BREAKING THE LAW

 A SERMON FOR THE 16TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

It comes up in the confessional time and again, so I thought I’d try and set the record straight once and for all so that we know when we’re committing a sin and when we’re not.

Let’s call to mind first of all what a sin is.  Something is sinful, not because it breaks a rule or a law, but because it offends God.  Keep that in mind and everything else falls into place.  This is the spirit of the law, and if your motivation is always to love God you will never commit a sin.  Christ knew this perfectly well, of course, and in today’s Gospel he reprimands the hypocritical Pharisees and lawyers of the Jewish faith for preaching that one must never break a law for any reason.  He points out that in certain cases you can, and sometimes even must break the law.

We, of all people, traditional Catholics who uphold the true faith, should know this.  After all, if we adhered to the letter of the law—the canon law of the Church—we couldn’t even attend this Mass here today!  Are we not “betraying” the Vicar of Christ himself by going to a Mass he has abolished?  Obviously we’ve all come to the very serious and well thought-out conclusion that we are doing the right thing, otherwise we’d all be at the Novus Ordo in our local parish church this morning.  So we all, in principle, and in practice too, agree that some laws just have to be broken.  In this, we follow the teaching of Christ himself when he tells the pharisees that they would be perfectly justified in pulling their ox or ass out of a ditch on the sabbath day.  We are equally justified in pulling ourselves out of the filthy ditch of the conciliar Church and coming here to Mass on the sabbath day.

So can we break any law we want if there’s a good reason for doing so?  I’ll give you the principle first, the theory behind what we can do and what we can’t do, which laws we can break and which we can’t.  It’s a simple distinction, so don’t think we’re going to get bogged down in a lot of highfalutin theology.  It’s a distinction between two types of law: disciplinary law and divine law.  Let’s start with divine law, most of which is simply the natural law.  The Ten Commandments are divine law, and cannot be broken for any reason.  We can never murder someone, for example, no matter how much we think they deserve to be knocked off.  We all probably have a little list in our head of people we’d secretly love to put an end to.  But it’s just a little fantasy when we get right down to it—if we had Nancy Pelosi chained up in a chair, we wouldn’t really be prepared to pull the trigger, would we?  If you would, go to confession!  Because no matter how much better off the world would be without her, we’d be breaking the Fifth Commandment of the Divine Law if we make it happen.  We can never do something which is intrinsically wrong no matter how much good may come of it.  The good end never justifies the evil means.

Now that we’ve established that we can’t break the Divine Law, let’s look at the other type of law, Disciplinary Law.  This is a law that is based on circumstances, and circumstances, as we well know, can change.  We are obliged, for example, by the disciplinary law of the Church to attend Mass on Sunday.  It is an obligation that binds us under the pain of mortal sin, so it’s not a law that can be treated lightly.  We must go to Mass at all cost every week, no matter where we are, what other things might be happening at Mass time, no matter how tired we are, or lacking in energy, enthusiasm, or whatever.  If we miss Mass even just once, we commit a very serious sin, one that, unless we repent and confess it, will prevent us from ever entering heaven.  And yet… it’s a disciplinary law.  There are circumstances that can allow us to deliberately miss Mass.

We’ve mentioned most of these circumstances before, so I don’t need to dwell on them.  Here’s a brief list:  we’re sick, there’s a snow storm and it would be dangerous to travel, we live too far away from a traditional Mass, we have a sick relative we need to look after, we have a job that requires us to work on Sundays (first responder, law enforcement, military, baker, hotel keeper and so on), or, for that matter, if your ox or ass has fallen in a ditch.  It’s nothing more than common sense, and if you have a good reason for not going to Mass, it’s not a sin and you don’t need to confess it.

But, you might object, going to Mass on Sunday is breaking the Divine Law, the Third Commandment, isn’t it?  Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath.  No it is not.  It breaks the disciplinary law of the Church to keep holy the Sabbath by attending Mass, but not the actual commandment of God to keep holy the sabbath.  Moses and the Israelites were not committing a mortal sin by not going to Mass in the wilderness.  The Church created this law of going to Mass so that we could more easily know how to keep holy the sabbath.  But it’s not the only way, and if we really can’t attend Mass it’s important to keep in mind that we still need to obey the Divine Law and keep that Sabbath holy!  So no unnecessary servile work, no unnecessary shopping, and above all, extra prayers to make up for not being able to go to Mass.  If you fail to observe these rules of the sabbath, then you would be breaking the Divine Law—and that, you’d need to confess.

Just keep to common sense.  It’s the same in the natural world.  Traffic lights and speed limits are there to keep us safe.  They are disciplinary laws of the state or local authority.  They must be obeyed or you’ll get a ticket.  But the Law has flexibility and if you have a truly good reason for breaking the speed limit the police will be on your side.  Go racing through a school zone full of children at 75 mph and they’ll throw the book at you, and rightfully so.  But if you go through a red light at three in the morning when there’s no traffic around, as you rush to get to the hospital with your wife who’s in labor in the back seat—you might get pulled over but you’re more likely to get a police escort to the maternity hospital than a ticket.  God’s mercy acts in the same way as our natural compassion, and he’s not going to condemn us for breaking a disciplinary law for the right reason.  Rather, he will send his holy angels to escort us into Paradise because we were motivated by common sense and a true, not hypocritical love, a love of God that follows the spirit and not the letter of the law.

We’re all breaking the Church’s law just by being here this morning.  And yet it's that love of God that brings us here, that constant desire to seek out the Way, the Truth, and the Life that our beloved Church has temporarily abandoned.  Let’s look forward to the day when we can close this chapel and find God again in our local parish church—when we can return to our rightful place in a Church that once again imposes true laws that God wants us to follow.

FIRMLY I BELIEVE AND TRULY

 A HYMN FOR THE 16TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By John Henry Cardinal Newman

 

1 Firmly I believe and truly

God is Three and God is One;

And I next acknowledge duly

Manhood taken by the Son.

 

2 And I trust and hope most fully

In that manhood crucified;

And each thought and deed unruly

Do to death, as he has died.

 

3 Simply to his grace and wholly

Light and life and strength belong,

And I love supremely, solely,

Him the holy, him the strong.

 

 

4 And I hold in veneration,

For the love of him alone,

Holy Church as his creation,

And her teachings as his own.

 

5 Adoration ay be given,

With and through the angelic host,

To the God of earth and heaven,

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF LOVE

 A REFLECTION FOR THE 16TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

All the visible objects that surround us can be measured.  If we have a ruler or a measuring tape long enough, we can determine the three dimensions by which all things are measured—length, width and height.  With today’s technology, the proportions of even the distant stars and planets can be accurately determined.  But today, St. Paul provides us with food for thought as he describes the one thing that is beyond our human instruments of measurement.  It is the love of God.

With an intensity that is undeniable, St. Paul describes to the Ephesians how he falls to his knees to implore God for them, that they might be “strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.”  And why is St. Paul so anxious for them to be thus strengthened?  He has one reason only, that they might be given the understanding “to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of Christ.”  It will take such divine intervention to allow them to comprehend such things because Christ’s love is of a dimension beyond the physical domain.  Indeed, it “passeth knowledge.”  And what is beyond human knowledge but our faith, a faith in the things that are infinite, eternal and divine.

Like the Ephesians to whom St. Paul writes, we too find ourselves standing in awe at the concept that such immeasurable love exists.  We read in Holy Scripture about God’s love for us, we witness the acts of God in the Old Testament that prove his love for us, and we see the glorious acts of love displayed by his Son in the New Testament, culminating in the sight of a bleeding and suffering Saviour dying on the Cross for our sins.  But these are all merely outward signs of a divine Love that is so great, it goes far beyond anything we can comprehend with our finite minds.  It is a love that has no end, no limit to its breadth, and length, and depth, and height, a love that our own poor hearts can never adequately return, not even if we add up every measure of love ever felt by each single mortal who has breathed its spirit.  For mankind did not love before they were created; only a limited number of men and women will ever have existed; and most importantly, each man and woman is capable of only a limited amount of love.  No matter how much we ourselves, or even all mankind, might love God or our neighbor, it is as nothing when compared with the love God has for us.

God continues daily to show this love.  He is, as St. Paul says, “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.”  For us to love God enough is impossible.  For us to try to love God perfectly is not only possible but the first and greatest of the commandments, that upon which all other laws, not to mention our salvation, depend, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”  With all our finite heart, our damaged soul, and our often wandering mind.  Our heart and mind can be measured.  They are physical attributes of our body and our personality.  But it is up to us to use every single inch of our heart and mind to love God as much as we possibly can.  We must give to God every ounce of love we have, and anything short of that is failure.  To deny God the slightest amount of love is an imperfection, and sometimes even a sin, for which we must beg God’s forgiveness and merciful loving-kindness.

It is only when we love “with all our soul” that we can come anywhere near returning to God the perfect love he desires and demands.  While our soul yet lives within our imperfect and finite bodies, however, our soul is hampered by the distractions of the devil, the world and our own fallen human nature.  We must yearn for the day when our soul will no longer be obstructed in this way, and will discover forever in heaven, through the beatific vision, that love of God that passeth knowledge, and can reflect it in our own love for God that will then also surpass all length and breadth and depth and height.

GOOD GRIEF!

 A SERMON FOR THE 15TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Death has a habit of rearing its ugly head often when we least expect it.  We read of new deaths every day on the news—celebrities, famous actors, former politicians, monarchs—death comes to all.  It comes to each of us in turn, and as we get older, we become increasingly aware that our own turn is coming.  Meanwhile, we watch in solemn silence as others go before us. 

The world these days (and by “world” I include the Conciliar Church) has a way of sanitizing the grief that comes with death and bereavement.  Indeed they have perfected it.  Funerals have become occasions “to celebrate the life of the deceased,” and “celebrate” they do.  Gone are the solemn wakes of old, replaced by videos of the dead person’s “funniest moments”.  Balloons have replaced incense at the gravesite, and prayers for the dead are regarded as pointless as we all go straight to heaven when we die, bypassing somehow that unpleasant event in which we are judged.  Progressive atheists who do not believe in the afterlife may be pleasantly entertained by all these amusing antics.  Even the confused Catholics of Vatican II may find false comfort in the idea that there is no hell or purgatory. But no matter what reassurance anyone of us may find in canonizing every single human being as soon as they’re dead, we may be assured that the poor suffering souls themselves must be dismayed to be thus neglected in their anguish.

Imagine how we will feel after sentence is passed by our blessed and merciful Judge.  Assuming it’s a “thumbs up” and we avoid eternal damnation, we still owe temporal restitution for our multiple sins and will be faced with the prospect of the fires of Purgatory for who knows how many days or centuries.  And as we look down upon our bereaved friends and relatives, those whom we loved and who claimed to love us, now giggling happily at the sight of a few dozen helium balloons floating up to the clouds, and telling each other with smug conviction that we’re already in heaven and don’t need their prayers, what shall be our “feelings” then?  Disappointment?  No!  Anguish!  Betrayal!  Realizing that no Masses will be offered for the repose of our soul, no supplications made to shorten or reduce the pains of our temporal punishment…  How many thousands, millions, of souls must have already experienced this most terrible of disappointments, the devastation of knowing they are alone and abandoned even by those dearest to them?

The vestments for a funeral are white only for children who die before they are old enough to know the meaning of immorality.  They alone are assured of their immediate reward, and our sorrow at their passing is mitigated by knowing they are truly already with the angels in heaven.  For everyone else, there is the judgment, and the clothing of the bereaved and the vestments of the clergy are black, the color of mourning and of humble supplication for that judgement to be merciful.  Candles are unbleached, the music is somber, speech is hushed and respectful.  We follow the traditions of mourning and are comforted by them.  We are comforted chiefly because these funeral rituals are of comfort not only to ourselves but more importantly to our dear departed also.  The love we had for them while they yet lived amongst us does not miraculously vanish the second they die; it remains in our heart and we are glad that we still have the opportunity to show that love by helping them with our prayers.

Our “feelings” in our bereavement are not pleasant feelings, and often we cannot prevent our tears or other expressions of grief.  We have lost someone we love and we mourn their passing.  But as St. Paul reminds us, we should “not be ignorant concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.“  In the midst of our mourning we must not give way to the kind of sorrow where we lose hope in the resurrection of the dead.  When our Lord meets the mother of Nain in today’s Gospel, he tells her, “Weep not.”  He tells her this, not because she was doing something wrong—our Lord himself wept at the death of Lazarus.  Our weeping is merely the natural expression of our grief.  But even as we weep, we do not lose sight of the purpose of death, and that it is a necessary part of God’s plan as we are transported from this Vale of Tears into the everlasting destiny that awaits us in heaven.  The transfer from this life to the life eternal may not be instantaneous.  This isn’t Star Trek—we are not just beamed up to heaven.  But we do have that virtue of hope that sustains us in what could otherwise so easily become despair.  “Weep not.”  Weep outwardly if you want, but retain that joy in your soul that the purpose of death is to take us to a better place.  As if to prove this resurrection of the soul after death, our Lord reaches out to the dead man’s body and says, “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.  And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak.”  This resurrection, first of the soul, and later of the body, and the life everlasting that follows, is our own future also, it’s our destiny, if only we love God and follow his commandments.

St. Paul describes this perfectly: “Behold,” he says, “I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.  For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality… then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” 

Let us then not live in terror at the prospect of bereavement and death, but focus instead on the process that follows, hopeful for God’s mercy, confident that we will see the loving arms of Christ reaching out to us as he utters that most beautiful word, Arise!  For then we that are dead will indeed sit up and we will speak, as we begin our last journey to join the angels in heaven, there to speak and sing out forever the glorious praises of God, “Holy, holy, holy, hosanna in the highest!”

CHRIST, ENTHRONED IN HIGHEST HEAVEN

 A HYMN FOR THE 15TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

13^th century, translated by R.F. Littledale

 

 

1. Christ, enthroned in highest Heaven,

Hear us crying from the deep,

For the faithful ones departed,

For the souls of all that sleep;

As Thy kneeling Church entreateth,

Hearken, Shepherd of the sheep.

 

2. King of Glory, hear our voices,

Grant Thy faithful rest, we pray;

We have sinned, and may not bide it,

If Thou mark our steps astray;

Yet we plead the saving Victim,

Which for them we bring today.

 

3. That which Thou Thyself hast offered

To Thy Father, offer we;

Let it win for them a blessing,

Bless them, Jesu, set them free;

They are Thine, they wait in patience;

Merciful and gracious be.

 

4. They are Thine, O take them quickly,

Thou their Hope, O raise them high;

Ever hoping, ever trusting,

Unto Thee they strive and cry;

Day and night, both morn and even,

Be, O Christ, their Guardian nigh.

 

5. Let Thy plenteous loving-kindness,

On them, as we pray, be poured;

Let them through Thy boundless mercy,

From all evil be restored;

Hearken to the voices pleading

Of Thy Church, O gracious Lord.

 

6. Hear and answer prayers devoutest,

Break, O Lord, each binding chain,

Dash the gates of death asunder,

Quell the devil and his train;

Bring the souls which Thou hast ransomed

Evermore in joy to reign.

FRATERNAL CORRECTION

 A MESSAGE FOR THE 15TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

When it comes to observing the faults of others, most of us have no problem in seeing everything.  Even here in this very building, we notice when someone comes to church not dressed properly, when certain people always arrive late, whose babies cry the loudest, which children don’t make the correct genuflection on two knees when passing the altar after the Consecration.  If the things that happen are genuinely offensive to God, I would ask you to take the necessary steps to stop it from happening on a regular basis.  But here, we run into difficulty, don’t we?  We who notice everything, we who might even point out the bad behavior of others by gossiping to our own family and friends about it—suddenly, we’re not so keen on correcting the person or persons responsible.

However, it is an act of charity to do so, and is called “fraternal correction.”  This is an act by which we charitably try to watch over the souls of others by trying to draw them closer to God and away from their sinfulness or poor conduct.  It’s a delicate thing to do, and must never be done out of anger, frustration or a sense of power and control over others.  It must always be motivated with selfless love of neighbor, the hope that our correction may be effective and not personally offensive to the person whose conduct we are trying to improve.

These considerations make for certain rules that govern our methods of correcting others.  The first is never to correct someone publicly.  If I singled out one of you by name from the pulpit and yelled at you because your phone rings during Mass, this would be inexcusable on my part, no matter how mad I might be!  In a case like this, the embarrassment of the interruption is usually itself enough of a correction to the offender.  If not, I would perhaps need to take the person aside discreetly to remind them how to handle this in future.  Nor do we ask our ushers to inspect your clothing to make sure it’s appropriate.  I rely on your good taste, modesty, and respect for the presence of God on the altar, to come to Mass in your “Sunday best,” and if I have to mention it to anyone, it should never be from the pulpit.

So we see that discretion is essential in correcting others.  Even our own children, though they must be firmly corrected at all times, are sensitive to being corrected in front of others.  In their case, it may sometimes be necessary, as the presence of witnesses may be more effective, increasing their fear of being embarrassed in front of others so they behave better in future.  At other times, the simple whisper of “Wait till I get get you home!” is enough to supply a different and even more effective kind of fear.  For adults, however, fear is more likely to take the form of resentment, and that drives people away—from us, from the church, from religion, even from God.  So depending on your relationship with the person you’re correcting, you need to vary your approach appropriately, and always so they’re aware of your good motives.  The last thing they’re going to appreciate is some “busybody” butting in with some holier-than-thou observations about how bad they are!

As St. Paul observes in today’s Epistle, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted… for if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.”  So meekness and humility should also be part of our corrections, conscious always of our own faults and imperfections, and never looking down upon the behavior of others.  We’re told to “love the sinner but hate his sin” and that is not always so easy to do.  Our constant awareness of our own lack of merit should help though, and the person we’re correcting should never feel we consider ourselves to be his moral superior.  Pride goeth before a fall.  Let’s all be prepared to correct (and to be corrected by) others, and “do good unto all men, especially unto them that are of the household of faith.”

SERVING TWO MASTERS

 A SERMON FOR THE 14TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

You can’t have your cake and eat it.  It’s impossible.  Either your cake is going to sit on the table forever or you’re going to get tired of looking at it and cut off a slice or two till it’s all gone.  And once you’ve finished eating it you don’t have your cake anymore.  Simple enough.  And yet, how hard do we try to do exactly that, have our cake and eat it.  Or to put it a different way, we try to serve two masters.  This is equally as impossible as having your cake and eating it.  We can’t get away with serving God and serving mammon at the same time.  Mammon?  What’s mammon?  Simply put, mammon is the things of this world, all the things we want as opposed to what God wants.  We can’t have our cake by doing God’s will and eat our cake by following our own will too, because sooner or later our will and God’s will clash.  They will find themselves in conflict.  It’s inevitable, because God’s will has as its goal the glory of God himself and the salvation of souls, while our own will seeks nothing than our own miserable little pleasures and vanities.  God’s will is that we save our souls, while our will, unfortunately leads us to do whatever we want, even though it means the loss of our salvation.

It is of immeasurable help if only we can come to this simple recognition that we are faced with this choice between these two masters, God and self.  We have such high aspirations to follow God’s commandments and be good little Christians, but then as soon as we want something else, we give up on our high and holy ambitions and yield to our whims.  We want God, but we want our own self-satisfaction even more.  And if we do this too often, we end up doing it too easily.  We no longer fight temptation but try to justify our bad actions.  We begin to place all our love in the things that provide merely natural and temporary happiness or pleasure, and we end up despising the things of God.  Sadly, we see it happen so frequently, especially among our young people.  As they grow through their teenage years, and their hormones and feelings of independence lead them away from a life of sacrifice and service into one of self-indulgence, so very often they end up expressing openly their decision that there is no time or place for God in their lives.

The sad passing of Queen Elizabeth this week has given us a very timely example of such a life of service and devotion to her God and her people.  As a young person she committed herself to the heavy duties of her role as princess and then Queen, and whatever may be your opinions of monarchy, I don’t think there is anyone who would disagree that here was a lady who truly gave her all to the responsibilities she believed God had placed upon her shoulders.  And like the good Samaritans we have spoken about in the Gospels of the past two Sundays, here again is a non-Catholic who puts so many of us to shame, we who have the true faith.  Let’s go no further at this time than to take the ancient lesson of our Lord that there is much to be learned from the good example of others, no matter what their faith, or whether they wear the rags of lepers or the grand finery of a queen.

In today’s Gospel, our Lord lays out the solution to this dilemma that faces us on a daily basis, to follow God or to follow mammon.  Stop giving so much thought, so much energy, he says, to the material things of life.  “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body; what ye shall put on.”  Rely instead on divine Providence.  “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.”  The fowls of the air, the lilies of the field—they do perfectly well, thank you, without actively seeking out all the nice things they need.  “They sow not, neither do they reap,” yet God provides for them without their seeking.  We should follow this example of the fowls of the air and lilies of the field, relying simply and humbly on God to give us the things we need, and certainly, never abandoning God to seek after these things without him.  To all men, God bestows good things, the things they need.  He does so, seemingly without discrimination between those of the true Faith and those who live in the ignorance of their false beliefs.  To the lepers he gave healing.  To rulers of nations he has delegated his authority to govern.  One leper gave thanks unto God and that leper was a Samaritan.  Queen Elizabeth showed a greater and more sincere faith in God than many so-called Catholic popes, priests, presidents and politicians who have abused the authority God gave them to defy the laws of God.  I would be personally grateful for your prayers that, like the Samaritan leper, The Queen’s faith might have made her whole.  Meanwhile, we must give our highest allegiance and worship to one master only and that master is our Lord Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords, the God by whom kings and queens do reign. 

In keeping with our Lord’s teaching, St. Paul lists in today’s Epistle all manner of evil behavior that constantly tempts us away from our true master: adultery, uncleanness, fornication, wrath, drunkenness and so on.  He compares them with the things of God, what he calls the fruit of the Spirit: joy, peace, gentleness… it’s a different kind of list altogether.  Spend some time and read through both these lists.  Ask yourself, which among them pertains to me?  Which among these vices and virtues, which of these types of behavior best describes the master I serve?  To which of these masters am I subject?  If, or rather when, we recognize in the first list some degree of fault on our part, let’s take this occasion to do better. Examine your conscience, repent, go to confession, and resolve to change.  Let our faith make us whole.

ETERNAL RULER OF THE CEASELESS ROUND

 A HYMN FOR THE 14TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By John W. Chadwick, 1864

 

1 Eternal Ruler of the ceaseless round

Of circling planets singing on their way;

Guide of the nations from the night profound

Into the glory of the perfect day;

Rule in our hearts, that we may ever be

Guided and strengthened and upheld by thee.

 

2 We are of thee, the children of thy love,

The brothers of thy well-belovèd Son;

Descend, O Holy Spirit, like a dove,

Into our hearts, that we may be as one:

As one with thee, to whom we ever tend;

As one with him, our Brother and our Friend.

 

3 We would be one in hatred of all wrong,

One in our love of all things sweet and fair,

One with the joy that breaketh into song,

One with the grief that trembles into prayer,

One in the power that makes thy children free

To follow truth, and thus to follow thee.

 

4 O clothe us with thy heavenly armour, Lord,

Thy trusty shield, thy sword of love divine;

Our inspiration be thy constant word;

We ask no victories that are not thine:

Give or withhold, let pain or pleasure be;

Enough to know that we are serving thee.

TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO TODAY

 A REFLECTION FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11

Today’s anniversary of 9/11 gives us pause to reflect upon certain painful memories of the past.  As Christians, however, and particularly as Catholics who follow the traditional liturgy untarnished by the assaults of the modernists, the memories of that awful day are mitigated by the very feastdays that surround it.  As we remember those poor men and women, they say between 100 and 250, who had no choice that day but to jump hundreds of feet to their death, and those others who remained trapped in the twin towers only to feel the floor beneath them give way and collapse—let’s say a prayer to yesterday’s saint, St. Nicholas of Tolentino.  If only they had known the comfort of having prayed on the eve of their death to this patron of the very Holy Souls whom they were about to join!

God knew of our trauma and anguish that day.  And he prepared us for it by allowing it to take place in the only liturgical week of the year in which no less than three feasts of Our Lady occur:  her Nativity on September 8^th, her Holy Name on the 12^th, and her Seven Sorrows on the 15^th.  Who better to comfort us in those dark days than this loving Mother, comforter of the afflicted, at whose feet we so often fall in times like this, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.  Think of those poor victims trapped in the towers collapsing under their feet, and read the words of St. Bernard in the second Nocturn of tomorrow’s Matins.   It could have been written especially for them, and for their bereaved families:

“O thou, whosoever thou art, that knowest thyself to be here not so much walking upon firm ground, as battered to and fro by the gales and storms of this life's ocean, if thou wouldest not be overwhelmed by the tempest, keep thine eyes fixed upon this star's clear shining.  If the hurricanes of temptation rise against thee, or thou art running upon the rocks of trouble, look to the star, call on Mary… if thou begin to slip into the deep of despondency, into the pit of despair, think of Mary.”

And what of that feast on September 11, itself, Saints Protus and Hyacinth, whom we celebrate today?  The still undisturbed grave of St. Hyacinth was discovered as recently as 1845, in a crypt of the Catacomb of St. Hermes in Rome.  The grave was identified by the inscription D P III IDUS SEPTEBR YACINTHUS MARTYR (Buried on 11 September Hyacinthus Martyr).  In the same chamber were found fragments of an architrave belonging to some later decoration, with the words:  SEPULCRUM PROTI M(artyris) (Grave of the Martyr Protus).  Thus both martyrs were buried in the same crypt.  Pope Damasus wrote an epitaph in honour of the two martyrs, part of which still exists (Ihm, "Damasi epigrammata", 52, 49). In the epitaph Damasus calls Protus and Hyacinth brothers.  The Roman Breviary also refers to them as “brethren”, two brothers who were mercilessly attacked by the pagans, twin towers of the faith whose bodies were destroyed but whose spirits rise again as a symbol of hope in adversity, of the triumph of the Cross over its enemies.

The Cross did indeed triumph.  Just two days after the attack, in the course of the massive operation to find survivors amongst the rubble, a worker at the site discovered a 20-foot cross of two steel beams amongst the debris of the World Trade Center.  Those with access to the site, rescue workers, then construction workers, police and firefighters, families of the victims, immediately began to honor this cross, using it as a focal point for their messages and prayers.  It was the eve of the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.  You can still see this cross in the National September 11^th Memorial and Museum.  Is it our imagination that this scrap of metal from the North Tower was given by God on this day to become a shrine for thousands?  If you think so, tell that to the loved ones of those who died on 9/11, and those who have found solace at the foot of this cross.  Tell it to the family who stood before it in silence, before placing the personal effects of their loved one beneath it, prompting one of the onlookers to exclaim:  "It was as if the cross took in the grief and loss.  I never felt Jesus more."

ANOTHER GOOD SAMARITAN

ANOTHER GOOD SAMARITAN

Last week’s Gospel, you might remember, involved the parable of the Good Samaritan.  For the Jews listening to our Lord, the very idea of a “good Samaritan” was somewhat of a contradiction.  Samaritans were the people who lived in the neighboring country of Samaria.  They maintained a breakaway religion from the Jews, a religion with its own traditions and holy places.  According to the Jews they were apostates and were supposed to be shunned.  How could there be such a thing as a “good” Samaritan?  And yet, our Lord uses a Samaritan in his parable to show how an apostate was a better neighbor to the poor man left to die in the street than the Jewish priest and Levite who passed him by. 

In this week’s Gospel, another “good Samaritan” makes an appearance.  In this case, he’s a leper, one of the ten lepers our Lord healed and the only one of them to say thank you.  Our Lord answered his act of thanksgiving, saying, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?  There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.” So again, the Jews are put to shame by the better behavior of a schismatic foreigner.  Our Lord then makes the extraordinary declaration that “thy faith hath made thee whole.”  After all, he was a Samaritan, he didn’t have the true Jewish faith.  So how could his false faith in the Samaritan religion make him whole?

The answer to this paradox lies in the true meaning of faith.  Ultimately, it’s faith in the true nature of God and the truths that he has revealed that is important, not a belief in any corrupted beliefs that a particular institution may have acquired.  This fact is of particular relevance to us who sit here today.  Time and again since Vatican II our Church leaders have given constant scandal to the faithful, openly displaying in their words and behavior that they have less faith than non-Catholics.  It’s one of the reasons so many Catholics have deserted the Conciliar Church either giving up religion altogether or in search of something “better”.  God will judge them fairly, given the failure of the shepherds to protect their flock.  It has happened before during the Protestant revolt of the sixteenth century, when many revolted against what they perceived as corruption in the Church.  They were wrong then, and these new apostates who flock to the enticing and oh so charitable mega Churches in their neighborhood are equally wrong now.  We can never replace corruption with a different kind of falsehood.

When the institution fails to provide the Truth of God, we have the obligation to seek that truth elsewhere.  But be very careful to make this distinction between the “institution” of the Catholic Church and the real Catholic Church, the Bride of Christ, the Mystical Body.  When we speak of the Catholic Church today, we should always have this distinction in mind—it’s our saving grace that we, who believe in the faith taught by the Catholic Church since its establishment by our Lord Jesus Christ, are members of that Church today, and that those who deny and compromise those teachings today are no longer members of the Church.  We have an enormous illusion in the world today, one where the Catholic Church appears magically to still exist in Rome, where a man in a white cassock is still almost universally recognized as the Vicar of Christ on earth, and which still makes its universal decrees to its members throughout the world.  The problem is that it truly is an illusion.   When those decrees forbid the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to take just one of hundreds of possible examples, we know immediately that this is not the actual Church of Christ.

What did the Samaritan leper of the Gospel do when he heard that Jesus was in town?  Did he stick with his false religion and seek healing from one of their “holy men?”  No.  He joined with the other Jews who recognized the true faith and the true bearer of that faith who alone had the power to heal.  We do the same today, and we should take courage from the example of this Samaritan who abandoned not the true faith, but the corrupted faith of the Samaritan religion.  We should take courage also from the other nine lepers.  They too recognized that their own Jewish high priests could not truly heal them, that they too had become too corrupted by power and greed to provide them with the healing and cleansing they sought.  They too recognized the true bearer of faith when he came to their town.  All ten of them, the nine Jews and the one Samaritan, lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  And he healed them all.

Whether we returned to the true faith of our fathers from the Novus Ordo Church or from another non-Catholic sect, we were given the grace to recognize God in his true light.  And we did as the lepers did, and went out to meet him.  Here we are.  But are we now going to complacently accept where we are and do nothing more about it?  Or are we going to return to our Lord, here today in the Blessed Sacrament, just as truly present as he was in that village in the Gospel, and thank him from the bottom of our hearts that he has cleansed us from the filth of lies and false worship that exists, it seems, everywhere else?

This faith that we have had indeed made us whole.  We must give thanks for that, certainly, and then we must do more.  And Jesus said unto the leper, “Arise, go thy way!”  We must arise, not sit back comfortably in the dull routine of our daily lifestyle, and we must go our way.  What way is this?  Is it the way of preaching the truth to our neighbor, is it the way of teaching children, raising families properly in the right morals and faith?  Is it through moral activism, such as pro-life groups or the very opposite, through contemplative prayer, the Rosary, and adoration of God?  Maybe a mixture of some or all of the above or something else entirely, but somehow, in some way, we must obey our Lord who gave us the grace of being cleansed and healed from falsehood.  We must make our thanks to God for this great grace, and then we must arise from the communion rail and go our way, our own individual way to which God calls us.  We must follow our vocation wherever it leads.

SAVIOUR, WHO DIDST HEALING GIVE

 A HYMN FOR THE 13TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

By Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley (1851–1920)

 

1 Saviour, who didst healing give,

Still in power go before us;

Thou through death didst bid men live,

Unto fuller life restore us;

Strength from thee the fainting found,

Deaf men heard, the blind went seeing;

At thy touch was banished sickness,

And the leper felt new being.

 

2 Thou didst work thy deeds of old

Through the loving hands of others;

Still thy mercies manifold

Bless men by the hands of brothers;

Angels still before thy face

Go, sweet health to brothers bringing;

Still, hearts glow to tell his praises

With whose name the Church is ringing.

 

3 Loved physician! for his word

Lo, the gospel page burns brighter,

Mission servant of the Lord,

Painter true, and perfect writer;

Saviour, of thy bounty send

Such as Luke of gospel story,

Friends to all in body’s prison

Till the sufferers see thy glory.