APPROVING THE THINGS THAT ARE EXCELLENT

 A SERMON FOR THE 22ND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

It’s that time of year again.  We’ve celebrated Halloween, All Saints and All Souls Day this past week, now the clocks have been returned to real time and we can start getting down to that somewhat dismal time when we focus on the end of the year, the end of our lives, and the end of the world.  Not the happiest of times.  Before we settle down completely to these thoughts, however, we have some business to take care of.  It’s called the Midterm Election.

On Tuesday of this week, the Constitution of the United States decrees that elections shall be held in which We the People have our annual opportunity to think we might possibly have some slight control over the political ruling class.  It’s called “voting” and we need to spend a little time thinking about the kind of people we should vote for.  Whether or not our voting really counts in the big scheme of things (which we’re all aware is actually manipulated by the mysterious but ever-present Deep State), nevertheless it’s our annual tip of the hat to the things that are Caesar’s, and it’s our civic duty to do what we can to make our positions heard.

The question of who to vote for relies on a few quite simple principles, and usually our common sense should point us in the right direction.  I have complete confidence that everyone in this room has that kind of common sense.  After all, it’s brought us here to Mass this morning instead of to the monkey show at the local Novus Ordo church.  I would therefore assume that we must all have enough common sense to know that it’s morally wrong to vote for any politician who enthusiastically promotes an agenda that goes against the laws of God.  We must not, for example, vote for a politician who supports abortion or for any of those lunatic gender-based programs that pervert the laws of nature.  That unfortunately means that you would have a very hard time finding a Democrat to vote for.  But you have common sense, so you know that already.

So who can we vote for?  If we look carefully, we’ll find the partial answer to that question hidden in today’s Epistle to the Philippians.  “For this I pray,” says St. Paul, “that ye may approve the things that are excellent.”  Reading between the lines, we can conclude that he therefore does not want us to approve the things that are the opposite of excellent, the things that are evil.  Of course, there was no democratic system in place in the days of St. Paul, but if he were here today, he would certainly be exhorting us not to approve of evil by voting for any politician who promotes an evil agenda.  We should vote for the politicians who are “excellent”, so if you can find any, by all means, vote for them.

Of course, excellence is an ideal which I fear very few politicians attain, so unless we come across a sudden abundance of excellent politicians hiding under a bush, we’ll probably have to make a few concessions and compromises.  Bear in mind that Republican politicians are no less immune from falling into temptation than the rest of us, so we shouldn’t place our expectations too high on that party either.  But there are a good number who accept the basic laws of God, and we will have to tolerate a few differences of opinion here and there, especially in those matters which do not involve morality or offend God.

We’re in Ohio, so I’ll give you the example of J.D. Vance as a politician who may not be excellent, but for whom I believe you may vote in good conscience.  His political views on abortion are that he is pro-life, but illogically supports the “right” to an abortion in cases of rape and incest.  Our common sense should come into play here, to remind us that if it’s against the Fifth Commandment to murder an innocent human being, the fact that that human being is a product of rape or incest has no bearing on the morality of murdering them.  Their father may not have been innocent, but the child in the womb is always innocent.  No external circumstance can turn that child into anything other than innocent.  It is not an unborn baby’s fault that one or both of their parents were immoral, and so there is absolutely no argument for claiming that he is an aggressor and that we therefore have the right to defend ourselves against him.

But if J.D. Vance supports the right to kill this baby, does this make him so far beneath the ideal of excellence that we should not vote for him.  It’s certainly a point to consider, and if he were running against a candidate who thought a bit more logically about this issue, then we should probably vote for this other one instead.  But in the case that faces us on Tuesday, we are forced to choose between either voting for either a Democrat candidate who is of course completely pro-abortion, or a candidate who is partially pro-life and partially pro-abortion (Mr. Vance), or voting for nobody at all.  Again, common sense tells us that there is a proportionate cause for voting for the candidate who is the lesser of two evils.  Not an “excellent” candidate perhaps, but not totally evil either.  More baby’s lives will be saved by voting Vance than voting Ryan.

We must never commit any evil so that something good may come of it.  But we can tolerate a certain amount of evil.  We can vote for Mr. Vance so long as we’re not doing so because we approve of his mistaken principles.  And in addition, there must be a proportionate cause for voting for him.  In this case there is such a proportionate cause, as the only alternative is to openly support someone who is far worse and could potentially be the cause of far more infant deaths.  Vance might not be “excellent”, but he’s the best we can do this time round, thanks again to our imperfect democratic system.

While democracy may have its downside, it is nonetheless the system we have in this country.  We must use the system against the devilish agenda that inspired it, by promoting the laws of God with our vote for the most excellent candidate.  It’s called making friends with the mammon of iniquity.  Let’s remember as we do it that we must always reserve our full and unambiguous approval for the few that are truly excellent in every respect. 

Let’s use our vote wisely then on Tuesday.  It’s the day when we render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.  But we are permitted to do so only if our vote does not take away from God the things that are God’s.

BE STILL MY SOUL

A HYMN FOR THE 22ND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

 By Katharina A. von Schlegel, 1752, translated by Jane L. Borthwick, 1855

 

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.

Leave to thy God to order and provide;

In every change, He faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heav’nly Friend

Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

 

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake

To guide the future, as He has the past.

Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;

All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know

His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

 

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,

And all is darkened in the vale of tears,

Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,

Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.

Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay

From His own fullness all He takes away.

 

Be still, my soul: the hour is hast’ning on

When we shall be forever with the Lord.

When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,

Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.

Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past

All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

 

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise

On earth, believing, to Thy Lord on high;

Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,

So shall He view thee with a well-pleased eye.

Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine

Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.

 

 

THY WILL BE DONE

 A REFLECTION FOR THE 22ND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

At the end of the Canon of the Mass, the priest introduces the Paternoster with these words: “Admonished by salutary precepts, and taught by the divine example, we make bold to say:” And then he begins the Our Father, the most perfect of prayers, given to us by the Saviour himself.  But did we ever wonder about that introduction?  Why do we have to be admonished by God to say the Our Father?  Why do we need to “make bold” in order to say it? 

There’s a very good reason that it requires boldness and courage to say the Our Father, at least if we mean what we say when we say it.  Or do the words “Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven” mean nothing to us?  Are they just sounds we utter into the air, like the barking of a dog or the squealing of a pig?  Are our prayers so inconsequential to us that we can mindlessly pray for something we don’t want?

“Thy will be done.”  When I pray these words, do I realize what I'm asking for?  I am making the supplication to God that things in this life will not necessarily go according to the way I want them to, that I won’t always get what I want.  I am literally begging God not to grant my every wish as though he were some fairytale genie in a bottle.  Instead, I am renouncing my own will, and beseeching God that His will be done instead.  And once we’re aware what God’s will is, it very often takes a lot of courage and boldness to accept it.

We have two very good examples in the First Joyful and First Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary.  At the Annunciation, our blessed Lady gives up any plans she may have had for her life and abandons herself to divine Providence: “Be it done unto me according to thy will.”  And in the Garden of Gethsemane, the human side of our Saviour anticipates the horrors of the Crucifixion and is so repulsed by what he must endure that he asks, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”

In my opinion, these are the two most difficult decades of the Rosary to pray with conviction. They are difficult because they demand the same response from us, no matter what terrible sufferings the future may hold.  Only by following what our Saviour taught us through his divine example, can we indeed summon up the courage and make bold to say “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done!”

SUBJECT TO THE KING

 A SERMON FOR THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

On this feast of Christ the King we have one of those rare Gospel readings that are usually reserved for Holy Week.  In this case, it’s a short clip from St. John’s Passion, read at the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday.  We find our Lord in front of Pontius Pilate, who is questioning him.  “Art thou the King of the Jews?” he asks.  And we, who today celebrate the feast of Christ the King, who acknowledge him as the King of kings and Lord of lords, nod our head as we hear this question.  Yes, we say, of course this is the Christ, King of the Jews.  Our Lord could also have nodded his assent and agreed to this title.  And yet he does not.  He is not impressed by titles.  Instead, he describes his mission to the world, which is to bear witness unto the truth.  “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world,”—not to sit on a throne wielding power and authority over the Jewish people like his forefather King David, but as the humble son of a carpenter, walking among his people, teaching them, and bringing them to the truth.

Power and authority in themselves are not bad things.  In fact, they derive from God, who delegates his own power and authority to our earthly kings who rule over us.  But in return for this power, God demands of these rulers that they bear witness unto the truth.  If they don’t, if they wield power based on lies and hypocrisy, then they are nothing more than tyrants.  Bearing witness to the truth is a far more important role for our earthly kings than any physical or political power and might.  Any king or pope or president who bullies his people into submission, who forces them to accept the lies he tells them, is nothing more than a wicked despot.  Jorge Bergoglio and Joseph Biden are perfect examples.  Think of Bergoglio’s forced abolition of the true Mass, think of Biden’s mandatory vaccinations.  They may have usurped the power of Church and State, they may even wield that power with impunity, wallowing in the adulation that their sycophants dribble upon them.  But these are not true rulers we look up to for guidance and protection.  They are more like vile upstarts who like to bully their subordinates simply because they can. 

So when Pilate asks our Lord if he is the King of the Jews, our Lord does not acknowledge this title of king, a name given to good kings and bad kings alike.  While a king he most certainly is, his royalty does not derive from the power of the title.  On the contrary, the title of King belongs to Christ because he bears witness to the Truth, because he is in fact the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  And this is what his answer was supposed to convey to Pilate and all those listening.

Because he is the Truth, he is truly the King of kings.  A king who has subjects.  But when our Lord commands us his subjects, we obey him not just because he is a king.  We obey him because he is the Truth and can never command us to do something wrong.  The two tablets containing the Ten Commandments are our Book of the Law, beautifully encapsulated in those two Great Commandments, to love God (Commandments 1-3), and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Commandments 4-10).  The Ten Commandments are our law of Love, a love which binds us in glorious subjection to our King.  It is this law of love that commands us to love him in return for the love he shows us, and for the truths he has revealed to us his children through the Church he founded.

Because we now know these truths, we understand that we must love God.  Not because it is the law, but because it is what we want.  We want to love God.  How can we not want to love God when we know what he is, who he is, and what he has done for us.  How do we show our love for God?  By serving him.  First we know, then we love, then we serve, servants of the King.  It is our place to serve him.  He is Christ the King and we are his loyal and obedient subjects, striving at all times to please him, and it’s important we know that this is our role in life. 

Now that we know our place with regard to Christ the King, we should find that peace and comfort in knowing we truly are in our rightful place of subjection at his feet.  We should be enjoying the peace of knowing that if we have known, loved and served God in this world, we are well placed to be happy with him forever in the next.  This hope for the salvation of our souls will surely be realized so long as we don’t offend our king by being disloyal, so long as we kneel before his feet and beg his mercy if we ever have the misfortune to displease him. 

One last point, which I hope will dispel any remaining doubt that prevents you from enjoying that peace of mind.  We always seem to keep that element of uncertainty, wondering about that mystery that our Judge will be infinitely mercy but also, at the same time, infinitely just.  After all, we know exactly what we truly deserve by our manifold sins.  This is where the fear of God comes in.  It’s quite normal to fear a king, any king who has the power of life and death over us.  He can, and just might, for any whim, deliver swift and lasting justice at any given moment.  He can also bestow mercy, so we do what we can to remain in the king’s good graces.  It is no different with Christ the King, he who will come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead.  We fear the wrath of God, and rightly so, as it keeps us on the straight and narrow, at least most of the time.  The difference is, Christ the King does not have whims.  He doesn’t have mood swings, and we don’t have to be walking on eggshells in his presence.  We know what he wants from us—it never changes—and we know that he has died for our sins and promised us our eternal reward if we repent of our sins.  So today we pray for his mercy, that the infinite justice of this King will be tempered by his infinite loving kindness.  We pray to the Mother of this King, the Queen of heaven, asking her to pray in turn for us, now and at the hour of our death.  And we consecrate ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Christ the King, pierced by a lance so that saving grace may flow from his side, the Blood of the Saviour, washing our sinful souls of their dark deeds, and opening the gates of heaven for us poor sinners.  May that Blood now descend upon us, a laver of redemption and of life.  “May the earth resound from pole to pole with one cry: Praise to the Divine Heart that wrought our salvation; to it be glory and honour forever.  Amen.” 

O WORSHIP THE KING

 A HYMN FOR THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

By Sir Robert Grant, 1833

 

O worship the King all-glorious above,

O gratefully sing his power and his love:

Our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days,

Pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise.

 

O tell of his might and sing of his grace,

Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space.

His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,

And dark is his path on the wings of the storm.

 

Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite?

It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;

It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,

And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.

 

Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,

In thee do we trust, nor find thee to fail.

Thy mercies, how tender, how firm to the end,

Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!

 

O measureless Might, unchangeable Love,

Whom angels delight to worship above!

Thy ransomed creation, with glory ablaze,

In true adoration shall sing to thy praise!

REDEEMING THE TIME

 A SERMON FOR THE 20TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Let me start today by asking you a riddle.  What comes and goes in the space of a split second, and yet continues to be there even after it is gone?  The answer is time.  To be precise, the present time.

Time’s a strange thing.  It was created by God in the very first chapter of the Bible.  There could not have been any chapters in the Bible before this, because there was no time in which anything could “happen.”  God created time in his own image and likeness, the likeness of a trinity.  Time is the name we give to three distinct things—past, present and future.  It has existed ever since that moment when God created time, and will continue until the end of the world, when “heaven and earth shall pass away…”  After that moment, nothing else will exist except the supernatural beings—angels and men, and of course God himself.  We shall exist after time no longer exists.  Time will be transformed into eternity.  An eternity outside this world, in either heaven or hell.

So how much time do we have?  Years?  Months?  Minutes?  But I’m not talking about how much time till the end of the world, or even till we die.  That time is in the future.  How much time do we really have?  The answer is surprising but true.  We only have a split second.

What do I mean by that?  I mean that we exist only in the present, that split second that exists between the future and the past.  We do not live in the future.  Not even the immediate future.  We prepare for the future, certainly, but anything can happen between now and then that could affect our plans.  We can plan to make bacon and eggs for breakfast, but if we drop our last egg on the floor while we’re cooking, we’ll have to switch our plans to cornflakes.  In the spiritual life, we can make our resolutions to God in the confessional, we can promise faithfully to sin no more.  But then the future appears in our life as the present, and we have that split second of “present” to make the decision whether to yield to temptation or resist it.  Then the present disappears forever, never to be repeated, never to be changed or modified in any respect whatsoever.  Poof!  It’s gone.  It’s now in the past, and we will forever be thankful to God for resisting the temptation, or forever regret giving in to it.

So while preparing for our future is important, our eternal judgment will be based not on vague plans that haven’t happened yet, nor even on our past.  Our eternal judgment will be based on that split second of “now” that’s already gone by the time I’ve finished the sentence.  What am I doing now?  What am I thinking?  What am I saying?  I will be judged on this split second, so make the most of it.

But wait, Father, you might say.  There isn’t just one split second, there are millions of them.  Each one follows the last, and so on, so I have plenty of time.  Or at least, I have more than a split second left to make important decisions.  True, but I’m not talking about making decisions, I’m talking about your current thoughts, words, deeds.  You might take time preparing for a future decision, but at some point, some split second in the present, you will eventually make that decision to act, to speak, to indulge a certain thought.  Make sure it’s the right decision.  

The split second of now might not be a conscious decision.  But it’s always based on a decision you’ve already made or are currently in the process of making.  You’re in church listening to a sermon right now because you already made the decision to get out of bed this morning and go to Mass.  That was a good decision.  But what are you doing now?  Right now?  What’s going through your head?  Are you listening and trying to understand what I’m saying?  Or are you still thinking about whether to have the bacon and eggs or the cornflakes for breakfast?  So think about it—it’s always about now! 

St. Paul puts it very well in today’s Epistle to the Ephesians.  He tells them to “walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time.”  And why?  “Because the days are evil.”  He’s not talking here about the times we live in as being evil, though heaven knows they are.  He’s talking about evil as the absence of good.  Every split second of our lives begins as something evil because there is no good in it.  It will forever have been an evil split second if you waste it and don’t do something good in it. 

This good you do at every split second may not be a conscious act and that’s okay.  You’re not conscious of doing a good thing while you’re asleep, for instance.  And yet you are.  Because you made the decision to go to bed and sleep.  All those sleeping moments are thus turned into something good.  We can even sanctify them if we say our night prayers properly.

The point is, we need to fill every one of our split seconds with something good.  We need to redeem the present; to take that empty moment, that split second that is devoid of anything good, and drive out the evil emptiness of it, replacing it with good.  Just like the act of turning on an electric light drives out the darkness, so does the goodness of our thoughts, words and deeds drive out the evil of the moment.  This is the redemption of that moment of “now” in our life, a redemption that we are responsible for.  So be responsible for every split second that passes you by.  Redeem every single one of them, because you never know which of them will be your last.

SPREAD, O SPREAD, ALMIGHTY WORD

 A HYMN FOR THE 20TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By Catherine Winkworth, 1827-78

 

1 Spread, O spread, almighty word,

spread the kingdom of the Lord,

where the breath of God has given

life to people meant for heaven.

 

2 Tell them how the Father's will

made the world, and keeps it still;

how his only Son he gave

all from sin and death to save.

 

3 Tell of our Redeemer's love,

who, for ever to remove

all the guilt that on us lies,

gave himself as sacrifice.

 

4 Tell them of the Spirit given

now to guide us on to heaven,

strong and holy, just and true,

working both to will and do.

 

5 Up! the ripening fields you see,

mighty will the harvest be;

but the reapers still are few,

great the work they have to do.

 

6 Lord of harvest, kind and true,

give us strength to work for you,

till the nations everywhere

see your light, and know your care.

MISSIONARIES--A DYING BREED

A REFLECTION FOR MISSION SUNDAY

There was a time when the Church of Rome took the words of Christ seriously.  When our blessed Lord told his apostles to go forth unto all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, he was giving a command not only to his twelve apostles, but to their successors.  He was ordering them to seek out those people who were not members of the Church and instruct them in the faith so they could become members.   Unless a man believe in this faith, he cannot be saved.  Nobody comes to the Father except by me, said our Lord.  So if he taught us explicitly the importance of converting and baptizing non-Catholics, how is it that since Vatican II, the new Church has been teaching the very opposite?

Vatican II plainly teaches heresy, notably in the document Lumen Gentium, in which we are told that the Church of Christ is, after all, not to be identified solely with the Catholic Church.  This contradicts the age-old teaching of this same Catholic Church, most recently confirmed by Satis Cognitum of Pope Leo XIII, Mortalium Animos of Pope Pius XI, Mystici Corporis of Pope Pius XII and in condemnations made by the Holy Office under Pope Pius IX.  Plainly stated, Vatican II declares that it is not essential to be a Catholic in order to be saved, and that being Catholic merely provides us with a slight advantage over our Protestant, Jewish, Muslim or Voodoo brethren.

Given this false premise, is it any wonder that the missionary orders have all but vanished in the years since this heresy was promulgated by the false conciliar Church of John XXIII, Paul VI and their successors.  Their present leader, Jorge Bergoglio, has doubled down on the heresy, opening up the possibility of salvation to not only heretics like Martin Luther, but now to the immoral as well.  After all, says he, who is he to judge?  But it is precisely the job of a true pope to judge—not individual souls, certainly, but the actions whereby those individuals conduct their lives.  It’s what the Church has always done, and no amount of fake humility removes the responsibility from those in authority to judge those who break the laws of God.

It is for this very reason that even we, who have no authority whatsoever, can yet quite clearly condemn the words and teachings of this Jorge Bergoglio.  What he says presents a clear and present danger to our souls and those of our neighbor.  The irony is that those in greatest danger are those he so “lovingly” encourages to remain outside the Church or living an immoral lifestyle.  Such is the way the Devil works.

It is our bounden duty to help our fellow man to see the true Lumen Gentium—the Light of the World—who came to teach us all about the Way, the Truth and the Life.  He explained to us that he actually is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and that no man can come to the Father except through him.  Until we believe this, whether explicitly or implicitly, we cannot be saved.  Hence the need for missionaries.  Given the directives from the new Rome, however, the work of the missions has been undermined completely.  Why convert someone to the Catholic faith if they can save their souls just as easily without it?  We who know better must take upon our own shoulders the added responsibility of becoming missionaries ourselves.  So on this Mission Sunday, we do not pass the collection basket to gather up money to send to the Holy Ghost Fathers or the other missionary orders.  Instead we remind ourselves that it is now our duty to do what they once did, not, perhaps, on the shores of distant lands, but here at home, beginning with the deluded members of that once noble institution that still claims the title of the Catholic Church.  Let us do our part and instruct the ignorant.  It is the first of the Spiritual Works of Mercy, and now, more than ever, needs to be practised by all who would follow our Master’s express command to be missionaries.

CALLED AND CHOSEN

 A SERMON FOR THE 19TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

“Many are called, but few are chosen.”  It’s an expression we’ve heard often enough, but what exactly does it mean?   Many are called, but how many exactly?  The answer is simple enough—every single human being that ever lived or will live is called.  And what are we all called to?  What is this wedding feast to which all men receive an invitation?  It is a wedding feast that extends from this life to the next.  In this life we call this feast the reception of the Holy Eucharist, at which we unite with our God in Holy Communion.  This temporary union will eventually transform into the true wedding feast of life everlasting in which we are united completely, perfectly and forever with our God in heaven.

To this wedding feast we are called, and we are right now attending, ready and prepared to unite our bodies and souls with our Lord at Holy Communion.  To be able to do this we must first have been baptized into the Church Christ founded, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.  Unless we are members of this Church we may not receive Holy Communion.  There’s another pre-requisite for receiving Holy Communion and that is to be in the state of grace.  So if we find ourselves in mortal sin we must first confess our sins to a validly ordained Catholic priest and receive absolution for our offences against God.  Once we are Catholics in the state of grace, and have reached the age of reason, there is nothing that should keep us away from Holy Communion.  This is the wedding feast to which the King has invited us and no excuse should keep us away.

If we do refuse the invitation, if we do not regularly receive the Holy Eucharist, that King who invited us, whose feast of Christ the King we will be celebrating in a couple of weeks from now, that same King will be exceeding wroth.  He has every right to be angry—he established the Church for our salvation, and died for our sins that they may be forgiven.  Who are we to refuse these gifts and throw them back in God’s face?  They were given for one reason only, that we may be worthy to receive the Holy Eucharist in this life and be happy with God forever in the next.  If we refuse Communion we are effectively refusing salvation.

This brings us to the second part of our Lord’s statement, that many are called but few are chosen.  Now we know who are called, every single human being.  But which of them are chosen?  We can start by ruling out all those who refuse the invitation, those who for one reason or another reject the call to the wedding feast.  They either refuse the first step, which is to become baptized Catholics, or they commit sins but do not repent of them—they don’t confess them and receive absolution.  They were called but they are not chosen.  They were called—in other words, redeemed by Christ.  But how do they expect to be chosen—saved—if they refuse his Church and his sacraments?  When one of those born-again evangelicals tells you they’re saved, they are doing nothing more but presuming on God’s mercy.  They think they can save their souls even though their belief in Christ and ‘love’ for him does not extend to obeying his commandments. They will not become members of the Church he founded and they will not confess their sins to a priest.  Whether they end up “saved” or not, whether they end up among the chosen, is up to the mercy of God, and it is only through this mercy that there is any hope for them.  He is the final Judge of their souls, and we leave it to him to be both infinitely merciful and infinitely just.

Now what about the rest of us, those who are here today, those who attend Mass, who keep the commandments, who are loyal to the teachings of our Church.  We are called and we came.  But are we chosen?  If we come to Mass in the state of grace and fasting, but refuse to receive Holy Communion, will we  be amongst the chosen.  Our Lord says no.  Being here is not enough.  We must be wearing the proper wedding garment.  This is the wedding garment of humble submission to Christ’s commandment that, though we are still unworthy, we must still eat his Body and drink his Blood.  Yes, O Lord, I am not worthy, that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my soul shall be healed.  We’ve done everything we can, we’ve answered the invitation to be baptized into and remain loyal members of the Church, we’ve confessed and been absolved from our sins and are in the state of grace, but we’re still unworthy certainly.  How can we presume then to go up to the communion rail and receive Christ’s holy Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity?  Because we are commanded to do so.  And so, in that final moment before we receive Communion, we humbly submit our unworthiness to God, Domine, non sum dignus, and we ask for his mercy that he will speak the word only and heal our souls.  If we don’t, if we resolutely remain in our pew week after week, we should expect nothing more when the time comes than to be bound hand and foot, to be taken and cast into the outer darkness where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  If we refuse Christ’s greatest gift, the Blessed Sacrament, we will not be chosen.  We will not save our souls.

So today, we ask ourselves am I called?  Yes.  Most definitely.  Am I chosen?  That’s a different question, which I hope you agree has now been answered.  Called and chosen.  Redeemed and saved.  We are all redeemed.  But we are not all saved.  I may very well have accepted the invitation to the wedding.  I’ve even shown up at the feast.  But am I wearing the wedding garment required for salvation?  Am I ready to receive Holy Communion as a practicing Catholic free from mortal sin?  If not, and I persist in my refusal to receive, or even if I am indifferent to whether I receive or not, either way I stand a very good chance of being singled out to be cast into the outer darkness.  If we don’t want to spend eternity weeping and gnashing our teeth, let’s make sure we do what we have to do, so that we will indeed be chosen for higher things.

GUIDE ME, O THOU GREAT REDEEMER

 A HYMN FOR THE 19TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By William Williams, 1717-91

 

1 Guide me, O thou great Redeemer,
pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
hold me with thy powerful hand:
bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
feed me now and evermore,
feed me now and evermore.

2 Open now the crystal fountain
whence the living waters flow:
let the fiery, cloudy pillar
lead me all my journey through:
strong deliverer, strong deliverer,
be thou still my strength and shield,
be thou still my strength and shield.

3 When I tread the verge of Jordan
bid my anxious fears subside:
death of death, and hell's destruction,
land me safe on Canaan's side:
songs of praises, songs of praises
I will ever give to thee,
I will ever give to thee.

AN EVER-CHANGING WORLD

A REFLECTION FOR THE 19TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

The Epistle today is all about changes.  We’re asked by St. Paul to put away lying and speak truth with our neighbor; to replace stealing with labor and the work of our hands; to put on the new man and be renewed in the spirit of our mind.  In short, we are reminded that whatever in our lives takes us further away from God must be replaced with something that takes us closer to him instead.

Change, then, is not always a bad thing.  There is always room for improvement, and this goes for the things around us as well as our own souls.  However, we would be wise to remember that there is always something bad about change.  The very idea of change implies that there was something wrong that needed to be made right, or something flawed that needed to be made more perfect.  Ad the problem with that, of course, is that it depends on the subjective interpretation of the individual as to what actually is right and wrong, what is better and worse.  So many people in this wicked world of ours are more likely to think that things that are perfectly all right need to be “improved on” and ultimately destroyed.

A good axiom to bear in mind is that “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”  And perhaps the best example we have these days would be the supposed “improvements” made to the Church by Vatican II.  We had a form of worship, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which had continued unchanged from the sixth century and which was as perfect as it was humanly possible to make it.  And then along came the Freemasons headed by Annibale Bugnini, introducing reform after reform until they had altered the Mass beyond recognition.  Progressives think that change is always a good thing, and are never satisfied with the changes they accomplish.  They always need to take it another step, as their projects descend further and further into the infernal pandemonium.

Change is an attack on the peace of stability.  It can give rise to a deep upheaval of the soul, causing psychological problems for the individual and division for the community.  While the Catholic Church was for the most part firmly united before Vatican II, there has been nothing but disunity and quarreling ever since.  Progressives fail to place the cause of today’s divisive atmosphere at the feet of the changes perpetrated by Vatican II.  Instead, they double down, insisting on further and more disturbing changes in an effort to correct the ineffectiveness of their previous attempts at improvement.  Take the ‘new improved Rosary’ of John Paul II, for example.  What a pity that so very few have the courage to admit that the blame lies with changes that should never have been made in the first place.

Again, while we accuse “change” as being the cause of much of the evil in today’s world, we must never become so cynical as to regard all change as evil. We are traditionalists, not reactionaries, and yes, some changes are good.  When?  When there is a proportionate cause for making the change.  If we are going to disturb the common good and the equilibrium of the status quo, we must have a good reason for doing so.  Changing our vices into virtues is the example St. Paul gives us today.  On a more mundane level, when is a good time to make changes to the living room?  Is it worth it to go through the upheaval of buying new furniture, planning color schemes, painting and spending countless weekends trying to get everything just right?  We must figure out if the current state of the living room is really so bad that it warrants such drastic modifications?  If it is, then fine, do it.  But if it’s just on a whim because you saw a house in a movie that you’d like to copy, then take a deep breath, think about other things, and forego the unnecessary turmoil.

In short, make changes when they need to made.  Otherwise, have the wisdom to leave things well alone.

WHICH IS EASIER?

 A SERMON FOR THE 18TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Did you notice in today’s Gospel that when they brought the man sick of the palsy to our Lord, Jesus had no intention of healing him.  It says that our Lord “saw their faith” already.  So he didn’t need to perform a miracle.  Miracles were our Lord’s way of reinforcing the credibility and authority of his teaching by showing people he could do things they couldn’t.  People needed to have faith in him and in what he taught them, but for most of them, their faith was not strong enough to make them change their lives.  No, what they needed was something that that would astonish them, something that would make them stop in their tracks and go “Ooh” and “Aah”.  So very often, Our Lord would deign to grant their wishes and would perform a miracle.  He made the blind to see, the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak; he made lame men walk and cleansed lepers.  “Ooh!  Aah!”  But in this particular case he “saw their faith”, he saw that these people who brought him the man sick of the palsy already had a sufficiently strong faith and didn’t need any miraculous displays of his supernatural powers.

So even though they had brought him this sick man, presumably so that our Lord could heal him, Jesus was prepared to refuse that healing.  Perhaps it was better for this sick man to earn a higher place in heaven through his suffering, perhaps our Lord wanted to test the man’s faith by allowing his sickness to continue.  Whatever the reason for not curing him, our Lord nevertheless wanted to do something for this poor man.  So he did.  He forgave his sins.

Think about this a moment from God’s perspective.  When God looks down on us, living our lives in this world, lives which have no other purpose than to test us and see if we love God enough to merit heaven, what do you think is most important in this divine inspection of his creatures?  Is God primarily interested in whether our bodies are healthy?  Or whether our souls are healthy?  Which is more important to God—that we avoid temporary suffering in this vale of tears, or eternal suffering in hell?  While God is certainly compassionate for our temporal suffering, obviously he has more care for our souls than our bodies.  Thus, when they bring to him a man suffering from the palsy, our Lord seeks to reward them, and him, by curing the man’s soul rather than his body.  He says to the man “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.”  And hopefully, since this was far more consequential to the sick man than merely curing his body, both he and those who had carried him there were indeed “of good cheer,” believing that he was far better off with this spiritual healing he had received.

But then of course, as is always the case, there are those nearby who do not have such good faith in our Lord.  “Certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth.”  These men of little faith refused to believe that Christ was the Son of God and that he had power to forgive sins.  Of course, it was not Christ who blasphemed.  The blasphemy came from those who accused the Son of God of blasphemy.  Our Lord knew exactly what they were thinking and replied to their evil thoughts: “Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?  For whether is easier, to say Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Arise and walk?” 

Let’s ask ourselves at this point in the story, whom do we more closely resemble?  The people who were perfectly content with the spiritual healing of the man with the palsy, the forgiveness of his sins?   Or the scribes who needed proof that Christ had such power, who needed a miracle before they would even consider believing in him?  Are we of good cheer when we come out of the confessional with our sins forgiven?  Or do we come out complaining because we have a headache, or because the chapel is too warm, or the sermon too long?  Do we secretly wish for miracles, that our physical ailments and discomforts may vanish away in a puff of smoke, or that I might finally have written a sermon that’s less than ten minutes?  That’s one miracle that isn’t happening today.  But think about it, are we men of faith?  Or men of little faith?  Can we be content with the supernatural miracles hidden in the sacraments, the miracle of forgiveness in Confession, the miracle of the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist?  Or are we constantly seeking wonders?   Hollywood has succeeded to a large extent in making amazing events and astonishing superpowers normal.  From Clarence the Angel to the Bionic Man, we can “ooh” and “aah” all day long.  And if we stop to think for a moment, isn’t this what the devil wanted all along?  That we become numb to the truly miraculous, and treat with contempt those hidden miracles that we cannot see, those that truly count?

Let’s pause and reflect on the truly amazing powers of God.  Whether we see them, as the people in Fatima back in 1917 saw the Miracle of the Sun, or whether we see them only through the eyes of faith, such as the real presence of God on our altar this morning, God’s powers are awesome enough that we should indeed stand in awe before them.  We don’t need to hear the equivalent of those words, “Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.”  We don’t need to be cured of our diseases, we don’t need for all our sufferings and tribulations to just go away.  What we do need is the faith to be of good cheer, that the sacraments of our Holy Church will provide us with the graces we need to save our souls.  That really is something that should make us rejoice.  For that is really all we need.