THE LITURGICAL YEAR

Sermons, hymns, meditations and other musings to guide our annual pilgrim's progress through the liturgical year.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

SING ALLELUIA FORTH IN DUTEOUS PRAISE

A HYMN FOR THE 24TH AND LAST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Anonymous 5th century,
translated from Latin to English by John Ellerton, 1865

Sing Alleluia forth in duteous praise,
Ye citizens of Heav’n; O sweetly raise
An endless Alleluia.
Ye powers, who stand before the eternal Light,
In hymning choirs re-echo to the height,
An endless Alleluia.
The holy city shall take up your strain,
And with glad songs resounding wake again
An endless Alleluia.
In blissful antiphons ye thus rejoice
To render to the Lord with thankful voice
An endless Alleluia.
Ye who have gained at length your palms in bliss,
Victorious ones, your chant will still be this,
An endless Alleluia.
There, in one grand acclaim, forever ring
The strains which tell the honor of your king,
An endless Alleluia.
This is sweet rest for weary ones brought back,
This is glad food and drink which ne’er shall lack,
An endless Alleluia.
While Thee, by whom were all things made, we praise
Forever, and tell out in sweetest lays,
An endless Alleluia.
Almighty Christ, to Thee our voices sing
Glory forevermore; to Thee we bring
An endless Alleluia.

WHO IS LIKE UNTO GOD?

A SERMON FOR THE 24TH AND LAST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Few Gospels pack a punch more than the one for this day, the Last Sunday after Pentecost.  The end of the world—it’s an idea that seems to grip us with dread and foreboding at the possibilities that lie ahead of us.  We have questions:  What will happen exactly?  What is the order of events leading up the world’s end?  How bad will it be?  And most importantly, it seems, when will it happen?  

Our Lord has answered some of these questions, but other aspects remain shrouded in mystery that we cannot hope to fully penetrate.  However, we can try to delve into these mysteries a little at a time, and see if they are applicable to the present time we live in.  After all, if the end of the world is just round the corner, it would be useful to know what’s coming so we might prepare.  

For example, are there any signs right now of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place?  From the sound of it, the end of the world will be triggered by this abomination of desolation—an act of human apostasy so great that our Blessed Mother will no longer be able to hold back the righteous hand of her Son.  Look around you.  Do you see any signs of such sinful depravity?  I’ll tell you what I see:  God is being removed by force from our way of life.  And he is being replaced by an idol, more tantalizing than any of the pagan gods of ancient times.  That idol is humanity—we are busy turning ourselves into our own idols.  Turn on your TVs and you will see, from the themes of the movies and shows, even from the advertisements, that we are being conditioned to worship ourselves.  The beginning and end of everything we do is no longer to be based on God but on ourselves and our fallen human nature.  We are no longer encouraged to love God above all things, and our neighbor as ourselves.  Today’s format is far more simple and enticing—that we should love ourselves above all things.

We sometimes wonder if such and such a person might be the Antichrist.  But in a certain sense, it is modern man who has become the Antichrist.  After all, who was Christ, but God made man?  So the reverse, the Anti-Christ, is surely the man who makes himself God.  

There is no question that the Church of Vatican II led the way in this act of desecration.  As goes the Church, so goes the world.  They have already placed the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet, right at the very center of the holy place.

For Jews and Protestants, the place they envisage when they speak about the “holy place” is the ancient temple of Jerusalem.  For Catholics, it is wherever the Real Presence of our Lord is to be found in our tabernacles.  At the Crucifixion, the Jews rejected the presence of Christ dwelling amongst them.  At the Reformation, the Protestants rejected the Real Presence of Christ dwelling in the Holy Eucharist.  What both still fail to recognize is that the Old Covenant of Moses has been supplanted and replaced through Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross and the Holy Mass.  Remember how the veil of the Holy of Holies was split asunder at the moment of our Lord’s death.  The old Holy of Holies yielded to the new and everlasting covenant, the Body and Blood of Christ, which was to dwell thenceforth in that new tabernacle of God with man, a new Holy of Holies, one that was to exist not just in a single temple in Jerusalem, but in all churches throughout the world.  

And so it was until Vatican II.  Suddenly, it became fashionable to remove the tabernacle from the High Altar, and, in keeping with the protestantization of the Church, to downplay the significance of the Real Presence, which was hidden away in some side chapel, no longer the center of focus the second you walked into a Catholic Church.  And then of course, they replaced the Mass itself.  The priest turned his back on God, and now faced the people.  The people would now become the new focus of worship.  Meanwhile, the continuation of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary, the Mass, was reduced to a mere gathering of the so-called people of God, where they would unite to celebrate their togetherness in a mockery of religious fervor.

They changed the language of the Mass, the rituals of the Mass, and the very nature of the Mass.  The only thing they didn’t change was the name “Mass”.  And apparently, just because it still has the same name, this was enough for people to swallow it.  But the changes in it are so substantial, that it is obviously not the same act of worship that Christ commanded should be done in his memory.  As any theologian will confirm, substantial changes of the form, matter or intention of a sacrament renders it invalid. or at least doubtfully valid.  And the Church teaches that if a sacrament is invalid or even doubtful, it must be avoided.  You must flee, in other words.  Flee to the mountains.  But most Catholics did not flee this abomination of desolation in our holy places.  Some even believe we’re better off, we can understand the new Mass, we can take part in it more actively, it’s more “relevant.”    The devil may be evil, but he is not stupid.  This was a devilishly simply plan, and Catholics fell for it—the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, right under their very noses, front and center in their churches.

You here today are to be congratulated for your correspondence to God’s grace and doing what he told you to do when this abomination of desolation would occur.  How exactly did our Lord tell us to react?  He says simply that we must flee.  “Let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.”  And we fled.  We didn’t flee from Judaea, the location of the ancient temple of Zion, but from Rome, the new Holy City.  And we marvel how what was once worshiped as Christ’s Body under the form of bread and wine is now nothing but bread and wine under the pretense of being Christ’s Body.  We flee from those little pieces of white bread that desecrate the altars of our churches, and we flee from the little man in the white cassock who similarly desecrates the papacy and runs the whole show.

We flee without looking back.  Those who are on the housetops should not come down to take anything out of their house.  Those who are in the field should not return back to take their clothes.  Lot’s wife made the mistake of looking back on the burning city of Sodom, and was turned into a pillar of salt.  Our path is an upward path into the mountains, and one thing they say when you’re climbing a mountain is that the worst thing you can do is look down.  The result—loss of balance, and you fall.  Today may be the last Sunday of the Church’s year, but it’s not so much a day for looking back, but rather forward and upward.  Forward to a future in which our blessed Lord will judge the world by fire, a fire which, with God’s help, we shall avoid.  And upward into the merciful arms of our Saviour, who will reach down and scoop us up from the hands of our enemies below.  And as we flee ever forward and upward, let our cry be “Who is like unto God?”  For God knows, we aren’t.

Sunday, November 17, 2019

THE MAID IS NOT DEAD, BUT SLEEPETH

A SERMON FOR THE 23RD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST


During this month of November, we spend more time than usual thinking about death.  It’s the month of the Holy Souls, and our thoughts inevitably turn from them to ourselves, and to the fears we have about death and what happens to us after death.  Today, this 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, the Church places before us a rather reassuring picture that should alleviate some of those fears, I hope.

I refer to the ruler who bows down before our Lord and, with a simple yet profound faith, after telling him that his daughter is dead, asks him to come and lay his hand upon her, “and,” he says, “she shall live.”  Our Lord does indeed raise his daughter from the dead, and the maid arose.  It’s a simple story, but one that should have enormous impact on our own faith, and its ability to dispel those fears of death that tend to surface more strongly at this time of year.

Death is not the end.  It wasn’t the end for the daughter of this good man, it wasn’t the end for Lazarus, and it wasn’t the end for our Blessed Lord himself.  After three days in the tomb, our Lord rose from the dead.  And so will we.  In fact, it won’t even take three days for our souls to rise from their bodily prison, free to join our Lord in eternal life.  Those bodies too will one day rise up to join our souls, incorruptible.  Death is not the end, merely a doorway through which we venture outside our comfort zone of knowledge and into the realm of faith.  We leave our bodily homes, not to be lost in the cold unknown, but into the warmth and heavenly light of the God who awaits us in heaven above.  

In the Epistle today, St. Paul warns us about certain enemies of the cross of Christ.  These are the men and women who “mind earthly things,” and not the things of God.  In fact, “their God is their belly,” they are more concerned with the satisfaction of their lower appetites, material things, than they are with their Creator and their Redeemer.  During the last century, there was a general turning away from God and towards the material things of life.  The result was the new Mass, the modernist overthrow of our Catholic hierarchy, and the eclipse of the faith within the Church.  So that now, it looks rather like the Church herself is dead.

In a certain sense, she is dead.  But then, as we have noted, so was Christ himself.  And we saw what happened next.  And this is my point today, that no matter how dead the Church may appear, no matter what modernist and heretical garbage spews from the mouths of its leaders, no matter how many Catholic schools and hospitals and convents may close, how many churches may be desecrated and even pulled down—The Church, the Bride of Christ will one day rise again from the dead.  One day, we will realize that “the maid is not dead, but sleepeth.”  And our blessed Saviour will take her by the hand, and the maid shall arise.

It may happen in our lifetime, it may happen in ten thousand years, but one way or another, it shall happen because the Church is indefectible.  That means she can never die eternally.  Even if we have to wait until the end of time itself, when Christ himself returns to reclaim Creation, his Mystical Body will rise up to meet him, as it says in the Gospels: “For the Lord himself shall come down from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead who are in Christ, shall rise first.”  The dead who are in Christ… If the Church is still “dead” when Christ shall come to judge the world by fire, then surely this Church, Christ’s Bride, shall be the very first of all.

Meanwhile, we should continue to pray that God’s kingdom come, and that his will be done.  We must pray constantly, with faith, for the resurrection of the Church, just as the ruler in today’s Gospel calmly asks our Lord to come and lay his hand upon her, “and she shall live.”  We should have the same faith as the woman diseased with an issue of blood, reaching out to our divine Saviour, knowing that if we can but touch his garment, we shall be whole.  Not because the hem of Christ’s garment has magical powers, but because our act of faith in God is a prayer that he is always ready to answer.  Let us live for the day when we hear those same blessed words coming from our Saviour’s mouth, “Be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole.”  And the woman was made whole from that hour.  There is no doubt that, if we pray enough, so too shall our Church be made whole again.

FIRMLY I BELIEVE AND TRULY

A HYMN FOR THE 23RD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By John Henry Cardinal Newman

1 Firmly I believe and truly
God is Three and God is One;
and I next acknowledge duly
manhood taken by the Son.
2 And I trust and hope most fully
in that manhood crucified;
and each thought and deed unruly
do to death, as he has died.
3 Simply to his grace and wholly
light and life and strength belong,
and I love supremely, solely,
him the holy, him the strong.
4 And I hold in veneration,
for the love of him alone,
Holy Church as his creation,
and her teachings as his own.
5 Adoration ay be given,
with and through the angelic host,
to the God of earth and heaven,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

FAITH TO MOVE MOUNTAINS

A REFLECTION FOR THE 23RD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST


Faith is the means by which two separate people are restored to health in today’s Gospel.  One is cured of a twelve-year-old issue of blood, the other is actually raised from the dead.  The first was cured by her own faith and perseverance in her attempt to reach out and touch our Lord’s garment; the other was brought back to life by the faith of her father who simply asked that it be done.

We often ignore the good saints whose feastdays fall on a Sunday.  But today, St. Gregory the Wonder-Worker deserves a special mention, precisely because of the theme of today’s Gospel.  It’s often said that faith can move mountains.  And St. Gregory certainly had faith in abundance.  In fact, so much faith that he actually did miraculously move a mountain through his prayers.  That sounds very far-fetched, and no doubt the modernists scorn the idea of a mountain being moved to a different place by prayer.  They play down the miracles of St. Gregory and focus on other aspects of his sanctity that fit better into their agenda of humanistic love and fellowship.  But it’s not for nothing that he’s called Gregory the Wonder-Worker.  He was renowned more than anything else for the wonders he performed.

Saints who work miracles do not do so through their own power, as they would be the first to remind us.  I don’t care how holy someone is, they aren’t going to tell a mountain to move somewhere else.  The English King Canute was revered by his subjects, so much so that they attributed to him magical powers.  But Canute was a holy man, and to teach them a lesson he commanded them to place his throne on the beach facing the incoming tide.  He then commanded the tide to turn around and not encroach further up the beach.  He did not pray for it to be done; he just told the seawaters to turn around, pretending that he had authority over the waves.  There was no spiritual reason for giving this command except to prove to his subjects that miracles are performed only by God, not by any king.  By the time the cold waters of the North Sea were lapping around his ankles, they got the message.  King Canute is today revered not as a powerful magician, but as a saint.  St. Gregory performed many wonders, but only by praying for them to be wrought by the divine power of God.

The reason why St. Gregory prayed to move the mountain is significant.  It certainly wasn’t just to show off the power of his prayers.  The people were trying to build a church, but the mountain was in the way of the construction.  There were two spiritual reasons therefore for the miracle: to show that prayer and faith are indeed powerful enough to move a mountain, and to allow the construction of a church—a tabernacle of God amongst men.  St. Gregory was a very fervent son of Holy Mother Church.  In fact, as he lay dying, he asked how many heretics remained in his city.  They replied to him “seventeen.”  St. Gregory then thanked God, as seventeen was the number of Christians when he had first arrived there.

The moral of this story, where we are concerned, is that by prayer and faith, we can convert the lost Catholics, the apostates, the modernists, back to the true Church.  We can turn our small minority of traditional Catholics back into the majority, by praying with faith that the stone-cold mountains of faithlessness be removed, and our Church may be rebuilt.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

GIVING BACK

A SERMON FOR THE 22ND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST


“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  Today’s Gospel is all about rendering.  But what does it mean, to “render”?  The word comes from the Latin reddere, which means literally “to give back.”  We have no problem knowing what we need to give back to God for all the good things he’s given us.  We must give him literally everything, ourselves included.  All is placed back in his hands to do with what he will.

But when we’re asked to render unto Caesar, how much are we supposed to give back to him?  Caesar, in today’s terms, can be equated with the state.  Our country.  Now we may be tempted to wonder what good things the state provides for us.  If we can get past the more cynical answers to that question, we will, I think, eventually realize that without some degree of control by the state, we would live in a world of anarchy.   We have the state to thank for the laws which keep us safe and well organized, for the law enforcement organizations and justice system that make sure our rights are respected.  Those rights are summarized in the Bill of Rights, and we can rightly be thankful that we do have the right to criticize the government freely, the right to bear arms, to worship freely in the true faith, and so on.  The state provides us with many other good things—running drinkable water in our homes, education for our children, decent roads to drive on, airports, hospitals, the ability to run our businesses, and so on.  And If we’re ever in serious financial trouble, the state will even give us unemployment checks, food stamps, Medicaid, whatever we need to stay alive.  When all’s said and done, we can honestly say that we’re better off in this country than most others on the planet, and we should be genuinely grateful, at least for the “good things.”

We show our gratitude by “giving back”, rendering unto Caesar.  We do so rather begrudgingly by paying our taxes.  But should we expected to give more than that?  And if so, how much?  It’s not just about handing over a few dollars in tax every year so that everything runs nicely.  We must take it to the point of laying down our lives for our country if necessary.  Our duty to our country is second only to our duty to God.  We call it patriotism, and it is actually a virtue.  “Patriotism,” a word that stems from the Latin word patria, literally the “Fatherland.”  The USA is a kind of father to us.  We are sons and daughters of our nation, a nation that protects us from harm, helps us to grow in peace and prosperity.  And as such, the Fourth Commandment that we should honor our father and our mother applies equally to honoring our nation.  This is why when ignorant footballers refuse to stand for the National Anthem, they are, objectively speaking, committing a sin against the Fourth Commandment.  I doubt they have half a brain between them, so hopefully God will not judge them too harshly, but by disrespecting the flag they are offending not just their fellow citizens, they are offending God.

However, we have other more serious issues going on these days, however, than brain-dead footballers and whatever silly protest-of-the-week they’re excited about this Sunday afternoon.  Something far more sinister is afoot, and it’s worthwhile reminding ourselves that the loyalty of American citizens is being tested today as never before.  We are being told that patriotism is a thing of the past, something evil which perpetuates inequality, xenophobia and white supremacy.  The globalists who try to force this myth down our throats consider themselves citizens of the world and not of this country.  If they view America as a nation at all, it is only to condemn it for what they perceive as its wicked past, the ethnic cleansing and genocide conducted against the Indian nations, slavery and segregation, corruption of the ruling classes, persecution of transgender non-binary whackos…  Globalism is the enemy of our nation, the enemy, in fact of every independent nation-state, and the filial piety we have towards our own country should make us recoil in horror at the very notion of a one-world government ruling over us and determining how we are to live our lives.

Nevertheless, we are being slowly tricked into believing that such a thing would be better than a world where individual nations constantly go to war with each other, and where military might supposedly prevails over the humble and meek. Don’t believe it for a second, for the absolute power that would belong to the government of the entire planet would result in similarly absolute and total corruption that would know no bounds.  If the world is to have a single leader, let it be Christ the King, to whom all other kings and presidents bow the head and bend the knee.   

As individuals we are powerless to stop the will of the majority from overwhelming the rest of us.  But let’s use the powers of democracy as long as we can, by campaigning and voting against evil men and women who would lead us to disaster with the iron fist of global totalitarianism.  

Only by leading the world in the adoration of the one, true God will we ever succeed in truly making America first.  Only by first rendering unto God the things that are God’s can we ever hope to keep the would-be Caesars of this nation from destroying us all. 

SERVING GOD AND COUNTRY

A REFLECTION FOR THE 22ND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

The idea of rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s finds its ultimate purpose in the sacrifice of serving in the nation’s military.  Our President’s highest office is that of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and his most important role is the defence of the nation against foreign foes.  It is not a job, obviously, that can be done by one man.  The President has help in this most noble of tasks from the members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coastguard.  Together, they work at every moment of every day to keep us all safe.

There can be no higher calling in the secular world than service to one’s nation.  It means the sacrifice of time spent far away from our families, hardship in sometimes unimaginably terrible conditions, exposure to danger, mutilation, and even death.  To lay down our lives in defence of our homeland—this is the ultimate sacrifice.  Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori—"It is a sweet and honorable thing to die for one’s country.”  Tomorrow is Veterans Day, and we honor those who survived their military service.  These are the men and women who were prepared to fight so that we would not have to fight, to die so that we might live.  And here we are today, alive and well, utterly complacent in the luxuries and well-being that a loving God has bestowed upon us, and that our veterans protected with their lives.  If we are smug, let us thank them that we are able to be smug.  We thank them for their service, and we do so from the bottom of our hearts.  Let us honor our veterans tomorrow by truly appreciating the good things their sacrifice has allowed us to have, and by doing what we can to protect these same good things for our children.

In Europe, November 11th is Armistice Day, this year the 101st anniversary since the signing of the Armistice that ended the First World War, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  Today, it feels as though we once again stand at that eleventh hour, when future possibilities are viewed with trepidation rather than hope, and our smugness is disturbed by fears of things to come.  Like all men before us, we turn our hearts to God at such a time.  As we walk forward into the darkness, we reach out, hoping to touch the hand of God that will lead us with strength and confidence.  And that is as it should be.  The eleventh hour it may be, but if our souls are pure, the coming hour of midnight is not something we should fear.  When it strikes its solemn toll, it is nothing more than the announcement that Christ is come for us, taking us with one hand, and pointing forward with the other towards the shining light of his kingdom.  

So when all is dark, remember that the light is nigh.  During the years after the fall of man, it seemed that darkness was once again upon the face of the deep.  But in the midst of this darkness, at midnight at the end of the twelfth and last month of the year, came the Light of the World, born in a stable in Bethlehem.  This Infant is our light today, the hope of the future and the hope of man.  We stand ready to serve in the army of the Church Militant, we are prepared to do battle, to fight and to die in the service of Christ our King.  We will not be stopped from rendering unto God the things that are God’s.

CHRIST ENTHRONED IN HIGHEST HEAVEN

A HYMN FOR THE 22ND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Latin, Thirteenth Century  
1. Christ, enthroned in highest Heaven,
Hear us crying from the deep,
For the faithful ones departed,
For the souls of all that sleep;
As Thy kneeling Church entreateth,
Hearken, Shepherd of the sheep.
2. King of Glory, hear our voices,
Grant Thy faithful rest, we pray;
We have sinned, and may not bide it,
If Thou mark our steps astray;
Yet we plead the saving Victim,
Which for them we bring today.
3. That which Thou Thyself hast offered
To Thy Father, offer we;
Let it win for them a blessing,
Bless them, Jesu, set them free;
They are Thine, they wait in patience;
Merciful and gracious be.
4. They are Thine, O take them quickly,
Thou their Hope, O raise them high;
Ever hoping, ever trusting,
Unto Thee they strive and cry;
Day and night, both morn and even,
Be, O Christ, their Guardian nigh.
5. Let Thy plenteous loving-kindness,
On them, as we pray, be poured;
Let them through Thy boundless mercy,
From all evil be restored;
Hearken to the voices pleading
Of Thy Church, O gracious Lord.
6. Hear and answer prayers devoutest,
Break, O Lord, each binding chain,
Dash the gates of death asunder,
Quell the devil and his train;
Bring the souls which Thou hast ransomed
Evermore in joy to reign.

Sunday, November 3, 2019

WITHSTAND IN THE EVIL DAY

A SERMON FOR THE 21ST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

It all lines up very nicely this year.  On Friday, All Saints Day, we celebrated the Church Triumphant in heaven.  Yesterday, All Souls Day, we prayed for the Church Suffering in Purgatory.  And now today, it is the turn of the Church Militant to be commemorated. 

We’re all members of this Church Militant.  The Church Militant is an institution established not by its members, by men, but by the Son of God.  She is a divine institution.   That means she is more than the bricks and mortar that make up her buildings.  Buildings are constructed by men, and men can destroy them.  All it takes to reduce a great cathedral like Notre Dame in Paris to a smouldering ruin is one man forgetting to unplug something, or leaving a cigarette burning in the wrong place.  But the Church can never be destroyed by men.  She is more than Notre Dame and all the other great basilicas and universities and seminaries and monasteries.  She is more than her individual popes and bishops and priests.  She is the living continuation of God’s holy truths, the individual souls where, collectively, we find those truths.  She is the intermediary founded by Christ through whose sacraments we are given the graces he earned on the Cross.  This is the Church, and it is militant because it must fight to protect these truths, these graces. 

And so we do fight.  We fight against the common foes that threaten us all.  We work together to defend our faith, our sacraments, and ultimately our very souls.  With  Christ’s army, we fight against the devil, his fallen angels, and wicked men.  It’s a fight to the death, for it is only with our death that the fight will end. Sometimes we fight side by side with our brothers and sisters in arms, other members of our Church Militant.  We fight against a common enemy, such as heresy, or immoral laws.  In such battles as these, and today they are many, we take comfort in the moral support and encouragement of our fellow Catholics.  Our fight is their fight and it’s good to feel that we are not alone.

Sometimes, though, we must fight alone.  Sure, we can take comfort in the support of our fellow Catholics, fellow warriors in the fight against the devil and the world.  But what about that other battle?  The one with our fallen human nature.  This is a battle which is ours to fight on our own.  Our personal struggles against temptation, the sinful tendencies of our individual appetites—these are ours, and only ours to fight.  We cannot confide our fears and temptations to others, these things are too private.  Even the priest in the confessional can only advise.  But no amount of advice or encouragement can take away the cross of temptation at those terrible moments—what St. Paul calls “the evil day”—when our soul swings in the balance.  It’s up to us, and us alone, at such times, to fight the good fight.

And yet, we’re not really alone!  We have the help of God, our blessed Mother, our guardian angels and patron saints in heaven.  Indeed, all the members of the Church Triumphant are there with us, standing by our side as we struggle to remain in the state of grace.  Today we should take the advice of one of those saints in particular, St. Paul, who in his Epistle tells us how to prepare ourselves for battle.  “Take unto you the armour of God,” he exhorts, “that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day.”

The list of armour he provides us is thorough.  We must gird our loins with the truth, our breastplate is that of righteousness, our boots the Gospel of peace.  We must protect ourselves with the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation, and defend ourselves with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  Rather than analyze each of these separately, let’s rather just summarize them and make them easier to remember in times of temptation.  Our armor in those lonely struggles is threefold—faith, hope and charity.

“Have your loins girt about with truth… and above all, taking the shield of faith.”  Faith.  We know the ten commandments, we know what’s right and what’s wrong.  And armed with our knowledge of the faith, of what’s good and evil, our higher intellect is well prepared to deal with our lower instincts, those results of original sin that so relentlessly draw us away from our Creator.  Our first line of defence, in other words, is to know what we must do, and of course what we must not do, if we want to continue in the love of God.  The virtue of faith gives us not only that knowledge, but the strength to actually follow through, “to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked,” and avoid sin.

Secondly, there is the virtue of hope.  This is where our helmet and our boots come in handy, for St. Paul tells us that our helmet is the “helmet of salvation” and that our feet must be “shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.”  How do we achieve salvation, how do we prepare this “gospel of peace?”  Head and feet are connected.  Hope of salvation and true peace are connected.  We can never experience true peace in this world except that which comes from the hope of salvation.  How could we ever be at peace, knowing that our soul is destined for hell?  But we will have the peace of knowing our soul is on the right path so long as we don’t deviate into the path of sin.  We can still be hopeful of our salvation.  Our preparation for that “gospel of peace” therefore, is by constantly placing our hope in the ultimate goal of life, the salvation of our soul.

So with faith and hope we’re now armed to the teeth, and ready for battle.  Or are we?  If you think about it, the only armor we’ve put on so far is defensive armor.  If we’re going to win this fight we need one more thing, and that is something with which we can kill the enemy.  This is where the “sword of the Spirit” comes in, and with it we complete our armor of God and are ready to “stand against the wiles of the devil”.  What is this sword?  This “sword of the Spirit?”  St. Paul tells us exactly what this sword of the Spirit is—it’s the “word of God.”  And what exactly is the word of God?

The word of God, like any human word, is a means of communication.  The only thing God is interested in communicating to man is his love.  And the only he wants to hear in return are words of love from us.  Like all love, it’s better spoken with actions than with actual words.  We sometimes speak words but don’t mean them.  But when we deny ourselves for the sake of the person we love, that speaks volumes.  God sees the sacrifices we make when we resist temptation, when we deny ourselves some pleasure or satisfaction out of love for him.  And these sacrifices, this love of God that moves us to make these sacrifices, this is the sword with which we will defeat our enemy.  The more we love God, the easier we’ll avoid falling into sins that we know will displease him.  The virtue of charity completes our armor.  Neither faith nor hope are sufficient of themselves.  It’s not enough to just believe it’s wrong to give in to temptation.  Nor is it enough to simply hope for salvation, or fear the alternative if we fall.  We must have that supreme, crowning virtue of charity, by which we absolutely will not give in, because to do so would offend the God we love.

By all means enjoy the support and fellowship of your companions in the faith when you can.  But when it’s not possible, when you find yourself alone to do battle against the enemy, do so with all the armor of God protecting you.  Above all, brandish the sword of the Spirit, your love of God, to ward off the devil, the world and our fallen nature.  Do so, and instead of falling, you’ll be able “to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

CROSSING THE BAR

A HYMN FOR THE 21ST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1889

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
    When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
      Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
      Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
      And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
      When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

TIME TO MOVE ON

A REFLECTION FOR THE 21ST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Has anyone noticed how often the topic of assisted suicide is coming up in our modern media?  Barely a TV show crosses our screens without some subplot about a poor elderly person who begs a younger person to provide him with the means to “die on his own terms” or “die with dignity.”  This is a whole new adventure in blasphemy, and one which is growing in popularity.  It has even become lawful in some states, and is seen as a sign of a more “progressive” approach to life and death.

We need not wonder why there is this gradual acceptance of assisted suicide.  It is simply the logical progression from the tired old abortion argument that it’s a “woman’s right to choose.”  If we can choose to kill our babies, then why should we not have the power to decide how and when we ourselves die?  It’s just another example of how the whole notion of God is being removed from the consciousness of the masses.  If we take God out of the equation, then his laws no longer apply, and we are free to invent our own morality.  Obviously, we will then choose to make up moral laws that we perceive will bring us the greatest happiness and the least suffering.  Euthanasia is fast becoming the latest stage of the greater plot to rid us of God.

It may be the latest, but it will not be the last.  The whole subject of eugenics is raising its ugly head again in public debate, and it looks like it won’t be long before our brave, new, and Godless world will be building clinics for the mercy killing of the terminally ill, the deformed, and the mentally sick.  Human beings who are incapable of making a sufficient contribution to society will simply be annihilated.  Society will be rid of these so-called burdens, and everyone will be better off…

As Catholics, we believe that such atrocities offend God.  Every human soul is created for a purpose, and no individual is ever worthless in the eyes of God.  He died for the ugly as for the beautiful, the sick as for the healthy, and we all must live with our crosses until God determines otherwise.  It is never for us to decide when it’s “time to move on.”  Life and death are in the hands of God, and if we dare trespass on his prerogatives by “putting someone out of their misery” as though they are a sick animal, it is nothing short of murder.

There will be circumstances in which this simple truth will be seen as harsh.  The TV script writers are sure to come up with harrowing stories in which our adherence to Catholic morals are tested.  But even as we weep for the suffering, we must never waver in our refusal to usurp God’s power over life and death.  If we are ever faced with such a situation ourselves, we should do our best to bring the one suffering to recognize the hidden beauty of his cross and the power to help others by his humble offering to God of all he endures.

I know a Vietnam vet whose comrade was mortally wounded in battle.  The poor soldier was in terrible pain, completely disfigured by shrapnel, and he begged his friend to end his life.  But his friend was a Christian and although he held his gun to the wounded man’s forehead, he couldn’t pull the trigger.  He wept and he prayed, and as he did so, his friend simply died in his arms.  God decides when it’s time to move on.