THE LITURGICAL YEAR

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

Sunday, June 28, 2020

LAUNCH OUT INTO THE DEEP

A SERMON FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST


Did you ever think that maybe God is getting a little annoyed with us?  We turn on the TV and we sit back in detached horror at the events of the world, and we wonder when God is going to wake up and sort it all out.  Well, has it occurred to you yet, that it is not God who is asleep, but the men and women he created?  How, after all, is it possible that such a small minority of troublemakers are able to cause such mayhem in our society?  How can it be that our entire civilization, our way of life built up over hundreds, thousands of years, suddenly finds itself in peril, facing a potentially existential threat from a bunch of ignorant hooligans?  Is it not, surely, that the vast silent majority is doing exactly what you and I are doing, just watching it all unfold before our very eyes, and not lifting a finger to stop it?

We know that this is all the work of Satan.  But what we tend to forget is that the only way it can happen is by the permissive will of God.  He doesn’t want it to happen, but he lets it happen.  And why?  Perhaps so that we will finally wake up and smell the coffee, not the nice smell of coffee, but the vile aroma of burnt and rancid coffee that has permeated our church, our society, and our own families. 

In today’s Gospel, our Lord stands by the Lake of Gennesaret and finds two fishing vessels moored by the side of the lake.  “But the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.”  They had spent the night fishing and had caught nothing.  They had wasted their entire night, they were tired, they wanted to wash their nets and go home to bed.  Typical behavior for us human beings!  Their problem was the same as ours today.  Big problems, so let’s moan and groan about it and then go back to sleep.

But our Lord would have none of that.  His words were not at all what Simon Peter and the other fishermen wanted to hear: “Launch out into the deep,” he tells them, “and let down your nets for a draught.”  This was the last thing these poor tired men wanted to do.  “Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing,” says Simon Peter.  Isn’t this where we find ourselves today?  We have kept the faith, tried to set a good example to others, told them about the errors of Vatican II and the importance of keeping the commandments.  We’ve marched in pro-life rallies, voted in elections, complained to bishops and popes, and exhausted ourselves trying to raise our families to at least just go to Mass on Sundays.  And now we’re tired.  It’s time, think we, to sit back and take a rest.  And like the future apostles in today’s Gospel, the last thing we want to hear is to get off our backsides and “launch out into the deep” again.

It’s going to take some kind of incentive to get us moving.  To give us the same enthusiasm we used to have when we were younger, when problems were still “manageable.”  And so God has permitted a threat to appear on our horizon.  One that we can no longer ignore.  We can’t just expect somebody else to deal with it because, quite frankly, nobody is.  The time has come, my friends, for us to launch out once more into the deep.  “Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more,” as Shakespeare’s Henry V exhorted his troops as they marched to battle against the French. For us, though, it’s no longer just a local battle between the good guys and those French rascals.  This time, we have a Luciferian movement of global proportions, making this a world war between heaven and hell, good and evil.

When we’re faced with an army of Frenchmen, our weapons are obvious.  We shoot them with our arrows, and poke them with our swords.  But when the enemy army is comprised of demonic legions, we must use other weapons.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, when Judas the Betrayer came to hand over our Lord to the Romans, St. Peter took out the sword.  Bad choice.  Cutting people’s ears off is not going to help our cause any more than it prevented the Crucifixion.  Our weapon must be supernatural.  We must prayer.  Pray the Rosary, go to Mass, receive the Sacraments!  We must remain firmly in the state of grace.  We must grow in virtue.  These are no longer pious exhortations just for our own benefit.  They are literally our only available weapons right now against the enemy. “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul,” said our Lord; “but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”  This is the attack we are under today, and it’s time to decide just whose side we are on.  It’s time to take up arms—spiritual arms—to defend ourselves, our families, and the very core of the society this nation represents.

We may be afraid today.  But let’s remember D-Day, the boys on those amphibious troop carriers as they approached the beaches of Normandy.  They were afraid too.  But they didn’t run away from the battle.  On the contrary, they ran full steam ahead towards it, as we must do now.   In today’s Epistle, St. Paul describes how “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together.  Even we ourselves groan within ourselves.” Fine.  Moan and groan away.  But then don’t go to sleep.  Go to battle.  Launch out into the deep and don’t stop till we have retaken the land occupied by the enemy.  “This land is our land!”  Not Satan’s! 

And if we take the trouble to fight, the end result of our fighting is assured.  As St. Paul points out, we are simply awaiting “the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”  If we’re looking for that final redemption, then we must love God, love our neighbor.  And there are times when that means we have to go to battle for our neighbor, our nation, our family, ourselves.  If you don’t want to, if you prefer to go back to sleep and let others do your work, then “all ashore that’s going ashore.”  Good bye.  For the rest of us, it’s time to launch out into the deep.

I HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY

A HYMN FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST


by Horatius Bonar, 1846

1 I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"Come unto me and rest;
lay down, O weary one, lay down
your head upon my breast."
I came to Jesus as I was,
weary and worn and sad;
I found in him a resting place,
and he has made me glad.

2 I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"Behold, I freely give
the living water; thirsty one,
stoop down and drink, and live."
I came to Jesus, and I drank
of that life-giving stream;
my thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
and now I live in him.

 3 I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"I am this dark world's Light;
look unto me, your morn shall rise,
and all your days be bright."
I looked to Jesus and I found
in him my Star, my Sun;

and in that light of life I'll walk,
'til trav'ling days are done.

WHO IS THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL?

A REFLECTION FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST



That takes us logically back to the disciples and their question as to who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?  If the least in heaven is greater than the greatest saint on earth, how much higher must be the greatest in heaven?  And who is he?  So the answer of our Lord most certainly must have come as a surprise to the disciples.  “He called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.  Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

When our Lord prefaces a statement with the words “Verily, I say unto you,” it’s a sign that he wants to emphasize what he’s about to say.  So it behooves us to take notice of what he says.  God wants us to humble ourselves as little children.  We are, after all, the children of God.  But do we really accept that?  That we are mere children?  Certainly, it requires humility on our part to acknowledge that, but it’s an acknowledgment that God wants us to make.  The very acknowledgment itself is a big part of the humility God is looking for.

Our job as parents and teachers is not to make our little children grow up to be like us.  Our job is to be more like them.  Let’s never forget that.  When Adam and Eve bit the apple, they became aware of the difference between good and evil.  Our own awareness of this difference stems from the time we reached the age of reason.  From that moment on, we are on ‘the path’.  The path that we can either climb up, or slip down.  Since we reached the age of reason, we have all done some good things that merited God’s grace and a heavenly reward.  But we’ve also done a barrel full of bad things, which deserve an altogether different kind of reward.  It’s been a difficult path for all of us, so by all means let’s do our best to guide our children so they don’t make the same mistakes.  If you’re a saint, then pull them up after you.  If you’re a sinner, then push them up from behind.  Let them learn from your good example, and let them learn from your mistakes.  Meanwhile, we ourselves must learn from their example of innocence, their absence of guile, their sincerity and sense of justice.  Most of all, copy the complete love and trust they have for you, by having the same for God.

Sunday, June 21, 2020

OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN

A SERMON FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF SACRED HEART


This is a day dedicated to our fathers.  We children revere our fathers today in a very special way, mindful of the role they have played in our lives, recognizing the place of honor and esteem they have earned from those of us they have raised and protected.

There’s something very, very special about the connection that exists between a father and his children.  In fact, it’s a love that has its origin in eternity, before time and space began, before ever the world was.  Before God created the heavens and the earth, the love between Father and Son already existed, and had existed from everlasting.  It was the love of the Blessed Trinity, the love of the Father for the Son, and the Son for the Father, and the Holy Ghost which is the love between them.  We who are created in the image of this Triune God, honor our fathers today as Christ has always honored his.

The fact that there are human fathers and sons at all is, of course, due to this original love of God.  Theirs is a love that is infinite, a love that therefore chose to create man so that we might share in his happiness by loving God too.  God created Adam for this purpose, even though he knew full well that Adam would betray his love, and that in time we all would.  He created us, even knowing the terrible sacrifice that his own divine Son, the Son of God made man, would alone be able to be make to save us from for our sins.  Such is God’s love for us. 

And such love deserves great love in return.  When God gave his Ten Commandments to Moses, the first three demand this love.  They tell us that we must love only the true God, that we must keep holy his Name, and that must we set aside the sabbath for his worship.  The other seven tell us how to behave towards our fellow-man, and the first of them, the Fourth Commandment, which is given supreme prominence over the others that follow, demands that we honor our father and our mother.  Such is the importance placed on the love we must demonstrate towards our parents, and the honor we must bestow upon them.  To betray our father, to bring dishonor to the family name, is the very worst kind of sin, only one step short of being disloyal to God himself. 

And yet the story of man is one long story of betrayal after betrayal, sin after sin.  How unworthy we are of the love that our heavenly Father has showered upon us.  But there are also stories in our long and sad history of men who had an abundance of love for their divine Father, who lived holy lives, and who eventually became saints in heaven.  And if I were to recount just one story of this kind of love, the greatest story ever told about this love, what story would I tell?  It would be the story of an angel appearing to a simple maiden in Nazareth.  The story of her humble acquiescence to the divine will of her heavenly Father, and the subsequent birth of a Child, the Son of God, in Bethlehem.  It would be the story of our Redemption.

Only twice in that story do we ever hear the voice of God the Father.  It happens first at our Lord’s Baptism in the River Jordan, when the Son of God was symbolically cleansed, showing himself to be completely free from sin.  The second occasion on which we hear God the Father speak was at our Lord’s Transfiguration, when his Son appeared to his apostles in all his divine glory.  On both occasions, the Father’s words are the same.  God wants to make sure we get the message, and so he proclaims it twice: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  This is the message we are given directly from the mouth of God the Father.  The message that a Father loves his Son.

When that Son taught us to pray, he gave us the most perfect prayer of all.  It begins with the words “Our Father, who art in heaven.”  He does not tell us to pray to his Father, but to our Father.  By becoming Man, the Son of God became our brother, and thus, we all have the same Father in heaven.  Hallowed be his Name.  We are all the children of God, and when we speak to him, when we perform any important action, we do so in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.  The Creed that contains the most important truths of our faith begins with the words “I believe in God, the Father Almighty.”  All good things come to us from above, “from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”  We owe everything to our heavenly Father, even our very existence.

And so it is that without God the Father we are nothing.  A family without a father is a very sad thing.  For it is the father’s role to provide for his wife and children, not only financially, but by the example of his upstanding moral character.  Without this example, the children are in peril of being lost, and only a special grace from God can prevent that from happening.  The same thing goes for a nation without a king.  The king is the father of the nation, wielding the authority of his heavenly Father from whom all power derives, and in whose name all kings rule.  Without a ruler who has power to rule, there will be anarchy, and we see this happening today as Anarchists, Satanists, and Democrats alike march together, using every opportunity that comes their way to prevent our President from governing this nation under God.

In the Church, we call our priests “Father,” because it is their job, just like the father of any family, to provide.  They provide you with the sacraments, with the truths of the faith, and with all the other tools you need to save your souls.  They are supposed, also, to demonstrate that same upstanding moral example that all fathers should provide, so that the faithful may follow.  Alas, so many of us fail in that task, and, as a direct result, many souls have perished.  The Second Vatican Council was supposed to be a Council of Church Fathers.  Fathers, one and all, who were supposed to provide their children with the truths of the faith, the nourishment of sound doctrine.  They failed, miserably, and in some cases, deliberately.  The highest of these Church Fathers, the red-robed cardinals, even came together in the supreme council of all, the Conclave, to elect a supreme ruler, one who would be known as the Holy Father.  We know how that story has unfolded, time after time, since the late 1950s.  Without a Holy Father, we are left lost and floundering.  We are in peril.

Church, state, even our own families are gradually being obliterated by the enemies of God.  And how are they doing it?  By attacking and then depriving us of our earthly fathers, whether it be Pope, President, or just plain Dad.  Our reaction must be to remain constantly aware of this never-ending assault on our fathers, biological, political and spiritual, so that we might be prepared for the battle that now falls to us to fight, praying to the one Father they can never take from us, our Father in heaven.  Thy kingdom come!  Thy will be done!

On this Sunday within the Octave of the Sacred Heart, you may be surprised that I have not mentioned the Sacred Heart once so far.  I do so now, not as a footnote to what we’ve been discussing, but as the very essence of the current situation.  That Sacred Heart, pierced by a lance as our Lord died on the Cross was a Heart filled with love.  Love for us certainly, and greater love no one has ever had for us.  But above all, love for his Father who has loved him in return infinitely and eternally.  And so it was that the greatest agony of our Lord’s Passion was the mystical separation between himself and his Father.  God the Father, in a mysterious and mystical sense, “turned away” from his Son in disgust at the sight of the sins of the world our blessed Lord was carrying on his shoulders, the infinite offences against his divine majesty that God could not stand to look upon.  For one terrible moment as he died, the Sacred and very human Heart of Jesus could no longer feel his Father’s love.  And as he hung there dying, he uttered the most awful words ever pronounced, when he cried out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!”  This was the supreme moment of his sacrifice, suffered voluntarily out of love for his Father and out of love for us.  Understand this, and we will begin to comprehend the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of both Father and Son for each other and for us.  And we will finally have a small insight into the enormity of what we ask for, when we implore the most Sacred Heart of Jesus to have mercy upon us.

O GOD OF LOVE, O KING OF PEACE

A HYMN FOR THE OCTAVE OF SACRED HEART


by Sir Henry Williams Baker, 1861

1 O God of love, O King of peace,
Make wars throughout the world to cease;
Violent acts, O God, restrain;
Give peace, O God, give peace again!

2 Remember, Lord, thy works of old,
The wonders that to us were told;
Remember not our sins' dark stain;
Give peace, O God, give peace again!

3 Whom shall we trust but thee, O Lord?
Where rest but on thy faithful word?
None ever called on thee in vain;
Give peace, O God, give peace again!

4 Where saints and angels dwell above,
All hearts are knit in holy love;
O bind us in that heav'nly chain;
Give peace, O God, give peace again!

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH

A REFLECTION FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF SACRED HEART


When Shakespeare wrote these words in 1598 for his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, his audience back then knew exactly what he meant.  Just as we do today.  It’s one of those facts of life—obstacles always get in the way of true love.  And it’s as true for God as it is for men and women.  Not of course when it’s a question of the love that the three Divine Persons of the Trinity have for each other.  But when God created man, it’s an altogether different story.  God has always wanted to share his perfect love with Adam and Eve and their offspring.  He wanted us to enjoy his love for all eternity in heaven.  But first, just a little test to prove ourselves worthy of that love.  A test called “life”.

How’s your life going?  Is it running smoothly?  Of course not, because Shakespeare was right.  Nor can we blame our problems on God, from whom only good things come.  He has loved us with a perfect love since the day of creation.  Before we were even conceived, God knew us and loved us.  He loved us so much that he died for us.  And what has been our response?  Look around at the world.  Are we seeing a lot of love going on out there?  Real love?

This week we all saw the video of a man walking down the street, and without any reason whatsoever, striking a 92-year-old woman in the head and knocking her to the ground.  With zero visible emotion, he just walked on, leaving her bleeding on the sidewalk.  We were all sickened by this.  We were appalled.   We were disgusted.  But mostly we are frustrated and angry when we find out this man has been arrested 103 times since 2005 and he’s still out on the streets beating up little old ladies.  This single act epitomizes the current environment of lawlessness, where apparently only “Black Lives Matter” and godless thugs are taking over our streets and our cities, and even the very minds of our fellow-citizens.
 
God knew all this would happen when he first created Adam.  And yet he loved us all, giving us the free will that so many abuse to do the devil’s work of chaos and anarchy.  These followers of Satan for whom we feel such disgust, he loved and died for.  The love of the Sacred Heart knows no bounds.  And he still hopes to receive man’s love in return.  As it says in today’s Gospel, he still seeks the sheep that was lost.

So the course of God’s true love may not be running smoothly right now, but that’s our fault and not his.  No matter how angry, afraid, or frustrated we may feel, we must never lose that love of God that keeps us sane.  When we can’t turn for comfort to our government, our civil leaders, or even our Church, we are reduced to placing all our trust in God alone and the love he has for us that faileth never.

Our Sunday falls this week within the Octave of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  St. Peter’s Epistle message today couldn’t be clearer for the times we live in—place yourselves “under the mighty hand of God… casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”

Sunday, June 14, 2020

LOVING IN DEED AND TRUTH

A SERMON FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI


Life’s tough.  We all feel the pinch at some point.  This current year has been especially hard on many people: businesses have been forced to close and a record number have been driven into undeserved unemployment.  Some businesses were hurt so badly that they cannot recover and have closed permanently.  We can only hope that the harm done to individual workers will not be so drastic, and that all may find jobs when the time comes.  Meanwhile, people are hurting, and as Catholics we cannot turn a blind eye to them.

In today’s Epistle, St. John asks the following very blunt question:  “Whoso hath this world’s good” (in other words, who amongst us are still doing okay financially, in spite of this current crisis), “and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up the bowels of compassion from him: how dwelleth the love of God in him?”  It’s a rhetorical question because the answer is quite obvious.  The love of God does not dwell in those who refuse charity to those in need.  We sin against the second of the two great commandments when we do not love our neighbor as ourselves.  It’s quite straightforward, but sometimes we prefer to forget about this commandment because it is an inconvenient reminder of our duty as we lead our nice, smug little lives, where we sit back like Ebenezer Scrooge, counting our money, surveying our goods and property, and spending our lives worrying that maybe somebody might take it from us.

Thus it is that on this Sunday within the Octave of Corpus Christi, when we make our prayers to Christ truly present amongst us in the Blessed Sacrament, we waste our time and our prayers are truly worthless, if we do not remember the words of our Saviour when he described how he will one day judge us.  The day when he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left, and shall say to the sheep, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.”  You all remember, I’m sure, how the righteous replied?  Lord, when did we see thee hungry, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?  Or naked, and clothed thee?  And so on.  The words of Christ our Judge should ring in our ears today: “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
So let’s not pretend our prayers to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament have any merit if we ignore the needs of our neighbor.  Because the love of God does not dwell in us if we do not love our neighbor.  To love our neighbor is to love our blessed Lord himself.  After all, our Lord was and still is our neighbor, dwelling in our midst in this Blessed Sacrament.  We must see our neighbor in that Blessed Sacrament, not because our neighbor is God, but because God is our neighbor.  Our real love for God is not made with our prayers, with our tongue, but as St. John says, “in deed and in truth.”  And if we truly love our brethren in deed and truth, we shall know, he tells us, “that we have passed from death unto life.”
This has been the practice of the Church throughout the ages.  How many of our saints gave away all they possessed to the poor?  How many saintly kings and queens, how many of the rich who had an abundance of the goods of this world, loved to give alms to those in need?  Think of St. Martin, giving his cloak to the beggar, or St. Wenceslas tramping through the snow to bring logs for his poor peasants to burn during the cold winter nights.  Or St. Lawrence, giving away all the Church’s treasures to the poor rather than into the hands of the pagan Emperor.  All acts of kindness and Christian charity.  These holy men and women were not saints because they gave alms to the poor.  They gave alms because they were saints.  They didn’t love their neighbor to score points with God.  They did so because they saw God in their neighbor—as we should, no matter how unpleasant some of those neighbors may seem!
There’s a reason the Blessed Sacrament is called the Sacrament of Love.  It’s not the reason our Novus Ordo brethren think, because they have lost their understanding of what “love” is.  It is not the lovey-dovey huggy-kissy love where they slobber all over each other for the “sign of peace” at Mass.  That’s not love.  Love is not the exhibition of our own sentimental emotions.  Love is where we put the needs of others above our own needs.  The sacrifice of our time, our efforts, and yes, our money too when it’s needed.  The love that our Lord talks about when he commands us to love our neighbor is not the love of fellowship but the love of sacrifice, and what greater sacrifice has their ever been than when our Lord offered up his own body, the Corpus Christi, to his heavenly Father?

We can’t love God if we don’t love our neighbor.  As our Epistle today tells us, “He that loveth not his brother abideth in death; whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.”  So when we whisper our prayers to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament this morning, let’s make sure we whisper them for our neighbors as ourselves.  Let’s make sure we are ready to make those sacrifices for them as soon as we know of their needs.  “Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”

O FOOD OF MEN WAYFARING

A HYMN FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI


O Esca Viatorum, by St. Thomas Aquinas
Translated from the Latin by Athelstan Riley, 1858-1945

O Food of men wayfaring,
The Bread of Angels sharing,
O Manna from on high!
We hunger; Lord, supply us,
Nor thy delights deny us,
Whose hearts to thee draw nigh.

2 O Stream of love past telling,
O purest Fountain, welling
From out the Saviour’s side!
We faint with thirst; revive us,
Of thine abundance give us,
And all we need provide.

3 O Jesu, by thee bidden,
We here adore thee, hidden
’Neath forms of bread and wine.
Grant when the veil is riven,
We may behold, in heaven,
Thy countenance divine.

BEHOLD, THE BREAD OF ANGELS

A REFLECTION FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI


One of the most basic natural requirements of the human body is food.  The first thing a newborn baby learns is to cry when it wants to eat.  It’s a habit acquired from our first day of life, and one that we never seem to lose.  If there’s one thing that never fails to bring people together, it’s a good meal.  Conversely though, the inability to satisfy our hunger is guaran-teed to take us past the boiling point.  Deprive the people of bread and there’ll be a revolution.  We see this with the French in 1789, when the mob supposedly asked Queen Marie Antoinette for bread, and stormed the Bastille after they were told that they could go and eat cake.  In 1917 Russia, Lenin and his revolutionary mobs took over the streets, chanting the slogan “Power to the Soviets, Bread to the Starving!”

We even see this spirit of revolution in the Old Testament, when the Hebrews who had followed Moses out of Egypt rebelled against him, bitterly complaining that he had led them into the wilderness only to die of starvation.  God’s response was to rain down bread from heaven, Manna, which our Lord would later refer to as the Bread of Angels, a foreshadowing of the Holy Eucharist, the true Bread of Heaven.  The miracle of the Manna was reflected again in the New Testament, when our Lord performed the miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand with only five pieces of barley bread.  Once again, our Saviour reminds us of the importance of relying on Divine Providence, by telling us to stay calm and simply ask God to “give us this day our daily bread.”

Bread has formed an important part of history.  It represents food in its most basic aspect, and is one of those things that are essential to the survival of the human body.  As such, it is the perfect symbol for something far more important, something that is essential to the survival of the human soul.  It is no wonder then, that on the night before he suffered, our blessed Lord took bread into his sacred hands, and having blessed it, he gave it unto his disciples saying, Take ye, and eat ye all of this, for this is my Body!

The Body of Christ.  Corpus Christi.  No longer bread, but under the form of bread, this host we receive on our tongues in Holy Communion is truly the Body of Christ.  Like the Manna that falls from heaven, it drops down upon us, unfailing and inexhaustible, like the dew of the morning, instilling in us the infinite graces of God for our salvation.  Through the daily Masses offered by Catholic priests all over the world, the faithful are never deprived of their “bread”, we never need to rebel.  What depths of evil would it take for the Church to stop celebrating Mass and taking food from the hungry mouths of her children?  What kind of revolution would it provoke if the Church were to deprive us of our heavenly bread?  Vatican II and a new, probably invalid form of Mass perhaps?  Or maybe a global pandemic?  We should never forget how cunning the Devil really is, and how he tricks the children of God that the new Mass feeds them with the Bread of Angels when it is merely flour and water.  Or how he tricks people into offering up the deprivation of the sacraments during COVID-19, as though we were merely giving up candy in Lent.

The Body of Christ is our divinely provided and essential food.  We traditional Catholics may have rebelled against the evil powers who have taken over the Church, but we have not yet prevailed against them.  Let our slogan ring out, “Bread to the Starving!” and let us never cease to trust in Providence, asking that God never cease to “give us this day our daily bread.”

Sunday, June 7, 2020

LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS

A SERMON FOR TRINITY SUNDAY


So far, the year of our Lord 2020 hasn’t gone too well.  First, the Coronavirus.  Then, no sooner do we open our doors to catch a breath of fresh air and enjoy the sunshine, than we’re greeted by gangs of looters and organized rioters intent on taking the nation to an even lower level than the one from which we’re trying to emerge.  Psychologically, it has all been a bit much, and its no wonder that everyone’s nerves are totally frazzled.

Being in such a state of frazzlement, of course doesn’t help.  When we all get up-tight, when we’re all constantly on the verge of snapping, how can we expect a highly charged situation like the current crisis to de-escalate and go back to normal?  It requires cool heads and even tempers by all our citizens.  Those who use the crisis as an excuse to attack our legitimate authorities politically, to defund the police or get rid of them altogether, to normalize groups like “Black Lives Matter”—these people are just as guilty as those who are robbing liquor stores and throwing bricks at our law enforcement.  We have come to expect such insane rhetoric from our liberal media, our so-called Hollywood celebrities, and the former hippies who now run our universities.  We now see the same language coming out of the mouths of Protestant and Catholic bishops, who have shown themselves more upset that the President should visit their churches than that an out-of-control mob tried to burn them down.  Where, oh where, is sanity in the midst of all this?

So we look around for cool heads to prevail.  And so far, it seems that we look in vain.

We can’t look to our political governors to maintain control.  We can’t even look to to our church leaders.  Community organizers are too busy arranging demonstrations, while our medical profession just want us all to go back home and lock ourselves in again.  And I hate to say it, but aren’t some people on the right perhaps in danger of being bated into over-reacting against the demonstrators so that the left can use their cell phone videos as tools to further incite the mob and create even more mayhem?  So where do we need to look?

It reminds some of the older people amongst us of the days back in the 1960s when this kind of lunacy was born.  One thing the hippies used to say back then, in answer to this question of where to find sanity, was right, even though they didn’t understand why.  They came up with a song: “The answer, my friend is blowing in the wind.”  It’s just one week since our attention was drawn, to the “sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where [the apostles] were sitting.  And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” 

Here is our answer to all the current problems, whether they be on the scale of national crisis or just our own psychological fragility.  God is with us.  Beginning with Pentecost last week, continuing today with the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, and then with Corpus Christi on Thursday, we celebrate one after the other in quick succession, each Person of the Blessed Trinity, separately and together.  The God who is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, the God who changeth never.  When all else around us is chaos and tumult, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

Our responsibility in this world of madness is to live that truth ourselves, and then bring it to our neighbor.  We must remain firmly implanted in the presence of that God who does not change, of that Faith that does not change.  We must remain true to that worship of God, the Holy Apostolic Mass, that does not change.  As Catholics who remain true to tradition, we have been given the greatest gift of all, the stability of knowing that we have something worth clinging on to.  All men yearn for this stability because it is the only thing that can give inner peace.  Whether consciously or not, everyone seeks this inner peace, but they don’t all know how or where to find it.  We who know must share that gift with them.  Because today, they need it more than ever.  And only in God will we find the unity that needs to replace all these increasing divisions between black and white, liberals and conservatives, criminals and law enforcement. 

I don’t like using clichés, but this one originated in the words of our divine Saviour himself: “The truth shall set you free.”  The context of these words was when our Lord was speaking to those Jews who believed in him, and he told them “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”  This is what we need to do in these difficult times—continue in his words.  Keep his commandments, maintain the eternal truths that are being disturbed, preserve what is good and discard only what is truly bad.

And our reward is to enjoy the consoling peace that the Word of God speaks to us today: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”  God is with us.  As God the Father, he is the great Divine Being, omnipresent, surrounding us with his paternal care and guidance.  As God the Son, he is present physically in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, always ready to come into our very souls and bodies in Holy Communion.  And as God the Holy Ghost he dwells within us and we are his temples.  God is with us always.  It’s that easy.  Cling to this one, simple truth and pray for calm on the troubled waters of our nation and our soul.  Then pray for the strength to transmit God’s truths, his love and his peace to others.  Whether we realize it or not, God is with us.  It’s up to us to stay close to him!  Let’s make it our constant prayer, the words of the hymn: “O Lord that changeth not, abide with me.”

ALL CREATURES THAT ON EARTH DO DWELL

A HYMN FOR TRINITY SUNDAY


By William Kethe, d. 1594

All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice,
Him serve with fear, His praise forthtell;
Come ye before Him and rejoice.

The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;
Without our aid He did us make.
We are His folk, He doth us feed,
And for His sheep He doth us take.

Oh, enter, then, His gates with praise,
Approach with joy His courts unto;
Praise, laud, and bless His name always.
For it is seemly so to do.

For why? The Lord, our God, is good;
His mercy is forever sure.
His truth at all times firmly stood
And shall from age to age endure.

To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
To God whom heaven and earth adore,
From men and from the angel host
Be praise and glory evermore.  Amen.

E PLURIBUS UNUM

A REFLECTION FOR TRINITY SUNDAY

After the thirteen original colonies broke away from their King back in 1776, the Latin phrase E Pluribus Unum soon became an official motto of the revolutionaries, and they included it in the new nation’s official seal in 1782.  The idea was, of course, that out of the union of these thirteen colonies there had arisen one single nation, the United States of America.  And the fact that the motto itself was composed of thirteen letters certainly added to the power of its symbolism.

The idea of unity being forged from diversity, however, did not originate with the good old US of A.  Other countries had already come together to form a larger united nation.  Before the ninth century, for example, England had been comprised of seven distinct independent kingdoms.  And before that we can’t forget the Roman Empire that unified almost all the known world at the time, as did Alexander the Great before that.

In short, mankind strives naturally for unity.  It does so because we were all created in the same image and likeness of God.  And God, as we all know, is three Persons in one God—the Most Holy Trinity.  One God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity.  In the majestic words of the Athanasian Creed, we acknowledge that “in this Trinity none is afore or after another, none is greater or less than another: but the whole three Persons are co-eternal together, and co-equal.”

And we are made in the image and likeness of this God.  In the sight of God, all men are created equal, at least in the sense that they have mortal bodies and immortal souls.  We are all subject to the same laws of God and nature.  We enjoy the same pleasures, suffer the same pain, and will be subject to the same judgment for our behavior.  We are one in our humanity.

And yet, we are diverse.  We are one mankind in many different forms.  We differ in racial characteristics like hair and skin color, language, culture, and a host of other ways.  This diversity also reflects God, the aspect of Trinity in God.  It is certainly no coincidence that there are three general racial classifications on this planet, Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid.  Together, we form a living, breathing reflection of God’s triune nature, three races that form one humanity.

While the three races may be equal in the eyes of God, we are sadly, not necessarily equal in each other’s eyes.  Diversity has led not to unity in the case of man, but to inequality and even persecution and hatred between us.  While it is evident that the natural (and sometimes man-made) differences in our history, environment and ability to form civilizations may have had unfortunate consequences in our dealings with each other, it is incumbent on us as Catholics to recognize the underlying and inherent equality which makes us all brothers—children of the same God.  The answer to today’s problems lies in the Holy Trinity.  Diversity should not be abused, but rather encouraged where it adds to the richness of Creation.  And true unity is never going to be the fruit of violent change or some kind of artificial globalism, but rather in the common recognition of these three Persons in one God.  It used to be called Christendom.  Our prayer today must be that all men may find their common destiny in their union in the one true Church, in the one true Faith, and with the same one true God.  E Pluribus Unum!