a Sunday that Christ freed us from the bondage of Satan, when by his glorious Resurrection he triumphed over Satan and hell, and it was again on Sunday that he sent the Holy Ghost upon the Church, thus completing the great work of his new creation.

We can look at it another way too. The Jews were the SERVANTS OF GOD. The servant is entitled to rest on the last day of the week after he has worked every other day in the sweat of his brow. We Christians, however, are the CHILDREN OF GOD. We place God our Father before ourselves, and we seek first the kingdom of God, giving him the first day of the week.

So howshould we keep holy the Lord’s day? It is important to remember that it is NOT enough simply not to commit the sin of not attending Mass on this day, nor to profane the Sabbath with evil deeds or words or thoughts. Nor is it enough simply to abstain from servile work. These things are important, it is true, but we must not simply OMIT doing evil, we are expected moreover, to something good. We must “keep holy” the Lord’s Day. Sanctify the day. That doesn’t mean it’s a sin to play games, to water your plants, to read the newspaper or do a crossword puzzle. But it does mean that we should make a conscious effort to make the day different from all other days of the week—not only by avoiding unnecessary manual labour, shopping, gardening, and so on, but by positively keeping in mind that “this is the day that the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad therein.” Use your imagination to come up with ways of honoring God by showing your love for him and for your neighbor. Maybe by visiting a sick friend or an elderly neighbor, by doing an extra good deed for your mother, by a small act of penance, or a few extra prayers.

If in doubt as to how to keep Sunday holy, for once do what the Pharisees did—they watched our Lord.  We should watch him too, observing how he placed the spirit of the law before the letter, and how the love he had for his Father and his neighbor was the paramount motivation for his actions.  May our own love for God and neighbor determine how we keep every day of the week, but in particular this holy day of Sunday.  If we watch our loving Savior, we cannot fail to know exactly how to make our every Sunday a day of praise for God and sanctification for our souls.

ON THIS DAY, THE FIRST OF DAYS

A HYMN FOR THE 16th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

1 On this day, the first of days,
God our Maker's name we praise;
Who, creation’s Lord and Spring
Did the world from darkness bring.

2 On this day the eternal Son
Over death his triumph won;
On this day the Spirit came
With its gifts of living flame.

3 Word-made-flesh, all praises be!
You from sin have set us free;
And with you we die and rise
Unto God in sacrifice.

4 Holy Spirit, you impart
Gifts of love to every heart;
Give us light and grace, we pray,
Fill our hearts this holy day.

5 God, the blessed Three in One,
May your holy will be done;
In your word our souls are free,
As we praise the Trinity.

From the Latin of the Le Mans Breviary, 1748, translated by H.W. Baker, 1861

KEEPING HOLY THE SABBATH DAY

A MESSAGE FOR THE 16th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

To prepare himself to receive the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai, Moses fasted for forty days and forty nights. When he came back down the mountain, his face was so radiant that it seemed as though two bright rays of light shone from it.  With him, he carried two great tablets of stone on which were inscribed those ten great laws which we all learned from the catechism when we were young, and which we strive every day to follow.

The solemnity with which these laws were given to the chosen people was deliberate on the part of God, and was intended to impress upon them the importance of keeping these laws.  The Ten Commandments are not merely guidelines to help us lead a moral life—they are direct orders made to us by our Creator, who demands that we follow them.  The degree to which we keep these commandments is the gauge by which our love for God is measured: “If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.”

The Third Commandment is to remember to keep holy the Lord’s day.  In the Christian Church, the Sabbath is kept on the first day of the week, the day on which Christ vanquished Satan by rising from the dead, and on which he poured forth his Holy Spirit upon his Church that she might continue his work of redemption through the daily offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  We are not obliged to attend daily Mass, but merely to observe this Third Commandment, to go to Mass at least once a week on Sunday. It is a commandment.  God is not joking.  He does not say “Try to keep holy the sabbath day.”  On the contrary, he emphasizes its importance by telling us to “remember” to keep it holy.  Remember—don’t forget, don’t make excuses, don’t fail to make this your first priority every Sunday!

And if you also remember those words of our Lord—“if you love me, you’ll keep my commandments,” you’ll be at his Mass every single week, come rain, come shine; you’ll find somewhere to go to his Mass when you’re traveling on vacation or on business; you’ll arrange your schedule so that your job, your hobbies, your everthing else does not interfere with or prevent you from attending his Mass.  Why? Because it is God who commands it. And we love him enough to obey.

HE THAT WAS DEAD SAT UP, AND BEGAN TO SPEAK

A SERMON FOR THE 15th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

A few weeks ago, I asked you to bear in mind that God continues to shower his graces on his Church.  “Shower” probably isn’t the right word, it seems more like a light drizzle.  But God does continue to inspire churchmen to take the first steps towards restoring his Church to its rightful place as the guardian of faith and morals.  I asked you back then to look out for such steps, and to treat them not with cynicism but with hope.  The cynicism is somewhat excusable after so many years listening to the ever-worsening smell of rot issuing from the Vatican and its incumbents, and yet, every now and again, we get a faint sniff of something vaguely Catholic.

This past week, no less a figure than the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States (in other words, the Pope’s ambassador to Washington), Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, came out with an astonishing statement implicating Pope Francis in and calling for his resignation.  He based his argument on his inside knowledge of the grotesque actions of the former Archbishop of Washington, Theodore Edgar Cardinal McCarrick, known to his victims as “Uncle Ted.”  McCarrick’s career had prospered during Paul VI’s campaign to encourage the placement of homosexual clergy into positions of power.  He was consecrated in 1977, and quickly rose through the ranks to become the Cardinal Archbishop of our nation’s capital, one of the most influential positions in the American Church.

The allegations against him are by now public knowledge and well known, so we don’t need to repeat them here.  But Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano’s allegations this past week were new and unprecedented in the post-Vatican 2 Church.  It was Archbishop Vigano who had brought McCarrick’s depraved acts to the attention of then Pope Benedict XVI, who eventually placed severe restrictions on McCarrick, forbidding him to celebrate Mass in public, to participate in public meetings, to give lectures, or to travel.  As Apostolic Nuncio, it fell to Vigano to discuss these sanctions personally with McCarrick.

When Francis was elected, Vigano made sure that he knew about McCarrick’s behavior, but—and here’s the bombshell—the new Pope removed the sanctions and gave McCarrick a whole portfolio of new responsibilities, including renewed contact with seminarians, and involvement in the decision-making process to name new bishops for San Diego and Chicago.  The fact that this accusation comes from someone with the high position of Archbishop Vigano has forced the American Conference of Catholic Bishops to announce they will investigate Vigano’s accusations.  Meanwhile, the media smells blood and one suspects that the scandal is likely to grow.  Will it go anywhere?  I don’t know, but again, I’d stress that we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the possibility that it will all be covered up.  God has certainly brought to light here the dark deeds of his clergy, and it is up to all Catholics worldwide to respond appropriately.

In today’s Gospel, our Lord raises from the dead the son of the widow of Naim.  And no doubt he has taken a similar role with Archbishop Vigano.  He has taken this Vatican 2 bishop by the hand and commanded him to arise.  And indeed Vigano rose up.  Like the son of the widow of Naim, “he that was dead sat up, and began to speak.” And I believe he speaks the truth. Let me quote to you from an article by Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post: “Viganò’s accusations are serious and credible. He has everything to lose by making them public. He cited specific letters and documents that he and others sent to Rome — which he said are readily available in the files of the Holy See and the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington. The Vatican must now release them. And his account was backed on Monday by Monsignor Jean-François Lantheaume, the former first counsellor at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, who said Viganò “tells the whole truth. I am a witness.” Most importantly, in his letter the archbishop declared that he is “ready to reaffirm them under oath by calling on God as my witness” — which means he is calling for his own eternal damnation if he is lying. Is Pope Francis willing to do the same?  Viganò is courageously sacrificing his own episcopal career to expose the truth. Now is the time for others with inside knowledge to step forward and do the same.”

And where does all this leave us?  With hope!  Let us be inspired by these revelations to renew and redouble our prayers for the eventual restoration of the Church.  In today’s bulletin you will find a copy of the Prayer of Restoration that members of our Guild of St. Peter ad Vincula are required to say daily. Please join us by adding this prayer to your daily devotions.  It’s a prayer that is of vital importance for us in the heart- and conscience-shaking position we are in today, abandoned by our Church and pastors.  In it, we pray that God will restore to us a pope filled with all the holy virtues, including Faith!  So many traditional Catholics have become complacent in their weekly attendance at their little chapels, and don’t even bother any more what’s happening in Rome.  But if we don’t pray for the restoration of the Church, who will?  If we believe that we are seeing the crucifixion of Christ’s Mystical Body today, then let us have hope that her resurrection will follow. I don’t know how that will happen, and neither do any of us, but that shouldn’t stop us from praying for it. This week, we’ve seen a flurry of dissent against the awful man who wears the white cassock.  We must play our part in this dissent, at least by praying very, very hard that it will bear fruit.  If we have been ignoring this most vital of prayers, then we have been as though dead. Now is the time to obey our Lord’s command to arise, and for the dead to sit up and speak.

FULL IN THE PANTING HEART OF ROME

A HYMN FOR THE 15th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Full in the panting heart of Rome
Beneath the apostle’s crowning dome.
From pilgrims’ lips that kiss the ground,
Breathes in all tongues one only sound:

REFRAIN:  Faith of our Fathers, holy faith,
We will be true to thee till death!

The golden roof, the marble walls,
The Vatican’s majestic halls,
The note redoubles, till it fills
With echoes sweet the seven hills.

REFRAIN

Then surging through each hallowed gate,
Where martyrs glory, in peace await,
It sweeps beyond the solemn plain,
Peals over Alps, across the main.

REFRAIN

From torrid south to frozen north,
The wave harmonious stretches forth,
Yet strikes no chord more true to Rome’s,
Than rings within our hearts and homes.

REFRAIN

By Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman

THE DUTY OF REMNANT CATHOLICS

A MESSAGE FOR THE 15th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

As scandals rock the Holy City of Rome, it is important that we see them in the perspective of Vatican II and the subsequent apostasy from the faith, rather than as the misguided cover-up of a few isolated acts of moral corruption.

Catholics are protected by our trust in a God who is our way, our truth and our life.  Without God in our lives, we are bound to lose our way, to become ignorant of what is true or false, right or wrong, and our lives are left meaningless, seemingly devoid of purpose or goals.  The half-century or more since Vatican II has deprived us of the stability and brightness of our faith.  What we believe here at St. Margaret Mary’s is no longer what is believed by the Catholics in the next parish, by the bishop of our diocese, or even by the so-called Vicar of Christ in Rome.  There are very few of us left with any moral compass pointing to the truths revealed by God.

What we believe here is certainly the same truths revealed by God and  passed down for two thousand years by the Church.  But it is not the same faith that is believed by most ‘Catholics’ in the world today.  This should not discourage us.  On the contrary, we should be humbled that it is on us poor few that the almighty and everlasting God has chosen to keep the light of that faith burning bright through the murky clouds of heresy and moral corruption that sweep across the land. And as we know God and love him, so too we must now serve him by our work in preserving that faith and restoring it to souls everywhere.  For this reason we should recite daily the following prayer:

Almighty and Everlasting God, / we beseech thee to restore unto this world of sin / that faith which St. Peter / thy first Pope and Prince of the Apostles / did once humbly confess; / and commit once more, / through thine infinite mercy, / the government of thy Church / unto a worthy Vicar of thy Son; / that he may be bestowed / with such increase of all virtues / as may be pleasing in thy sight; / and that being so adorned, / he may lift from the Church and from all nations / the heavy weight of heresy / that presseth down upon us; / and rendering Christendom once more acceptable in thy sight, / may bring at length all nations / to render due homage at the feet of their divine King, / even Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, / who liveth and reigneth with thee, / in the unity of the Holy Ghost, / ever one God, / world without end.  / Amen.