BEWARE THE CRIES OF HOSANNA

 A SERMON FOR PALM SUNDAY

Today, we witness the triumphant entrance of Christ the King into his capital city of Jerusalem.  With the crowds we wave our palms proudly and cheer him on with our cries of “Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”  What an inspiring spectacle, as we see our blessed Lord given the honor he is owed by his people.

And yet, our vestments today are not colored gold in honor of this triumphant and glorious event.  We continue in our mournful garb of purple.  There are no flowers on the altar to welcome our King.  There is a feeling in the air, and it is not one of pure, unadulterated joy on this day.  We know that the cries of the crowd will soon change from Hosanna to something far less reverent, something too terrible almost to contemplate.  With this feeling of imminent dread, the Church today gives us not one Gospel but two.  She reminds us in the long and shocking account of our Lord’s Passion, that in the midst of our joy and veneration of our beloved Savior, this is not the end of the road.  We need to focus past the grand entrance of this King into the Holy City and remember how he will leave those city gates next Friday.  We must see the adulation of the crowds for what it’s worth.  Thus do the sufferings of our beloved King begin.

The thronging crowds on that first Palm Sunday were, for the most part, a boisterous and enthusiastic lot, eager to welcome their King into his city.  But our Lord did not throw his hands in the air in triumph; he did not wave and bow to the crowds.  For he knew what was in the heart of each person in that crowd.  He knew that many of them were genuine, sincere in their happiness to see him coming, and he was sad for them, for the devastation they would feel later this week.  Then there were those who were there out of mere curiosity, eager to see what would happen next.  They will just as eagerly throng the road to Calvary next Friday, watching a whole new spectacle, with gaping mouth and chattering lips.  And others yet, sprinkled among the crowd, watching with malice, their faces contorted with hatred, these evil children of darkness were resolute that this man and his works must be stopped—destroyed as though they had never been. 

For “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.  He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” When these wicked men had earlier wanted to stone him to death, our Lord asked them, “Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?  The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.”  “And the world,” you see, “knew him not.”

This morning, we are all here, a modest crowd whispering our Hosannas politely and holding our palms limply in our hands as we listen to the events of the day and the rest of the week unfold before our eyes.  Some of us will be moved, perhaps even to tears, at the awful things that come to pass.  Others will be merely bored by it all, day-dreaming our way to better times, to the end of this whole miserable business when we can get back to the “reality” of the Easter Bunny, and spending our time by more worthy and fruitful pursuits, like searching for the eggs he somehow managed to lay all over the garden—or whatever, whatever other distraction takes your fancy and keeps you in a “happy” mood.  Beware this trap.  Life’s sorrows must be grasped with the same sense of purpose, perhaps more even, than the joys that take our minds off these crosses.  As for the third category, those who would deliberately defy the mission of our Lord to save their souls, I doubt there are any here who fall into that third category.  But there’s a strong likelihood that you know someone who does?  Perhaps someone close to you.  Those who proudly whisper their wicked lifestyle to the world, or their plans to defy the laws of God?  Those who have chosen to take this path of darkness may be lost, perhaps forever, hopefully for a short time only.  Our reaction to them must not be one of anger, of rejection, or of fear.  Let our cries ring out all the louder, “Hosanna to the Son of David.”  “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”  Because he is blessed, and he cometh in the name of the Lord.  He cometh to visit and redeem his people.  And whether they like it or not, whether they even know it or not, all people that on earth do dwell are surely redeemed by our blessed Savior and by what he went through on that first Holy Week.  Think of those poor lost souls on their path to destruction, who might cry Hosanna, but inwardly make their decisions to crucify, and let your Hosannas of praise include prayers of mercy for them—“Lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy!”

HOSANNA, LOUD HOSANNA

 A HYMN FOR HOLY WEEK

By Jennette Threlfall, 1821-1880

1 Hosanna, loud hosanna
the little children sang;
through pillared court and temple
the lovely anthem rang.
To Jesus, who had blessed them,
close folded to his breast,
the children sang their praises,
the simplest and the best.

2 From Olivet they followed
mid an exultant crowd,
the victory palm branch waving,
and chanting clear and loud.
The Lord of earth and heaven
rode on in lowly state,
nor scorned that little children
should on his bidding wait.

 3 "Hosanna in the highest!"
That ancient song we sing,
for Christ is our Redeemer,
the Lord of heaven, our King.
O may we ever praise him
with heart and life and voice,
and in his blissful presence
eternally rejoice.

BEHOLD, THY KING COMETH UNTO THEE

A REFLECTION FOR PALM SUNDAY

We wear our purple vestments today and we mourn what is to come, even as our ears ring with the cries of “Hosanna to Son of David!”  For “verily, verily,” our Lord warned us, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”  We look around us at the world.  Many claim to love God, many profess their faith that Christ is indeed the Son of God.  And yet, do they do the will of our Father which is in heaven?  Do they obey Christ’s wishes that there is but one fold and one Shepherd, one faith and one baptism, one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church?  Or do they establish their own churches with their own beliefs?  Do they follow the ten commandments, or only the ones they find convenient?  “I’m a good person,” they proudly proclaim, “I hardly ever sin—only when I’m tempted!”  And do they think they’re doing the will of their Father in heaven when they refuse to acknowledge that the Holy Eucharist is truly the Body of Christ, despite our blessed Lord’s unequivocal declaration that it is so, when they refuse to obey his commandment to eat his Body and drink his Blood?
 
Among the dreadful and blasphemous Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, all those good, God-fearing Episcopalians, there is an admonition that “The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance to be reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.”  They believe, supposedly, that Christ is somehow “present” in the bread and wine, and yet, even though he is present, we must not worship him.  They’re ready to shout out “Behold thy King cometh unto thee,” at their eucharistic services.  But do not spread your garments in the way as he is carried about in the monstrance, do not cut down branches from the trees and straw them in the way, as the priest walks by under the ombrellino.  Do not cry out Hosanna to the Son of David.
 
True Christians, those who do the will of God, will shout out our Hosannas.  We will visit our Lord in the tabernacle when we’re able.  We kneel before him and worship him in the monstrance at Benediction.  We carry him in procession, with bells ringing and the glorious scent of incense rising to heaven in prayer.  For “Behold, thy King cometh.”
 
He cometh to us today, meekly, in Holy Communion.  And he sees our hearts as we, in turn, come to him, also in Holy Communion.  He knows the state of our soul, and will come again in glory to judge that soul.  And we in turn will, like him, make our grand entrance into the Holy City.  On that day, there will be no crowds cheering us on—only the Judge sitting, waiting for us on his Judgment Seat.  When we see him, we’ll know our fate instantly.  Will Christ our King appear before us as the Good Shepherd, happy to receive us into his kingdom?  Or will his crown be one of thorns as his tearful visage betrays the sorrow we have caused him by our sins?  Worse yet, will he be wielding in his right hand that terrible swift sword with which he will unleash on us the fateful lightning of eternal damnation?  We can avoid this!  It doesn’t have to be!  We just have to try, try as hard as we can, constantly, to do the will of our Father in heaven, to keep his commandments, to know, love and serve him, that our Hosannas may ring out with those of the angels above, so that, at the hour of our death, we may come to him, blessed, in the name of the Lord.

TRAPPED IN THE PRESENT

 A SERMON FOR PASSION SUNDAY

In the spring of 1917, the First World War was raging at full force in Europe.  Soldiers from both sides were pouring into France, filled at first with patriotic fervor and ready to lay down their lives for their country.   Their wildest imaginations could never have prepared them for the horrors of modern warfare, with the constant screech of artillery shells whistling overhead and falling around them, the terrifying seconds as they scrambled to put on their gas masks, the sudden calls to scramble over the relative safety of their trenches and into a no-man’s land filled with the sound of machine gun fire and the smell of blood and rotting corpses.  But in the midst of this truly horrible scene, there was one event in particular that no man could ever have predicted, and that no man should ever have to live through.

It happened on May 4, 1917, near the town of Craonne in northern France during the Second Battle of the Aisne. The Germans had built a supply tunnel under the Winterberg, about 300 yards long, and the French had found out about it.  For once, the accuracy of their artillery was perfect, and with two shots they blew up the entrances at both ends of the tunnel, triggering the further explosion of munitions within the tunnel, and sealing the 270 men of the German 111^th Reserve Infantry Division inside.  It was wartime, it was the middle of a battlefield, and neither side could spare the time or the manpower to dig them out.  Three survivors were eventually rescued and described the gruesome picture from inside the tunnel as the air gradually ran out.  It took six days for their comrades to die from suffocation.  Their cries for water were punctuated with the occasional gunshot.  One of the survivors remembered how a soldier, with rasping breath, begged for someone to load his pistol.

Just this past week, it was announced to the world that the Winterberg Tunnel, its entrances covered for over a hundred years by the foliage that returned after the end of the war, had been rediscovered.  It took the devoted efforts of a couple of amateur historians to find the mass grave of these poor soldiers.  I hope the French authorities will do what is now necessary to help give them a more fitting final resting place.

Today is Passion Sunday.  The word Passion comes from the Latin passio, which means suffering.  So far this Lent, our attention has been focused on ourselves.  The liturgy has been concerned with preparing us for what is to come.  We have been reminded of how we are dust, that unto dust we must return.  We have been encouraged to fast and do penance in reparation for our many sins.  Our efforts have been aimed at making ourselves more holy and pleasing to God, so that we may be judged with mercy, and more worthily partake in the glories of Easter and the Resurrection.  But first, before we may deserve mercy ourselves, we must turn our attention from ourselves to the sufferings of others.  Passiontide is a time to think not of our own miniscule trials and tribulations, but the terrible sufferings that many other people in this world have had to endure, and are enduring still.  We help wherever we can, and above all, we pray for them, we pray for their courage to persevere in their faith, not to despair, not to give up the cross that has been placed on their unwilling shoulders.  May we all suffocate in agony rather than pull the trigger.  And let’s pray especially for those who do yield to the temptation of hopelessness in the face of such torments, that God may forgive their weakness and inspire them with repentance even as they give in to defeat.

Above all, our attention in Passiontide is drawn to the sufferings of one Man in particular.  It is far easier to imagine the sufferings of a single man trapped in a tunnel, knowing he has been buried alive, than for our minds to comprehend the sufferings of our Lord.  For he took upon himself the sins and sufferings of us all.  Add up all the suffering of those 270 men in the Winterberg Tunnel, and multiply it by the number of human beings who lived before them and after them—all those sins, rising to an almost infinite number for which only an infinite divine being could sufficiently make reparation.  Our minds cannot wrap themselves around the depth of suffering such reparation would require.  Only God himself will ever know how much he suffered.  All for us.  What can we do, O Lord, to make up to thee for what thou hast suffered for us?

The fact is, like the Germans in the tunnel, we too are trapped.  Trapped in a tunnel from which there is no escape, no way in and no way out.  The tunnel’s name is Time, and we are trapped very firmly in The Present.  We cannot move forward into the future, except at the speed that the Present allows.  And the only way we can revisit the past is in our fading memories.  The soldiers no doubt remembered their past and all the happy times they had as children, with their mothers and fathers, sweethearts and wives.  What would they give to be back in those days, breathing the fresh cool air of Christmases long past?  But the past is inaccessible, and we can never return to it.  Likewise the future.  Sure, we can prepare for the future, we can hope for the future, but we can never travel into the future.  Those soldiers surely hoped for a light at the end of their tunnel, a sign that the rescuers were coming to help them out of their prison.  But hoping it would happen did not make it so.  They were trapped for the rest of their mercifully brief lives.  And so are we.

The soldiers must have eventually realized they were doomed.  Back in those days, many of them would have had the Faith, and it is to be hoped that at least these good men realized what the real light at the end of their tunnel was.  Only death would be their escape.  And so with us.  For us to escape our Present time, it can only be by death, a death that will be the great portal allowing us to slip the coils of this our prison and ascend from this dark tunnel of Time to the light of eternity.

Our Lord showed us the way.  Now we have prepared ourselves, hopefully, by a good Lent, we must force ourselves to commemorate his death.  We must watch as he endures these most terrible sufferings of his Passion, and come to grips with the fact that it is only by death that we will be able to follow him further and beyond.  We have come this far in Lent, by trying to avoid sin, by making reparation for our sins, by resolving to sin no more.  But before we can be led out of our present tunnel to the Light of Glory, we must first follow our Lord up the hill of Calvary.  This is our destiny, this is the path on which we must continually advance.  For it is the path of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by following him, we will not be lost, we will not be abandoned forever in our tomb.

VEXILLA REGIS

 A HYMN FOR PASSIONTIDE

The royal banners forward go:
The Cross shines forth in mystic glow,
Where he in flesh, our flesh who made,
Our sentence bore, our ransom paid:

Where deep for us the spear was dyed,
Life's torrent rushing from his side,
To wash us in that precious flood,
Where mingled Water flowed and Blood.

Fulfilled is all that David told
In true prophetic song of old:
Amidst the nations, God, saith he,
Hath reigned and triumphed from the Tree.

O Tree of beauty!  Tree of light!
O Tree with royal purple dight!
Elect on whose triumphal breast
Those holy limbs should find their rest:

On whose dear arms, so widely flung,
The weight of this world's ransom hung,
The price of humankind to pay,
And spoil the spoiler of his prey.

O Cross, our one reliance, hail!
This holy Passiontide avail
To give fresh merit to the saint
And pardon to the penitent.

To thee, eternal Three in One,
Let homage meet by all be done:
Whom by the Cross thou dost restore,
Preserve and govern evermore.  Amen.

IF A MAN KEEP MY SAYING...

A REFLECTION FOR PASSION SUNDAY

What does our Lord mean when he declares that “if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death”?  The Jews to whom he said this didn’t understand, certainly, not only questioning him about it, but accusing him of having a devil for saying such things.  They resort to accusations because they have still not grasped that this man before them is their Messiah and the Son of God.  They cannot possibly understand that they will be exempted from death simply by following his sayings.

Today, we have an advantage over these Jews who refused to accept the divinity of Christ.  We have the faith that tells us that if we follow Christ’s sayings, then death will not be the end of life, but merely a transition to a better life.  Our confirmation of this truth is nothing less than the Resurrection of Christ from the death, living proof that robs death of the finality that people have so dreaded. 

Even today, atheists and non-believers fear death.  They fear the cold of the grave, the idea that their bodies will decompose in the earth, that their life was nothing more than a speck in time in which they achieved nothing.  What a sad thing it must be to have nothing left to look forward to as we grow older. 

The reverse should be true for us.  Sure, we may fear the dying process, the discomforts, pain and indignity of leaving this world.  But the life beyond beckons us with open arms, and we can look forward, if we keep our Lord’s sayings, to a warm welcome from a merciful Judge.

During the next two weeks of Passiontide, the message is clear.  No matter how much suffering must be endured, our mortal bodies will rise again.  It is in the example of our blessed Lord’s Passion that we find the strength to endure whatever happens on the way, and the more com-passion we have for him, the greater our chance of persevering.  It is this union in our Lord’s Passion that inspires us to a higher love than that of self, a love that is shown by keeping his commandments.  If we do this, our bodies will rise from the dead just as our Lord’s body rose at the Resurrection.

Our Lord himself put it more clearly still when he spoke to St. Martha shortly before raising her brother Lazarus from the dead.  We would do well to learn his words by heart, and repeat them to ourselves when the time comes:  “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:  and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”

FOLLOW THE LEADER

 A SERMON FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN LENT

I’m sure that when you were children you all played the game “Follow the Leader” at one time or other.  It’s a simple concept.   First a leader or "head of the line" is chosen, then the children all line up behind the him. The leader then moves around and all the children have to mimic his actions. Any players who fail to follow or do what the leader does are out of the game. When only one person other than the leader remains, that player becomes the leader, and the game begins again with all players joining the line once again.

In real life, we have sometimes found ourselves playing the same game.  In many situations, we find ourselves either the leader or one of the followers.  A classroom has one teacher and many students.  At our job, many people answer to the same manager.  In a nation, there are many citizens who follow the law, but only one head of state who is ultimately responsible for leading his people either in war or in peace.  And it’s that responsibility which makes being a leader a lot more difficult than being a follower.  In the game, it’s the leader who has to constantly come up with the actions he wants others to follow.  And so in life, where any type of leader in any situation has the weight of responsibility for all those who follow him.  A good leader will not lead his followers into danger.  We wouldn’t play “Follow the Leader” in the middle of the fast lane on I-75, or along the edge of the White Cliffs of Dover.  We wouldn’t take our children on vacation to the middle of a war zone, or into the middle of the desert where there’s no food or water.  And yet, our Lord did.

Why do we pray in the Our Father that God “lead us not into temptation?”  But here, seemingly, is an example where the Son of God does precisely that, leading the multitude into the middle of a desert where there’s nothing to eat.  And sure enough, many of them were tempted.

Temptation is a dangerous thing.  It could go either way.  We could resist, or we could fall.  The apostles who accompanied our Lord into the wilderness were certainly tempted in their faith, even though their concerns were for others: “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them,” one of them points out.  And even the great St. Andrew, brother of St. Peter, is anxious that five barley loaves and two small fishes are not enough: “What are they among so many?”  The apostles, you see, were part followers of Christ, and part leaders of the people.  As leaders, they felt the burden of responsibility for bringing a crowd of followers into the desert.  But as followers, they turned to their leader for help.  They passed the buck, in other words.  As for the other followers, the great company of five thousand followers, they who were led into danger, we don’t know what kind of temptations they suffered out there in the wilderness, what kind of doubts or feelings of betrayal they were tempted with, when they found out that Christ had led them so far into the desert that they might now die there.

So did Christ lead them into temptation?   No.  Absolutely not.  Temptations come from three sources: the devil, the world, and our own fallen human nature.  Very often, temptations come from more than just one of these sources.  Take the sin of lust, for example.  After original sin, tempations against the sixth commandment are a very strong part of our fallen human nature, and get many people into trouble.  But it’s not just our human nature that leads into temptation.  The world is full of encouragement in our desire to sin.  TV and Hollywood fill our screens with images specifically designed to tempt us.  The medical profession makes money out of telling us that if we’re not tempted by lust, then there’s something wrong with us – so they provide us with expensive pills to take care of these “disfunctions.” And now, we’re told that any perverted form of indulgence is perfectly natural, and that we’re bigots or homophobes or a list of other unpleasant names if we dare to voice any opposition to the unnatural vices that now prevail.  But to get back to our point, temptation comes from sources other than from God.  Our fallen human nature and the world, as we’ve seen.  And of course the Devil, who is always lurking in the background ready to take advantage of our weaknesses and the outside pressures of the world, ready to tempt us himself.  But temptation does not come from God.  God merely gave us the great gift of free will, so that we can resist temptation when it comes, and thereby show him our loyalty, prove to him that we are indeed loyal followers.  Temptation is something that makes us want to draw away from God, so why would he want us to endure such a battle, to dangle between remaining close to him and losing him, perhaps forever?  Our free will must necessarily allow for that possibility, a possibility that is acceptable, and even desired by God, because it’s really the one sure way of testing our loyalty.

So when Christ went out into the desert and a great company followed him.  He didn’t force them to go, they followed him freely.  He knew they’d be tempted, but this wasn’t the reason why he allowed them to follow him.  And of course, he also knew he wasn’t leading them into any real danger, as he was God and knew all along that he would perform the miracle and feed them all.

Just three weeks ago, on the First Sunday in Lent, we read in the Gospel how “Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”   This was an entirely different thing.  The Holy Ghost did indeed lead Christ into temptation, in the sense that it was necessary for the Son of God to prove that he was like us in all things except sin, that yes, he too is tempted by the devil, but unlike us, he never falls when tempted.  Our blessed Lord chose with his own free will to be led into the wilderness to be tempted, but this was not his intention when he led his followers into the desert.  Rather, it is to hear his words, words that come from the mouth of God, so that by being so strengthened in their faith, they would forever thereafter follow the example he gave when he was tempted, and not fall into sin.  “Man does not live by bread alone,” he reminds us, “but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”  And so he leads his followers into the desert, not to die, neither to be miraculously fed, but so that they can hear him speak, that they can listen to “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

It is fitting that we, like Christ, should be harsh on our own bodies, and particularly during this holy season of Lent.  We should do whatever it takes to subject our lower appetites, like hunger—or lust—to the higher calling we have as followers of Christ.  We must wage war on our natural tendencies to self-indulgence.  But this is our own battle, and we must not presume to wage it for others.  Each of us must be in control of our own free will, not the free will of somebody else.  Because if we do that, then their will would not be free at all.  We may plead with others, we may discourage them from their sin.  But ultimately, it’s between them and God, and we must move aside, and sometimes, even, allow the sinner to go his own way and at his own peril.  We must never abandon them totally, but there comes a time when, like the apostles in today’s Gospel, we must commit them to the care of God, praying that he will feed them with the graces sufficient to inspire them to abandon their evil attachments.  It’s all we can do, but it’s more than enough.  These graces are infinite, so we should never lose hope and ask “What is so little grace among so many sinners?”

As for ourselves, simply follow Christ wherever he leads us.  When we pray that he “lead us not into temptation,” we’re asking that wherever he does lead us, we will not be tempted beyond our ability to resist.  We ask him to deliver us from evil, the evil of falling when tempted.  Follow the leader, him who though tempted, sinned not.  Follow Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  His way is the only Way that leads us to the Truth.  And that Truth that proceedeth out of the mouth of God is the only way by which we will ultimately achieve Life eternal with him.

JESU, THOU JOY OF LOVING HEARTS

A HYMN FOR LAETARE SUNDAY

By St. Bernard of Clairvaux, translated by Ray Palmer, 1858

1 Jesu, thou joy of loving hearts,
thou fount of life, thou light of men,
from fullest bliss that earth imparts
we turn unfilled to thee again.

2 Thy truth unchanged has ever stood,
thou savest those that on thee call;
to them that seek thee, thou art good,
to them that find thee, all in all.

3 We taste thee, O thou living bread,
and long to feast upon thee still;
we drink of thee, the fountainhead,
and thirst our souls from thee to fill.

 4 Our restless spirits yearn for thee,
where'er our changeful lot is cast,
glad that thy gracious smile we see,
blest that our faith can hold thee fast.

5 O Jesus, ever with us stay,
make all our moments calm and bright;
chase the dark night of sin away,
shed o'er the world thy holy light.

TO MAKE HIM A KING

 A MESSAGE FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN LENT

History is full of examples of kings being forcibly dethroned by their people.  We have only to think of the beheading of King Charles I of England by the forces of Oliver Cromwell, the guillotining of King Louis XVI during the French Revolution, or the shooting of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia by the Bolsheviks.  Kings have a way of coming to a sticky end once they lose the loyalty and support of the people over whom they rule.

 

In each of these cases and nearly all the others of history, the royal rulers had previously enjoyed a period of unquestioned power and control over their people.  But in each case, something clicked, some final straw triggered a breaking point from which there was no turning back.  Often, as in the case of France and Russia, it’s something to do with an increasingly unacceptable discrepancy between the luxurious lifestyle of the ruling class and the dire poverty of the masses.  There comes a moment at which the people say “We’ve had enough!”

 

We see in today’s Gospel an example of this phenomenon, when the mob attempts to “come and take Jesus by force, to make him a king.”  They had had enough of the Roman occupation, of the tyrannous rule of kings like Herod, of the hypocrisy of the high priests and pharisees.  They sought a Messiah who would be for them a great Liberator from these evils, a political figurehead who would rid them of their oppressive rulers.  Our blessed Lord, of course, was having none of that, and so “he departed into a mountain himself alone.”

 

In a couple of weeks’ time, on Palm Sunday, we will see a second attempt to make him an earthly king when he was hailed and glorified during his triumphal arrival in the capital city of Jerusalem, the multitudes greeting him with shouts of Hosanna, still obstinately entrenched in their mistaken expectations.  As we have seen with our own eyes recently, when great hopes are dashed, the ensuing anger must find an outlet.  Whether they’re storming the Bastille or the Capitol building, the rage of the mob is a frightening thing.  And when they see their bloody King tightly bound and crowned with thorns before Pilate, when they hear that his kingdom “is not of this world,” their disappointment and fury know no bounds and their shouts of Hosanna turn to condemnation as they cry out, “Crucify him!  Crucify him!”

 

But our Lord was indeed a king and a liberator.  Crowned with thorns, he delivered his people not from the slavery of the Romans, but from sin and death.  Clothed not with fine robes and jewels but with the sins of the world, this is our King, and as loyal subjects, it is now time for us to follow him to Calvary.

O KIND CREATOR, BEND THINE EAR

 A HYMN FOR THE 3RD SUNDAY IN LENT

By Pope St. Gregory the Great,

Translated by Thomas A. Lacey, 1906

 

 

1 O kind Creator, bend thine ear
To mark the cry, to know the tear
Before thy throne of mercy spent
In this thy holy fast of Lent.

2 Our hearts are open, Lord, to thee:
Thou knowest our infirmity;
Pour out on all who seek thy face
Abundance of thy pardoning grace.

3 Our sins are many, this we know;
Spare us, good Lord, thy mercy show;
And for the honour of thy name
Our fainting souls to life reclaim.

4 Give us the self-control that springs
From discipline of outward things,
That fasting inward secretly
The soul may purely dwell with thee.

5 We pray thee, holy Trinity,
One God, unchanging Unity,
That we from this our abstinence
May reap the fruits of penitence. Amen.

BE NOT YE THEREFORE PARTAKERS WITH THEM

 A MESSAGE FOR THE 3RD SUNDAY IN LENT

There’s been a lot of discussion recently, and even controversy, surrounding the question of whether it is morally permitted to take the Covid-19 vaccine.  While there are many factors other than moral that we should certainly take into account before rolling up our sleeves, the question from a purely Catholic point of view is whether there is anything sinful in being vaccinated.

Very briefly, it would seem to depend on which of the Covid-19 vaccines you would be injected with.  From what we are told by doctors (and I’m not aware of any evidence that they are lying or mistaken about this), no human stem cells are contained in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, although cells from an aborted baby were used in testing.  On the other hand, Johnson & Johnson readily admits that its recently FAA-approved vaccine does have human stem cells as one of its components.  We can safely say that it would be mortally sinful to deliberately choose to receive this Johnson & Johnson vaccine.  But what about the other two?

First of all, let me repeat that whatever medical or political objections you may have to vaccination in general are not being taken into account here.  My purpose is not to try and persuade you that any of the Covid vaccines are good or effective.  That’s for you to decide based on your trust of the medical and pharmaceutical professions who are promoting their merchandise.  But there was a little phrase in today’s Epistle that caught my eye, “Be not ye, therefore, partakers with them.” As we can readily apply St. Paul’s warning to the vaccine controversy, it is appropriate to address here, albeit very briefly, the moral principle of Cooperation in the Sins of Others.

Cooperation in the sins of others consists in assisting another to commit a sin which he is already determined to commit.  Cooperation can be either formal or material.  Formal cooperation is when you approve of the sin itself, and deliberately participate in it directly, as, for example, if you acted as the getaway driver for the bank robbers.  This, obviously, is always wrong.  It would be direct participation to allow yourself to be injected with aborted baby cells, as used in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, even if you didn’t approve of the initial abortion, and therefore your act would be sinful.  Material cooperation stands only distantly in relationship with another’s sin, and may be permitted under the following conditions:  1) if the act is itself either good or at least morally indifferent (such as being vaccinated; 2) if there is grave reason for performing the act (you can certainly argue that it is of vital importance that you do not contract the coronavirus); and 3) that you do not desire nor consent to the other person’s sin (obviously, you would not approve of the use of aborted baby cells for the testing).  That being said, we can argue with moral certainty that it would not be sinful to receive the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, as your cooperation does not rise to the level of formal.  Nor, however, would it be sinful to refuse the vaccine, even if mandatory, whether your objection is based on moral or medical grounds.

A KINGDOM DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF

 A SERMON FOR THE 3RD SUNDAY IN LENT

“Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falleth.”  These strong words from our blessed Lord in today’s Gospel are meant to remind us of the virtue that is Unity.  Our founding fathers realized the importance of unity very well, and called our nation not merely “America” but the “United States of America”.  One of the four marks of our Church is that she is not only “Holy, Catholic and Apostolic”, but “One, holy, catholic, and apostolic.”  We cannot have a functioning nation or church that is not united.  No society, no matter how large or small it might be, can survive as a society, if it is not united.  Whether it be a large corporation like Amazon, or a tiny bunch of people who come together in the local chess club, if its members are not all working towards the common good of whatever society they belong to, then that society, be it club, corporation, or country, will not succeed.  It will crumble, it will fall apart. 

If America continues on its present downward path, the logical conclusion will be Civil War, signs of which we are beginning to see already in the political chaos in Washington and the rioting and crime in the streets.  Our nation is a what our Lord called a “kingdom divided against itself”—or in this case, a republic divided against itself.  This division has become something other than a mere difference of opinion, disagreements on this or that policy between the two political parties.  It has become a far deeper divide, one where one political party in particular is quite open in its intent on denying the Creator and his Creation.  They proclaim themselves “woke” by spouting blasphemies such as eugenics, euthanasia and infanticide, they redefine the nature of marriage and the notion of gender.  We are way beyond the point where Catholics may no longer vote for this party without committing a serious sin.  To be Catholic we must condemn and seek actively to destroy the Democratic Party in its present form by all moral means at our disposal.

This is not a political statement.  It is a simple fact that the Democratic Party is bent on destroying Christianity and in particular the Catholic Faith, and replacing it with the Bergoglio vision of a global religion that has no moral code, no dogmas, no authority, and, ultimately, no God.  These are evil people, and unity with them is impossible.  Certainly, our role as Catholics is to unite.  But this unity must be centered on the true faith, and can never be realized elsewhere.  For the Church to be one, for all men to unite, we must seek and find that union in the Truth of the Faith she teaches, around the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Sacrifice of the Mass she offers.  We must cling to the Spirit of Truth that is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who came to rest on the heads of the Twelve Apostles, and inspired them to bring the truth to the whole world.  “The fruit of this Spirit,” says St. Paul in today’s Epistle, “is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.”

Here is our answer then, to be good, to be righteous, and to be truthful.  We must struggle against the temptation to scatter ourselves through pride or any divisive commitment to our own opinion, no matter how firmly held.  Only the infallible truths of the Church are able to bind us together, and only Christ’s vicar on earth is capable of teaching those truths infallibly.  This is why we must pray for the restoration of a true vicar of Christ to the Throne of Peter.  Our Lord warned us that when the shepherd is struck, the sheep shall be scattered.”  Here we are today, scattered like sheep without a shepherd.  SSPX, CMRI, every flavor of Catholicism you can imagine, and every one divided against each other.  “All we like sheep have gone astray,” said the prophet Isaiah, “we have turned every one to his own way.”

To switch back to another analogy, our ship may have foundered on the rocks, we may find ourselves in our little lifeboats, but let’s remember that the destination of all these little boats remains the same, we drift upon the same current of life, and are driven by the same winds of fortune.  Most importantly of all, we have been given the same oars of truth, and with them we must all row together towards the distant shore.  No good will come if we just sit back and let the current and the winds take us wherever the devil wants us to end up.  We cannot be passive bystanders to the disunity of the world, we really must be united in our goal.

As Catholics who have held to the truth, are we then safe?  Can we sit back in our complacency and just go to Mass on Sundays, doing the minimum possible to stay afloat?  Not according to our Lord.  “He that is not with me is against me,” says our Lord.  We hear this and we turn around and look at each other in the smug confidence that, yes, we are definitely with him and not against him.  But that’s only the half of it.  Look at the second half of our Lord’s statement.  It’s not quoted as often as the first half, but it’s just as important. “He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.”  It’s not enough to be just “with” our Lord.  We have to gather with him.  Gather souls.  Because if we aren’t gathering souls into the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, into the One True Faith, the Truth of Christ, we’re actually scattering those souls even more than they are already scattered.  We’re making a bad situation worse.

To gather souls, we ourselves must be united within ourselves.  Our mind and body, our will and our intellect, our high spiritual aspirations and our fallen human nature, must all be united in the single purpose of seeking out the truth that is God, and gathering as many souls as we can to join in that search.  Because if we seek, we shall find.  It’s no good if we’re living our life just fighting constant temptations to sin, winning some battles, losing others.  To be truly at one with ourselves, our higher intellect must force our will into submission, so that it wills to do only what God allows.  We must subdue as completely as we can all movements of our fallen human nature, so that we may be at peace in doing God’s will.  Virtue accomplishes this.  It makes a habit out of our victories over temptation, it makes a habit out of shunning the temptation as soon as it rears its ugly head.  Virtue is our key to peace of soul, holiness of heart, and unity of purpose.  If we’re as free from sin and full of virtue as possible, we will love God with all our heart and mind and strength, and thus love our neighbor as ourself.  And thus we will gather our neighbor with us by the holiness of our example, and the strength of our dedication to what is truly beneficial to him. 

And when it comes to the unity of truth, we have to be strong and firm and unambiguous in our defence of that truth.  We have to keep our faith as “a strong man armed.”  Because if we don’t, somebody stronger than ourselves, the devil, shall come upon us and overcome us.  Don’t think “it can’t happen to me!  I’m a traditional Catholic.  I’ve left the evils of the conciliar Church, and have stood up for the faith.  I do my part by voting Republican, I don’t commit mortal sins very often, and when I do, I make sure I go to confession.  The devil will never get me, I’ve renounced him and his evil ways.”  Oh really?  Sorry, but it’s a constant fight that never ends till we’re dead. Because “when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through the dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.”  If we’ve kicked out the devil, rest assured he will get tired of wandering around without a place to live.  He’ll want to come back.  And when he looks at your nice, clean soul and sees it “swept and garnished” in the confessional, he will bring with him seven other demons more wicked than himself.  These devils will unleash themselves upon you and your nice clean little soul, and you’ll end up worse than you ever were.  “The last state of that man is worse than the first.”

Never, ever, imagine that you’re safe.  Never fall into the trap that you’re already “saved.”  Thinking you’re already saved is an illusion of evangelical Christians, who fail to realize the dangers of this life with its temptations and occasions of sin.  Our strength lies not in our complacency, but in our unity.  If seven demons attack us, who are they in the face of an entire Church of Catholics praying together not to be led into temptation, praying that God will deliver us from evil  “Where two or three are gathered together in my Name,” says our Lord, “there am I in the midst of them.”  That’s only two or three.  Imagine if the whole Church were united once more under a true Pope and a true Magisterium.  Strength in unity.  Strength in truth.  Stay united in the truth and we will be strong.  We will be able to cast out the devils of temptation, not in the name of Beelzebub or the thousands of other false gods and demons, but in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, the most Blessed Trinity, three divine Persons united in the one God.  Here is our supreme example of unity.  We may all be entitled to our little differences, but ultimately this diversity must come together in the one true God who is the Creator of us all.