A SERMON FOR THE 7TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Of all the Sunday Gospels we read
during the course of the year, perhaps none of them strike us as much as
today’s. Our Lord’s analogy of the sheep
in wolves’ clothing comes closer to describing the evils of our times than
perhaps anything else he said. Popes and
bishops, pretending to be our Lord’s good, loyal sheep, seem to be hell-bent on
killing the actual sheep—us—with the sharp fangs of heresy, immorality, and
false worship. Wolves in sheep’s
clothing—it’s as though our Lord knew that these times would come and wanted to
warn us in advance. And of course he did
know. And yet the Church, after reading
this Gospel on every Seventh Sunday after Pentecost for countless hundreds of
years, was somehow infiltrated with these ravening wolves tearing apart
Christ’s flock and devouring the innocent lambs of the Good Shepherd.
Unfortunately, when we read these
words of our Lord again today, there’s a dangerous inclination to just nod in grim
recognition of the situation we’re facing—and then move on. We tut-tut about the evils around us and don’t
take the time to recognize the evil within us.
Today, I’d like to point out that danger by listening to another warning
from our Lord: “Why beholdest thou the
mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in
thine own eye?” You see, it’s very easy
to look at the terrible sins committed by the clergy of the Conciliar Church
and forget all about our own vices and sinful attachments. To what extent are we the loyal sheep of the
Good Shepherd? How often do we act like
wolves ourselves, preying on the vulnerable by forcing our own will upon them instead
of the charity our Lord calls for? We
know we’re supposed to have this supernatural charity for our neighbor, and yet
how often do we ignore his needs, how often do we fail to supply him with the faith,
hope and charity that all men crave and so few find? How subtly do we exploit the weaknesses of
our neighbor to our own advantage?
Our Lord has no time for such
double standards: “Thou hypocrite,” he says, “first cast out the beam out of thine
own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy
brother's eye.” Are we so concerned and
scandalized by the modernists that we fail to observe our own duplicity? Are we so obsessed by pointing out the sins
of others that we don’t bother trying to eradicate our own selfishness from our
behavior?
What’s profoundly interesting is
that these words of our Lord condemning this kind of hypocrisy were pronounced
by him immediately before his warning about the wolves in sheep’s
clothing. They come from the same
chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel, the seventh chapter. In verse 5 our Lord tells us to first cast
out the beam from our own eye, so we can see clearly to cast out the splinter
from the eyes of our neighbor. Then, just
ten verses later in verse 15, he warns us to beware of false prophets which
come to us in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. Before we dare to condemn the wolves in sheep’s
clothing, first, he says , we must cast the beam from our own eye by making
sure we ourselves are not like the wolves we’re meant to watch out for. Let’s take note of this context and
retrospectively prepare ourselves for today’s Gospel by making sure we’re aware
of our own faults before we point out the sins of the wolves in sheep’s
clothing.
It's fairly obvious how we must
do that. We have to look into our own
souls, not anyone else’s. Not our wife’s
soul, not our husband’s soul. You’d be
surprised how often, when I point out this or that fault or imperfection from
the pulpit, I see husbands and wives nudging each other and giving each other
the eye, as if to say “I told you so.”
Forget the faults of your spouse, the faults of your children or your
parents, or your friends at work, even the faults of the real wolves—popes,
prelates and progressive politicians.
They are all ultimately responsible for their own souls. They have free will like us. They can’t save our soul, and we can’t save
theirs. Sometimes our best friend is our
mirror. We should take a long and realistic
look into that mirror so that we can remove any splinters of duplicity we might
then see in our own eyes, the windows of our soul.
Our Lord tells us quite clearly
what to look out for. “By their fruits
ye shall know them.” We should judge
ourselves, as one day Christ himself shall judge us, by our fruit. “Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit;
but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.”
So as we walk through life, what fruit are we leaving in our wake? Is it a trail of destruction, chaos, lost
souls? Do we leave the world behind us a
worse place than it was before we entered into it? Or do we leave it a better place? Are the people with whom we interact better
off for knowing us, will our legacy be one of holiness, virtue and good
example? Or will be remembered only for
our voracious appetite in attacking the faults of others? It’s worth taking that long, hard look into
our souls and whether we leave behind us a trail of destruction or sanctity. This trail, whatever it is, is our fruit, and
as our Lord says, “By their fruits ye shall know them.”
In the dark annals of the
mountains and forests of Eastern Europe, there is a legend that has endured to
the present day. It is the Legend of the
Wolfman, a seemingly likeable and pleasant young man who for most of the time
is kind and charitable to his neighbor.
However, on every night of the Full Moon, he is transformed into a wolf,
with sharp claws and fangs, and a terrible impulse to kill. The local villagers live in constant fear,
dreading the approaching full moon, and wondering who will be the wolfman’s
next victim. Whether such a legend has
any basis in truth I’ll leave to your imagination and common sense to make your
own conclusions. Yet the story of the Wolfman
is a disturbingly accurate metaphor for the way we all behave. We go through life being nice enough most of
the time. But within us all there lurks
a monster, one which is an integral part of our human nature, our fallen
human nature. And now and again, this
monster comes to the surface and we act with horrifying disregard for the
welfare of our fellow man. Greed, unbridled
lust, feelings of power, sometimes just plain-old selfishness, cause us to walk
all over anyone who gets in our way. And
we leave that trail of destruction behind us.
There’s only way to stop the Wolfman. With a silver bullet. But God is merciful, and he doesn’t strike us
down every time we misuse our free will.
Instead he gives us a different kind of silver bullet to help us withstand
our destructive impulses and inspire us instead with charity towards our
neighbor. Our Lord’s silver bullet is the
Blessed Sacrament, the source of all grace and the means to our salvation. It’s available to all who choose it, and we
all know what we have to do so that we can choose it. Take the time now to consider those choices. Stop in your tracks and look behind you. What good have you left in your path, what
evils have you been responsible for? Have
you dragged others into your own sins? Have
you trampled on the souls of your children by setting a bad example? Learn from your mistakes and avoid repeating
them. Make reparation for them and
resolve to take a different path in future.
The past is just as important to us as the future—it’s there to learn
from, and woe unto us if we fail to take those lessons. The next full moon is surely coming, and what
will we find ourselves doing then?
Beware the ravening wolf.
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