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Here is a letter from a Father Sean Sheehy, an Irish priest who's homily against abortion went worldwide after he was criticisded for it in Irish media.God works in strange ways.
God has given us emotions so that we can handle all our feelings that are generated by our thoughts. Every time we interpret something – a look, a word, a scene, a touch, a stance, or a principle – feelings, positive or negative, follow from our interpretation. Strong feelings seek expression in action. Action expresses and defines our character – at least in that moment. Feelings never just happen. They’re always preceded by thoughts. Our thoughts lead us to feel good, sad, bad, joyful, happy, anxious, angry, fearful, guilty, responsible, numb, frustrated, etc. Our feelings identify how we want to relate to the world at any given situation. It’s silly to deny feelings. Instead we need to manage them lest they control us and lead us to behavior we regret. So how do we manage our feelings? We use our emotions.
Emotions and feelings are often confused. People who’re upset or crying are often labeled as “emotional.” But actually they are simply expressing their feelings. What matters is whether they are being controlled by their feelings or their feelings are being directed by their emotions. Emotions are gifts from God enabling us to decide the most effective way to express how we feel. Four basic emotions are anger, fear, guilt, and love. Anger and fear direct us to protect ourselves from threats to our safety. Guilt directs us to take responsibility for our sins. Love directs us to connect with others. We can use any emotion to direct any feeling, positive or negative. For example, I can have an angry feeling toward someone and express it through the emotion of anger, fear, guilt, or love. I can have an angry feeling toward someone and use my emotion of guilt to express it by taking personal responsibility for it and apologizing for it. I can also express it through the emotion of anger by constructively confronting the person toward whom I have the angry feeling. The relationship between feelings and emotions can be a whole study in itself. When we use emotions to direct our feelings we act rationally. When we let our feelings direct us we lose control and act irrationally. God wants us to be in control of ourselves so we can do His will. This week God speaks to us about anger and mercy.
As an emotion anger is a gift from God. But In the Book of Sirach (27:30-28:9), God tells us that, “Wrath and anger are hateful things …” Jesus’ Church lists anger as one of the seven deadly sins? How can anger be a gift and a sin at the same time? Wasn’t Jesus angry? “And He looked around at them with anger, grieved at the hardness of their heart …” (Mk 3:5). What are we to make of this?
God isn’t talking about the emotion of anger, which is a gift from Him. The emotion of anger is part of being human. It generates the energy we need to attack what threatens our security. But it’s how we attack that makes the difference. When we choose our emotion of anger to attack an enemy we’ll be in control of our action and God will be guiding us through His gift. When our angry feeling directs our attack we’ll not be in control and so will act destructively. Anger becomes a hateful thing when we attack destructively. Murder, revenge, self-harm, or wishing evil upon others are the result of angry feelings that are expressed in hateful actions towards others or toward oneself. It’s normal to feel anger when somebody wrongs us and threatens our safety. If we choose our emotion of anger to express our feelings God will lead us to act constructively. Angry feelings move us toward vengeance that blind us to God’s will. We must remember that, “The vengeful will suffer the Lord’s vengeance, for He remembers their sins in detail.”
Forgiveness restores our emotions to their rightful role in managing our feelings when we are wronged. God’s Word teaches us to, “Forgive your neighbor’s injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.” Too often we react to injustice with angry feelings and seek revenge. Vengeful behavior causes destruction, which can’t be healed except by repentance and reconciliation. Sirach asks a reasonable question: “How can you expect healing from the Lord if you nourish anger against another?” Unless we’re hypocritical, we can’t. We have to change our vengeful feelings by replacing our vengeful thoughts with thoughts of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. To live peacefully we must forgive and let live. That doesn’t mean we don’t confront the wrongdoer; we do, but through our God-given emotions that direct our feelings in a positive manner. Sirach asks another reasonable question: “How can a person refuse to be merciful toward another and ask for mercy himself or herself?” Again, we can’t, if we’re honest. God will give us only what we are willing to give others.
Jesus tells us that in God’s mind forgiveness is reciprocal. To be forgiven we must be willing to forgive. Jesus made it part of the prayer He gave us: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Mt 6:12). He enshrined it in one of the Beatitudes (Mt 5:7) and instituted it as a special Sacrament of His Church (Jn 20:23). The condition for receiving God’s forgiveness is our willingness to forgive others. That calls for us to change our feelings by changing our thinking through God’s grace. We do that by replacing our thoughts with God’s thoughts. St. Peter asked Jesus if it was enough to forgive his brother who sinned against him seven times. Jews thought that four times was generous. Jesus shocked him by saying, “You must forgive your brother more than seventy-seven times seven times.” In other words, we must forgive every time someone offends us. It’s important to realize that forgiving those who hurt us must not depend on their repentance. Forgiveness is for our own freedom to live in peace in accord with God’s will.
A man met a monk as he passed a monastery. He asked him, “How often should I forgive my neighbor for slapping me?” The monk queried: “How many times did your neighbor slap you?” The man answered, “Once.” “Then,” said the monk, “forgive him once.” The man then asked, “If he slapped me fifty times, how often should I forgive him?” The monk answered, “You should forgive him forty nine times.” The man said, “But he slapped me fifty times, why shouldn’t I forgive fifty times?” The monk said, “The reason is that you deserved the 50th slap for allowing yourself to be slapped 49 times.” God doesn’t want us to remain in situations where we're being attacked.
Jesus reinforces God’s revelation through Sirach and emphasizes the reciprocity of forgiveness in the parable of the unjust steward (Mt 18:21-35). The steward begged his master to cancel his debt while he refused to cancel the debt of one who owed him. Upon hearing about this unforgiving steward whom he had previously forgiven, he ordered that he be handed over to “the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt.” Led by his angry feeling toward his debtor the steward lost everything. Jesus warned His listeners, “So my heavenly Father will do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”
St Paul reminds us that we don’t live for ourselves, rather we live for the Lord (Rom 14:7-9). In living for Christ we embrace His Beatitudes in which He blesses our emotions so we can direct our feelings in every situation toward him. The Christian life calls us to fully possess ourselves so that we can freely give ourselves to Christ. Thus we use our emotions to direct our feelings toward behavior that is sanctified by the Holy Spirit in the bosom of Jesus’ Church. That’s what makes Christians different from others. There we learn to forgive so we can live and let live using our emotions to direct our feelings toward free, just, loving, and peaceful behavior. (Fr Sean)
If any like it I can post others as they come in.
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The man then asked, “If he slapped me fifty times, how often should I forgive him?” The monk answered, “You should forgive him forty-nine times.” The man said, “But he slapped me fifty times, why shouldn’t I forgive fifty times?” The monk said, “The reason is that you deserved the 50th slap for allowing yourself to be slapped 49 times.” God doesn’t want us to remain in situations where we're being attacked.
:laugh1: Another reason why forgiveness can be so difficult. Very often it entails also forgiving oneself, which in turn entails owning up to personal faults and failings that in some way provided an opening for the affront to begin with. Hence the adage, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." :fryingpan:
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Here is a letter from a Father Sean Sheehy, an Irish priest who's homily against abortion went worldwide after he was criticisded for it in Irish media.God works in strange ways.
God has given us emotions so that we can handle all our feelings that are generated by our thoughts. Every time we interpret something – a look, a word, a scene, a touch, a stance, or a principle – feelings, positive or negative, follow from our interpretation. Strong feelings seek expression in action. Action expresses and defines our character – at least in that moment. Feelings never just happen. They’re always preceded by thoughts. Our thoughts lead us to feel good, sad, bad, joyful, happy, anxious, angry, fearful, guilty, responsible, numb, frustrated, etc. Our feelings identify how we want to relate to the world at any given situation. It’s silly to deny feelings. Instead we need to manage them lest they control us and lead us to behavior we regret. So how do we manage our feelings? We use our emotions.
Emotions and feelings are often confused. People who’re upset or crying are often labeled as “emotional.” But actually they are simply expressing their feelings. What matters is whether they are being controlled by their feelings or their feelings are being directed by their emotions. Emotions are gifts from God enabling us to decide the most effective way to express how we feel. Four basic emotions are anger, fear, guilt, and love. Anger and fear direct us to protect ourselves from threats to our safety. Guilt directs us to take responsibility for our sins. Love directs us to connect with others. We can use any emotion to direct any feeling, positive or negative. For example, I can have an angry feeling toward someone and express it through the emotion of anger, fear, guilt, or love. I can have an angry feeling toward someone and use my emotion of guilt to express it by taking personal responsibility for it and apologizing for it. I can also express it through the emotion of anger by constructively confronting the person toward whom I have the angry feeling. The relationship between feelings and emotions can be a whole study in itself. When we use emotions to direct our feelings we act rationally. When we let our feelings direct us we lose control and act irrationally. God wants us to be in control of ourselves so we can do His will. This week God speaks to us about anger and mercy.
As an emotion anger is a gift from God. But In the Book of Sirach (27:30-28:9), God tells us that, “Wrath and anger are hateful things …” Jesus’ Church lists anger as one of the seven deadly sins? How can anger be a gift and a sin at the same time? Wasn’t Jesus angry? “And He looked around at them with anger, grieved at the hardness of their heart …” (Mk 3:5). What are we to make of this?
God isn’t talking about the emotion of anger, which is a gift from Him. The emotion of anger is part of being human. It generates the energy we need to attack what threatens our security. But it’s how we attack that makes the difference. When we choose our emotion of anger to attack an enemy we’ll be in control of our action and God will be guiding us through His gift. When our angry feeling directs our attack we’ll not be in control and so will act destructively. Anger becomes a hateful thing when we attack destructively. Murder, revenge, self-harm, or wishing evil upon others are the result of angry feelings that are expressed in hateful actions towards others or toward oneself. It’s normal to feel anger when somebody wrongs us and threatens our safety. If we choose our emotion of anger to express our feelings God will lead us to act constructively. Angry feelings move us toward vengeance that blind us to God’s will. We must remember that, “The vengeful will suffer the Lord’s vengeance, for He remembers their sins in detail.”
Forgiveness restores our emotions to their rightful role in managing our feelings when we are wronged. God’s Word teaches us to, “Forgive your neighbor’s injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.” Too often we react to injustice with angry feelings and seek revenge. Vengeful behavior causes destruction, which can’t be healed except by repentance and reconciliation. Sirach asks a reasonable question: “How can you expect healing from the Lord if you nourish anger against another?” Unless we’re hypocritical, we can’t. We have to change our vengeful feelings by replacing our vengeful thoughts with thoughts of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. To live peacefully we must forgive and let live. That doesn’t mean we don’t confront the wrongdoer; we do, but through our God-given emotions that direct our feelings in a positive manner. Sirach asks another reasonable question: “How can a person refuse to be merciful toward another and ask for mercy himself or herself?” Again, we can’t, if we’re honest. God will give us only what we are willing to give others.
Jesus tells us that in God’s mind forgiveness is reciprocal. To be forgiven we must be willing to forgive. Jesus made it part of the prayer He gave us: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Mt 6:12). He enshrined it in one of the Beatitudes (Mt 5:7) and instituted it as a special Sacrament of His Church (Jn 20:23). The condition for receiving God’s forgiveness is our willingness to forgive others. That calls for us to change our feelings by changing our thinking through God’s grace. We do that by replacing our thoughts with God’s thoughts. St. Peter asked Jesus if it was enough to forgive his brother who sinned against him seven times. Jєωs thought that four times was generous. Jesus shocked him by saying, “You must forgive your brother more than seventy-seven times seven times.” In other words, we must forgive every time someone offends us. It’s important to realize that forgiving those who hurt us must not depend on their repentance. Forgiveness is for our own freedom to live in peace in accord with God’s will.
A man met a monk as he passed a monastery. He asked him, “How often should I forgive my neighbor for slapping me?” The monk queried: “How many times did your neighbor slap you?” The man answered, “Once.” “Then,” said the monk, “forgive him once.” The man then asked, “If he slapped me fifty times, how often should I forgive him?” The monk answered, “You should forgive him forty nine times.” The man said, “But he slapped me fifty times, why shouldn’t I forgive fifty times?” The monk said, “The reason is that you deserved the 50th slap for allowing yourself to be slapped 49 times.” God doesn’t want us to remain in situations where we're being attacked.
Jesus reinforces God’s revelation through Sirach and emphasizes the reciprocity of forgiveness in the parable of the unjust steward (Mt 18:21-35). The steward begged his master to cancel his debt while he refused to cancel the debt of one who owed him. Upon hearing about this unforgiving steward whom he had previously forgiven, he ordered that he be handed over to “the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt.” Led by his angry feeling toward his debtor the steward lost everything. Jesus warned His listeners, “So my heavenly Father will do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”
St Paul reminds us that we don’t live for ourselves, rather we live for the Lord (Rom 14:7-9). In living for Christ we embrace His Beatitudes in which He blesses our emotions so we can direct our feelings in every situation toward him. The Christian life calls us to fully possess ourselves so that we can freely give ourselves to Christ. Thus we use our emotions to direct our feelings toward behavior that is sanctified by the Holy Spirit in the bosom of Jesus’ Church. That’s what makes Christians different from others. There we learn to forgive so we can live and let live using our emotions to direct our feelings toward free, just, loving, and peaceful behavior. (Fr Sean)
If any like it I can post others as they come in.
What about family abuse and being abused as a child by your parent. How can the example of the monk be applied to that situation? Children aren't capable of removing themselves from abusive situations or defending themselves. So how do you approach forgiveness when you were mistreated as a child?
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What about family abuse and being abused as a child by your parent. How can the example of the monk be applied to that situation? Children aren't capable of removing themselves from abusive situations or defending themselves. So how do you approach forgiveness when you were mistreated as a child?
Other more able members here have dealt with the theology of permissive will, basically that The Lord indirectly allows things to happen which will eventually bring a greater good out of whatever evil occurred.
What I can say in practice is that first you pray, a lot. Once we slowly begin to get our own souls in order, then it becomes easier to see habitual abusers less as oppressors and more as the mistaken and broken creatures that they really are. It can be a two-steps-forward, one-step-back process for a long time, and the sense of bafflement does persist. But acceptance, forgiveness, and a definite sort of freedom do follow.
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Fr Sean again:
My Way or God’s Way?
A well-known singer told the world in a song, “I did it my way.” Should he be proud of that? I don’t think so because it was all a lie. People often claim to be living their way, when in fact they’re influenced by someone else. As God revealed in Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, none of us is original. “What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun. Even the thing of which we say, ‘See, this is new!’ has already existed in the ages that preceded us.” The only two ways we do things in this world are either God’s way or Satan’s way. There’s no truly original way, despite those who think so. This is why the Holy Spirit speaks urgently through Isaiah (55:6-9) warning us to, “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call Him while He is near,” if we want to follow God’s way. If we don’t take full advantage of God where He said He could be found and where He is near to us, we won’t be able to benefit from His thoughts and Commandments that show us His way. He reminds us that, “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts.” Where has God enabled us to find Him? We find God in the Person of Jesus Christ who is present in His Church. Through His Church, Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, teaches us God’s thoughts and leads us along His way, the Way of the Cross – the way to freedom, justice, love, peace, and joy.
The opposite to the Way of the Cross is the way of selfishness, which is the way of Satan – pride, envy, wrath, lust, greed, sloth, and gluttony. The Holy Spirit warns those following the evil way, “Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts.” Since the Way of the Cross is the only way that leads to Heaven, God wants everyone to choose that way and abandon other ways we might be tempted to do things. Satan’s way is literally a dead end - eternal death - preceded by spiritual starvation, emptiness, and loneliness. God’s way, on the other hand, never leaves a person feeling disappointed because He is always true to His promise that all who embrace Him will experience joy and eternal happiness. Why can we believe in God? Because, “The Lord is just in all His ways and holy in all His works. The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth” (Ps 145: 2-18).
Having chosen God’s way, by embracing Jesus as His Lord and Saviour, St. Paul urges us to, “conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the Gospel” (Phil 1:20-27). Jesus spells out for us what that conduct entails in His parable about the labourers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-16). By conducting ourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel we privately and publicly witness our faith in Jesus who gives us membership in God’s kingdom on earth, made visible in His Church. Jesus tells us that God is like the landowner who, in this story, calls people to work in his vineyard. He continuously searched for workers throughout the day, at 9.00 A.M, Noon, 3.00, and 5.00 P.M. At the end of the day he paid all the workers the same wage beginning with those hired last. Those who worked a full day complained thinking that they should get more. The owner said to one of them, “‘My friend, I do you no injustice. You agreed to the usual wage, did you not? … I am free to do as I please with my money, am I not? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ Thus the last shall be first and the first shall be last.” God is the “landowner” and the “workers” are sinners whom God wants to continually save whenever and wherever He can find them. Those who worked the full day are the Jews who thought their reward should be greater than others, and those hired late in the day are the Gentiles. Jesus’ message is that God’s way provides those who answer His call with what they need, not with what they want.
Here we see the difference between God’s ways and our ways. A just wage is one that meets the needs of the worker, which are to take care of his family. Those who were hired in the afternoon and evening wanted to work but didn’t have the opportunity. The landowner, in his generosity, gave them that opportunity so that they could feed, clothe, and house their family. God’s way is the way of generosity. On the other hand the selfish human way - the way of Satan - is to look out for ourselves and be envious of those whom we view as getting preferential treatment. It is called begrudgery. Jesus was highlighting what God revealed in Deuteronomy 15:4, namely that, “There should be no one of you in need.” Those who worked all day received a full wage that enabled them to take care of their needs. Those who weren’t hired couldn’t take care of their needs. The last hired were first to be paid so that the first hired could witness the generosity of the owner and face their own envy. Thus God confronts us with the difference between His way and thoughts and Satan’s ways and thoughts. God deals with us in accord with our needs while Satan’s way encourages us to deal with one another in accord with our wants.
God’s way provides for our needs through nature and through His Son. Our bodies need water, air, food, and light to live. Our soul also needs water, air, food, and light to be fully alive and magnify the Lord. God provides for our physical needs through creation. He provides for our spiritual needs through Jesus Christ, sacramentally present in His Church. Someone pointed out that in Jesus our soul finds Living Water, the Breath of Life, the Bread of Life, and the Light of the World. Our soul receives these necessities when we embrace Jesus in His Church. Through His Church Jesus continuously calls sinners whenever and wherever He can find them to embrace His thoughts and ways in their daily lives. There is no other way that leads us to become fully human and fully alive, physically and spiritually. Knowing the Gospel and striving to be worthy of it enables us to make sure that the way we do things isn’t Satan’s way but God’s way, the way of the Cross and to Way to Heaven. (fr sean)
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Other more able members here have dealt with the theology of permissive will, basically that The Lord indirectly allows things to happen which will eventually bring a greater good out of whatever evil occurred.
What I can say in practice is that first you pray, a lot. Once we slowly begin to get our own souls in order, then it becomes easier to see habitual abusers less as oppressors and more as the mistaken and broken creatures that they really are. It can be a two-steps-forward, one-step-back process for a long time, and the sense of bafflement does persist. But acceptance, forgiveness, and a definite sort of freedom do follow.
Thanks. Good answer.
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What about family abuse and being abused as a child by your parent. How can the example of the monk be applied to that situation? Children aren't capable of removing themselves from abusive situations or defending themselves. So how do you approach forgiveness when you were mistreated as a child?
Adults who were abused as children have a responsibility to protect other children. For example, if the predator could possibly have any access to children, the abuse must be reported to the authorities in order to protect present or future child victims of sɛҳuąƖ assault. This is an act of Charity, not only toward other potential victims, but also to the predator who may not repent until he or she is held accountable.
In regard to forgiveness, a traditional priest once said "Just because you forgive someone, that doesn't mean you have to have lunch with them." In terms of an unrepentant sinner, the act of forgiveness is between you and God. You are not required to socialize with an unrepentant perpetrator who abused you, nor are you required to be around the "silent perpetrators" that is, other persons who ignored or facilitated the abuse and are unrepentant.
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Fr Sean again:
26th Sunday A Cycle Our Actions Define Our Future
In a sermon in 1200 A.D, St Anthony of Padua gave us the proverb, “Actions speak louder than words.” In the film “Batman Begins” Rachel stops Batman from jumping back into the fight and asks him who he is behind the mask. He answers; “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.” It’s what we do that defines us rather than what we say. It’s easy to talk the talk but quite another thing to walk it. In other words, what we do reflects what we value. Nowhere is this more applicable than in religion and politics where it’s easy to say what we believe but quite another thing to behave accordingly. We’re all prone to hypocrisy because we’re sinners and want to be liked. Hypocrisy is pretending to be what one is not. For example, a person identifies as a Catholic but breaks the first and third Commandments by not participating in the Holy Mass every Sunday. Persons who identify as members of the Church but support abortion, transgenderism, and reject Biblical and Church teaching on marriage are pretending to be what they are not, whether or not they realize it. What they do contradicts who they say they are. Their actions contradict their Christian Faith. That is hypocrisy. God hates hypocrisy. This is why Jesus confronted Pharisees and scribes and said to them, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you frauds! You are like whitewashed tombs, beautiful to look at on the outside but full of filth and dead men’s bones” (Mt 23:27). The opposite of hypocrisy is authenticity. To be authentic is to be real, to be true, which involves saying what you mean and meaning what you say through your actions. It’s our actions that define us as either Christian or non-Christian. Jesus revealed that, “Not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mt 7:21-23). It is not enough to say “Lord, Lord,” we must do what He tells us.
God calls us to be authentic which means “let it be ‘Yes’ if you mean yes and ‘No’ if you mean no” (Jas 5:12). Because God created us to be like Him, and there’s no duplicity in Him, you and I are called to be genuine by making sure that our “yes” and “no” are backed up by our actions. God addresses this in the Book of Ezra (18:25-28). The Israelites complained that God was being unjust to them. He confronted them and asked, “Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?” They thought that if a virtuous person turned to sin that his previous goodness should be enough to save him from its consequences, namely death – as if he had savings in a spiritual bank from which to draw and save him. God informed them that, “When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit sin, and dies, it is because of the sin he committed that he must die. But if he turns from the wickedness he has committed, and does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life.” God reveals here that He judges us on the basis of our actions, good or bad, in the present, not what we did in the past. In the eyes of God it is our actions now that define us and are subject to reward or punishment. This is spelled out clearly in Matthew chapter 25 where Jesus revealed that it’s what we do to others that defines us in relationship to Him, not what we say to Him. It’s not our prayers that matter to God but what we do as a result of our prayers.
God’s ways are always fair because He’s always authentic and just. Our ways aren’t always fair because our words and actions don’t always match and so we aren’t always authentic or just. The Holy Spirit speaking through the Psalmist (25: 4-9) reminds us that, “Good and upright is the Lord; thus He shows sinners the way. He guides the humble to justice, and teaches the humble His way.” God’s way was laid down by Jesus and received by the Apostles through the power of the Holy Spirit. This “way,” the only way to Heaven, is spelled out for us in the Holy Bible and the Church’s Apostolic and moral teaching. Thus the inspired St. Paul warns us: “Do nothing out of selfishness or vainglory; rather humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not just for his own interests, but also for those of others” (Phil 2;1-11). Jesus exemplified this when “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Though He was in the form of God he did not deem equality with God as something to be grasped at...” Jesus’ words and actions mirrored one another. Words without action are empty. “What good is it to profess faith without practising it? …So it is with faith that does nothing in practice. It is thoroughly lifeless” (Jas 2:14-17).
To emphasize the importance of actions, Jesus gives us the Parable of the Two Sons (Mt 21:28-32). A father asked the oldest son to work in his vineyard, to which he replied, “I am on my way, sir.” But he didn’t go. He asked the second son to work in the vineyard, but he refused. Later he “regretted it and went.” Jesus asked, “Which one did what the father wanted?” The answer was obvious. Jesus was sending a message to the Pharisees and scribes likening them to the eldest son who said “yes” to God’s request to bring His blessing to the world, but they reneged. He likened the Gentiles to the second son, who at first rebelled but then repented and did what God asked of them. This is why Jesus described the scribes and Pharisees as, “This people pays me lip-service but their heart is far from me” (Mt 15:8).
You and I will be judged on what we do with the Faith we have been given, and not on what we say about it. We cannot call ourselves Christian if we don’t practice the Tradition that Jesus handed on to His Apostles and continues to be handed down through the ages in and through His Church. At the moment of death we’ll be judged on whether or not we let God’s Word come alive in our life here on earth. Jesus warns us: “Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words already has his judge, namely the word I have spoken – it is that which will condemn him on the last day” (Jn 12:48). This is urgent because none of us knows when death will come. Jesus urges us to, “Stay awake, therefore! You cannot know the day your Lord is coming …Keep your eyes open, for you know not the day nor the hour” (Mt 24:42; 25:13). Staying awake means that we remain alert, making sure that we match our professed Faith with our actions each day because the good we have done yesterday isn’t sufficient if we sin today and die in that sin. The good we may have done in our past can be quickly erased if we decide to turn away from God at any moment in our life. Jesus gives us the Sacrament of Reconciliation as the antidote to hypocrisy to which none of us is immune. In the first Gospel to be written Jesus proclaimed: “This is the time of fulfilment. The reign of God is at hand! Reform your lives and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15). The time is now for us to believe in the Gospel through letting our actions define us as Christians, faithful members of Jesus’ Church. Jesus stated clearly that, “Whoever acknowledges me before men I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. Whoever disowns me before men I will disown before my Father in heaven” (Mt 10:32-33). Our actions define us and in them we decide our eternity. (frsos)
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Thank you, Father Sheehy. Thank you, Cassini.
, “Whoever acknowledges me before men I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. Whoever disowns me before men I will disown before my Father in heaven” (Mt 10:32-33). Our actions define us and in them we decide our eternity. (frsos)
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Please keep posting.
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Please keep posting.
I will of course Viva. God bless.
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Fr Sean again:
The Urge to Control
Have you ever been a back-seat driver or tried to drive with a back-seat driver in the car? An American bus company’s slogan wisely said: “Leave the driving to us.” It’s frustrating to have someone else telling you how to drive, like Hyacinth with Richard in “Keeping Up Appearances.” There can only be one driver in a vehicle. The rest are passengers. Back-seat drivers have an overriding need to be in control. It has to be their way.
There’s nothing wrong or abnormal with wanting to be in control of our world. Self-control is a characteristic of maturity. Every human being, from conception until death, tries to control reality for himself or herself. The question is not whether we should be in control, rather it’s what and how we can control that will make us successful. Problems arise when we try to control what is beyond us. We fail.
The Gospel from Matthew (21:33-43) outlines a situation where people attempted to gain control over something unsuccessfully. Jesus illustrates this in the Parable of the Tenants. The tenants weren’t satisfied to rent the land to grow grapes, they wanted to possess it for themselves. They killed the owner’s servants when they came to collect his share of the grapes. Then they killed his son in the belief that his death would assure them of full ownership. Their attempt to get control over what wasn’t theirs caused them to lose the source of their livelihood.
The purpose of control is to achieve an end, but the end, if it is obtainable, doesn’t justify the means, especially when the means upends the end. We cannot successfully control God, His Church, or one other. We can try to manipulate them, but we can’t control them. The only person we can have control over is ourselves. We can’t even do that successfully without God’s grace. Without Him we can’t successfully control our sinful nature or fulfill our deepest yearnings.
St. Paul explains what we need to do in order to gain control over our lives. God teaches through him that we must “Dismiss all anxiety from your minds. Present your needs to God in every form of prayer and in petitions full of gratitude. Then God’s own peace which is beyond all understanding, will stand guard over your hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:6-9)
The vineyard tenants were anxious about their security and future. They didn’t want to have to rely on the willingness of the owner to rent his land. They wanted to secure their future. They were led by a spirit of fear and greed instead of a spirit of faith and generosity. They killed the proverbial goose that laid the golden egg because they wanted control over what wasn’t theirs. The irony is that they could have all the gold if they relied on the goose. By killing the goose they destroyed the source of gold.
Is this happening in the Church today with this so-called Synod on Synodality? Are there people in and outside the Church who are trying to wrest control over her from Jesus her Head? Are they, like the vineyard tenants, trying to possess her for themselves so that they can use her to endorse their agendas? They want to make the Church “more welcoming,” “inclusive,” “accompanying,” etc. Typical of controllers, in their urge to control, they use appealing language but give the words their own definition. They ignore that the Church belongs to Jesus. He’s her Head. Reason says that since Jesus is the founder of the Church He is the one to control her, not her leaders or members. It’s Jesus who forms and teaches through His Church and as the Teacher He calls us to listen – hear and heed what He says (Rev 2:29). The key question, ignored by those trying to control the Church, should be, “What does Jesus want His Church to be and do for mankind?” The controller’s question is, “How do we want the Church to endorse our agenda today?” Imagine a child attempting to tell the parent how to raise him or her. The controller always wants things on his terms, not on Jesus’ or His Church’s terms. Jesus and His Church includes, accompanies, and welcomes every man, woman, and child, not on their terms but on God’s terms. It doesn’t take a Synod to tell us what these terms are. Jesus spells them out for all and sundry in the Gospels: “Reform your life, repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15) by living the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. “If you love me,” He said, “keep my commandments” (Jn 14:15) and what will bring you blessings (Beatitudes). That’s what Jesus calls Church leaders to preach and teach because that is what each of us needs to hear and heed. The Synod’s working docuмent never mentions sin and rarely mentions Jesus. Those who try to control the Church simply impose their own sinfulness on her.
When we submit to Jesus, present in His Church, we do things on His terms, not ours. Thus we then gain control over our wayward, self-centered egos, and sinful world. We’re then changed for the better. How? “Your thoughts (become) wholly directed to what is true, all that deserves respect, all that is honest, pure, admirable, decent, virtuous, or worthy of praise.”
To gain control we must commit to the truth that alone sets us free from Satan’s lies. As Catholic Christians we know that Jesus Christ is the truth. Therefore, to be in control we must have a firm commitment to Him. With Christ we can do all things (Phil 4:13); without Him we can do nothing good. We must respect the Church as the means through which Jesus enables us to gain control over our sinfulness. Attempting to control the Church to suit our agendas makes the tenants’ fate our fate. We must be honest in our dealings with ourselves and others and recognize that it is us that must change, not Jesus or His Church. Purity of intention and action keeps us on the road that leads to freedom and security. It eliminates duplicity and arrogance, which are characteristics of Satan. Remember what Jesus said to Peter when Peter tried to control Jesus? “Get behind me, Satan” (Mk 8:33). That’s what He says to those who are trying to change the Church today.
We must continue to ask ourselves whether our intentions are admirable in the eyes of God. Are we committed to decency and virtue in the manner we have chosen to attain security? Is our approach worthy of praise in our home, parish, diocese, or place of work? These questions provide us with a test to see whether our attempts to gain control over our world will succeed or fail. The vineyard tenants didn’t reflect on the truth of what was or wasn’t theirs. Thus they acted disrespectfully, dishonestly, impurely, murderously, indecently, viciously, and unworthily of praise. Like those trying to make a name for themselves attempting to build the Tower of Babel, they ended up in failure.
In closing, Paul tells us that the surest way to success is to “Live according to what you have learned and accepted” about Christ from His Church’s Apostolic Tradition. Then God’s peace will reside in us. We must direct our urge to control by reforming our lives from sinners to saints through the power of the Holy Spirit who guides Jesus’ Church.
Jesus isn’t a back-seat driver – He is the Driver of His Church, not us, in which He teaches us how to drive our lives along the pathway outlined by His Church’s Tradition. He accompanies us if we travel His way. He includes us when we do His will. He welcomes us when we repent and seek His forgiveness. He shows us what we must do to control our life in a manner that doesn’t bring eternal death. Our urge to control must be disciplined with the humble awareness that we must submit to Jesus. In that submission we control events in a manner that brings happiness. A key question this week: "Am I trying to control things in a manner that brings blessings or curses?" (fr sean)
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Adults who were abused as children have a responsibility to protect other children. For example, if the predator could possibly have any access to children, the abuse must be reported to the authorities in order to protect present or future child victims of sɛҳuąƖ assault. This is an act of Charity, not only toward other potential victims, but also to the predator who may not repent until he or she is held accountable.
In regard to forgiveness, a traditional priest once said "Just because you forgive someone, that doesn't mean you have to have lunch with them." In terms of an unrepentant sinner, the act of forgiveness is between you and God. You are not required to socialize with an unrepentant perpetrator who abused you, nor are you required to be around the "silent perpetrators" that is, other persons who ignored or facilitated the abuse and are unrepentant.
How true! I used to tell my first graders, “You don’t like everyone, (being mostly Protestants, they’d gasp), it’s worse. You have to love everyone!” (Looks of dismay!) Then I’d explain by reading from I Corinthians, ch. 13. It tells us what “love” is. There are no “feelings” involved, only actions and character traits. I go on to do impromptu skits with volunteers, what that looks like in common children’s squabbles. The rest of the class watches, then I put them in pairs or triplets and everyone acts it out together.
Forgiveness is not a feeling; it’s an act of the will.
The same with making an apology. Put aside how you feel and decide to apologize. Ask for forgiveness. The offended party likewise puts aside his anger, hate, hurt and asks himself, “Which do I want? Peace in my heart from Jesus, or my feelings? If you want peace, say, “Yes, I forgive you.” Do this and you’ll see the bad feelings go away. Do it as often as needed. Jesus says up to 70 times seven every day.
Forgive each person 490 times a day.
When someone apologizes to you, say, “I forgive you.” Do not say, “It’s okay.” Chances are, whatever was done was NOT “okay.”
How is it possible to follow these instructions? Forgive 490 times every day? Only with much grace from Our Lord. As for the feelings part, ask Our Lady for help. She’s a good mother who is eager to help you clean your skeleton closet. She can reach that high shelf where you tucked your feelings out of sight behind the box old gloves, and dispose of the trash.
Daily, pray well her Rosary and you’ll save your soul.
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Fr Sean again:
You’re Invited to Heaven
Through the prophet Isaiah (25:6-10) God speaks about Heaven when He revealed Himself as “providing for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines.” Jesus likens Heaven to a wedding feast (Mt 22:1-14). A feast symbolizes an enjoyable time of nourishment, conviviality, laughter and friendship. But it is temporary. Heaven is a permanent banquet in God’s presence where you can feast your eyes on everything that’s real, true, good and beautiful. It is joyful because “The Lord will wipe away the tears from every face” (Is 25:8). We can’t fully grasp Heaven. The Holy Spirit reveals through St. Paul that, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much dawned on man what God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Cor 2:9). It is beyond our imagination. It can only be described metaphorically, like love. In the parable of the Wedding Feast (Mt 22:1-14), Jesus reveals that His Father invites everyone to Heaven. He also reveals that not everyone accepts God’s invitation. Even some who accept the invitation refuse to act properly and are thrown out.
Three times God sends out His invitations. The messengers were rejected by some, ignored by others and even killed. Why would an invitation to participate in such a happy event evoke such a rude and callous reaction? Selfish priorities do that. “One went to his farm, another to his business.” Other things were more important than honouring the king’s invitation. At the end of the parable Jesus said, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
What does all this have to do with us? God continues to invite everyone to join Him in Heaven. He does this through Jesus present in His Church until the end of time. Accepting the invitation means embracing Jesus because the only way to Heaven is through, with and in Him. Jesus reveals, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6). The way to God is the way to Heaven, which requires us to let God’s presence fill our consciousness with His truth. Jesus is God’s presence on earth. Why doesn’t everyone follow Jesus in order to reach Heaven? Jesus tells us that, “No one comes to me except the Father who sent me draws him.” (Jn 6:44) The reason people don’t follow Jesus is that they’re not listening to God. Their spirit is closed to God’s Spirit. They are listening to false gods. Because of our sinfulness we want to follow our way, which is why we get lost or take the wrong turn. Because of our sinfulness we want to accept Jesus’ invitation on our terms rather than on His. Look at how many, even within the Church, want to change Jesus’ and His Church’s Traditional Apostolic teaching to suit their agendas and endorse their immorality! Look at the many who want to normalize sin and even bless it! Those people want God and His Church to do their bidding. They will not enter Heaven unless they repent, recant, and seek forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Jesus reminded Peter, when he recognized Him as Messiah, that “No mere man has revealed this to you, but my Heavenly Father.” (Mt 16:16) Those who embrace Jesus as the way to Heaven have allowed the Holy Spirit to guide, inspire, and strengthen their human spirit. God the Father calls everyone to follow Jesus as their Teacher, Leader, and Saviour. At Jesus' Transfiguration God spoke and told everyone who listened, “This is my Son, my beloved. Listen to Him.” (Mk 9:7)
God invites everyone to join His Son, but many ignore it because they have other priorities. Some mistreat and even kill the messengers because their false beliefs are threatened by the truth of the Gospel. By shutting out the messengers they avoid the message’s truth. The message, of course, as Pope Benedict said, is that there is no future without God. There is no Heaven without God. Since Jesus is God’s Son, and the perfect image of His Father, there is no true personal knowledge of God without knowing Jesus personally. Jesus said, “If you knew me you would know my Father too” (Jn 8:19). “Everything has been given over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son but the Father, and no one knows the Father but the Son – and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him” (Mt 11:27).
The consequence of accepting Jesus’ invitation to join Him forever in Heaven is evident in St. Paul. Here is a marvellous example of what it means to listen to Jesus and accept His invitation on His terms and not on the terms of sinful human nature. In his letter to the Philippians (4:12-20) St. Paul said that he was able to adapt to anything and “do all things in Him (Jesus) who strengthens me.” Jesus is not only the way to Heaven. He also provides the wherewithal we need to get there. Jesus has made Himself the food wherein His followers are loved, nourished, comforted, sustained, encouraged, offered forgiveness, and a joyful future to hope in. Jesus said, “I myself am the bread of life come down from Heaven for a man to eat and never die … the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” (Jn 6:51) This is why the Church calls everyone to embrace Jesus Christ and requires all of His followers to meet Him in the Sacraments and unite with Him at Sunday Mass worshipping, praising, and thanking the Heavenly Father for all His blessing through the power of the Holy Spirit. Sunday Mass is a participation in the Heavenly Liturgy where God is adored by all the angels and saints. It signifies their acceptance of God’s invitation to listen to Jesus and participate in His sacrificial Supper. The chosen are those who have accepted Jesus’ invitation on His terms to worthily eat “my body and drink my blood … For my flesh is real food and my blood real drink … the man who feeds on me will have life because of me.” (Jn 6:54-57) You’re invited. Have you accepted the invitation to become one of the chosen? Remember, Jesus allows you into Heaven on His terms, not on yours. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again:
I Have Called You by Your Name
Many people call you by your name, but do they really know you? Who is the person whom you think knows you the best? By “know” I mean someone who is really in touch with what makes you a unique individual and recognize your intrinsic qualities. Does the meaning of your name sum you up? Would you like to change it?
Many years ago upon arriving at a parish I met a little girl whose family lived across the street from the church. She asked if she could roller-skate in the parking lot. I told her she could. She had long blond hair and, since I didn’t know her name, I called her “blondie.” At first she didn’t say anything. One evening I was leaving the parish office and she crept up behind me. She said in a half shy voice, “My name isn’t blondie.” Then she told me her name. I asked her why she didn’t like being called “blondie.” She said simply, “But that’s not my real name.” I thanked her for correcting me. From then on I called her by her real name. She was happy about that.
In the first reading (Is 45:1.4-6) God reminds us that He calls each of us, believer and non-believer, by our name. “I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not.” While some of us have difficulty remembering names, God doesn’t forget our name. Remembering a person’s name is an indication that he or she means something to us. An individual who makes a genuine effort to remember names is someone who considers relationships to be important. The first step in a relationship is to remember the person’s name. Imagine going on a date with someone who asks, “What’s your name again?” Imagine a father or mother coming home in the evening after work and asking the children, “Who are you?” God never asks “Who are you” because He knows us better than we know ourselves.
As with my little Church neighbour, the name and the person go together. Making an effort to know the person’s name indicates the person’s importance to us. Calling a person by his or her correct name is a mark of respect for the person’s uniqueness. When I was in National school the principal - we called him “the Master” - called the girls by their mother’s names. He taught their mothers. The girls wanted to be called by their own names. Those who had the same names as their mothers fared a little better, but they too were somewhat disgruntled since they felt he was recognizing their mothers rather than them.
When God tells us that he calls us by name we know that He doesn’t mistake us for someone else. Not only does God know us, but He wants us to know Him and to be in a personal relationship with Him. No two of us are the same. This is a reflection of God’s versatility. Have you ever heard God calling you by name? He called you by name on the day of your Baptism and Confirmation. He continually calls you through His Church, especially in her Sacraments and at every Holy Mass. He calls us by name in our prayer. Very often we’re so busy telling Him our problems that we don’t hear Him. Or else we’re too preoccupied with ourselves and become deaf to His gentle pronunciation of our name. Think about Mary Magdalene when Jesus called her by name, “Mary!” Just so He calls you!
Not only does God call us by our name, He also wants us to call Him by His Name. “I am the Lord, there is no other, there is no God besides Me.” Do we reverently call God by His proper Name? His second Commandment teaches us: “You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain.” When we take God’s Name in vain - swearing, cursing, expressing anger, using the OMG, or “by God,” etc. - we also degrade our own names. When we disrespect and abuse God’s name we can’t help but disrespect and abuse what He has created in His Holy Name, namely you and me and all creation. Our attitude towards God is reflected in how we use His Holy Name.
The Pharisees refused to call Jesus by His proper name - Son of God. Instead they tried to name Him themselves. We didn’t name ourselves so how can we name God who created us. Our parents named us at birth and God named us as His adopted children the day we were baptized marking our soul indelibly as His gifted child. Hopefully the name our parents gave us will reflect that new identity. Our parents may have named us at birth. But it is we who give a reality to that name by the way we live. Remember what comes to mind when you hear a person’s name mentioned! The name evokes an image in your mind. The image reflects the person’s attitude, behavior, beliefs, demeanor, spirit, etc. The person communicates a particular image by the way he or she acts. In this sense we all name ourselves either as God’s friends or His enemies. He wants to be able to name all of us as His friends but He respects our freedom to say “Yes” or “No” to His call. Our name evokes an image of ourselves through what we do and say every day.
Jesus named the Pharisees as hypocrites because they tried to mis-name Him (Mt 22:15-21). They wanted to get rid of Jesus even though they said they loved God. They saw Jesus’ characteristics - “truthful, teach the way of God in accordance with the truth, not concerned with anyone’s opinion, not regard a person’s status” – as a means of entrapment. Knowing that He would give a clear answer, they asked, “Is it lawful to pay tax to Caesar?” If He said “Yes” He would be rejected by the Jews. If He said “no” He would be punished by the Romans. Jesus asked whose image was on their coins. They said, “Caesar’s.” Jesus then said, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar but give to God what belongs to God.” What had Caesar’s image on it belonged to him. But since they had God’s image they belonged to Him Caesar owns the coins but God owns human beings. But while God owns us, unlike Caesar, He doesn’t impose His will on us. He calls us by name to freely do His will. In His utter humility God invites us to freely give Him permission to possess us so that He can perfect us and give us back to ourselves, freed from sin and equipped to overcome what pulls us down.
So when God calls us by name He reminds us that He has a legitimate claim on us because He created us in His image. The key question is that when He calls my name, as He does every day, do I honour His claim on me or do I reject it? Do I respond daily in the Biblical words, “Here I am, I have come to do Your will” (Heb 10:9). God is daily calling you and me by name to, “Worship the Lord in holy attire; tremble before Him, all the earth; say among the nations: The Lord is King, He governs the people with equity” (Ps 96:1-10). (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again:
Jesus’ Marching Orders
You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Follow the doctor’s orders,” in order to get well. But have you heard the phrase, “Follow Jesus’ orders,” to get saved from sin and be able to love? An order is a command by someone in authority requiring you to carry out some task. A parent orders a child to do something. A policeman orders a driver to move his vehicle that’s illegally parked. A boss orders an employee to do a particular job. Legitimate orders imply legitimate authority can legitimately. A child can’t give an order to a parent, even though he or she might try. Why? Because a child doesn’t have authority over the parent. So when we talk about obeying commandments or carrying out orders we recognize that the commander has the proper authority. Jesus gives His followers their marching orders because He received His authority from God the Father whose orders He carries out. He tells us that if we want to be His followers we will show it by obeying His commandments (Jn 14;15). In other words, He is telling us that if we love Him as our Saviour and benefit from His presence we’ll carry out His orders. Mary articulated this in her advice to the waiters at the wedding feast at Cana: “Do whatever He tells you” (Jn 2:5). What He orders us to do is to love God and our neighbour. That sounds easy but, because of our proneness to selfishness, it isn’t. The nature of love is self-sacrifice for the good of others, exemplified by Jesus on the cross.
A lawyer asked Jesus, "Teacher, which commandment of the law is the greatest?” (Mt 22:36). The Pharisees had divided the Law into 613 statutes. He was asking Jesus to prioritize them. The most important Commandment would be the one that called for the most obedience in order to be in God’s favour. The most important commandment would set the tone within which all the others would be viewed.
Jesus answered the lawyer: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first Commandment. The second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments the whole law is based, and the prophets as well.” The lawyer was probably dumbfounded. To enter heaven it’s necessary to love God with all your heart (be emotionally committed to Him in a personal relationship), with your whole soul (allow God to be the center of your life), with all your mind (fill your mind with knowledge of Him). We do that by obeying the first 3 Commandments: Adore God alone; Revere His Holy Name; and Keep the Sabbath Holy. Jesus identifies a second Commandment which He connects to the first that orders us to love our neighbor as if he or she were us. Love of neighbour is spelled out in the last seven Commandments.
What does it mean to love your neighbor? What does it mean to love yourself? We need to understand love. Since God is love (1 Jn 4:16), to love is to be like God who cares wholeheartedly for His creation. The basic stuff of love is caring. To love is to care about yourself and others. We demonstrate love by c-a-r-i-n-g: concerned, accepting, affirming, affectionate, respectful, fostering integrity, nurturing, and generous towards others. Loving others as yourself means helping yourself and others to reach your and their fullest potential. Our fullest potential is achieved the more we become what God created us to be, namely His image and likeness. The Church tells us that we love our neighbor and ourselves by practicing the Spiritual and Corporal works of mercy through Admonish the Sinner -Luke 15:7; 17:3; Instructing the Ignorant-Matthew 28:19-20; Counseling the Doubtful -Matthew 13:18-23; Bearing Wrongs Patiently -Matthew 5:38-48; Forgiving Offenses Willingly - Matthew 6:14-15; 18:15-35; Comforting the Afflicted -Matthew 11:28-30; Praying for the Living and the Dead -2 Maccabees 38-46; Feeding the (physically and spiritually) Hungry -Matthew 14:15-21; 25:35; Giving Drink to the (physically and spiritually )Thirsty -Matthew 25:35; Clothing the (physically and spiritually) Naked -Matthew 25:36; Sheltering the (physically and spiritually) Homeless -Matthew 25:35; Visiting the (physically and spiritually) Sick -Matthew 25:36; Visiting the (physically and spiritually) Imprisoned -Matthew 25:36, Burying the Dead -Tobit 1:17-19. Thus we continually become our true selves, imaging and being like the caring God who created us. At death we need to be our true selves as much as possible so that Satan won’t cause us to lose our Faith in God’s love at the moment of death.
In loving God and our neighbour God gives us the grace to withstand Satan’s temptation to make our ego the centre of our life. Through Moses (Exodus 22:20-26) God ordered His people: “You shall not molest or oppress an alien ... You shall not wrong any widow or orphan ... If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors you shall not act like an extortioner toward them by demanding interest from him. If you take your neighbor's coat as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset because he needs it to keep the cold out that night.” In other words, our love of neighbor must reflect our love for God who is caring by obeying His order to be like Him and act compassionately towards the needy. Then we can pray from the heart: “I love you Lord, my strength, O Lord my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, … my shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold …” (Ps 18: 2-4, 47, 51).
Sadly, we hear little of nothing about the necessity of obeying God’s marching orders today. This is why there is such disarray in the Church and in the world. We hear a lot about what we should do to save the planet, but little or nothing about what we must do in order to save our souls. Jesus commissioned His Apostles to “Go forth and teach all nations to observe all that I have commanded you …” (Mt 28-19-20). God’s orders to love Him with all we are and have and our neighbour as ourselves isn’t only necessary in order to enter Heaven, obeying them is also necessary for society to be mentally, emotionally, socially and morally healthy. Obeying them is necessary if we’re to be an orderly and civilized society. Nobody can be fully human without obeying God’s orders because they identify what we must do to build a just and caring community. If we don’t love God and neighbour we’re no better than the animals. Rejecting God’s orders is a rebellion against Him manifested in the deadly sins of pride, anger, greed, lust, sloth, envy, and an obtuse spirit. If you don't believe me just look around the world. The problems in the world and in the Church today reflect the disorder that follows from the refusal to carry out Jesus’ orders. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again:
God Hates Hypocrisy
We all struggle with the conflict between integrity and hypocrisy. Integrity is defined as the faithful adherence to a code of behaviour. Our words and actions mirror one another. Integrity calls us to say and do what we mean and mean what we do and say. It ensures that we are who we say we are. Whether we agree or disagree with such a person we’re sure of what we’re agreeing or disagreeing with. People of integrity won’t change their beliefs and behaviour for the sake of popularity, possessions, power, or passion. There’s no hidden agenda. In private or public life they stand for what they believe. Hypocrisy is the opposite of integrity. It’s the pretence to be someone externally that we aren’t internally. Hypocrisy breeds distrust, disloyalty, and dishonesty. Actions and words belie one another. Its only concern is with personal popularity or power.
God expressed His hatred for hypocrisy and His call for integrity when He spoke to the priests through His prophet, Malachi (1:14-2:2-10). “And now, O priests, this commandment is for you: If you do not listen, if you do not lay it to heart, to give glory to my Name … I will send a curse upon you, and of your blessing I will make a curse. You have turned aside from the way, and have caused many to falter by your instruction … you show partiality in your decisions. Have we not all one Father? Has not the one God created us? Why then do we break faith with one another violating the covenant …?” When we act hypocritically we diminish our likeness to God and imitate Satan. There are bishops and priests today who took an oath to hand on the Church’s Apostolic Tradition that Jesus gave to the Apostles and ordered them to preach it “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8) and now renege on that promise to suit the empty clamour of ideologies that promote the abnormal. Their blessings have become curses because they create the illusion that sin can be blessed thereby leading people to hell. They’re also causing division by substituting Jesus’ authority with their own. They give false instruction that contradicts the Church’s traditional teaching and violate the covenant that Jesus signed in His blood. They show partiality to ideologies that promote immorality and try to change the Church to suit their self-serving agendas. They speak with a forked tongue.
Jesus confronted hypocrisy and called for integrity in the religious leaders of His day. He ordered His listeners to, “do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice…. All their works are performed to be seen” (Mt 23: 3-5). Like the builders of the Tower of Babel, they wanted to make a name for themselves (Gen 11:4).They wanted to replace God. “They love places of honour at banquets and front seats in ѕуηαgσgυєs, getting marks of respect in public and of being called ‘Rabbi’” (Mt 23:6-7). They hobnob with the politicians and the so-called elites. Jesus criticized their use of titles to honour themselves, while ignoring God. Since the word ‘Rabbi’ meant ‘my master,’ Jesus reminds them of who the real “Master” is. “Avoid the title ‘Rabbi.’ One among you is your teacher, the rest are learners. Do not call anyone on earth your father. Only One is your Father, the One in Heaven. Avoid being called teachers. Only one is your Teacher, the Messiah...” (Mt 23:8-10). Jesus wasn’t ordering the elimination of these titles from the religious dictionary. He was simply saying these titles rightfully belong to God because they have their origin in Him and mustn’t be used for self-aggrandisement but to humbly serve the neighbour in God’s Name. Thus, Jesus declares, “The greatest among you must be the servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Mt 23:12) Integrity is the antidote to hypocrisy because it calls for an honest evaluation of oneself and one’s behaviour.
Is it only leaders who are prone to hypocrisy? No. Jesus is also confronting my hypocrisy and yours. None of us is immune. As Jesus said, we “… wash the outside of the cup while leaving the inside dirty” (Mt 23:25). We prefer show over substance. We want to be liked. That’s why Catholic teaching urges us to practice a monthly confession of sin. In Confession we recognize the dirt with which our hypocrisy stains our souls. In confession we accept that only God’s grace can heal our disloyalty to Him, to our neighbour, and to ourselves. We need humility to admit our hypocrisy and ask God and His Church for the grace to restore our integrity, our likeness to Jesus, so we can be credible Christians. To be credible Christians we must recognize that “in receiving the Word of God from hearing us “Church), you received not a human word, but, as it truly is, the word of God, which is now at work in you who believe” (1 Thess 2:7-9, 13). Therefore to avoid hypocrisy we must let God’s word take precedence over all other words we might hear in the world.
I don’t think we set out to be hypocrites. We’re weak and cave to Satan’s temptation to go along in order to get along by giving in to worldly pressure, convenience, pleasure, or fear. We abandon integrity by trying to please people instead of God. Jesus warns, “You cannot serve two masters” (Mt 76:24). Hypocrisy is always sinful and divisive because it involves ignoring the truth thereby lying to ourselves. This is often played out in the statement, “Personally I’m for … but publicly I’m against …” This split between my personal and public persona undermines the peace Jesus wants to give me. We see this hypocrisy in the following situations: parents who seek Baptism for their child but don’t raise him or her in the Faith; people who say they respect life but support the choice for abortion; people who say they love God but disobey His Commandments; people who say they are spiritual but not religious; people who want to be married but act as if single; people who identify as Catholic but reject the Church’s teaching; people who seek justice but behave unjustly themselves. Integrity says that if I want something I must do what is necessary to get it. If I want to be loved by God I must daily obey His Commandments. This is accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit who urges us to pray: “O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty … Hope in the Lord, both now and forever. In You, Lord, I have found my peace” (Ps 131:1-3). God hates hypocrisy because it makes us totally unlike Him and enslaves us to what’s false enshrined in atheistic and destructive ideologies. Integrity and humility make us more like Jesus Christ, enhance our freedom, and give us a peace that the world can’t give. (fr sean)
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Thank you. :pray:
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Fr Sean again:
What’s Your First Priority?
The end of the year is in sight. November is here accompanied by falling leaves and cooler breezes, shorter days and longer nights. The time change gave us extra light in the morning but more darkness in the evening. The Church uses the seasons of Autumn and Winter to call her members’ attention to the reality of dying and death, the time and place of which we don’t know. This is something that many of us would rather not think about. But that would be foolish, since we can’t escape dying and death. Jesus notifies us that we “know not the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming” (Mt 25:13). Shouldn’t we make preparation for this eternity defining event in our life our first priority?
In his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey advocates that to be effective we must “work with the end in sight.” Thus, we keep our focus sharp and don’t lose sight of what we want to accomplish. St. Peter (1:8-9) points out to us that the goal of our Faith is the salvation of our soul. Since death is the end of our life on earth shouldn’t we make it our first priority to die in the arms of Jesus? Effective preparation always involves prioritizing what’s of primary importance in order to achieve the goal. If our goal is to go to Heaven, then it’s of primary importance to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, present in His Church, who alone can enable us to achieve it.
This weekend Jesus’ Church proclaims the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (Mt 25:1-13). Jesus uses the story to stress the importance of personal preparation for the coming of the Lord. He is the only way to Heaven (Jn 14:6). He founded His Church wherein He calls us to join Him in and through her Sacraments, beginning with Baptism. Jesus enables us to meet Him sacramentally in each of the seven Sacraments where He graces us with repentance and forgiveness of sin, and is especially and uniquely present to us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as our Shepherd who leads and nourishes us. St. Paul explains that, “We see now as through a glass’ darkly; then we shall see face to face: now I know in part, but then I shall know even as also I am known” ( 1 Cor 12:13). In death everything that we are and will be is revealed in the ever-penetrating light of Jesus glorified, who is the “Light of the world” (Jn 8:12). Preparing for death is preparation for eternity and makes us appreciate life’s opportunities to deepen our relationship with Jesus without whom we face eternal damnation because we can’t free ourselves from our sins.
The parable instills in us that the wise are those who are prepared for all eventualities while the foolish aren’t. The lamp is supernatural faith and the oil is prayer without which the light of faith will go out. The wise bridesmaids refused to share their oil with the unwise ones. Were they being uncharitable? The responsibility of bridesmaids was to keep the light on in welcome for newlyweds to the bridegroom’s home after the wedding. To keep their lamps lit for a longer period of time than normal there was only enough oil for five lamps, not ten. Sharing the oil would have been irresponsible because then all would be in darkness when the newlyweds arrived. God teaches us in the Book of Wisdom (6:12-16) that wisdom, which is putting knowledge of the truth into action, is the key to adequate preparation. So knowing that they are going to die, wise people act on that knowledge and prepare for death. Knowing that Jesus is the only Saviour, wise people make Him the centre of their life. Jesus tells us in the New Testament, authentically interpreted for us by His Church, what we need to do to be prepared for His coming and so we have no excuse. The bridegroom’s words to the foolish bridesmaids, “Go away. I don’t know you,” are crushing, but they only have themselves to blame. At the end of the parable Jesus warns us: “The moral is: keep your eyes open, for you know not the day nor the hour.” In other words, make preparation for Jesus’ coming your first priority by getting to know Him while here on earth. We cannot know Jesus without making our relationship with Him the first priority in our life.
There are some things we can and must do for ourselves that no one else can do for us. Preparing for that face-to-face meeting with Jesus is one of those things that no one else can do for us. Others can assist us but we must meet the Lord on our own, accompanied by our Guardian Angel who will testify to our behavior. Nobody can pray another person into heaven. Each person is judged on the basis of his or her own conduct. God has given each of us the lamp of Faith and it is up to us to keep it lit with the oil of prayer and worship by being receptive to the Holy Spirit and a faithful member of Jesus’ Church.
Do people die without prioritizing an adequate preparation for death? Yes. Just because we’re baptized doesn’t assure us of salvation. Jesus Himself lamented, “But when the Son of Man comes, will He find any Faith on the earth?” (Lk 18:8). Why aren't people prepared? Because they’re busy with other things, or else they rationalize that God will give them a free pass. But God shows no partiality because He is just and has the same expectations for everyone. God is merciful but only to the repentant who seek forgiveness and commit to amending their life to one of virtue rather than vice. Yes, God will understand that they didn't bother to take the time and make the effort to follow Jesus, for which He, in justice, will hold them accountable. And so He will say, “Go away. I don’t know you!”
We give priority to what’s most important to us. Is Jesus the most important Person in your life? If He is, you’ll prepare to meet Him every day of your life. Making this your first priority means that your heart, filled with wisdom, cries out, “O God, You are my God whom I seek; for You my flesh pines and my soul thirsts like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water” (Ps 63: 2-8). The Lord will then say to you at the moment of death: “Come, you good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Master! (Mt 25:23). The unwise and unprepared will hear Jesus’ damning words: “Out of my sight, you condemned, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25:41). Whether we’re welcomed or condemned by Jesus is determined by what we prioritize each day. It’s our choice! (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again:
To Invest or not to Invest: Success or Failure
To Invest or not to Invest: Success or Failure
When you die what do you want God to say to you? Will He say that you lived a successful life by the difference you made in the world? What would you like to hear others say when you die? There’s something about us that seeks recognition, acceptance, affirmation, and affection. We want to feel that someone will miss us when we go. Sometimes we hear people say - or maybe we’ve said it ourselves - when they’re leaving to go somewhere, “Will you miss me?” Then when the answer is “Yes,” the other person often responds with, “Oh, no you won’t!” How successfully we lived and we’re remembered depends on what we did with what God gave us. If we don’t invest what we have we gain nothing and can’t be successful.
What’s successful living? It’s the achievement of goals. It’s about having a positive impact on others. We’re successful when our contribution improves humanity and the world. Success is the experience of getting a good return on our investment. Success always implies investment whether it’s of time, treasure, or effort. In turn, investment assumes we have something to invest which will enrich us and others in some way. There’s no one as pitiful as a person who thinks he or she has nothing to invest. Such an individual has no hope of enrichment and has nothing for which to look forward. Bishop Fulton Sheen noted that the greatest insult anyone could heap on another was to label him or her as useless. But the person who doesn’t believe he or she has anything to invest renders himself or herself useless. Feelings of uselessness are expressed in low self-esteem and a sense of self-loathing.
Do people feel useless? Yes. Why? They don’t know God. If they did, they would realize that He didn’t create anyone to be useless since He has given talents to each person to be discerned, developed, and shared with others. If a person doesn’t believe he or she has talents or gifts to share with others then a genuine loving relationship is impossible. To love means to share - to invest in another. If there’s nothing to share, love dies. When people feel they have nothing to share, the only other option is to try and take what others have. Perhaps the reason so many relationships break up is because those involved in them don’t believe they have anything to invest in each other and simply concentrate on taking from each other. The end is a feeling of being used. Love, on the other hand, emphasizes the mutual investment of gifts in each other where the emphasis is on giving rather than on taking. Love is so enriching because each person invests his or her gift in the other thereby making their relationship successful due to the interest gained on investment.
God emphasizes the importance of investment of talents in the Book of Proverbs (31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31). “A worthy wife has value beyond pearls. Her husband has an unfailing prize.” What makes her worthy - the same goes for a husband, indeed for each of us – is the fact that she invests her gifts in her family and in charitable outreach. “She brings good, not evil … works with loving hands … reaches her hands out to the poor … the needy.” God then tells us that, “The woman who fears the Lord is to be praised … Her works praise her.” Her investment made her a success as a person. She was a God-fearing woman who served him by investing what He gave her for the benefit of others and through that investment enriched herself in God’s eyes and in the eyes of her family and neighbors. God tells us through the Psalmist: “Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who walk in His ways! For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork; blessed shall you be and favored” (Ps 128:1-5). Fear of the Lord, fear of losing or disappointing Him, is the motivation for investing what He has given us for the good of others just as He invested Himself in the Person of Jesus for our good. This is the investment that makes us a success in life. This is the investment that brings God’s blessing as it did with the worthy wife in Proverbs because through it we become successful people – givers rather than takers.
In the Gospel (Mt 15:14-30) Jesus calls His listeners to invest and not bury their God-given talents. A man “entrusted his possessions” to three servants, giving each an amount that he was capable of handling. Revealed here is the fact that God shares His possessions, graces, gifts with each of us in accord with our ability to use them. Everything we have is on loan from God. What has He given you? God gives us talents to be invested not just for our personal enrichment but also for the enrichment of others. He doesn’t want the talents back. But when He settles accounts with us at death we’ll have to show what we did with what He gave us. Jesus tells us that if we don’t invest we’ll lose everything. It’s by refusing to invest that we live unsuccessful lives.
When we die God will ask us what we did with His talent. What will our answer be? “I had no talent!” “I didn’t know You gave me a gift!” “I just kept it for myself!” “I was too lazy to do anything with it!” “I didn’t believe my gift was important enough!” “I used it for my own glory!” “You gave all the good gifts to others and the most insignificant to me, so I didn’t think it was worth sharing with anyone!”
Every one of us has received talents from God. He gave them to us so that we could make our unique contribution to the betterment of humanity and promote His glory. The return on our investment of what God gave us is what makes us successful in this world. This is the success for which God will reward us and for which we’ll be remembered. So how you want to be remembered is determined by whether or not you’re investing what you have been given. How are you investing your gift? Those who fear the Lord are happy because their fear of losing God’s friendship caused them to put their total trust in Him and invest themselves in the service of others.
If you haven’t been investing the talents God gave you, now is the time to start before it’s too late. “The Day of the Lord shall come like a thief in the night … therefore let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober” (1 Thess 5:1-6). Remember how Jesus’ parable taught that the investors received more while the non-investor lost everything? What will you have to show when the Lord calls you to settle accounts with Him and asks: “What did you do with my talents? Will He say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Mt 25:23) or “Throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth” (Mt 25:30). You will either be remembered and blessed for investing God’s gifts or cursed for burying them. (fr. sean)
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Fr Sean again:
Meeting Christ the King: Our Final Examiner
Jesus’ Church ends this year of grace with the celebration of Jesus as King of kings, our Saviour and our Judge. As the Lover of Justice He’ll hold each of us accountable for our words and deeds. Christ as King is the Lord of creation. Every person’s history on earth begins and ends with Jesus as the “Judge of the living and the dead.” (2 Tim 4:1; 1 Peter 4:1-8). Jesus warns us, “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and, when He does, He will reward each one according to his behaviour” (Mt 16: 27). It’s appropriate that the Church ends her year reminding us that Jesus is King and will judge us as to whether we chose His Kingdom or Satan’s through our choices while on earth. The consequences are eternal. His Church teaches that there are two judgments: the particular judgment of each of us at death and a general judgment at the end of time demonstrating that love conquered hate, freedom conquered slavery to sin, good conquered evil, truth conquered falsehood, and beauty conquered ugliness. Heaven is the eternal enjoyment of love, freedom, goodness, truth, and beauty. Hell is the eternal experience of hate, slavery, evil, lies, and ugliness. Jesus is the final examiner who gives us our final exam that determines our entry into Heaven, hell, or Purgatory. He appeals to our reason by asking, “What, then, will a man gain if he wins the whole world (seeking popularity, pleasure, possessions, or power) and ruins himself? Or what has a man to offer in exchange for himself” (Mt 16:26)? Are our daily choices leading us to Heaven or hell?
St. John Henry Newman noted the following concerning our particular judgment: “Each of us must come to the evening of life. Each of us must enter on eternity. Each of us must come to that quiet, awful time, when we will appear before the Lord of the vineyard, and answer for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad. That, my dear brethren, you will have to undergo. … It will be the dreadful moment of expectation when your fate for eternity is in the balance, and when you are about to be sent forth as the companion of either saints or devils, without possibility of change. There can be no change; there can be no reversal. As that judgment decides it, so it will be for ever and ever. Such is the particular judgment…When we find ourselves by ourselves, one by one, in His presence, and have brought before us most vividly all the thoughts, words, and deeds of this past life. Who will be able to bear the sight of himself?” (A Year with the Saints, p 101). The only witnesses to testify at our trial will be the Word of God and our Guardian Angel. Jesus warns us that, “Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words already has his judge, namely the word I have spoken – it is that which will condemn him on the last day” (Jn 12:8). For each of us the “last day” is when we die.
God told His people through Moses, “See, I set before you today … a blessing, if you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God … a curse, if you disobey the commandments of your God and leave the way I have marked out for you today, by going after other gods …” (Deut 11:26-27). God blesses those who obey Him lovingly. The disobedient bring a curse on themselves. Heaven is the blessing. Hell is the curse. The choice is ours. We hold our destiny in our own hands. Do we want to hear Jesus’ invitation, “Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take for your heritage the Kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world” (Mt 25:34) OR His dismissal, “Out of my sight, you accursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25:41). Our final exam will show whether we lived an egocentric or Christocentric life?
God is a loving Father endowing each of us with the capacity to say “Yes” to a happy union with Him and with one another. He wants to be personally involved in our life as our Provider and Protector. “I myself will look after and tend my sheep … I will rescue them … I will pasture them … I will give them rest … The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy … I will judge between one sheep and another, between rams and goats” (Ez 34:11-12, 15-17). But He cannot save us unless we freely choose to follow Jesus. That means acknowledging Him in the Psalmist’s words: “The Lord is my Shepherd, three is nothing I shall want…” (Ps 23:1). God's promises in Ezekiel are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, our Good Shepherd. Jesus assured the continuity of God’s pastoral providence when He founded His Church on Peter whom He commissioned to “Feed my lambs … Look after my sheep … Feed my sheep” (Jn 21:15-17). This mission is primarily the responsibility of the Pope, Bishops, and clergy. But we all must participate according to our gifts in spiritually looking after Jesus’ lambs and sheep, especially the most vulnerable. He provides us with the wherewithal to do this in and through His Church that calls us to obey the Ten Commandments, live the Beatitudes, and carry out the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. St. Paul assures us that “In Him who is the source of my strength I have strength for everything” (Phil 4:13). This is what faith in Jesus does for us so that we can live joyfully looking forward to meeting Jesus our King face-to-face.
Jesus has given us a preview of His exam in Matthew 25:31-46). Since the Examiner is Himself the Truth, we’ll have to be honest in our answers. God gives us every opportunity on earth to prepare for this test so we’ve no excuses. We’ll have to answer each question with a Yes or a No.
1. Did I make Jesus the centre of my daily life? Yes No
2. Did I help to feed those who were physically or spiritually hungry? Yes No
3. Did I help meet the needs of those who were physically or spiritually thirsty? Yes No
4. Did I help to show hospitality to the physical or spiritual stranger? Yes No
5. Did I help to clothe those who were physically or spiritually naked? Yes No
6. Did I reach out to those who were physically or spiritually sick? Yes No
7. Did I reach out to those who were physically or spiritually imprisoned? Yes No
On the basis of your answers, where would you be if you died now – Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory? Start answering these questions today so you can receive your desired result (All Yeses= Heaven; All Nos = Hell; 3 Yeses and 4 Nos = Purgatory). Remember, the final exam has no repeat, results are final. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again:
Advent: Watching for Jesus or Santa?
The Irish playwright, Samuel Beckett, wrote a tragicomedy titled “Waiting for Godot.” Two homeless men interact as they wait in vain for someone who is supposed to make life better but never shows up. It highlights the anticipation of what never materializes. One person who’s coming to make things better will definitely materialize is Jesus Christ. Anticipating Santa’s coming will materialize for a relative few but for many it won’t happen. This Sunday Jesus’ Church begins another year of grace with the Advent season. The liturgical colour changes to purple symbolizing Jesus’ royalty as our King and our need for repentance in preparation to welcome Him. It also brings a new cycle of Bible readings to nourish our faith and our soul. It’s a period during which the Church alerts the world to celebrate Jesus’ humble birth in a stable in Bethlehem, refocus on His real presence in His Church, especially in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and to prepare for His second coming as the Judge of the living and the dead. We can make full use of this time of spiritual preparation to make Christmas a real celebration of Jesus’ coming to save us, or we can become caught up in the world’s false thinking that Santa can make us happy.
Advent is a set time to deepen our reflection on what God has done, is doing, and will do in and for us. Preparation is an essential step in achieving any goal. There are three kinds of people in the world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happening, and those who wonder what happened. Advent is a time to make things happen in collaboration with the Holy Spirit who brings us to Jesus and who in turn brings us to His Father. Passive people watch things happening. Losers wonder what happened. I often saw students waiting until the night before an exam to study and then wonder why they received a bad grade. Preparation is about making sure that what we want to happen actually happens. A person who doesn’t prepare for what’s important in life will be caught unprepared and suffer the deprivation of lost opportunities. That causes deep regret. It’s like Aesop’s fable about the ant and the cricket. The ant worked all summer gathering food for the winter while the cricket sang the days away. When winter came the cricket starved while the ant was well fed. Sloth is a deadly sin. If we fail to prepare we prepare to fail.
Since nothing is more important than that face-to-face meeting with Jesus Christ that determines our eternal state, why don’t people prepare themselves for it? Satan tempts us to procrastinate. We excuse ourselves by promising that we’ll “do it tomorrow.” Actually there’s no tomorrow – it’s simply a figment of our imagination where we try to extend the present beyond its boundaries. Tomorrow never comes; all we have is today. So if we don’t do what we need to do today it will add to the burden of what we need to do tomorrow when it becomes today – if we live for it. The problem is that, as Jesus points out to us (Mt 6:34), tomorrow will bring its own realities that call for our attention and carryovers from yesterday become overwhelming. That’s poor time management. Procrastination is often a form of avoiding responsibility for not doing now what we should be doing now. A procrastinator puts wants before needs and so loses out on the essentials of life. The most essential thing for the creature is to be led by the Creator. Deepening our faith and love for God isn’t something we put off until tomorrow, but something essential we must do today. Jesus stresses the urgency of this when He warns us to, “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come…whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning” (Mk 13:33-37). In other words, don’t postpone for tomorrow what you should do today because it may be your last day on earth.
Will you spend this Advent preparing for Jesus’ or for Santa’ coming? The world has made Santa the centre of Christmas at the expense of shutting out Jesus Christ. The world ignores that “santa” means saint, which means holy, which means being like God who is All Holy. Why is that? Because the world replaces Jesus with ‘Santa’ to create the illusion that material things make us happy; the illusion of love by emphasizing the giving of material gifts rather than the gift of self. Christmas – Christ’s Mass – celebrates God’s gift of His Son to free us from our sins – the greatest gift of all. When we prepare for the worldly ‘santa’ we focus on what we get. When we prepare for Jesus we focus on how we can give ourselves as a gift to others as He has made a gift of Himself to us. Preparing to celebrate Jesus’ coming motivates us to approach the Infant Jesus by making our self as spiritually and physically presentable as possible to Him. This motivates us to spend Advent getting rid of our sinfulness and other obstacles to the Holy Spirit that might dishonour Jesus and His Heavenly Father. Like those waiting for Godot, when we prepare for ‘santa’ we wait for someone who doesn’t materialize or make our life better.
When we celebrate Jesus’ birth and prepare for His second coming we’ll not be disappointed. He has come; He’s here now in His Church and in the heart of Christians. He definitely will come again as our Judge rewarding or punishing us “according to our deeds” (Rom 2:6). We must pray with Isaiah: “O Lord, hold not back, You, Lord, are our Father, our redeemer … no ear has heard, no eye ever seen, any God but You doing such deeds for those who wait for Him … we are the clay, You are the potter: we are all the work of Your hands” (Is 63:16; 64:3, 7). When we see God as our Father and Redeemer we know who alone brings us a happiness that’s consistent. Yearning for this happiness moves us to get rid of everything that might deprive us of that joy. He has made us and therefore knows our true purpose and what we need. He guarantees the continuity and enrichment of our life. So we pray with the Psalmist, “O Shepherd of Israel … rouse Your power and come to save us … Give us new life, and we shall call upon Your Name … Let us see Your face and we shall be safe.” (Ps 80:2-4, 16, 19)
God has come to save us and keeps us spiritually safe by sending His Son to deliver us from all evil. Safety is one of our basic human needs. If we don’t feel safe in our home, neighbourhood, or nation the quality of life deteriorates. Feeling safe is essential if we’re going to be able to enjoy life and live it to the full. God gives us that sense of safety by enabling us to unite with Jesus in His Church. Jesus comforts us when He says, “Do not fear those who deprive the body of life but cannot destroy the soul. Rather, fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna” (Mt 10: 28). The Holy Spirit assures us that, “God bestowed His grace on you in Christ Jesus , that in Him you were enriched in every way… so that you lack nothing in every spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 1:3-9). We pray with Isaiah (Is 63:16-17, 19; 64:2-7): “Behold You are angry and we are sinful … unclean …our deeds like polluted rags… we are the clay and You are the potter: we are all the work of your hands”. May we let God mould us into the beautiful pot that He wants us to give as a gift to others this Christmas?
Now is the time to prepare to be moulded by the Holy Spirit in readiness to welcome Jesus. With Isaiah we pray, “Would that you might meet us doing right, that we are mindful of You in our ways!” This is why Jesus warns us, “What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’” (Mk 13:37). Santa without Jesus is superficial and leaves us disappointed. So let’s spend Advent letting the Holy Spirit prepare us to make a gift of our self to others as God has made a gift of His Beloved Son to us. Then our days coming up to Christmas will be joyful rather than stressful. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again:
Advent 2 B: How Are You Awaiting the Lord’s Coming?
There’s a saying that “He who hesitates is lost!” To hesitate when tempted may lead to losing salvation If we don’t take advantage of a good opportunity it may not come our way again. Opportunity knocks but once, says the sage. On the other hand, there’s another saying: “Look before you leap!” A good decision means that we gain more than we lose, especially in the long term. Not everything is as good as it looks. The wrapping paper may be beautiful but the package may contain trash. We’re told not to judge the book by its cover. An unattractive cover may hide very attractive content. An attractive cover might hide poisonous material. Don’t let hesitation deprive you of God’s guidance.
Advent is a special opportunity to prepare for the celebration of Jesus’ coming – prepping ourselves to celebrate God’s love for us by coming among us as our Savior to free us from sin. Jesus’ Church uses this time to reflect on His first coming two thousand years ago, His coming to us now sacramentally, especially in the Holy Mass, and His coming again as the Judge when the world ends. The issue I want to raise during this 2nd week of Advent is: How are you and I taking advantage of this grace-filled opportunity to prepare for His coming? Are we using this designated and blessed time before Christmas to celebrate His birth, joyfully welcome His presence in and through His Church, and when we meet Him face-to-face in death? Do we give daily private and public witness to His presence in our hearts? Remember Jesus’ words to us: “Whoever acknowledges me before men I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. Whoever disowns me before men I will disown before my Father in heaven” (Mt 10:32-33). If we don’t welcome the Son in our heart neither do we welcome the Father nor the Holy Spirit! We need to remember that, “No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him” (Mt 11:27). We cannot enter Heaven except through Jesus. He’s the only way, and there’s no other since He alone has “the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68) and “No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6). What must we do to welcome Jesus’ coming with our whole being?
Clear Him a Straight Path
John the Baptizer urges us, quoting from Isaiah: “Make ready the way of the Lord, clear Him a straight path” (Mk 1:3). How can we clear a straight path for the Lord to come into our world? What kind of society are we building now? How are we identifying ourselves, privately and publicly? How are we living our lives – is Jesus central in our heart, or do we treasure someone or something else more? To what or whom do we look as the source of our power and meaning? Let’s look at our decisions concerning the use of our time, talent, and treasure. This provides us with a good lens through which we can identify what’s most important to us. Let’s face it, what’s most important to us is what we think will make us happy. Only the God of the Bible can satisfy this deepest yearning.
What the Use of Our Time Tells Us
How we use our time tells us what our life is about. As time ticks away our life gets shorter and so does our time to do anything. Is the way we’re living and using our time now a good preparation for receiving Jesus? Are we using our time to establish a personal relationship with our Lord as a member of His Church? How much of our time do we give to prayer and worship (Mass)? How much of our time do we give to others - carrying out the spiritual and corporal works of mercy? Am I collaborating with God in His mission to save the world and being saved myself in the process? This is how we clear a straight path for the Lord to come to us.
Using Our Gifts and Talents
Are we using our gifts and talents for altruistic or selfish purposes? Are we wasting our gifts and talents because of laziness, lack of motivation, escapism, or ignorance? God gives us abilities according to our capacity to use them for our God and that of His Church. By investing these gifts in a manner that demonstrates love for God and neighbor, we’re preparing the way for the coming of the Lord to us and through us to the world at large. In the words of the Psalmist (Ps 85:9-14), thus the “Lord, let(s) us see (His) kindness, and grant(s) us (His) salvation.” God lets us and the world see His kindness when you and I commit ourselves to Him in prayer: “I will hear what God proclaims – for He proclaims peace to His people.” We prepare the path for the Lord to come to us when we take the time to hear what He proclaims through His Word preached by His Church.
How We Spend our Money
How we spend our money tells us what’s important to us? The best way to discover our participation in God’s mission is to examine the stubs of our checkbook or credit card bill. God’s mission is to shepherd His people. “Like a shepherd He feeds His flock; in His arms He gathers the lambs, carrying them in His bosom and leading the ewes with care” (Is 40:1-11). Through Peter (2 Pt 3:8-14) the Holy Spirit reveals that God “is patient with you, not wishing that anyone should perish but that all should come to repentance … Be eager to be found without spot or blemish before Him, at peace.” Are we using our money to help God shepherd our brothers and sisters who’re less fortunate, sick, or too young to take care of themselves? How do we use our money to help Jesus in “gathering the lambs and carrying them in His bosom”? Are we as patient with others as God is patient with us in giving us every chance to welcome His Son, particularly by asking Him to cleanse our soul from sin in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and promising to amend our life?
The Reward of Our Preparation or Lack Thereof
When you and I die will God say to us, “Come, my friend, you used what I gave you to show your love for me and your brothers and sisters. Thus, you demonstrated your willingness to be loved by me and to be led by my Spirit to embrace my Son. You couldn’t love another without my love for you first. Your love for others was a visible sign of my love for you and for them through you.”
Will God say to you and to me in death: “You selfishly used what I gave you, thereby demonstrating your rejection of my love for you? Because you rejected My Spirit of love you focused only on yourself and your own wants. Instead of making me the center of your life you made your ego the center. Now you have doomed yourself to be loveless for all eternity.”
To prepare for Jesus’ coming is to “await … new heavens and a new earth, where according to His promise, the justice of God will reside” (Pt 3:8-14). Fr. Richard J. Neuhaus, a convert to Jesus in the Catholic Church, wrote, when commenting on the Pope John Paul II’s Gospel of Life, “The third Millennium will witness a flowering of the culture of life or a continual descent into the abyss of the culture of death ... We Christians have the great privilege and responsibility of persuading the world to choose life - for God’s sake, for our sake, for the sake of humanity” (The Church’s Love Letter to the World). We contribute to the culture of life and stop the culture of death through continually welcoming Jesus into our life.(fr sean)
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Beautiful sermons! Thank you :pray:
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Fr Sean again:
Advent III: Are You Joyful?
The liturgical color changes this Sunday from purple to rose pink that reflects a call to rejoice. One might ask, given today’s atheistic, irreligious, materialistic, culture, what’s there to rejoice about? Governments legislate against Christian morality and freedom of speech. Church leaders publicly oppose the very teaching they swore to uphold. Thousands of unborn children are sacrificed on the altar of egotism every day. Children in schools are being groomed to accept sɛҳuąƖ perversion as normal. Life is no longer viewed as sacred and a gift from God who holds every individual accountable for his or her attitude toward that gift. People are helped to commit ѕυιcιdє. Adhering to the Church’s Apostolic Tradition is labeled as being “backwardism.” Jesus’ Church is now being called a “Synodal Church.” Marxism is rearing its ugly head, embraced by people who have never been taught to think critically and learn from history about the spiritual disaster left behind by that ideology. This is a world where more children are born outside marriage than from within that sacred covenant. The differences between man and women are so blurred that adolescence is made more traumatic for teenagers and young adults. This is the age of self-created truth, self-created gender, and self-salvation. It’s a time of irrationality and stupidity where ego, instead of God, is the determiner of what’s real, true, good, and beautiful. But, in the words of Katy Perry’s song, “Fireworks,” it is all “Like a house of cards, one blow from caving in.” So what is there to be joyful about?
Joyfulness
The notion of joy is directly associated with good fortune. When a person’s fortune changes from bad to good he or she has a reason to be joyful. When something good happens to us or when we accomplish a difficult task, joy is a natural response. Happiness is a feeling. Joy is a spirit. Feelings come and go but a spirit lasts. Joyful people realize something good is happening in their life. They have something to celebrate. People who have no joy in their hearts and souls can’t cope with failure and so try to escape through the use of man-made fads and chemicals. Into this dark and self-absorbed world comes God with good news bringing joy to people of good will.
Christianity is the only religion that gives us the hope of resurrection. It provides us with a spirit of joy that comes from experiencing the “light that shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it” (Jn 1:5-7). The Christian is the one who recognizes the presence of a Redeemer that conquered suffering and death. The Christian is the person who knows the source of joy and receives His spirit. The Christian is the one who hears Jesus’ declaration: “I have come that you might have life and have it in its fullness” (Jn 10:10). This lifts up the individual from the darkness and absurdities of the fallen world in which he or she lives. This spirit of joy leads the person to embrace suffering and death as opportunities to grow closer to Jesus as He gives him or her knowledge of salvation “through the forgiveness of sins” (Lk 1:77-79). The true Christian is able to rejoice because he or she experiences good fortune in knowing that Christ has come to redeem him or her and pave the way to Heaven.
The Call to Be Joyful
God, through Jesus’ Church, calls us to rejoice this third Sunday of Advent. God is joy personified. Heaven is the state of being eternally joyful in God’s presence. Christians are those on the way to Heaven in the company of Jesus, God’s Word-made-man, who has come, is here now in His Church, and will come again to judge the world, when according to Him “we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells” (1 Peter 3:13). This knowledge makes our journey a joyful one, despite the obstacles and evils we might encounter on the way. This 3rd Sunday of Advent the Church reminds us that as we prepare to celebrate Christmas and the joy it’s meant to bring, we’re coming nearer to our death when, hopefully, our joy will be complete. But not everyone has this joy. Some people get more miserable the closer Christmas comes, like Scrooge. Others get more miserable when they realize their time on earth is passing with each day. Miserable people lack a spirit of joy - a spirit of generosity -generated by God’s gift of Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ. The fact that death is a stark reminder that we’re not in control or that we are poor or that we are ignored doesn’t matter because the One who makes us joyful is in control and wants to wrap us in His loving arms.
The Bible Readings
Let’s look at the Scriptures for this Sunday. In the first reading (Is 61:1-2, 10-11) God anoints Isaiah to bring joy to His people who’re struggling. Called by God, Isaiah declares, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and release to prisoners … a day of vindication by our God! I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul … God will make justice and praise spring up before all the nations.” Knowing that God has anointed you in Baptism and sends you His spirit to lift up your spirit when you’re brokenhearted or enslaved by sin is the basis for joy. We can be joyful because Jesus has come to save us from our sins. He is a just judge who brought justice to the world. With His grace we can overcome our imperfections, weaknesses, and disordered desires.
The Lord comes to bring good news to you and me when we’re feeling lowly, grieving or sad, and encourages you to: “yoke yourself to me … and I will refresh you” (Mt 11:29). He comes to rescue us from addictions. He will vindicate us when we’re rejected or mocked for your faith and good works. He constantly blesses us if we’re receptive. Thus Jesus gives us His spirit that makes our life a joyful experience despite suffering or misfortune. Mary expressed this joy when she visited Elizabeth to share the good news God brought her. Through His Church, the Holy Spirit enables us to proclaim with Mary: “My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit finds joy in God my Savior. He who is mighty has done great things for me. (Lk 1:46-54).
Through second reading (1 Thess 5:16-24) the Holy Spirit reveals what God wills for us. He wants us to: 1. Rejoice always. 2. Never cease praying. 3. Render constant thanks. 4. Do not stifle the Spirit. 5. Do not despise prophecies (catechesis). 6. Test everything to verify it. 7. Retain what is good. 8. Avoid any semblance of evil. 9. Let God make you perfect in holiness. 10. Be preserved whole and entire in spirit, soul, and body. 11. Be irreproachable when the Lord comes. 12. Be trustworthy and you will be made perfect. This is the formula for us as Christians that gives us every reason to rejoice.
Joy of Forgiveness
Finally in the Gospel (Jn 1:6-8, 19-28), Jesus’ Church is taking the place of John in the world today as the “voice in the desert, crying out: Make straight the way of the Lord!” To receive the joy that God wants us to have we must make straight the way for His coming to us by repenting of our sins and seeking forgiveness. John told those who came to see Him at the Jordan: “I baptize you with water, but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal-strap I am unworthy to untie.” John announced the coming of Jesus who would add to the grace of forgiveness to the grace of repentance. We cannot help but feel joyful when we repent and receive God’s forgiveness and that of His Church in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Sadly, though, the denial of sin or the refusal to repent deprives people of the joy they look for in the world but which the world cannot provide. The sinner who repents and seeks forgiveness is blessed with a joyful spirit despite the recognition of being a sinner and the unworthiness of being forgiven. This we and for the rest of your life, be what God wants you to be, namely a joyful Christian. (Fr. Sean.)
The Real 12 Days of Christmas
From 1558 until 1829 the Catholics of England were forbidden by law to practice their Catholic Faith. As a result of this ban they devised secretive and symbolic songs to teach their children the truths of their Faith. The Twelve Days of Christmas was one of these songs.
The “Twelve Days” stood for the Christmas Season, Dec. 25 - Jan 6th). The “True Love” in the carol is God Himself, who gives true Christians special gifts on each of the 12 days.
1st gift: A Partridge in a pear tree. The partridge stands for Christ, who gathers His children under His wings. The tree reflects back to the tree of life in Paradise, which Adam and Eve lost through their sin and God promised to restore through Christ Jesus. God’s first gift, therefore, is His own Son, Jesus – His Word-made-man.
2nd gift: Two turtle doves. The doves represent the sacrifice which a Hebrew family had to make upon the birth of a son. Our sacrifice is the Holy Mass.
3rd gift: Three French hens. These symbolized the three gifts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, which were realized in the birth of the Savior.
4th gift: Four calling (collie) birds. They symbolize the four Evangelists (Sts. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) whose four Gospels call us all to the Bethlehem manger of the Redeemer.
5th gift: Five golden rings. They symbolize the first five books of the Old Testament - the Law, Torah, Pentateuch - which Jesus came to fulfill and complete.
6th gift: Six geese a-laying. These symbolize the six days of the week when people labor and bring forth the fruit of the land.
7th gift: Seven swans a-swimming. They symbolize the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit necessary for living the True Faith.
8th gift: Eight maids a-milking. They symbolize the 8 beatitudes which bring God’s blessings on His people.
9th gift: Nine ladies dancing: They symbolize the 9 choirs of angels and the 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22-23)
10th gift: Ten Lords a-leaping. Recall the 10 Commandments.
11th gift: Eleven pipers piping. This recalls the 11 Apostles, minus Judas, proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ to the whole world.
12th gift: Twelve drummers drumming. This symbolizes the 12 articles of Faith contained in the Nicene Creed proclaimed at Mass.
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Dear Friends in the Lord, I wish you all a joyful Christmas and a spiritually profitable 2024. I will remember you in the celebration of the Holy Mass this Christmas and may the Prince of Peace bestow His peace on you, a peace that the world can’t give.
Sincerely in Christ, Fr. Sean
Prayer at the Crib
Lord Jesus, You left Your throne and glory in Heaven and came to earth to become a little baby, born in a stable and lay in a manger with no pillow for Your Sacred Head. The only heating on that cold winter’s night to help Mary keep You warm was the breath of the animals. The people in the Inn had no room for You.
You came to bring us joy, to lead us through the darkness of pain, failure, and even death itself. You are our light leading us through life. You offer us life that never ends. I want to welcome You into my heart as Mary and Joseph welcomed You on that first Christmas night. I love You, Lord Jesus and I know that You love me. I offer this prayer to our Heavenly Father through You, Infant Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Infant Jesus, bless my family and the families of all whose paths I cross each day. Amen.
Infant Jesus, pray for all infants, those born and unborn. Amen.
Holy Mary, Virgin and Mother of Jesus, Pray for my mother and all mothers. Amen
St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for my father and all fathers. Amen.
Mary and Joseph, pray for all couples married in the Lord. Amen
A Christmas Love Story: The “M” in Christmas (Anon)
Each December, I vowed to make Christmas a calm and peaceful experience. I had cut back on nonessential obligations - extensive card writing, endless baking, decorating, and even overspending. Yet still, I found myself exhausted, unable to appreciate the precious family moments, and of course, the true meaning of Christmas.
My son, Nicholas, was in kindergarten that year. It was an exciting season for a six year old. For weeks, he'd been memorizing songs for his school's "Winter Pageant." I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd be working the night of the production. Unwilling to miss his shining moment, I spoke with his teacher. She assured me there'd be a dress rehearsal the morning of the presentation. All parents unable to attend that evening were welcome to come then. Fortunately, Nicholas seemed happy with the compromise. So, the morning of the dress rehearsal, I filed in ten minutes early, found a spot on the cafeteria floor and sat down. Around the room, I saw several other parents quietly scampering to their seats. As I waited, the students were led into the room. Each class, accompanied by their teacher, sat cross-legged on the floor. Then, each group, one by one, rose to perform their song.
Because the public school system had long stopped referring to the holiday as "Christmas," I didn't expect anything other than fun, commercial entertainment - songs of reindeer, Santa Claus, snowflakes and good cheer. So, when my son's class rose to sing, "Christmas Love," I was slightly taken aback by its bold title. Nicholas was aglow, as were all of his classmates, adorned in fuzzy mittens, red sweaters, and bright snow-caps upon their heads.
Those in my son’s grade in the front row- centre stage - held up large letters, one by one, to spell out the title of the song they would sing.
The first child held up C is for Christmas … the 2nd H is for Happy, and on and on until we noticed a small, quiet, girl in the front row holding the letter "M" upside down - totally unaware that her letter "M" appeared as a "W".
The audience of 1st through 6th graders snickered at the child’s one mistake. But she had no idea they were laughing at her, so she stood tall, proudly holding her "W".
Although many teachers tried to shush the children, the laughter continued until the last letter was raised, and we all saw it together. A hush came over the audience and eyes began to widen.
In that instant, we understood the reason we were there, why we celebrated the holiday in the first place, why even in the chaos, there was a purpose for our festivities.
For when the last letter was held high, the message read loud and clear: C H R I S T W A S L O V E
And, I believe, He was, is, and will be God’s love for us – He is Immanuel, God-with-us, present in His Holy Church, and uniquely so in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, until the end of the world! Jesus uses everything to get His Message across. Have you received it?
Nollaig Shonna Dhaoibh Go Leir!
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What about family abuse and being abused as a child by your parent. How can the example of the monk be applied to that situation? Children aren't capable of removing themselves from abusive situations or defending themselves. So how do you approach forgiveness when you were mistreated as a child?
I am old and speak from experience. Both of my parents are passed. One died with conditional last rites, having lived in dubious circuмstances, and the other died in a state of witchcraft. I won't go into detail as to what kind of parents they were but you can guess.
Despite my childhood circuмstances, the only thought in my mind when they each passed was pity for their eternity. And I am no saintly person either. But their death made me fear my own judgment even more.
Meditate for one single minute on the eternity of your abusers and see how you feel about it then. I believe it will change your perspective.
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Fr Sean again:
The Holy Family: God’s Blessing on Family Life
Back in the 1980’ A Catholic educator, Dolores Curran, released a study on family strengths (Traits of a Healthy Family) in which she identified the following characteristics of a healthy family: The members “communicate and listen to each other; affirm and support one another; teach respect for others; develop a sense of trust in one another; know how to play and enjoy good humour; have a sense of shared responsibility; teach the difference between right and wrong; develop family traditions; enjoy balanced interaction with each other; value service to others; foster communication; share leisure time; and admit failings while seeking help for problems.” A healthy Christian family places at the top of this list faith in Christ Jesus present in His Church where the family members adore and worship Him. The family is the first school of life for the child where the husband and wife model by their example and teach the children how to become well-adjusted and how to be a close-knit community in order to lead a physically and spiritually productive life.
To celebrate the gift of the Holy Family, Jesus Church calls us to reflect this Sunday on God’s Word from Genesis (15:1-6; 21:1-3), Psalm 105 (1-9), Hebrews (11:8-19,) and St. Luke (2:22-40). The main focus in each of these lections is faith in God which is the key to all healthy relationships, especially within the family. Sadly, broken families are more prevalent today than the normal traditional family of husband and wife and children united with one another. The family is the basic cell of both society and the Church. When the cell is diseased the body suffers. Children are left to raise themselves and suffer the consequences of a lack of well-adjusted models of what it means to be a joyful man or woman. This should raise the Church’s consciousness of the need to promote faith in God and receptivity to the Holy Spirit on the part of families. How does the Church do this? By bringing Jesus to them.
Mary and Joseph were privileged to meet Jesus in the flesh. Mary was highly privileged to carry Him in her womb. Joseph was so privileged to be Jesus’ foster-father. You and I aren’t so privileged to be able to physically, emotionally share Jesus’ company as the Apostles were. However we’re privileged to know that Jesus has made it possible for us to be in His company in and through His Church. He assured us of His presence when He said, “Know that I am with you always, until the end of the world!” (Mt 28:20) St. Paul reminds us that having faith in Jesus’s presence in His Church mustn’t depend on what we see with our senses. The Holy Spirit informs us through Paul that in our journey with Jesus here on earth, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7). This calls for humility because walking by faith requires us to rely on Jesus to show us the way rather than trying to figure out our own way. Our ego moves us toward doing things our own way rather than God’s way. Even as adults we’re like rebellious children wanting to do things our own way. Putting faith in Jesus and His teaching requires humility, which is the realization and admission that we don’t know what’s best for us in the long term, and we don’t know the true way to live and achieve happiness, and therefore we need someone to guide us, like a seeing-eye dog guiding a physically blind person. The person has to trust the dog’s movements rather than relying on his or her own sense of direction.
This faith is exhibited in Abraham. God began forming His family by calling Abraham as their first father. He responded to God’s call by faith, not by sight. “Abraham put his faith in the Lord, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness” (Gen 15:6). The author of Hebrews explains, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was to go … ” (Heb 11:8). He trusted in God to lead him. Mary walked by faith and not by sight when she accepted the angel’s message from God that she was to be the mother of Jesus while remaining a virgin. Her response, “Let it be done to me as you have said” (Lk 1:38), reflects her faith not her sight. She acted on faith because she could neither see nor understand what was being asked of her. Her faith enabled her to put her trust in what was beyond her senses to observe.
Faith unites us with God who calls us to look beyond what we can see or understand. Faith connects us to God while our senses connect us to earth. This is why the Psalmist proclaimed, “Glory in God’s holy Name; Rejoice, O hearts that seek the Lord! Look to the Lord in His strength; constantly seek His face... He, the Lord, is our God; throughout the earth His judgments prevail. He remembers forever His covenant which He entered into with Abraham…” (Ps 105:3-9). Joseph’s faith in God enabled him to look beyond Mary pregnant by someone other than him. His faith overrode his senses. Mary and Joseph’s faith helped them to trust in God despite what they heard Simeon say about the infant Jesus in the Temple: “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted – and you yourself a sword shall pierce ...” (Lk 2:34-35). Jesus’ faith in His Father enabled Him to look beyond His terrible death when He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mt 27:46), only to trust Himself to His Father with the words, “Into Your hands, O God, I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46).
Genuine faith is not easy because we tend to rely so much on our senses. This is why we constantly need the Holy Spirit to guide us and strengthen our faith. If we don’t see beyond what we observe we miss the bigger picture and the riches it contains. This is why people of faith are so resilient, hopeful, and loving. It’s supernatural faith, a gift from God that enables us to see Jesus in His Church’s Sacraments, and in a special and most loving way in the Holy Mass. It’s walking by faith in Jesus that husbands and wives and children develop and sustain the traits of a spiritually healthy family where the husband and wife in their love for one another model for the children the relationship wherein God created man and woman to complement one another and in which to procreate and raise children. They cannot do this without God. What we observe with our senses on earth isn’t enough to achieve what God created us to be. As you enter 2024 may the Holy Family be the model for your family with Christ Jesus being the centre of your attention and trust. (fr sean)
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'You and I aren’t so privileged to be able to physically, emotionally share Jesus’ company as the Apostles were' writes Fr Sean.
Can you imagine if we were alive at the time and place Jesus chose to enter the Earth.
Would we have recognised Him for what He was? I know we think we would, so what an experience it would have been. What would we have asked Him? What's Heaven like? Will we meet our loved ones in heaven again?What would you have asked Jesus?
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Fr Sean again:
Jesus’ Baptism: Come to the Water!
This Sunday Jesus’ Church commemorates His Baptism. St. Mark gives us an account of the event. “It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. On coming up out of the water He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon Him. And a voice came from the heavens, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased’” (Mk 1:7-11). John was calling everyone to receive a water baptism of repentance for their sins. Jesus, who was pure, came forward to receive John’s baptism to which He would add the Holy Spirit making Baptism not only a sign of repentance but also a sign of forgiveness. To be baptized is to be cleansed of all sin and be restored to the likeness of God, which was lost by Adam and Eve. Jesus made Baptism a crucial sacrament for entry into Heaven. He clearly stated its necessity when He said: “I solemnly assure you, no one can enter into God’s Kingdom without being born of water and the Holy Spirit” (Jn 3:5). This is why the Sacrament of Baptism is the door to entering Jesus’ Church, the visible sign of His Kingdom on earth.
God prepared His people for this sacrament in the Old Testament. He revealed through Isaiah, “Thus says the Lord: All you who are thirsty, come to the water … come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life …. Seek the Lord while He may be found, call Him while He is near. Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked man his thoughts; let him turn to the Lord for mercy; to our God who is generous in forgiving!” (Is 55:1-11). Every man, woman, and child, beginning in the womb, thirsts for God either consciously or unconsciously. As God’s creation our soul yearns to be with Him as our Creator. No creature is competent or secure without instructions from the Creator. Machines come with manuals written by those who built them filled with instructions as to how to use them properly and effectively. So also with us as humans, we need God’s instructions as to how to life joyfully and effectively. God urges everyone to “seek the Lord where He may be found.” He urges the scoundrel and the wicked man, those who treat others harshly and have no moral principles, to change their ways and thoughts, turning instead “to the Lord for mercy.” That means the sinful creature must stop following his or her own evil ways and thoughts and embrace God’s ways and thoughts if he or she wants to enter Heaven.
John’s water baptism marked the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. John, whose ministry was to prepare the way for Jesus’ coming, on seeing Him at the Jordan, now introduced Him publicly, “Behold! There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29). John, at that moment probably remembered the twelfth Psalm, “God indeed is my Saviour; I am confident and unafraid. My strength and my courage is the Lord, and He has been my Saviour … Give thanks to the Lord, acclaim His Name, among the nations make known His deeds … Sing praise to the Lord for His glorious achievement … Great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel” (Ps 12: 2-6). Baptism enables each of us to make these words of the Psalmist our own. Because the day you and I were baptized was the day that Jesus became our Saviour by bring us to His Heavenly Father to adopt us making us members of His Family, the Church on earth, the souls in Purgatory, and the saints in Heaven, through the power of the Holy Spirit. That was the day when God made us confident and unafraid by making Himself the source of our strength and courage. That was the day God made it possible for us to live in such a way that His words to Jesus would be His words to us when we met Him at the moment of death: “You are my beloved son/daughter; with you I am well pleased.”
How do we prepare ourselves in hopes of hearing these words the day we die? St. John answers our question by telling us to be receptive to God’s love. “For the love of God is this, that we keep His Commandments. And His Commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith. Who indeed is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 Jn 5:1-9). To beget is to bring into existence. In Baptism God brought you and me into existence as His gifted children. He has given us the Commandants, not as rules to limit or restrict our freedom, but as essential ways that free us to love Him and our neighbour. These instructions show us how to embrace what is real, true, good, and beautiful so that we can be more fully human and fully alive.
Sadly, in too many instances parents and even some clergy treat Baptism as no more than empty ritual, completely missing the loving action of God putting His stamp on the child or adult. Baptism transforms the person from being a child of the world doomed to eternal misery to being a child of God blessed with the hope of eternal happiness and the means to achieve it. Parents and Godparents who request their child’s Baptism need a deep catechesis to understand its implications. Why? Because the first question the Church asks of the parents of the child is: What do you ask of God’s Church for your child? If they answer, “Baptism,” the priest or deacon reminds them of their responsibility: “You are accepting the responsibility of training your child in the practice of the Faith. It will be your duty to bring him/her to keep God’s Commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbour. Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?” The expected answer from the parents in the presence of God and His Church is, “We do.” Since this is a promise made to God and His Church, God will hold parents and Godparents accountable for carrying out that promise.
If people are just going through the motions and saying what they are supposed to say without meaning it in their hearts they are committing a serious sin. Therefore an evangelical and catechetical preparation of parents and Godparents is essential so that they fully understand the seriousness of what God calls for in the Sacrament. I believe that one of the great opportunities for evangelizing parents, Godparents, whole families to learn how awesome and miraculous the love God makes visible in the Baptism is, and how the Church is necessary for fruitful and joyful living in which God unites us with Himself, is missed because of a lack of preparation. Every Sacrament has its own specific faith requirement. Therefore people requesting the reception of a Sacrament need to be made aware of the faith that is required of them for its proper celebration. Grace builds on nature and if nature isn't prepared grace can’t help the individual.
As you reflect on Jesus’ Baptism remember your own Baptism and what God did for you that day. If you died today, would the Lord be able to say to you, “You are my believed child; I am well pleased with you?” May 2024 be a spiritually productive year for you as God’s obedient child. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again:
Are You Listening to God Calling You?
Having entered this New Year it would be good for us to ask, “Am I listening to God calling me?” God, as the loving Father who provides for us, the Redeemer who died to save us, and the Holy Spirit who makes us holy, continuously calls each of His children to some service. Therefore, in the words of the psalm (40:2 -10), if we listen, you and I learn that “…the Lord is attentive to me. He heard my prayers and brought me out of the pit of misery and the mire of dregs … He directed my steps and He put a new song into my mouth, a hymn to our God… Blessed is the man whose trust is in the Name of the Lord; and who has no regard for vanities and lying follies …to do Your will, O God, is my delight, and Your law is within my heart! I announced Your justice in the vast assemblies; I do not restrain my lips as You, O Lord, know.” What God calls us to be and do He also gives us the wherewithal to accomplish.
The purpose of listening is to learn. God talks to us in our conscience, in Holy Scripture and His Church’s Tradition, but if we don’t listen we won’t learn and so remain dullards in our ignorance of what He calls us to be. The Holy Spirit urges us to, “Act on this Word. If all you do is hear it, you are deceiving yourselves. There is, on the other hand, the person who looks into freedom’s ideal law and abides by it. That person is no forgetful hearer, but one who carries out the law in practice. Blest will this person be in whatever he or she does” (Jas 1:22, 25). Ignorance and forgetfulness are the root of all evil, particularly regarding how much we need God, hear and listen to Him and follow His ways. Hearing and listening aren’t the same. They are two stages in the process of understanding. We must hear with a listening ear. Too often we hear without listening and so we receive only the content but not the intent. It’s the intent that’s most important. Content can be misunderstood but intent cannot. What we think we hear isn’t always what is intended. Listening requires presence, empathy, and reflection. This is how understanding comes about.
This Sunday the Church proclaims God’s call to Samuel (1 Sam 3:3-10, 19) to be His prophet, Jesus’ call to His first Apostles (Jn 3:35-42), and St. Paul’s call to focus on the purity of the body ( 1 Cor 6:13-20).
Samuel was awakened one night by a voice calling his name. He thought it was the prophet Eli. Eli advised Samuel it might be God and so to say, if he heard the voice again, “Speak Lord, for Your servant is listening.” This prayer prepared Samuel to hear and listen to what God wanted. Thus “Samuel grew up and the Lord was with him, not permitting any word of his to be without effect.” Listening leads to understanding what we’re being called to do.
Our daily prayer each day must be, “Speak Lord, Your servant is listening,” if we want to understand what God is telling us. We have to develop our ability to listen because we’re not automatically good listeners. We have to learn listening skills. Listening requires the following ingredients: be respectful toward and have faith in the speaker; empathize with the speaker, ask true questions to deepen our understanding, and give good feedback to make sure we’re grasping the speaker’s intent. These apply in every relationship including with God. In the absence of these qualities we’re not listening and so we miss the message and abort the communication.
Every sin signifies a refusal to listen to God. When we don’t listen we become “forgetful hearers.” Listening calls for an investment of oneself in the speaker. Merely hearing the person doesn’t. When I invest myself in a speaker I allow myself to be influenced and to learn from him or her. When God speaks to us and we listen we cannot help but be influenced by Him. We can hear Jesus, but because we don’t listen we’ll walk away and remain untouched. Where there’s no investment there’s no change.
Samuel listened and invested Himself in God. So did Andrew and Peter. The Holy Spirit empowered John the Baptizer to recognize Jesus with the words, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” These words have rung continuously down through the generations in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at Holy Communion time. Having listened to John, Andrew asked Jesus where he lived. He replied, “Come and see!” Having listened to Jesus, Andrew was so influenced that he went and told his brother, Simon, “We have found the Messiah” and brought him to Jesus who named him “Cephas – Peter.”
What do we see here? Andrew listened to Jesus and invested himself in Him with the result that he felt compelled to share the experience with his brother. This is what happens when we listen to Jesus and invest ourselves in Him. We can’t keep the good news to ourselves. If we don’t listen we won’t let Jesus influence us and so we’ve no good news to share. Perhaps that’s why so many say, “I get nothing out of going to Church.” Jesus calls each of us to listen, invest ourselves in Him, and respond, “Here I am, Lord, I come to do Thy will” (Ps 40). Then Jesus invests in us and we’re able to proclaim with the Psalmist, “To do Your will, O God, is my delight, and Your law is written on my heart. I announced Your justice in the vast assembly; I didn’t restrain my lips, as You, O Lord, know.” Thus we have great news to share.
We invest ourselves in God’s call not just spiritually but also bodily. Therefore we must use our body in accord with His word. The Holy Spirit warns us through St. Paul to “avoid immorality/fornication” (1 Cor 6: 13-20). “The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord … You know that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I, then, take the members of Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? God forbid … He who is joined to a prostitute is made one body ... Flee from fornication. Every sin that a man commits is outside his body, but he that commits fornication, sins against his own body. Do you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own. You are bought with a great price, therefore glorify God in your body.”
God calls us to unite with Him as body-soul creatures. If we use our body selfishly we separate ourselves from God. We cannot be united with God spiritually without being united with Him bodily. We listen to God with our whole self – body and soul. If we use our body for immoral purposes we insult our Creator by investing in evil rather than in Him. None of us is immune to sɛҳuąƖ urges which can overpower us if we stop listening to God.
In the listening process our whole self must be involved if we’re to understand and be influenced by what we’re hearing. Therefore we must use our body in such a way that we give glory to God as our Creator and redeemer. Immorality or fornication, adultery, sex abuse, desecrate our body that became a temple of the Holy Spirit the day we were baptized. What we do with our body affects our soul and vice versa. So to fully listen to God, answer His call, and be transformed by Him we must be united with Him both in body and soul in order to receive His blessing and be a blessing to others. Our bodies aren’t our own to do what we want with them. We must use them to serve God and not our disordered desires. That means avoiding sins of the flesh that pollute the body and soul. Immorality impedes us from carrying out God’s call to live as His gifted children destined for eternal happiness. May we be willing listeners, in body and soul, to God’s daily call each day of our life. (fr sean)
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Thank you, Father Sean.
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Fr Sean again:
Are You Seeking Fulfilment?
Erik Erickson identified eight stages of psychosocial development from infancy to old age. Each stage involves a choice between a positive or negative approach to life, such as choosing to trust or mistrust the world in infancy. The last stage in old age involves the choice between facing the end of life with integrity or despair. Choosing integrity would reflect the belief that one lived a fulfilled life and have no regrets. Facing the end of life in despair would reflect the opposite. A life well lived would give a person a sense of fulfilment as he or she approaches death. A life well lived is a life of integrity. It’s one that is lived honestly, principled, and to the best of one’s ability. It is a life wherein a person has fulfilled his or her hopes and dreams.
The dictionary defines fulfilment as the achievement of what we long for? So what do we long for? There are as many answers as there are people. As creatures we consciously or unconsciously long for the Creator. Why? Because we need to understand ourselves and get answers to questions about ourselves and our world that we cannot answer on our own. Also we have yearnings that we cannot satisfy on our own. Because we haven’t created ourselves we need our Creator to show us what our potential is and how to achieve it. Can we achieve this on our own? No. We need God’s wisdom to guide us. This is why the Holy Spirit tells us that, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Ps 14:1). The fool is the person who thinks he or she can function independently of God. Sadly, the majority of people in the world today are infected by such foolhardiness and so doom themselves to despair. We see the results in the drastic increase in ѕυιcιdє, euthanasia, abortion, transgenderism, and Malthusianism. The root cause is the rejection of God and the vain attempt at self-fulfillment and self-salvation. This is the legacy of Adam and Eve which they created by letting Satan tempt them into thinking that they didn’t need God. To expose this delusion, this sin, Jesus to show and tell us what we need to do to avoid despair and achieve the fulfillment for which we yearn. It takes the Creator to enable us as His creatures to achieve our true purpose, namely to know, love and serve Him here on earth and after death to be with Him forever in Heaven. This is why God sent Jonah to call the Ninevites (Jon 3:1-5, 10) to repent and turn to Him so that they could realize their true purpose in life.
In the first chapter of the Gospel of St. Mark (1:14-20), Jesus speaks about fulfillment. “This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” In Jesus, God has fulfilled His promises to bring us back to Him by saving us from our sinfulness and hopelessness. He shows us how to be free, just, love, and at peace. He shows us how to integrate body and soul and live a fulfilled life so we don’t have regrets at the end. Having requested John’s baptism of water, Jesus started forming His community that He would designate as the visible sign of God’s Kingdom on earth wherein people would unite with Him through the power of the Holy Spirit. Simon and Andrew were the first members of His Church calling them to, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Imagine the looks on their faces when He told them they would become “fishers of men.” Later on He said something similar to James and John, who immediately left their father and their boats to follow Him. They were all fishermen fishing for fish. How did Jesus mean them to be “fishers of men”? Their culture had steeped them in expectation of a Messiah whom God would send to liberate them. They hoped that Jesus would be the promised Messiah. This whole episode is connected to the notion of human “fulfillment,” namely to be free. The freedom Jesus would offer was not political or economic, but spiritual – freedom from sin. Jesus’ formula for achieving fulfillment was through repentance and belief in the Gospel. Worldly people, fools, laugh at this. But does the world provide human fulfilment? The world’s news is that the worst is ahead so we have to save the planet. Jesus’ news is that the best is ahead and He will save us. We attain it by repenting and believing the Gospel. The Psalmist knew the best was ahead when he proclaimed, “Your ways, O Lord, make known to me… Guide me in Your truth … For You are God my Savior … Good and upright is the Lord; He shows sinners the way. He guides the humble to justice and teaches the humble His way” (Ps 25:4-19). His way calls us to be humble, repent and have faith in the Gospel.
St. Augustine wrote, “You have created us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” The heart of every person is restless since it cannot find fulfillment in any created thing. Only the Infinite can perfect the finite. Our jobs cannot provide us with the level of satisfaction or achievement sought by our soul. Our relationships cannot completely satisfy us because we’re all imperfect. Our education, degrees, wealth, popularity, etc., cannot make us permanently happy unless they lead us to God. Only God can do this. And the great obstacle that prevents our hearts from resting in God is our sinfulness. So the first step on the path toward fulfilment is the recognition of our sinfulness and our need for the grace of repentance which comes from God.
It’s sad today, despite all our scientific knowledge and material progress, to see the amount of energy and effort being put into an attempt to eliminate God from the world. It’s a perfect example of people shooting themselves in the foot. Why are people so intent in making despair inevitable? Instead of emphasizing the importance of God’s presence in society as the only effective means to overcome restlessness, violence, depression, and disrespect for human life, immorality, and the insane blurring of the differences between man and woman. Why? Because sin is the root cause of all of them. The world’s cure focuses on offering more material things, more antidepressants, more physical pleasure, more egotism, and less responsibility, which actually makes things worse. When are we going to heed the message that humanity has to be saved from sin before it can be perfected? Man and woman need God for their fulfillment. The time to start on the path to fulfilment is now. The Kingdom of God is here, visible in Jesus’ Church announcing His revelation that if you want to live a fulfilled life, a life of integrity rather than despair, then accept that “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel.” This is the formula for happiness. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again:
Jesus Spoke with Authority
The Church opens this week by proclaiming Jesus as the One who speaks with authority. “The people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes” (Mk 1:21-28). What is authority? The dictionary defines authority as “the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.” Where does that power or right come from? It comes from the one who is all-powerful and who determines what is right and, by default, what is wrong, namely God. All authority comes from God who shares His power with men and women for the benefit of His creation.
The purpose of power is to change and improve ourselves and creation according to God’s will. That means eliminating what’s sinful so we can grow in God’s image and likeness thereby achieving our true purpose and the fullness of our potential. To show us how to do this God sent His Word to take on our nature in the womb of a virgin and become man. This man is Jesus whose coming was prophesied hundreds of years earlier in the Old Testament. Moses told God’s people, “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to Him you will listen” (Deut 18: 15-20). Listening to Jesus is crucial because He shows us that God shares His power with us and how to use it in service to Him and to our neighbor. The Psalmist emphasizes the urgency of listening to Jesus when he proclaims, “Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord; let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation,,, Come, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the Lord who made us. For He is our God and we are … the flock He guides. If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts” (Ps 95:1-9).
The fact that all authority comes from God is a reminder that whoever is in a position of authority in this world will be held accountable by Him for the way they use it. No person or institution has authority or power independently of God. The notion that a person or the State authorizes itself and uses power for its own agenda leads to dictatorship and abuse that destroys humanity and creation. The State receives her authority from the people and the people receive it from God. Since the State can’t exist without the people, and people can’t exist without God neither entity has authority apart from God. When the State attempts to deprive the people of the power God has given them it abuses its authority. Such use of authority translates into dictatorship, oligarchy, or some such absolutist form of authoritarian government. Such a government has no authority in the eyes of God and mustn’t be obeyed.
Parents are given authority over their children by God in the Sacrament of Matrimony. From that authority flows the power to raise their children in accord with the teaching of Jesus and His Church. That means listening to Jesus and following in His footsteps as faithful members of His Church. The purpose of this authority is to serve the children by teaching them, through word and example, how to unite with God as their Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, and Guarantor of eternal happiness. To use their authority and power to deprive the children of the knowledge and grace of God, parents abuse their authority for which God will hold them accountable.
The people were impressed with Jesus because He spoke what He believed, namely the truth of which He is the Author, and what He wanted for every man and woman to know, namely that He would make it possible for them to be saved from their sins and enter Heaven. They saw Him use the power that came from His authority to conquer evil and death. The demons recognized His authority and power over them. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One of God!” Jesus silenced them: “Be quiet! Come out of the man!” In amazement the onlookers said to one another, “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the evil spirits and they obey Him.” Jesus demonstrated how God means for authority and power to be used, namely to conquer evil in all its manifestations.
To continue demonstrating God’s authority and power Jesus founded His Church on Peter and authorized him to be the keeper of the keys of God’s Kingdom empowering him to teach the truth. The truth being Jesus Himself. Jesus gave the Apostles, and through them His Church, the authority to speak in His Name. “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; and whoever rejects me rejects the One who sent me” (Lk 10:16). He shared His power with them when He said, “Whose sins you shall forgive they are for-given; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. Whatsoever you bind on earth is bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is loosed in Heaven” (Jn 10:23).
The Apostles, in turn in the Name of Jesus, handed on to the whole Church the authority Jesus had personally given them to continue to bring that deposit of faith to all generations, undiluted. Jesus has authorized His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church to preach and teach His Gospel in His Name guided by the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised, “I will be with my Church all days until the end of the world” (Mt 28:20). The Church in which Jesus is present is the Church to which He has given the authority to speak authentically in His Name under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The authenticity of authority is judged by whether power is being used to facilitate obedience to the Ten Commandments and living the Beatitudes, or it’s being used for egotistical glorification. The Church’s proper use of her authority and power is determined by her emphasis on fidelity to preaching the Gospel. God created the universe as an expression of His love. He created men and women to be stewards of the earth and use it for their benefit. We are stewards of the earth, not saviors of the planet. As its stewards, God authorizes us to use the earth in a manner that unites us with Him. The authority Jesus gave the Apostles and they in turn handed on to the whole Church is authentic only when it’s used to call and enable men and women to convert from sin and receive God’s grace.
Sadly, the Church is made up of sinful human beings and therefore her Apostolic-given authority from Christ has often been abused by her ordained leaders and lay members. That is why Christ instituted the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We’re all sinners, prone to egotism and temptation. The greatest temptation is to try and appropriate authority and power for our own selfish purposes. There is something in our fallen nature that has difficulty trusting in God and doing things His way. We would rather be gods ourselves and create our own truth which is a disguise for the lies we tell ourselves and others. False gods always wield authority and power as weapons for dominating others rather than as instruments of service. Let us pray that we may use the authority Jesus has given us in Baptism and Confirmation to speak and live the Gospel with the power of conviction that will astonish the Woke-infected world and quieten its demons. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again:
Everybody Is Looking for Jesus
How do you feel when a lot of people call on you for help? Do you become irritated and wish they would go away? Jesus had gone to “a lonely place in the desert; there He was absorbed in prayer” spending time alone with His Father when the Apostles interrupted Him. They said, “Everybody was looking for you!” The people kept chasing Him. Why? He offered them freedom from their physical and spiritual diseases and maladies. We all want to be healthy. No one wants to be sick because illness implies pain, weakness, and the reality of death. But we can’t always avoid it. Everyone suffers in one way or another. We can empathize with Job (Jb 7:1-7) when he asked, “Is not man’s life a drudgery? I am filled with restlessness … my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again …” He recognized his need for help to cope with his misery that he couldn’t give himself. We need God to rescue us. The Psalmist, inspired by the Holy Spirit, reveals that in our misery we should, “Praise the Lord for He is good … He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds … To his wisdom there is no limit. The Lord sustains the lowly; the wicked He casts to the ground.” Jesus came to fulfil what the Holy Spirit revealed.
In the Gospel of St. Mark (1:29-39) people witnessed Jesus freeing those suffering from physical and spiritual sickness. Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering with a fever when Jesus visited. He took her hand and helped her up from her sickbed. She was down but He raised her up. The word about Jesus’ miracle spread. By that night several people suffering physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental illnesses were brought to Jesus in the hope of being lifted up from them. Jesus helped helpless people to regain their strength and freedom. Was it any wonder that the Apostles located Him as He prayed and said, “Everybody is looking for you”?
Jesus said: “I have come that you might have life and have it to the full” (Jn 10:10). He came to restore fallen human nature to its original state by re-uniting it with God. Thus He empowers all who believe in Him to turn their life of drudgery into an exciting and productive one where they’re no longer bored living meaningless lives. The creature needs a positive relationship with the Creator in order to know what his or her potential is. The creature needs to be constantly in the company of the Creator in order to know what is natural or unnatural for him or her. The Creator energizes the creature to be creative and fulfil his or her potential.
Is everybody looking for Jesus today? Yes, even though many don’t know it and look for fulfillment in all the wrong places. As creatures we’re looking for our Creator who alone can fulfil us. Jesus is the only one who can tell us who the Creator is and what His directions are. Without Jesus we can’t have a personal relationship with God and so are easily tempted to follow false gods. When I know my Creator He enables me to know my true identity and purpose as His creature. The Creator creates the creature and gives it its nature. That nature has a built-in law directing it to its true goal or destiny. That is called the Natural Law. When nature goes against that law it behaves unnaturally. Unnatural behavior does an injustice to the integrity of the creature, turning it into something it was never meant to be. The result is disorder, confusion, and destruction. When we act in a manner that contradicts our nature we become disordered internally and externally. We twist our soul into a grotesque shape by feeding it with what is poisonous. Our human nature has a built-in law that acts like the white lines on the road. When we cross these lines we leave the safety zone and endanger our life as well as the life of others. The law of nature isn’t there to limit us, but to keep us on track as we confidently move forward to our true destiny. Thus we have order in our life and are able to be fully present to ourselves and to all of God’s creation. The moment we reject the law of our human nature is also the moment we ignore the laws built into the natures of other parts of creation. When we ignore the law of our human nature, because we’re the high-point of earthly creation, we automatically cause disorder in the rest of the universe. As we go, so goes the world. If we lead the world away from God by rebelling against the law He instilled in our human nature the result will be chaos since we’ll try to redefine our own purpose and the purpose of creation as we want it, not as the Creator ordained it.
The more we deny or ignore the law of human nature the more we’ll enact laws that promote what’s unnatural to humanity. The legalization of abortion is a perfect example of a law enacted by men who have rejected the built-in law of human nature to continue our species. It’s unnatural to kill one’s young. Margaret Mead, noted anthropologist, said that any species that kills its young dooms itself to extinction. Attempts to enact laws legitimizing assisted ѕυιcιdє are examples of man acting against his nature, which is to live. Death is unnatural because God didn’t create us to die but to live eternally. Promoting the legalization and blessing of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ unions exemplifies the attempt to reject the natural law that God created man and a woman to naturally complement one another and use their sɛҳuąƖity to transmit life. Due to Adam and Eve’s sin we suffer from a fallen nature. Jesus redeemed it so that we don’t fall into the trap of trying to make a behavior that flows from fallen human nature into an accepted behavior of redeemed human nature. That would be an aberration. The natural law is always bolstered by the revealed will of God expressed in Jesus’ teaching. It doesn’t change.
Man-made laws must always reflect the natural law if they are to promote the common good of all men and women. What’s legal isn’t always what’s moral. The morality of a law is always judged by whether or not it reflects the natural law. If it doesn’t - as in the case of abortion, same-sex unions, transgenderism, euthanasia, etc. - it is immoral and fuels disorder in the world. We need Jesus to help us put order into our disordered lives.
Everybody needs Jesus because He alone enables fallen human nature to obey the law instilled in it by His Father. He came to cure and make whole those who suffered disorders, of one kind or another, namely sin. He called everyone to become holy. Holiness is attained through walking in the company of God. This walk automatically leads to wholeness, which involves adherence to nature’s laws.
Jesus reminds us that He came to bring order to a disordered humanity through hearing and living in accord with His word of truth. He said to His Apostles, “Let us go to the nearby villages so that I may preach there also. For this purpose I have come.” St Paul (1 Cor 9:16-23), inspired by the Holy Spirit, felt the urgency to introduce Jesus to the world. “Woe to me if I do not preach it (Gospel) …I have become all things to all, to save at least some. All this I do for the sake of the Gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.” Jesus handed the task of preaching His Gospel to His Apostles as the first leaders of His Church and they in turn handed it on to their successors down to today. He said, “Go forth and make disciples of all the nations… Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you” (Mt 28:18-20). What He commanded them to do was preach the Gospel that called everyone to know that “The reign of God is at hand! Reform your lives and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15). This is how order is restored. Everyone is seeking, in one way or another, to improve their life and that requires putting Jesus first in our life. Since only Jesus can help people do that, everyone needs to find Him. Hence the urgency to evangelize. (fr sean).
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Fr Sean again:
Humility and Faith Bring Jesus’ Cleansing Touch
A leper approached Jesus, expressed his faith in Him, and pleaded to be cured. St. Mark relates that Jesus felt pity for the man. Pity is defined as “sympathetic sorrow for one suffering, distressed, or unhappy.” Leprosy was a dreaded disease. It brought much pain, distress, and unhappiness to the sufferer since it meant isolation from family and community. It caused the person’s bodily extremities to rot, creating a bad smell. Jєωιѕн law banned lepers from any interaction with their families and friends to prevent contagion. Out of fear of contagion and an attempt at containment the Mosaic Law stipulated that, “The one who bears the sore of leprosy … shall declare himself unclean … he shall dwell apart making his abode outside the camp.” (Lv 13:1-2, 44-46).
Jesus, acting out of faith rather than obedience to a man-made law, “stretched out His hand and touched him” (Mk 1:41). Jesus sees no one as untouchable, except those who choose to reject Him. The leper had two qualities going for him, namely faith and humility. By “Kneeling down as he addressed Him” (Mk 1:40) the man humbly requested Jesus’ power to restore him to health and family. He displayed His faith in Jesus when he said, “If you will to do so, you can cure me” (Mk 1:40). Jesus responded to the man’s humble prayer of faith: “I do will it. Be made clean.” (Mk 1:40-41). Then He told the man, “Go off and present yourself to the priest and offer for your cure what Moses prescribed. That should be proof for them” (Mk 1:44). Only the priest had the authority to declare a leper cleansed from his disease and reunited with his family. Similarly, only a priest of the Church has the authority to declare a penitent to be cleansed of his or her sin and be reunited with God’s family.
Humility and faith are essential qualities in our requests for God’s help to cope with our infirmities and receive forgiveness for our sins. The Psalmist exemplifies these virtues when he proclaimed, “I turn to You, Lord, in time of trouble. You fill me with the joy of salvation. Blessed is he whose fault is taken away, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes not guilt, in whose spirit there is no guile” (Ps 32:1, 2, 5, 11). Humility and Faith force us to admit that we cannot save ourselves. The leper knew he couldn’t save himself. He was receptive to the Holy Spirit of truth who enabled him to see Jesus as his Saviour. This is the challenge to each of us. Am I receptive to the Holy Spirit who alone is able to enlighten my spirit with the truth of who I am and what I need to be free, to belong, to be powerful, and to enjoy myself as God’s creation? This is why we should begin each day inviting the Holy Spirit to fill our heart and enkindle in us the fire of His divine love so that we may be created in accord with God’s will, be truly wise, share in His consolations, and with His help renew the face of the earth. That’s our vocation.
None of us is immune to physical disease. Neither are we immune to spiritual disease - sin. We can’t cleanse our soul from the stain of sin. We can clean our body but we can’t clean our soul. We need the Holy Spirit to cleanse our soul. Since God is the Creator of our soul, our self, only He can cleanse it of its diseases. The soul becomes sick through sin. Like leprosy, sin deforms us, making our soul ugly, which is reflected in our spirit, causing us to alienate one another. Only the love of God binds us together and purifies our soul that’s reflected in a positive spirit. Sin – taking for ourselves - is the opposite of love – giving to others. Since we inherit a sin-stained nature due to Original Sin we come into the world prone to selfishness. Jesus didn’t come to cleanse us from bodily leprosy, but He did come to cleanse us from spiritual leprosy, namely the sinfulness that disfigures who God created us to be, namely His image and likeness. “Jesus said to them, ‘The healthy do not need a doctor; sick people do. I have not come to invite the self-righteous to a change of heart, but sinners’” (Lk 5:31). Self-righteous people don’t recognize their spiritual disfigurement. Sinners do. They’re the ones who, in faith, recognize Jesus as the Cleanser, the Saviour, and, like the leper, humbly kneel and ask to be made clean and restored to the community, Jesus’ Church. This is what happens in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Coming to call sinners, Jesus knew that spiritual cleansing would be an ongoing human need. This is why He delegated His power of forgiveness to Peter and the other Apostles which they handed on through the ordained priests of His Church. Thus Jesus made cleansing from sin available to the repentant sinner until the end of time. He does so through His Church’s Sacraments. In Baptism He frees us from Satan’s grip on our soul and from our disordered bodily desires. In Reconciliation He washes away our personal sins, especially those that are serious or mortal. In the Holy Mass He cleanses us from our venial sins. In the Anointing of the Sick He cleanses those who’re too weak to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Jas 5:13ff). But, like the leper, to be cured, cleansed of our spiritual diseases we need humility and faith. Just like the leper who wanted to follow Him, Jesus told him to go back home and tell his family what happened to him, he wants us to do the same. In the words of St. Paul (1 Cor 10:31-11:1), “Do everything for the glory of God.” Then we’ll hear Jesus’ words through His Church when we ask Him to cleanse us: “I do will it. Be cured, clean, forgiven, made whole, and reconciled to God’s family!”
Jesus’ Church provides us with a special season during which God’s cleansing graces flow in a special way. This period of time is known as Lent. It begins this coming Wednesday – Ash Wednesday. Interestingly, Wednesday is also the feast of St. Valentine, a priest, who ministered to persecuted Christians, is the patron of chaste love and those suffering from epilepsy. He was martyred for his Catholic Faith. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent calling us to “repent and believe in the Gospel” as people whose bodies will become dust one day. Valentine believed in the Gospel so much that He gave his life for it because it brought him to Jesus. Following in the footsteps of Valentine Lent is a time to become purified from our sins by practicing humility, deepening our faith in Jesus Christ, and living chaste lives. The Lord wants to touch us with His healing hand but, like the leper and St. Valentine, we must humbly request His help and completely trust in Him. Through humble and faithful fasting, prayer, and generosity may each of us be restored to full spiritual health and be reunited to Jesus’ Church as the leper was after Jesus restored him to his health and family. May the joy of God’s cleansing grace be yours this holy Lenten season (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again:
Lent: Lead Us not Into Temptation
Beginning with Ash Wednesday Jesus’ Church devotes the following six weeks to emphasizing the need for us to more deeply embed prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in our daily routine so that we can be purified from our sinfulness and experience the joy of Easter Resurrection. These activities open our minds to be seeded by God’s thoughts, so they can take root in our soul, influence our heart, and strengthen us against evil. This is essential if we want to give witness to the world that Jesus Christ is the only true Saviour of mankind. As members of Jesus’ Church we’re called to be His witnesses in the world displaying His powerful presence within us. This requires training and exercise, which involves humble prayer, fasting, and the practise of generosity. Lent is the Church’s yearly retreat when she helps us to stop and ask our self “Am I as Christian and faithful to Jesus as I ought to be” It’s a time when we stop and ask “If I were to die today would God say to me, ‘Welcome, good and faithful servant’ or ‘Depart from me, I don’t know you’”? The somber Biblical words uttered by the priest on Ash Wednesday as he makes the Sign of the Cross on our foreheads with blessed ashes, “Remember, man, that you are dust and into dust you will return,” (Ps103) are a stark reminder that our meeting with God gets nearer every day. The priest then follows with Jesus’ command: “Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15), which spells out what we must do if we want that meeting to be joyful. The ashes remind us that this body of ours, whose desires demand instant gratification that takes up so much of our time and energy, will one day be reduced to dust. Then what? Every day we live is one day closer to the grave. Our body’s desire is for pleasure. Our soul’s desire is for God. Do you and I give equal time to both? The purpose of the body is to serve the soul, not vice versa. This is why God reminds us, especially during Lent, to focus on nurturing what survives death and doesn’t become ashes, namely our soul, whose destiny is either Heaven or hell, depending on our choices here on earth. The Holy Spirit warns us that, “If a man sows in the field of the flesh he will reap a harvest of corruption; but if his seed-ground is the spirit, he will reap everlasting life” (Gal 6:8).
It makes sense to invest in what gives us the best and most long-lasting return. The more we focus on our soul the more we realize our need for God because the soul cries out for His love. We need God if we want to be with Him in Heaven because only He can make that possible. Therefore, we need to discipline our body and use material things in a manner that makes us more conscious that only the things of Heaven really fulfil us. The things of this earth will pass away; but the things of Heaven never pass away - they are eternal (Mt 6:33).
Jesus spent forty days in the desert fasting and praying in preparation for His public ministry (Mk 1:12-15). There Satan tempted Him to abandon God’s will promising power, populsarity, pleasure, and possessions. Jesus countered the temptations with God’s word of truth. After His desert experience Jesus announced that, “This is a time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel.” Jesus showed God to be faithful to His Old Testament promises. We must ask ourselves if we’re faithful to our promises to God in the way we live. Do we pay more attention to what others say and do than to what Jesus says and does? As Christians we’re in a difficult position because we live in the world that’s Satan’s kingdom, but through Baptism we belong to Jesus’ Kingdom. Jesus tells us clearly that His Kingdom doesn’t belong to this world (Jn 18:36). We need to reflect on this to make sure we’re not living in Satan’s Kingdom while saying we belong to God’s Kingdom. Jesus warns us: “But because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth!” (Rev 3:16).
Satan loves lukewarm people because he can easily manipulate them. This is why Jesus’s prayer calls us to ask God our Father to “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” (Mt 6:13). Why is temptation so tempting? Because Satan makes what’s bad for us look good and pleasurable. We all want what’s good and pleasurable. But looks can be deceiving. We need Jesus, who is the truth, to help us see that Satan’s promises are always false by exposing him as “a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44). We give in to temptation because we don’t listen to Jesus who tells us through the Holy Scriptures what’s good and bad for us. If we don’t know Jesus and hear His teaching we have no one to expose Satan’s lies until it’s too late for us. The devil is sly, he paints evil to look desirable, just like he did with Eve. We therefore must be wise to his wiles and ways. Thus we need to examine everything through the eyes of Jesus to see what’s true or false. He gives us the grace to see what’s of God and what isn’t. On our own we’re no match for Satan’s manipulation. Hence the need to sharpen our spiritual radar through prayer, fasting, and acts of generosity, good catechesis and Christian conscience formation.
Each of us is fair game for Satan’s take-down when we give him the opportunity. He attracts us to the seven deadly sins. He never presents anything that looks bad. He covers his lies with attractive wrapping. Because our will is attracted only to the good we choose only what looks good. The reason we give in to temptation is because we see it as desirable and fulfilling. We need the Holy Spirit to show us what’s good and what only looks good but isn’t. Our human spirit is either influenced by the Spirit of God or the spirit of evil. We would have no problem rejecting evil if we saw its real ugliness. Hence the need for sound moral teaching and self-discipline. The problem is we don't always think or ask or discuss, or pray about our decisions until it’s too late. Were it not for our God-given emotion of guilt and His grace of repentance we would all be doomed to hell. We need to pray daily with the Psalmist, “Your ways, O Lord, make known to me; teach me Your paths. Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are God my Saviour… Good and upright is the Lord, thus He shows sinners the way. He guides the humble to justice, and He teaches the humble His way” (Ps 25:4-9).
Only God can fulfill us; the world cannot. We must reject the false promise of an earthly utopia, which is tempting because we all want perfection. Since God created the world only He can save and perfect it. We can neither save ourselves nor the planet. We have to be humble and wise enough to admit that perfection is impossible without God and can only be fully realized in Heaven with Him. Because Jesus knew the power of Satan and the gullibility of human beings He knew we would fall victim to temptation. This is why He gave His Church the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
St. Peter reminds us that, “Christ suffered for sins once, the just for the sake of the unjust, that He might lead you to God” (1 Peter 3:18-22). One of the conditions to be a disciple of Jesus and live in His Kingdom is to “repent and believe in the Gospel.” God speaks to us through Jesus’ Church this Lent asking us to flavor our daily routine with prayer, fasting, almsgiving, Bible reading, and acts of repentance. Thus we prepare ourselves to resist temptation to gratify our body rather than our soul and so live in God’s Kingdom rather than Satan’s. Have a Spirit-filled Lent. (fr sean sheehy)
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Fr Sean again:
Passing The Test
Often when offering a catechetical course to adults the first question asked is, “Will there be tests?” Both teachers and students are known to opine that school would be great if it weren’t for tests. Wouldn’t life be cozy if it weren’t for tests? Testing is the bane of so many things. Love, peace, relationships, friendships, faith would be a breeze if they weren’t tested? Mechanical things look so good and capable until they’re tested and found to be not as good as they looked. Why are we so uncomfortable with tests? Probably it’s because we fear the results might not be as good as we would like. We don’t like being put in a situation where we risk finding out that something isn’t what we hoped for. Someone said that the test is the thing that makes us weep or causes us to sing.
But we need tests in order to determine where we’re successful or failing. It lets us see whether or not we’re achieving what we want to achieve. We don’t look for tests, but we need them. At work an evaluation lets us know whether or not we’re being productive. In school we need tests to let us know if we are or aren’t mastering the subject. In religious life temptation tests our love for God and others. To be tempted is to be tested on how strong is our commitment to our beliefs, values, and truths. Do we really value this or that, or are we just pretending? Are we simply virtue signalers? The test separates the believers from the hypocrites, saints from sinners, life-givers from life-takers, the real from the phony, the Christian from the humanist. The test clarifies for us what we’ve mastered or what masters us. The test is also a reminder that nothing worthwhile is easy. Inspiration is useless without perspiration.
Jesus’ Church uses Lent to test our willingness to make prayer, fasting, and generosity part and parcel of our daily life as Christians. During this holy season is an opportunity to see whether we’re taking our relationship with God seriously or whether convenience and self-gratification are the guiding principles of our daily life.
God introduces us to Abraham’s test in Genesis (22:1-18). God loved Abraham, so much so that He blessed him and Sarah with a son, Isaac, in their old age. He was their pride and joy and the hope of the family’s continuity. God wanted to test Abraham’s priorities. Perhaps now Abraham loved his son more than he loved God! God told Abraham that He wanted him to offer up his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice in a place He would show him. Try to imagine yourself in Abraham’s place. What would you do? God continually gives us opportunities to test whether our love for Him takes precedence over the things in our life we deem important.
Would Abraham’s love for God take precedence over his love for his only son? By getting everything ready to kill his son, Abraham demonstrated that he passed the test. Today the Church calls Abraham “our Father in Faith.” Why? He showed that no matter what God asked of him, regardless of the pain, he would obey. He totally trusted in God’s plan for him. The angel ordered Abraham, “Do not lay a hand on the boy.” Abraham, I’m sure was relieved and gladly killed the ram God provided for him to sacrifice in place of Isaac. In this action God also taught Abraham that child sacrifice would have no place in the people’s worship of Him. Abraham lived among people who practiced child sacrifice to their gods. So the ritual killing of children wasn’t unheard of. God revealed that human life is precious to Him and must always be treated with dignity and respect. When God is ignored, replaced by human egos, the sanctity of human life is forgotten and people are sacrificed on the altar of convenience and selfishness. The culture of death is upheld in abortion, assisted ѕυιcιdє, and euthanasia demonstrating society’s choice of convenience and self-gratification over God. The killing of human life is a direct result of the rejection of God as its Creator and Sanctifier. Many have failed the test of whether love of God and trust in Him take precedence over self-love. Where is God in our daily priorities?
St. Paul (Rom 8:31-34) follows up this theme regarding putting God first. He says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” There’s no doubt that God is for us - despite our sinfulness. “He who did not spare His own Son but handed Him over for us all, how will He not give us everything else along with Him?” The problem is that we aren’t always for God. If we were, we wouldn’t focus on satisfying ourselves. Abraham could have become totally absorbed with his son and, since he now had what he wanted, could conclude that he didn’t need God anymore. That happens to us sometimes. We cry to God when we need something and when we get it we forget Him. We become absorbed with what we have and forget who the source of all good things is. We become obsessed with some individual or ideology and forget that only God can save us from hell. When that happens we lose our sense of direction and end up lost, hurt, and betrayed. Love without God is lust. Any time we put another human being at the center of our life we push God out. Then we’re disappointed because we find out that no human being can meet our needs. Only the Creator can fully satisfy the creature. A human being didn’t create our soul, which makes us human, therefore no human being can fulfill or satisfy us. We’re truly free only when we put God first and are willing to give up everything for the love of Him. Without God we can’t be free. Sin is slavery.
In St. Mark’s Gospel (Mk 9:2-10) Jesus passed the test posed by those who questioned or doubted whether He really was the Son of God? St. Mark records Jesus’ transfiguration. Peter, James and John were privileged to hear God the Father identify Jesus: “This is My Son, My beloved. Listen to Him.” They experienced Jesus as the Son of God and it was so awesome that Peter wanted to keep the experience forever. He couldn’t. Jesus passed the test of the Messiah. What did that mean? It meant that He came to fulfil God’s Old Testament covenantal promises identified in the Law and the Prophets, represented by Moses and Elijah. He brought the good news that God was now making it possible for men and women to overcome their sinfulness and once again, as it was in the beginning. How? By becoming obedient to God’s rule, order would be restored to one’s life despite living in a disordered world.
Where does this leave us? First of all, the test of our Faith is an everyday experience – choose God or fulfil our own desires. Every decision we make is a choice between obeying Jesus or becoming our own god (a false god). Do we support a culture of life or a culture of death? Who we listen to makes the difference in our decisions. What do we sow in our mind? Our decisions, in turn, show clearly whom we’re trusting. Jesus confronts us at this time: “If you trust me, then do what I am telling you?” We say we listen to Jesus; we say we trust in Him; but do we really? The test is whether we’re willing to let Him be our Master and Savior. Do we pray daily with the Psalmist (116:10-19), “O Lord, I am Your servant … You have loosed my bonds. To You will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving, and I will call upon the Name of the Lord”?
The test during Lent is to witness our love for Jesus as our first priority by taking the time to pray, fast, and be generous towards others with our time, talent, and treasure – that is Jesus’ way - the Way of the Cross. Thus we become transformed and pass the test. (fr. sean)
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Fr Sean again:
What’s in Your Heart?
On this 3rd Sunday of Lent we hear the Jesus’ Church proclaiming God’s word from Exodus 20: 1-17, Psalm 19:8-11, 1 Cor 1:22-25, and John 2: 13-25. God speaks to us about His Commandments and the purpose of the Temple. We hear from St. Paul how Jesus’ crucifixion was a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.
Because autonomy is so important to us we don’t like to be told what to do. We want to govern ourselves. So we’re very quick to demand our rights but slow to carry out our duties. Knowing this, God gave us commandments that identify our duties to Him and to our neighbor. A commandment isn’t the same as a suggestion. We’re free to accept or reject a suggestion but a commandment requires obedience. When you issue a command it means you’re specifying something that’s essential for either the good of the individual or the society or both. Commandments identify what’s necessary for order, harmony and progress in one’s life as a member of the community. Commandments are to be obeyed whether or not we feel like it. They provide a level playing field that regulates actions of a community’s members and carry with them penalties for disobeying them. In the absence of commandments or law there’s only anarchy and chaos that bring severe suffering to the innocent. God wants His people to live harmoniously so He has revealed Ten Commandments to ensure that freedom, justice, peace, and truth reign in the hearts of His people.
For God’s people to live harmoniously it’s essential to obey His will. The first thing we must do is recognize that He is the only true God and there are no others. Anyone else or thing that’s adored is a false god and false gods are impotent. The true God demands that we reverence His Name and worship Him especially on the Sabbath. Reverencing His Name demonstrates that we recognize Him as all holy and the source of our holiness. We recognize God as Our Creator through love of our father and mother, protecting human life, upholding marriage as a sacred covenant between a man and a woman whose purpose is to use their sɛҳuąƖity to transmit life, respect other people’s property, being truthful, avoiding being envious and jealous. The violation of any of these commands is a rejection of God and creates disharmony, alienation and abuse of our humanity.
God issued 10 Commandments – 10 “Words” - to let us know what’s needed in order to be fully human and fully alive. They point us to eternal life that Christ made possible. The Holy Spirit inspired the Psalmist to proclaim, “Lord, You have the words of everlasting life” (Ps 19). If we believe that God has the words of everlasting life, and we want to live eternally, our reason says that we should be more than willing to accept God’s words? So why does God command us to accept His words? Does it make sense to have to be commanded to receive something we want more than anything, namely eternal happiness? He knew that, because of our fallen nature, we would try to live according to our way rather than His and ruin ourselves in the process.
Through the Psalmist God tells us that His Law is “perfect, refreshing the soul.” If you want to achieve perfection and refresh your soul, you must obey God’s law. His Law will never lead you in the wrong direction. It is “trustworthy … gives wisdom to the simple … it’s right… rejoices the heart…it’s clear…enlightening the eye… it’s pure… enduring… true… just… precious…and sweet.” This Law is fulfilled and personified in Jesus who makes all these qualities possible for us to enjoy. Given all this, why would the crucified Christ be a “stumbling block for the Jews, and an absurdity to the Gentiles...” (1 Cor. 1:22-25). Is it because we focus only on what we see rather than on what God tells us? Jesus tells us that laying down one’s life for one’s friends is the greatest display of love (Jn 15:13).
We tend to use the things of God for our own purposes rather than for why He has given them to us. An example of this is the use of the Temple as a place for commerce rather than a place for worshipping God. Jesus gets very angry when He sees the Temple being abused (John 2:13-25). We see that today when the sacred space is used for holding concerts. Clergy try to justify it by framing it as a fundraiser. It’s still using God’s house of prayer for commercial purposes. Using the Church building for something other than worship is a desecration of sacred space. Jesus became angry at the abuse of the “house of prayer” and drove the worldly abusers out. St. John tells us that, “He needed no one to give Him testimony about human nature. He was well aware of what was in man’s heart.”
So what’s in man’s heart? What’s in our heart is what we’ve planted in our soul; what’s growing in our soul are the thoughts we’ve freely sown in our mind. This is what supplies the contents of our heart. Our behavior shows whether what’s in our heart is or isn’t compatible with God’s Law and Jesus’ teaching. In many instances our heart and God’s will are diametrically opposed. What’s in our heart reflects a culture of life or a culture of death. Because of our fallen nature we’ve an unconscious death wish placed there by Satan. There’s something inside us that’s basically destructive. The thing we want most, namely life, we’ll end up destroying if we don’t obey God’s Law.
The materialistic culture rejects God or tries to use Him for its selfish purposes. I saw an ad in a magazine which showed a woman wearing a T-shirt on which was written: “Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere!” As I read it I thought how stupid. They go everywhere but where they need to go. The notion was that the “bad girls” who go “everywhere” are really living free and enjoying themselves, while the “good girls” who “go to heaven” don’t live at all. The good girls go to heaven while the bad girls try to escape their emptiness and dead-end relationships with drugs, promiscuity, and ѕυιcιdє. What they consider to be a “good time” leads to a bad time not just temporarily but also eternally.
Jesus revealed that what makes a man or woman impure is what comes from the heart. “Whatever comes out of the mouth comes from the heart and this is what defiles or dishonours a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts and plans, murders, adulteries, sɛҳuąƖ immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slanders, verbal abuse, irreverent speech, blaspheming” (Mt 15:18-19). What influences the heart begins with the thoughts we sow in our mind.
This Lent we must examine what kind of thoughts we’re sowing in our mind, planting in our soul, that provide the contents of our heart. What’s in our heart makes us the kind of people we are – either promoters of life or death. We need to fill our mind with God’s thoughts that give us supernatural Faith, Hope, and Love. Let’s fill our minds with God’s Ten Commandments so that we may live a harmonious and ordered life sustained by practicing faith, hope, and charity. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. Only Jesus can give us life. Jesus said, “If you love me keep my Commandments” (Jn 14:15). If we don’t then we so not love Him without Whom we are doomed
Fasting, prayer, and generosity prepare our mind for sowing thoughts in it about God’s Law that’s already written in our heart (Rom 2:15). Thus we need to take the time to meditate on God’s perfect law that leads us to a perfect life made possible by loving Jesus which we demonstrate by keeping His commandments as faithful members of His Church. May our hearts be refreshed by lovingly obeying God’s Law. Then our life will be lively and joyful. Following any other law will lead us to where we don’t want to be.
(fr sean)
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Thank you, Father Sean. A rosary for Father Sean and Cassini. We will pray for them.
(Please pray for friends/family in County Donegal.)
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Fr Sean again:
Is God Inclusive?
As we enter the middle of Lent during which God calls us to fast, pray, and give alms He also calls us to deepen our relationship with Him. We have been taught by the Church, reflecting the Holy Scriptures, that God loves everyone and calls everyone to belong to His Kingdom. But does that mean that everyone is included in His Kingdom? We hear a lot today about inclusivity both politically and religiously. In relation to that we also hear about diversity and equity. What do these words mean for Christians? Does God want to include everyone? Does God want diversity? Does He want equity which is understood today as equality of output? God wants to include everyone but being included is conditional. God doesn’t want diversity, rather He wants unity. God doesn’t want equity of output, rather He wants equality of opportunity base on meritocracy and on entitlement based on gender, race, or culture.
Is God inclusive? What does it mean to be inclusive? Generally it means to respect, value, and act justly towards every human being regardless of race, nationality, colour, or creed. While we must act justly and respect every person, that doesn’t mean that we will want to include everyone in our home, work, leisure activities, etc. Why? We don’t include in our circles anyone who demeans us, is violent towards us, or insults us. Inclusivity is conditional. Even God’s inclusivity is conditional. God doesn’t give us a blank sheet and tell us to fill in the conditions upon which we expect Him to include us in His Kingdom. He lays down the conditions that we must meet if we want Him to include us in His family. He provides those conditions in the Holy Scriptures and in the Apostolic Tradition of Jesus’ Church. Jesus is very clear in revealing that belonging to His Church is conditional: “I assure you, unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of God” (Mt 18:2-4). Witness Jesus’ Parable of the Net (Mt 13:47-50) where the fishermen haul all kinds of fish in their net but keep the good fish and throw away the bad. We have to stop being apathetic and take God’s word seriously because He says what He means and means what He says. We must remember what God said to Moses and His people: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, BUT who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Ex 34:6-7). God wants to stop the rot of sin in us but if we don’t cooperate with Him the rottenness will continue down through the generations. What kind of a legacy do we want to hand on to our children?
God’s people in the Old Testament found out that if they didn’t meet God’s conditions they would be excluded from His protection and so were overcome by their enemies. “The God of their fathers sent His messengers to them. But they mocked the messengers … despised God’s warnings and scoffed at His prophets, until the anger of the Lord against His people became so inflamed that there was no remedy” (2 Chron 36:14-23). The Babylonians conquered the Israelites and enslaved them. Seventy years later, after much suffering, the Israelites received another chance to obey God’s conditions for inclusivity in His company. He inspired Cyrus, the pagan king of Persia, to liberate them and let them return to Jerusalem, rebuild the Temple, and renew their commitment to be faithful to the covenant requirements. God, in His mercy, gave them another chance to get it right, to repent of their rebelliousness, and humbly consent to obey His rules. The required change of attitude is summed up by the Psalmist: “May my tongue cleave to my palate if I remember You not, if I place not Jerusalem ahead of my joy” (Ps 137:1-6). The Jerusalem Temple symbolized God's presence.
This is the God revealed by Jesus in John’s Gospel (3:14-21): “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life… whoever believes in Him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he did not believe in God’s only Son.” St. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, highlighted God’s mercy, in his letter to the Ephesians (2:4-10): “God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love He has for us, even when we were dead in our sins, brought us to life in Christ.” The Holy Spirit reveals here that if we want to be saved by God we must believe in Jesus Christ, not just in our words but more importantly in our actions. If we don’t we’ll be excluded from Heaven. Death will be an enormous shock for so many who think they lived a good life according to the world’s standard but it wasn’t good according to Jesus’ standard.
What we have to realize here is that while God loves and calls everyone to belong to Him we must meet His conditions in order to benefit from His love and invitation. Jesus Himself stated clearly that, “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will acknowledge before my Father in Heaven. Whoever disowns me before men I will disown before my Father in Heaven” (Mt 10:32-33). This is He why revealed Himself to be “the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6). There are no diverse ways to Heaven. Universalism is common today, namely the false notion that all religions are equal and direct ways to Heaven. Sadly, this heresy is promoted even by some leaders within Jesus’ Church. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Jesus is the one and only way. Therefore to enter Heaven every person will have to acknowledge that Jesus is God’s only Son (Jn 17:3), the Redeemer of the world, and is the only means of entry. That requires supernatural Faith, which in turn requires us to be receptive to the Holy Spirit so that He can convert our human spirit to obey God’s will. Very often our human spirit is a rebellious one and we don’t like to be told what to do. This is why Jesus warned us to realize immediately that, “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:12-15). That means in the words of |St. Peter, “Reform your lives! Turn to God, that your sins may be wiped away! Thus may a season of refreshment be granted you by the Lord when He sends you Jesus, already designated as your Messiah” (Acts 3:19-20).
Let us not be tricked by Satan into thinking that God accepts us as we are and so we don’t need to change. God meets us where we are in order to bring us to where we need to be and do what we need to do in order to be included in His Kingdom and benefit from His love. God’s inclusivity is conditional. Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in His love, just as I love my Father and keep His commandments” (Jn 15:10). Let’s remember that if we don’t keep His commandments we don’t remain in His love. To be included we must obey God’s rules and we skirt them to our own eternal hell. (fr sean)
The Litany of Preparation for Confession of Sin
This is a prayer asking for God’s mercy, forgiveness, and aid in turning from sin. It invokes Jesus Christ, recalling His mercy and forgiveness shown to many sinners and outcasts in the Bible – from Adam to Zacchaeus. It asks for the grace to judge ourselves and produce worthy fruits of penance so that sin does not reign in me. The prayer seeks pardon, peace, cleansing from offenses, and the ability to serve God with a quiet mind.
The Litany of Penance
Lord, have mercy on me.
Christ, have mercy on me.
Lord, have mercy on me.
Christ, hear me.
Christ, graciously hear me.
God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on me.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on me.
God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on me.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on me.
Incarnate Lord, have mercy on me.
Lover of souls, have mercy on me.
Saviour of sinners, have mercy on me.
Who came to seek those that were lost, have mercy on me.
Who fasted for them forty days and nights, have mercy on me.
By Thy tenderness towards Adam when he fell, have mercy on me.
By Thy faithfulness to Noah in the ark, have mercy on me.
By Thy remembrance of Lot in the midst of sinners, have mercy on me.
By Thy mercy on the Israelites in the desert, have mercy on me.
By Thy forgiveness of David after his confession, have mercy on me.
By Thy patience with wicked Ahab on his humiliation, have mercy on me.
By Thy restoration of the penitent Manasseh, have mercy on me.
By Thy long suffering towards the Ninevites, when they went in sackcloth and ashes, have mercy on me.
By Thy blessing on the Maccabees, who fasted before the battle, have mercy on me.
By Thy choice of John to go before Thee as the preacher of repentance, have mercy on me.
By Thy testimony to the Publican, who hung his head and smote his breast, have mercy on me.
By Thy welcome given to the returning Prodigal, have mercy on me.
By Thy gentleness with the woman of Samaria, have mercy on me.
By Thy condescension towards Zacchaeus, persuading him to restitution, have mercy on me.
By Thy pity upon the woman taken in adultery, have mercy on me.
By Thy love of Magdalen, who loved much, have mercy on me.
By Thy converting look, at which Peter wept, have mercy on me.
By Thy gracious words to the thief upon the cross, have mercy on me.
I am a sinner, I beseech Thee, hear me.
That I may judge myself, as to escape Thy judgment, I beseech Thee, hear me.
That I may bring forth worthy fruits of penance, I beseech Thee, hear me.
That sin may not reign in my mortal body, I beseech Thee, hear me.
That I may work out my salvation with fear and trembling, I beseech Thee, hear me.
Son of God, I beseech Thee, hear me.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare me, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear me, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on me.
Christ, hear me.
Christ, graciously hear me.
O Lord, hear my prayer.
And let my cry come unto Thee.
Closing prayer
Grant, I beseech Thee, O Lord, to Thy faithful, pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their offenses, and also serve Thee with a quiet mind, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Fr Sean again:
Cleanse Your Heart
Traditionally the heart symbolizes love and compassion. In Biblical times, the heart referred to the core of a person; the centre of his or her self. It indicated a person’s mental, emotional, spiritual, and moral substance. A heart pierced with an arrow symbolized failed relationships or betrayed love. We’re all familiar with the terms ‘broken heart,’ ‘sweetheart,’ ‘lonely heart,’ ‘hard heart,’ ‘heartless,’ ‘brave heart,’ ‘heartily,’ ‘heartfelt.’ Jesus described those who rejected Him as “Sluggish indeed is this people’s heart.” (Mt 13:15). He accused the Pharisees of being hypocrites, quoting God’s word from Isaiah: “This people pays me lip service but their heart is far from me” (Mk 7:6). What we say must be backed up by actions. If we say we’re Catholic then we must practice being Catholic in our thoughts, words, and actions witnessing our faith in Jesus Christ at home, at work, and at play.
The heart reflects the state of the soul, and the state of the soul reflects the mind. Our mind, soul, and heart all interact in the expression of who we are. The thoughts we sow in our mind become planted in our soul, which influences our heart. What’s in our heart is the reflection of the thoughts we freely choose and plant in our soul. What happens to our soul – our self – shapes our heart and is reflected in our thinking and our choosing that becomes visible in our spirit, our attitude, our ways? Lent is a time when we need to examine our heart to purify it. Why? Because God tells us through His prophet, “I, the Lord, probe the mind and test the heart, to reward everyone according to his ways, according to the merits of his deeds.” (Jer 17:10) What we put in our mind takes root in our soul and determines the contents of our heart. God urgently calls us to, “Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God. For gracious and merciful is He, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment” (Joel 2:13).
The prayer of the Psalmist must be our prayer: “A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me. Cast me not out of Your presence, and Your Holy Spirit take not from me” (Ps 51:12-13). Jesus makes us aware that “It is not what goes into a man’s mouth that makes him unclean; it is what comes out of his mouth …what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart” (Mt 15:11-18). A clean heart is a heart without sin. To clean our hearts we must face the fact that we’re sinners, even the best of us need to repent and seek forgiveness. The Holy Spirit of Truth warns us that, “If we say ‘we have no sin,’ we deceive ourselves; the truth is not to be found in us” (1 Jn 1:8). In the words of the Psalmist, every one of us must pray from our heart, “Have mercy on me, O God, in Your goodness; in the greatness of Your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me” (Ps 51:3-4). Sin, the bad thoughts with which we sow our mind, stains our soul that leads to hard heartedness. We see that exhibited in those who support abortion, euthanasia, and degrade motherhood, undermine the traditional marriage between a man and a woman as the essential environment for the proper transmission of life. This hardness of heart comes from Satanic thoughts with which people seed their minds, plant in their souls, and harbour in their hearts. Despite this hardheartedness, God is ever merciful to those who repent, seek forgiveness, and strive to amend their ways in accord with His will. He promises the repentant, “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your hearts of stone and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my Spirit in you, and make you keep my laws and sincerely respect my observances” (Ezek 36:26-27). Since God has written His law upon the heart of everyone it’s essential to free the heart from everything that might blur that law or prevent our obedience to it. (Jer 31:33)
Jesus offers us the grace to cleanse our heart especially during this season of Lent. We experience the fulfilment of God’s promise of a clean heart in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Through that Sacrament God removes the filth of sin. There we experience a refreshed and sweet-smelling heart through Jesus who “became the source of eternal life for all who obey Him” (Heb 7:9).
What are the effects of a clean heart? A clean heart is united with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and displays a spirit of heartfelt generosity. In union with Jesus we’ll follow His lead, inspired by the Holy Spirit, in the bosom of His Church. Where does Jesus lead us? He tells us, “Whoever serves me will follow me, and wherever I am, there will my servant be” (Jn 12:26). Where is Jesus? He is present in His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. He is dwelling in each member of His Church. He touches the heart of each practising member through His Church’s Sacraments, especially in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass where we praise and worship Him. He is with us when we pray and carry out the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, namely being just, charitable, merciful, respecting the preciousness of human life by sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, burying the dead, giving alms to the poor, teaching the Gospel, counselling the doubtful, admonishing the sinner, consoling the sorrowful, comforting the afflicted, forgiving hurts, and bearing wrongs patiently. In these words and actions the Sacred Heart of Jesus radiates through our heart.
A clean heart expresses itself above all in a spirit of joy that springs from a mind in which Christ’s thoughts are sown, and planted in the soul. Such a heart gives witness to God’s love, justice, mercy, peace, and freedom. When our heart is clean our attitude is positive, loving, faithful, and hopeful. This 5th week of Lent is another opportunity to take advantage of what Jesus provides through His heart-cleansing power mediated through His Church. You can feel God saving you when He cleanses your repentant heart in the words of Absolution spoken by the priest in the confessional. It’s in the forgiveness of sins that God is saving you and me and cleansing our hearts. Let us comfort Mary as she brokenheartedly followed her Son’s sorrowful way of the cross through cleansing our heart from sin that caused His crucifixion. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again:
Holy Week: Why Every Knee Must Bend
Lent officially ends with the celebration of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday evening commemorating the institution of the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Historically, we refer to this final week of Lent, which culminates in the Triduum celebration of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, as “Holy Week.” Why do we call this week “holy”?
The word “holy” comes from an Old English word, which means “whole.” Usually the word holy refers to God and what’s Godly. Only God is holy, whole and complete within Himself. God alone is perfect and those whom He makes perfect, all who are faithful to Him. When we describe something as holy, we imply that it’s from God. Human holiness, our likeness to God, was lost by Adam and Eve’s disobedience. With the loss of holiness came the loss of wholeness which is reflected in a darkened intellect and a weak will making every human, except Mary, prone to sin. Thankfully, God restores that holiness and wholeness through Baptism into Jesus’ Church.
Palm Sunday begins holy week with the blessing of palms commemorating Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem. The palms that were used to greet Jesus and create a welcoming mat for Him in on Sunday morning were used by some to point accusingly at Him in the afternoon. Satan was active in the hearts of the accusers. God revealed in the Old Testament that His Messiah would be a Suffering Servant. This revelation was fulfilled in Jesus who “emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness” (Phil 2:6-11). We see His humility in the Passion narrative from Mark’s Gospel depicting His agony, trial, sentencing, crucifixion, and burial. There we see Jesus’ real suffering, which didn’t deter Him because of His humble and obedient faith in His Father. He was like a lamb led to the slaughter in order to save the very sinners who slaughtered Him.
What’s holy about this week? The Church focuses on Jesus, the Son of God, and the total sacrifice of Himself in order to save mankind from sin. The focus isn’t simply on God as He exists in Heaven, but on God as He lived and loved here on earth in the Person of Jesus Christ, confronting Satan who owned mankind. He came to call sinners to repentance and holiness by breaking the grip of Satan. On Holy Thursday Jesus left us a visible sign that He would continue His mission to save mankind until the end of time. This sign of His saving life and death is the Holy Eucharist which He instituted and ordained His apostles to continue by changing unleavened bread into His body and wine into His blood with the words, “Do this in memory of me.” Thus began the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the visible sign of Jesus’ real presence calling everyone to get on bended knee and confess with their tongue that He is their Lord and Savior.
Good Friday reminds us what redemption cost Jesus. It cost Him His life through crucifixion to free us from our sins. No greater love has the world ever seen. On Easter Sunday we’re reminded that Jesus was raised from the dead in a glorified human body, paving the way for His followers to rise from the dead with glorified bodies. He helps us to benefit from what He accomplished through “a well-trained tongue to speak to the weary a rousing word … (and) a face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame” (Is 50:4-7). The weary are all who’re weighed down with sin, suffering, and the fear of death. Jesus in His human nature reflected the depth of human weariness when He cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Ps 22). Have you ever felt that God had abandoned you? Jesus encourages us in such moments to pray with Him: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” He empowers us to put ourselves into His Father’s hands every day but especially in times of trial as He did.
Sin is our downfall – a personal put-down. Instead of putting our spirit into God’s hands we put our spirit into Satan’s hands. Sin is idolatry in which we put ourselves down by worshipping something that’s inferior to us. When we sin, we withdraw our loyalty to God and, as a result, create a false god. Only the true God can sustain us, give us life, and lead us to happiness. A false god is impotent. Why? A false god is something we create; and we can’t create anything that can sustain us since we didn’t create ourselves. Neither can we create anything that can give us life since we didn’t give ourselves life. We can’t create anything that leads us to happiness since happiness is the result of being fulfilled, and only the Creator can fulfil the creature. Sin, then, is totally unreasonable and an act that lacks intelligence. Sin is without equal when it comes to duping oneself. In sinning, we’re our own greatest con artists. The “good” in Good Friday is the fact that God’s love, evident in Jesus’ sacrifice, conquered selfishness and freed us from Satan’s grip on humanity. By being obedient to His Father Jesus, in His humanity, enables us to freely obey God once again. Obeying God, rather than pleasing ourselves, always leads us to holiness and wholeness which are always good for us.
At the Easter Vigil we celebrate Jesus as the “Light of the world” (Jn 8:12). He dispels the darkness of sin by exposing Satan’s lies. Through the Apostolic and moral teaching of His Church Jesus continually calls us to holiness and wholeness. He empowers us to live in the supernatural that’s full of power for good, and strong in its purpose of becoming holy. The “fear of the Lord” (fear of losing our relationship with Him) motivates us to… praise Him, give Him glory, and revere Him” (Ps 22) in all dangers, temptations, and afflictions. Thus we let Him make us holy and whole. We cannot do this on our own because we cannot free ourselves from our sinfulness. The Catechumens give witness to this as they become full members of His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church during the Easter Vigil.
The real test of leadership is to be willing to die for the cause. Jesus exhibited true leadership. Jesus has given us the example of what it means to be a Christian, namely to be willing to die for the Faith, which is about loyalty to Him as our Savior. In Baptism He made us His partners in carrying out the mission of His Father, which is to make us His children. Jesus has shown us the way. Now we must lead. Just as we depended on Jesus leading the way to the Father, the whole world depends on us, His followers, leading it to Jesus really present in His Church. But we must lead on bended knees, informing everyone, “that at the Name of Jesus, every knee should bend, of those in Heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:6-11).
Let’s celebrate Holy Week where God offers us the opportunity to be both holy and whole by bending our knee at the Name of Jesus and using our tongue to confess that He is our Lord and the only Life-Giver. May you have a supernatural Holy Week and a truly happy Easter. (fr sean)
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Amen! It’s about the Lamb. (Not the bunny). May we all stop abandoning Jesus)
Jesus Christ- Now and Forever!
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Fr Sean again:
Easter Sunday: And the winner is … Life
The highpoint of the Church liturgical year is Easter. It’s connected with Passover – passing from the slavery of sin and death to the grace of freedom and life eternal. This is the culmination of everything for which Jesus Christ stood. He stood for everlasting life – not just a little bit of life, but life to the fullest. He came into a world doomed by death and riddled with suffering – mental, emotional, spiritual, moral, social, economic, and physical. Jesus’ message focused on repentance, forgiveness, amendment of lifestyle, wholeness, holiness, and life lived joyfully because it now had hope. This message was good news to the ears of repentant sinners, the marginalized, the suffering and the dying.
Two thousand years later here we are in a world where the culture of death dominates the culture of life established by Jesus here on earth. The destruction of human life is enshrined in national legislation, even declared as a constitutional right in France and promoted in most western countries. Human life has been cheapened by those who possess it. Its destruction is legal – abortion, euthanasia, unjust war. More human life is being destroyed today than ever before in our recorded history. Its wanton destruction is evident in abortion mills, IVF labs where embryos are destroyed, abortifacient pills in the post, artificial contraception, murder, assisted ѕυιcιdє, has rapidly increased over the past few decades. Why has life become so cheap and so flippantly disposable? How has human life lost its sense of sacredness and preciousness? Could it be that human life has lost its excitement and preciousness because Christians have forgotten or don’t proclaim the message of Easter? God considered human life to be so precious that He sent His Son to suffer and die the cruelest form of death in order to conquer the power that sin and death had over mankind. The sacredness of human life is directly connected to God who is Life itself and who creates every person in His image and likeness. Every time a human being is killed, humanity numbs itself to God’s loving and life-giving presence. Killing cheapens life and creates the illusion that human beings have control over it and can do what they want with it. That illusion ends in disillusionment when God holds everyone accountable for the way they lived the life He gave them. If we choose death in this world we prepare for eternal death in the next world.
The Easter event is the sign par excellence that life belongs to God and He holds it in the highest esteem. God is the Life-giver. Satan is the life-taker. Easter celebrates the victory of life over death, good over evil, and the success of the spirit over the disordered desires of the flesh. In celebrating Easter, we celebrate the power of spiritual gentleness, which Jesus demonstrated on the Way of the Cross, over the physical violence of evil men who crucified Him. It’s proof that the concern for the welfare and the wellbeing of others shown by Jesus, even on the Cross, pays off while self-centeredness and the culture of death loses. Suffering is an opportunity to deepen our appreciation of life that makes us participants in the life of God. To understand and appreciate the message and meaning of the Easter event we need to see what it completes.
Easter is the final act in a three-act drama depicting the struggle for power between life and death, Jesus and Satan. The first act of the drama takes place on Holy Thursday when Jesus celebrated the Passover with His Apostles. Here Jesus shared His wisdom of service and exemplified true Servant Leadership. Service reflects a consciousness of people’s relationship with each other and the need to help one another. Underlying the attitude of service is the awareness that we’re all brothers and sisters sharing the same humanity with an innate investment in each other. In serving, Jesus in the Holy Eucharist gave Himself totally to His Apostles in the most intimate manner. When washing His apostles’ feet He told them: “I have set you an example: As I have done so you must do” (Jn 13:15). Do what? Promote the culture of life as God’s greatest gift.
Perhaps we can find the locus of our problem here. The sense of interconnectedness, interdependence, complementarity, between and among men and women today is missing. Everything is considered relative. Universal obligations and principles seem to be rejected. We’ve become more disconnected from each other? We’ve become less responsible and less accountable to one another? We’ve become more concerned with our own welfare and less concerned with what happens to our fellow men and women at home and abroad? There’s a lot of virtue signaling through protests, etc., but very little virtuous living. Like the crowd calling for Jesus’ crucifixion, many protest about something they know little about and which they have been fed false information by atheistic ideologues.
The second act of this great drama depicting God’s presence to His people is celebrated on Good Friday when Jesus teaches us about genuine love tested and purified by suffering. True love is tough. True love demands sacrifices. Love without a willingness to sacrifice isn’t love at all. On Good Friday, we see Jesus making the ultimate sacrifice which reflected His genuine love for all men and women. “No greater love does anyone have than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13). We come as Jesus’ community on Good Friday to venerate the cross and reflect on the great sacrifice He made for us. This in turn reminds us of the great sacrifice we’re called to make in genuinely loving Him and living joyfully, sharing with the needy.
Perhaps one of the reasons why our world is as it is with its disrespectful attitude toward human life is that it lacks genuine love. Without God love is false. What the Godless world calls love is simply lust. Lust has no room for sacrifice. It’s all about pleasing oneself and using others to attain one’s selfish end. Perhaps what we need in our world is a redefining of “love” and what it calls for. Real love is epitomized in the Crucifix. Love always wishes good and looks out for the good of the other person. Jesus epitomized love when, on the cross, He asked His Father to forgive His executioners. We need to truly reflect on the events of Good Friday and tune into Jesus’ commitment to love, no matter what. By making the necessary sacrifices called for by His love for human life Jesus came to Easter.
Easter is the final act in this drama. Jesus conquered Satan’s power over humanity and gave every person the opportunity to choose eternal happiness Therefore we cannot fully appreciate Easter Sunday and its implication for humanity without understanding what Jesus did for us on Holy Thursday and Good Friday. Jesus’ accepted suffering and death in order to bring God’s love to others and raise up a fallen world. Through receiving Jesus in the Holy Eucharist and sacrificing ourselves with Him on Good Friday His Father will raise us up with Him on Easter Sunday.
The winner in the drama is Life because of Jesus’ commitment to serve and love in the face of all odds. To be Christian is to be an Easter person – one who looks forward to Resurrection from suffering and death. There’s no Easter Sunday without a Holy Thursday and a Good Friday. To keep us on the road to Resurrection we must allow ourselves to benefit from Jesus’ gift of His Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist and His unconditional love on the Cross. Have a happy Easter and enjoy life. (Fr. Sean)
The Plenary Indulgences of Holy Week, Easter Octave and Divine Mercy Sunday for Everyone
From Holy Week through Divine Mercy Sunday — and beyond — we should try not to miss out on these indulgences for ourselves or for any soul in purgatory.
Holy Week and Divine Mercy Sunday, present everyone with particular plenary indulgences that everyone has the opportunity to receive. Here’s how to gain them for yourselves, your loved ones in purgatory, and possibly even for some forgotten soul there.
The plenary indulgences that we can receive on every day of Holy Week actually are of two kinds. Certain ones are specific to Holy Week itself. Certain ones we can actually gain anytime, including the Easter Octave.
They’re listed in the Norms and Grants in the official Manual of Indulgences, fourth edition (English edition 2006) the latest and most up-to-date edition of the Manual, or Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, the one that replaces all others.
Holy Week Plenary Indulgences
These are the specific works listed in the Grants in the Manual of Indulgences:
Holy Thursday. “A plenary indulgence is granted to the faithful who piously recite the verses of the Tantum ergo after the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday during the solemn reposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament.”
Good Friday brings two opportunities. “A plenary indulgence is granted to the faithful who
1. Devoutly assist at the adoration of the Cross in the solemn liturgical action of Good Friday; or
2. Personally make the pious Way of the Cross, or devoutly unite themselves to the Way of the Cross while it is being led by the Supreme Pontiff and broadcast live on television or radio.”
Most every parish conducts Stations of the Cross for parishioners on Good Friday.
On Holy Saturday, Easter Vigil brings another opportunity. “A plenary indulgence is granted to the faithful who, at the celebration of the Easter Vigil (or on the anniversary of their own Baptism), renew their baptismal vows in any legitimately approved formula.” The Easter Vigil includes renewal of baptismal vows.
Early in Holy Week
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week we should try to make Mass and receive Holy Communion. That is a “must” because receiving Holy Communion is one of the basic conditions for any plenary indulgence. Here, we consider those certain plenary indulgences which can be gained all year. These are the ones we can obtain on Monday through Wednesday as long as we fulfil the basic conditions (more on them later) and also perform the work required.
The Manual of Indulgences makes this very clear to us: “Deserving of special mention are grants pertaining to these works by any one of which the faithful can obtain a plenary indulgence each day of the year,” always remembering “a plenary indulgence can be acquired no more than once a day.” The Manual lists them as four:
— Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for at least one half hour
—The pious exercise of the Way of the Cross
— Recitation of the Marian rosary or of the hymn Akathistos, in church or an oratory; or in a family, a religious community, or a sodality of the faithful or, in general, when several of the faithful are gathered for any good purpose
— The devout reading or listening to the Sacred Scriptures for at least a half an hour
Any one of these per day, Monday through Wednesday — plus Palm Sunday too — can obtain a plenary indulgence for us for ourselves or to apply to a soul in purgatory.
Basic Mandatory Conditions
“In general, the gaining of indulgences requires certain prescribed conditions and the performance of certain prescribed works,” reminded the Apostolic Penitentiary in 2000. The conditions are not many and are not at all difficult.
First, though, the office initially repeated the definition. “An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church…” The office explained, “Indulgences can always be applied either to oneself or to the souls of the deceased, but they cannot be applied to other persons living on earth.”
The Manual of Indulgences gives these basics conditions for any indulgence, plenary or partial. The person seeking the indulgence must be baptized, not excommunicated, and in the state of grace at least at the time the prescribed work is completed.
The Norms remind of another simple essential: we need to have the general intention of wanting to gain the indulgence as well as carrying out the specific works required, according to the sense of the Grant. That’s simple enough.
This next is important. The Norm states, “To gain a plenary indulgence, in addition to excluding all attachment to sin, even venial sin, it is necessary to perform the indulgenced work and fulfill the following three conditions: sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion, and prayer for the intention of the Sovereign Pontiff.”
For simplicity sake, let’s review these simple essentials are presented by the office of the Apostolic Penitentiary in their words:
“To gain indulgences, whether plenary or partial, it is necessary that the faithful be in the state of grace at least at the time the indulgenced work is completed.”
“A plenary indulgence can be gained only once a day. In order to obtain it, the faithful must, in addition to being in the state of grace:
— have the interior disposition of complete detachment from sin, even venial sin;
— have sacramentally confessed their sins;
— receive the Holy Eucharist (it is certainly better to receive it while participating in Holy Mass, but for the indulgence only Holy Communion is required);
— pray for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff.”
The Apostolic Penitentiary in 2000 clarified that One Our Father and one Hail Mary is suggested for the Holy Father’s intentions thought the faithful can chose what prayer, and one sacramental Confession suffices for several plenary indulgences.
As for the Stations of the Cross for a plenary indulgence, the manual details, “The pious exercise must be made before stations of the Way of the Cross legitimately erected…According to the common custom, the pious exercise consists of 14 devotional readings, to which some vocal prayers are added. To make the Way of the Cross, however, it is sufficient to meditate devoutly on the Lord’s Passion and Death, and therefore reflection on the particular mysteries of the individual stations in not necessary…Progression from one station to the next is required.” But if we’re making it publicly such as done for a parish, only the one conducting it has to move while we remain in our place.
Extras and Divine Mercy Sunday
We should not stop after Holy Week. Why not continue during the Easter Octave, from Easter Sunday through Divine Mercy Sunday? Monday through Saturday we have those four everyday possibilities for a plenary indulgence. Go to Mass, receive Communion. Then spend time in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Pray the Rosary in church. Or with family or as listed above. Read Sacred Scripture for at least half an hour. Your choice.
Divine Mercy Sunday has a plenary indulgence of its own.
Through private revelation to St. Faustina, Jesus revealed, I want to grant a complete pardon to the souls that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion on the Feast of My mercy (1109). The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion will obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment (699). And we must trust in Divine Mercy.
“The most special grace promised by our Lord for Mercy Sunday is nothing less than the equivalent of a complete renewal of baptismal grace in the soul: "complete forgiveness (remission) of sins and punishment.”
St. John Paul II not only declared Divine Mercy Sunday a universal feast of the Church, but in 2002 he also attached a plenary indulgence to it. This made private revelation’s promise “official” as “the Holy See institutionalized the Promise in the form of an Indulgence.”
First there are the usual or standard three conditions of sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion, and prayer for the intentions of Supreme Pontiff.
Next, the specific conditions or “work” required: “On Divine Mercy Sunday
· in any church or chapel, in a spirit that is completely detached from the affection for a sin, even a venial sin, take part in the prayers and devotions held in honour of Divine Mercy or, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed or reserved in the tabernacle, recite the Our Father and the Creed, adding a devout prayer to the merciful Lord Jesus (e.g. “Merciful Jesus, I trust in you!”).”
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And then Pentecost. Divine Mercy Sunday is no for me. ( I can see why it was initially banned.) The fact that Pope John Paul II was friends with McCarick lacks spiritual discernment.
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Fr Sean again:
Jesus’ Final Words: Be Converted
Jesus confirmed to His apostles and disciples that, indeed, He had arisen from the dead. On this occasion in Luke’s Gospel (24:35-48) they thought He was a ghost. Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures (Old Testament), and reminded them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in His Name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”
These were Jesus’ final words to His Apostles and disciples before He ascended to His Father. He wanted His disciples to remember and carry them out for the good of all who believed in Him. These were the words that summed up the purpose of His mission and the mission of His Church, namely to preach repentance and forgiveness in His Name to all nations. Sadly, today many of the Church’s bishops and priests seem to ignore this. Today especially, we need to recognize what part of His ministry Jesus chose to emphasize with these final words. He didn’t tell them to save the planet or be concerned about global warming, but rather to be concerned with saving men and women from sin.
If He hadn’t spoken these words we might have assumed that His final message to His disciples would be, “Love one another!” Love was certainly central to Jesus’ teaching and the central ethic of life. But that wasn’t what He revealed in His last instructions. Love in itself isn’t the complete message of Jesus, though it may be central. There’s something more. A focus on love alone without understanding that it involves repentance and forgiveness of sin turns Christianity into a kind of touchy-feely religion where everybody is supposed to be nice and have a warm fuzzy feeling about everybody else – a religion based on feeling alone without bringing about any real change in people’s lives.
The main task and essential gift of Jesus’ Church is to “preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His Name to all nations.” This is the message that every Pope, bishop, priest, and deacon along with every lay member must proclaim and practice in the world. The central task of the Church is to say to the world: “Repent of your sins and be converted to Jesus Christ if you want happiness after death!” Jesus came specifically to call sinners (Mk 2:17). He didn’t come to make us feel good, although we’ll definitely feel good when we repent and receive the forgiveness of God and His Church in Confession.
What does it mean to repent? It literally means “to feel regret” or “feel sorry.” It means that we recognize our negative or selfish attitude and replace our sinful ways with graceful ways. It means turning our life around, converting to Jesus and heading in the direction that leads to where God wants to be and where we need to be if we want to be truly happy and fulfilled.
Everybody is headed somewhere. The key question is, “Will where I’m headed bring me happiness or misery?” Ultimately there are only two destinations, namely Heaven or for hell.
The mission Jesus gave His Church is to call everyone to embrace Him as their Savior. That requires asking for the grace of repentance so that He can forgive us and reconcile us with Him and with one another. The Church’s mission, then, is to say to everyone, “Turn your life around before it’s too late. Repent and be converted! God wants to save you from what pulls you down through the forgiveness of sins. God gives “His people a knowledge of salvation in freedom from their sins” (Lk 1:77). Jesus founded His Church to be His instrument through which He constantly addresses the world: “For your own spiritual welfare and the wellbeing of your immortal soul, turn around while you can and before it’s too late. Repent and be converted to Jesus Christ!”
Every one of us needs to examine our lives from time to time and ask the questions, “Where am I headed in life? Will the direction I am taking lead me to where God wants me to be?”
Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, ran away from home as a teenager and went to sea, much to the distress of his parents. He wanted to do his own thing. On his first voyage the ship was wrecked and he barely escaped drowning. He saw his foolishness and the bad choices he had made, but he was afraid to go back home because he knew his friends would make fun of him and he’d have to admit to his parents that he took the wrong direction in life. Defoe came to the conclusion that people are less ashamed of sinning than they are of admitting their sin and repenting. People are more ashamed to repent – admitting they were wrong and needing to turn their life around – than they are of continuing in their sinfulness. Pride, Satan’s weapon and one of the deadly sins, is often the killer here. Our pride distorts our thinking and we become blind to the stupidity of our sinful ways. It deafens us to God’s call and blocks God’s merciful grace. We would rather fight than switch – even when we know that what we’re doing is evil and stupid beyond belief.
You and I, as members of Jesus’ Church, are obligated to bring Jesus’ words to the world and say, even when we’re ignored or turned off, “Brother/sister, turn around. Please, for your own sake and for the sake of those who love you most, turn around. Repent and be converted!” We might be told to mind our own business and keep our nose of other people’s affairs. But Jesus tells us that we are our brothers and sisters keepers (Gen 4:8-10; 1 Peter 3:8), and it’s our business, our obligation, to show our love for them by calling them to change their direction when they’re headed for misery, pain, and self-destruction. Out of love Jesus says to every man and woman, “Repent and turn your life around.”
Jesus’ Church must preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all nations so they can experience God actually saving them. The Church embraces everyone who accepts Jesus’ conditions, not on the conditions of those who want to be admitted into her world. Most of us have some regrets in life – something we did, didn’t do, or sinned against others. Now we wish we could erase that part of our life or handle a relationship differently. But if we repent God will forgive us and we can make restitution.
It’s interesting to observe that people have a need to confess the wrong things they have done as is witnessed in phone-in confession lines, etc. Unresolved guilt is one of the great problems in people’s lives. It emerges in physical disorders, sleeplessness, depression, and numerous problems in building relationships. Many people aren’t even aware that it’s a problem. Because people are confused about the nature of sin, or because they don’t realize they are sinners, they aren’t aware of their need for the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness. The nature of sin is that we put ourselves at the center of the world and push God and others out. We sin when we use others for our own ends. We sin when we don’t live up to our potential as God’s children. We sin when we become takers rather than givers. We sin when we ignore God’s commandments. Sin creates division, distrust, disrespect whether in thought, word or action. Sin makes us less human and less alive as God’s people.
We read in St. John’s Letter (1 Jn 2:1-5; 1 Jn 1:8-10)): “Those who say, ‘I know Him,’ but do not keep His commandments are liars, and the truth is not in them.” “Any man who says he has no sin is a liar.” At every Mass we begin by acknowledging ourselves as sinners “in what we have done and in what we have failed to do.” We all need to repent and seek forgiveness. This is why the Mass is the ordinary means of forgiveness for our venial sins and the sacrament of Reconciliation is the Sacrament is the visible sign in which Jesus offers us forgiveness when we repent of our grave and mortal sins.
Turning our life around and receiving God’s forgiveness in the Name of Christ is what Jesus empowers us in and through His Church. This is why we need the Church so desperately in today’s world where sin abounds and people seem too proud to seek forgiveness or fool themselves into thinking they have no sin. The lack of repentance and forgiveness dooms us to eternal suffering and deprives humanity of the grace of salvation which Jesus won on the Cross and makes available through His Church. The greatest thing anyone can do for himself or herself is to repent, seek forgiveness and be converted to Jesus Christ as a member of His Church where He offers forgiveness to the repentant soul. This is what Jesus made possible through His Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension. (fr. sean)
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Fr Sean again:
There’s only One Saviour and One Church
One of the worst illusions is the belief that we can save ourselves from sin and make ourselves happy. Adam and Eve bought into this lie in the Garden of Eden. Another form of that lie prevalent today, even espoused by some Church leaders, is called universalism. This is the belief that every human being will eventually be saved regardless of their religion. That belief contradicts Jesus who stated unequivocally: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6), and “Whoever acknowledges me before men I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. Whoever disowns me before men I will disown before my Father in Heaven” (Mt 10:32-33). He didn’t say, “I’m only one way, truth, and life among many.” Jesus is the only One who can save us from our sins. Outside His Church there’s no salvation and those who don’t belong to His Church depend on the merits of His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church for their salvation. Jesus revealed to Peter and the other apostles as His Church’s leaders, “He who hears you hears me. He who rejects you rejects me. And he who rejects me, rejects Him who sent me” (Lk 10:16). Neither Buddha, Mahomet, nor Confucius, nor anyone else can save us from eternal death except Jesus because He alone was raised from the dead by His Father and now sits at the right hand of God as the judge of the living and the dead (Col 3:1). Only those who die believing in Him and embracing His Church, His Bride on earth, will be saved. This is why Jesus urgently commissioned His disciples: “Full authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth; go, therefore and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize that in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you. And know that I am with you always, until the end of the world!” (Mt 28:18-20). He ordered them to teach what He taught them, not their own opinions or some synodal way. This is why Catholics are obligated out of love for others to bring them the truth that Jesus is the only Saviour.
We can neither save ourselves from selfishness and sin, nor perfect ourselves. If we could save ourselves we certainly wouldn’t suffer, let alone die. Why, as intelligent creatures, do people think and behave so unintelligently? Instead of embracing Jesus as the Truth people make up their own truth which is founded on their opinion that are as flawed as they are. Jesus is the only person in history who conquered death through His Resurrection. Therefore, He’s the only one who can show us how to rise from death. He alone shows us the only path to joy, peace, and a happiness that lasts forever. Peter, the head of the Apostles, “filled with the Holy Spirit”, reminds us that, “There is no salvation in anyone else, nor is there any name under Heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved” (Acts 4:10-12), apart from Jesus. Knowing that He was the only means of entry into Heaven, Jesus commissioned and commanded His Apostles to bring this good news to the whole world. St. Paul reiterated Jesus’ command when he said, “Now you must realize that this salvation of God has been transmitted to the gentiles – who will heed it” (Acts 28:28).
How does Jesus save us? Through uniting us with Him in His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. He prayed that His followers, and through their witness, that all peoples would be united with Him in His Church. “I do not pray for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their word, that all may be one as You, Father, are in me, and I in You; I pray that they may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent me” (Jn 17:20-21). Jesus saves us by making us His adopted brothers and sisters through baptism into His Church where He’s present to each member in the preaching of His Word and in the Sacraments. There He intimately nourishes our soul by giving us the gift of Himself especially in the Holy Mass which is the re-presentation of His sacrifice on the Cross. There we are privileged to receive the “… love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called children of God… we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 Jn 3:1-2). Have you received that love as He unites your suffering to His and asks His Father to bless you in your suffering?
If love is the essence of Christianity - the glue of togetherness through repentance and forgiveness - why are there divisions among those who call themselves Christian? How can we love God if we don’t love one another? We can’t. Jesus identified Himself as the “Good Shepherd” (Jn 10:11) who has an intimate relationship with His flock and also cares for those who are not yet members. “I know my sheep, and mine know me in the same way that the Father knows me and I know the Father. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must lead them too, and they shall hear my voice. There shall be one flock then, one shepherd” (Jn 10:16). Jesus shows clearly that there can only be “one fold,” one universal Church, led by “one shepherd,” the Vicar of Christ, Peter and his successors. This is Jesus’ visible community to which those outside it are invited to join, not on their conditions but on Jesus’ conditions, namely by obeying His commandments. Jesus’ Church, under the leadership of the Apostles’ successors, re-sounds His voice calling all people to be saved through entering and participating in His “one fold” as His “one flock” shepherded by Him until the end of time. Anybody who tries to build a fold and collect a flock outside of the Church founded by Jesus on Peter causes division. Division is always a sign of Satan’s activity generating confusion and dissension. As Christians we need to keep our eyes on Jesus and pray daily with the Psalmist: “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endures forever. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.” (Ps 118:1)
Division among Christians weakens the Church’s effectiveness as Jesus’ visible sign of His saving presence in the world. It’s an absurdity for Christians not to be united in one family. The Holy Spirit revealed that “There is one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all, and works through all, and is in all” (Eph 4:5-6). To heal division and restore unity, Jesus empowered His Church to administer the Sacrament of Reconciliation so that her members may repent of their sins, be forgiven, and reconciled to God and to one another in order to witness His mission of supernatural and unconditional love. The human love with which we naturally love must be nourished with God’s supernatural love if we’re to mirror Jesus’ love, truthfully, mercifully, and justly. God’s spirit of love - the Holy Spirit - decries division since He leads everyone into the loving union enjoyed by Jesus and His Father. There’s only one Saviour and only one Church. This is God’s will for us to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Are You Well-Connected?
Bishop Fulton Sheen noted that the greatest insult you could heap on someone is to say he or she is useless. No one is useless. God creates everyone at the moment of conception with the ability to make a positive difference in the world. A reporter asked a businessman how he got to be so wealthy. He said that when he and his wife married they had only five cents between them. “I bought an apple, polished it and sold it for ten cents. Then I bought two apples for ten cents and sold them for twenty.” The reporter asked, “Then what?” The man smiled, “My relative died and left us twenty million!” Good connections make all the difference. To be successful in life we must have good connections. It’s not what we know but who we know that we can rely upon for help to achieve our goals. It is not what we know about Heaven that will get us there but who we know.
In a book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey identified the key habits that enable people to be successful. He showed that effective people are proactive instead of reactive; they begin with the end in sight, put first things first, think win-win, seek to understand before seeking to be understood, synergize, and continue improving their skills. Habits, good or bad, are actions that we do repeatedly until they become embedded in our unconsciousness so that they become second nature to us. Our actions flow from our intellect and will, both of which are faculties of our soul. To develop good habits we need to seed our minds with the kind of thoughts that when planted in our soul shape us into effective people. To be effective Christians we must seed our minds with God’s thoughts and plant them in our soul. As God’s creatures our effectiveness depends on our adherence to the purpose which He gives us. Connection to the Creator assures us of achieving our purpose which is to know, love, and serve Him here on earth and after death to be with Him forever in Heaven.
How do we connect with God? By letting God connect with us first. “It was not you who chose me, it was I who chose you to go forth and bear fruit” (Jn 15:16). How does God connect with us? He initiates His connection with us through Jesus’ presence in His Church in the Sacrament of Baptism. There Jesus enables us to “put on the new nature created in God’s image, whose justice and holiness are born of truth” (Eph 4:24), giving us a new identity, a new nature, and a new destiny as His adopted brother or sister. We can’t be effective if our sinful nature isn’t replaced by a new loving, life-respecting nature. The highly effective Christian, as is evidenced in the saints, is the man or woman who thinks and acts humbly, justly, mercifully, gracefully, and truthfully. Faith, hope, charity, humility, prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, peace-making, prayerfulness, worship, and service are the habits of an effective Christian.
To be an effective Christian community or parish or diocese we need to be continually connected to Jesus. That’s why He founded His Church on Peter to be His Bride, His Body on earthHe is the source of Christian fruitfulness. “I am the true vine and my Father is the vine-grower … Live on in me, as I do in you… I am the vine, you are the branches. He who lives in me and I in him, will produce abundantly, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:4-5). Effective Christianity is impossible without Jesus since He is the vine and we are the branches. When we try to be effective while ignoring Jesus we, like branches cut off from the vine, wither and die. This is why so many baptized people have rendered themselves ineffective workers in the vineyard of the Lord.
How does Jesus make us effective Christians? Through His Church’s Sacraments, especially in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass where we hear His Word, celebrate His real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, the re-presentation of His sacrifice on the Cross, and receive Him in Holy Communion. In that action of His, through the ordained priest, Jesus visibly inserts us into Himself as the branch is connected to the vine, and energizes our soul so that we can go out and effectively promote life, love, and enthusiasm in a world wallowing in death, hate, and apathy. This is a real connection with Jesus, not a symbolic gesture, as He Himself revealed. “Let me solemnly assure you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. He who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6:53-54). Jesus isn’t speaking symbolically but literally. He makes the reception of Him in Holy Communion the essential and effective nourishment for our soul: “For my flesh is real food and my blood real drink. The man who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in Him” (Jn 6:56). No one can be in Christ unless Christ is in him or her. Thus Jesus guarantees a continual connection with Him since we need on-going spiritual nourishment to be effective witnesses to what is real, true, good, and beautiful. This is why He commanded His Apostles on Holy Thursday when He instituted the Holy Eucharist and ordained the Apostles to the priesthood to “Do this in memory of me!” (Lk 22:19).
Jesus is the best connection we can ever have since He is the only one who has risen from the dead and has the power to raise us up from suffering and death. We couldn’t be better connected because He alone enables us to achieve the fullness of our potential. Look at the difference in Paul when Jesus connected him to Himself. He alone enables us to “love not in word and speech but in deed and in truth …and love one another just as He commanded us” (1 Jn 3:18-24). Actions speak louder than words. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit obeying the Ten Commandments assures us that God has connected us to Him. “Those who keep His commandments remain in Him, and He in them, and the way you know that He remains in us is from the Spirit He gave us.” The Holy Spirit urges us to “let the coming generations be told of the Lord that they may proclaim to a people yet to be born the justice he has shown” (Ps 22:26-32). If we’re not connected to Jesus we can’t hand on the Faith to our children. And since only Jesus can make human beings effective persons in a fallen world, if our children aren’t connected to Him they’re doomed to failure in eternal death. Is this the legacy we want to hand on to them? Wouldn’t that be an act of injustice to them? Don’t they deserve the best from their bishops, priests, and parents? Jesus acts justly towards us in His Church where He makes it possible to be connected to Him and thus achieve the fullness of our potential, namely to be God’s image and likeness and be co-heirs with Him (Rom 8:17) to His Kingdom. There is no connection with anyone that’s more important than being connected to Christ Jesus. Without that connection we wither and die and leave the world a worse place. (fr sean
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Fr Sean again.
Love Is Command, Not a Feeling
The singer, Tina Turner, sang, “Oh what’s love got to do with it? / What’s love but a second class emotion? / Who needs a heart/ When a heart can be broken?” The fact is that love’s got everything to do with everything that’s real, true, good, and beautiful. Since the word ‘love’ is too often used superficially to express what’s basically selfish, its true meaning is distorted. A meaningless description of love is to say “love is love.” In the area of human sɛҳuąƖity most of what’s called love is simply lust because it degrades chastity. A more descriptive word for love is ‘charity’. To be charitable is to be caring. Charity comes from Old English and means “service to the poor” or the “Christian love in its highest manifestation.” To be charitable is to hold someone or something dear to us. It’s love in its highest and broadest sense. To love is to wish good to another and contribute to his or her wellness and integrity. Love, for Christians, and indeed for anyone who wants to enter Heaven, isn’t simply a feeling or a second class emotion. It’s a command from Jesus. Christians, if they want to be faithful to Jesus, have no option when it comes to being charitable. Christians are commanded to love one another and indeed everyone else as well. We must love our enemies. Real love is difficult because it demands sacrifice and forgiveness. Perhaps this is the reason why so many turn away from Jesus Christ and His Church. They want to define love on their terms rather than on Jesus’ terms. When we define love on our terms it isn’t love at all.
Love is of God because He is love (1 Jn 4:7). God’s nature is to love. Love must reflect God if it is to be true. It’s one of the three divine virtues, along with faith and hope. As a supernatural virtue, love is a gift from God which we cannot create on our own. Therefore for love to be real, it must reflect what God wants for us. Otherwise what’s called love is purely selfishness. This is what breaks hearts and betrays trust. What looks like love on the surface is self-serving underneath. Real love is by its nature self-giving, sacrificial, Godly. Jesus reveals that, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13). To love means to serve the good of others. Jesus told His Apostles that, “The greatest among you will be the one who serves the rest” (Mt. 23:11). The greatest, in Jesus’ eyes, is the one who sacrifices the most, namely the one who gives without seeking a reward; the one who makes another’s integrity and wellbeing his or her first priority. This is what counteracts egotism and sinfulness. It makes the good of others my concern rather than my own desires. The more I’m concerned with the wellbeing of others the less tempted I’ll be to become self-obsessed. In today’s world we seem to be more self-obsessed than ever before as is evidenced in the popularity of so-called “selfies” and the need to be “liked.” Are we starved for attention? Are we afraid that no one notices us? We forget that the best way to get attention or be noticed is to attend to and notice others. A prayer has St. Francis reminding us that “It’s in pardoning that we are pardoned; in giving to all men that we receive. And in dying that we’re born to eternal life.” That makes us channels of God’s peace comforting others.
The pop culture’s shallow humanistic understanding sees love as self-gratification. Human love fades as is evidenced in the proliferation of broken relationships. Only God’s love lasts because it’s real and is freely chosen. Jesus tells us that true love isn’t love if God’s Commandments are disobeyed. Jesus demonstrated love and showed us what it entails in His life on earth. “As the Father loves me, so I love you … If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in His love” (Jn 15:9). We don’t love God if we disobey His Commandments. Missing Holy Mass on Sunday through our own fault is a rejection of the 1st and 3rd Commandments and it demonstrates a refusal to love God. This is a mortal sin and requires repentance and Confession in order to get back in God’s good graces. In obedience to His Father’s commandments Jesus showed His love for us by freely reaching out to us to save us from our sinfulness and enabling us to be productive men and women. “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain” (Jn 15:16). In freely choosing us, Jesus put us before Himself. He chose to save everyone who wanted to be saved from their sinfulness. St. Peter told the first members of Jesus’ Church, “In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation whoever fears Him and acts uprightly is acceptable to Him” (Acts 10:34). To fear God is to make sure that we don’t lose our relationship with Him because our eternal happiness totally depends on His love. To act uprightly means humbly obeying God’s commandments that keep us on the path that leads to Heaven. If God, who is love, shows no partiality then we must practise a love that’s impartial. A loving parent loves each child impartially. He or she doesn’t discriminate but is equally just and merciful in service to each child. Since Jesus wants everyone to be saved from sin, which can only be achieved by living charitably, He commands His followers to love. “This I command you: love one another” (Jn 15:17). That means we must be willing to repent of our sins, seek forgiveness and be willing to forgive one another. Forgiveness is loving as God loves. Sin is the loss of friendship with God and renders us as unloving creatures.
Jesus didn’t command us to love when we feel like it but rather to choose to love continually. We cannot do this without the aid of the Holy Spirit who purifies our human spirit and helps us develop a charitable attitude. What does love or charity look like in our relationships? A newsletter called “Vision” pictures love as a choice rather than a feeling: “It’s silence when your words would hurt; it’s patience when another is curt; it’s deafness when some gossip flows; it’s compassion for another’s woes; it’s courage when misfortune falls; it’s firmness when one’s duty calls; it’s restitution made when due; it’s forgiving when asked of you.” This is charity in action. How do I know when I am loving? Your answers to the following questions tell you: Am I concerned for the other’s good? Do I acknowledge and affirm the other’s accomplishments? Do I have deep respect and reverence for the other? Do I contribute to the other’s integrity? Do I nurture the other’s gifts? Am I generous towards the other? A caring person answers “Yes” to each of these questions. No one cares more about us than Jesus Christ. We will choose to act lovingly when we let God’s charity toward us fill our hearts. Jesus expresses the greatest act of charity towards us in the Holy Mass where He lays down His life for us. Imagine a world where charity reigns! It is possible through, with, and in Jesus Christ truly present in His Church. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Heaven’s Door Is Opened
The Ascension of Jesus marked the end of His mission on earth, namely to open Heaven’s door to mankind that had been closed since Adam and Eve sinned. For the first time, humanity entered Heaven in the Person of Jesus who brought His glorified human body into Heaven. It signified the new hope that man and woman could enjoy eternal happiness through following Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. God originally created man and woman to enjoy perfect happiness in Paradise. Their only requirement was to “Fill the earth and subdue it… (and) not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gn 1: 28; 2:17). But Satan tempted them into thinking that they could be equal to God. In eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil Satan tricked them into thinking that they could determine what was good and evil themselves without having to rely on God’s wisdom. Thus they were led to think they could be gods and be independent of God. Satan lied. Mankind, destined by God for a life of happiness, now doomed themselves to a life of suffering and death because without God, who alone is good (Mk 10:18), they wouldn't be able to distinguish good from evil and so became subject to Satan’s lies. They lost their joyful life in Eden. “The Lord God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden” (Gn 3:23). Man and woman lost God’s protection and guidance and couldn’t redeem themselves from Satan’s grip that brought eternal suffering and death. Heaven was closed to them. All that awaited them was toil and hopelessness. As Dante wrote in his Divine Comedy, the sign over the gate to hell read: “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”
Jesus’ ascension into Heaven restored the hope of Heavenly happiness. This is why Jesus’ Ascension, as an article of Christian faith enshrined in the Nicene Creed, is worthy of joyful celebration. This is what sets the Christian Faith apart from all other religions. Christianity is the cake and Heaven is the icing. Christianity is the only religion that can assure its followers of entry to Heaven because its founder, Jesus Christ, is the only way to Heaven (Jn 10:9-16). The opportunity to go to Heaven makes life worth living despite suffering and death. To enter Heaven as the dot on our horizon fills us with hope and gives us a reason to begin each day with Faith in Jesus as He leads us to His heavenly home and into the arms of His loving Father. Jesus’ Ascension set the foundation for that hope. As St. Paul assures us, “This hope will not leave us disappointed, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). His prayer for us is, “May the eyes of your heart be enlightened that you may know the hope that belongs to His call” (Eph 1:18).
Jesus commissioned Peter and the other Apostles, as the first priests of His Church, to “Go out into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature … teach them everything that I taught you” (Mk 16:15). We detect a sense of urgency in Jesus’ command. Why? God creates everyone to enjoy His love, so He wants to save everyone from hell which is a loveless eternity. Therefore He wants everyone to hear and live the Good News that He taught, lived, and fulfilled in His Ascension. He promised Peter and the other apostles that He would ask His Father to send the Holy Spirit to His Church. The Holy Spirit would provide the wisdom and energy required to embrace Jesus, obey His commandments, and enter Heaven with Him. He promised His Apostles that, “John baptized with water, but within a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5). To be baptized is to be cleansed spiritually, which means to be free from the grip of Satan and save our soul from corruption by sinful actions. The Holy Spirit’s truth exposes Satan’s lies and makes us wise to his wiles and ways so we can identify and resist his false promises. Jesus promised them: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes down on you; then you are to be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
Jesus was referring to Pentecost when the Holy Spirit would transform them into His courageous witnesses willing to die for their Faith in Him. What would they witness? The fact that God is their Father-Provider, Jesus their Redeemer, the Holy Spirit their Sanctifier, good conquers evil and the promise of a joyful life after death. Heaven’s door is now opened and God welcomes all who are judged worthy of entering. How does one enter? By freely embracing Jesus as Lord and Saviour in the Sacrament of Baptism making us members of His Church, and obeying His commandments under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Baptism is the beginning of the journey that’s completed in Heaven. Jesus told His Apostles that acceptance or rejection of His Gospel determines our salvation or damnation. “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mk 16:16). Jesus has opened the door to Heaven but everyone has a choice to either accept or reject what’s necessary to gain entry. The difference in consequences is drastic. That’s why Jesus tells us, “Enter through the narrow gate. The gate that leads to damnation is wide, the road is clear, and many choose to travel it. But how narrow is the road that leads to life, how rough the road, and how few there are who find it!” (Mt 7:13- 15); “Try to come in through the narrow door. Many, I tell you, will try to enter and be unable” (Lk 13:24).
The power of the Holy Spirit was visible in the Apostles as “They went forth and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs” (Mk 16:20). The signs were both miraculous and sacramental. The greatest sign of all that Jesus was with them through the power of His Spirit was the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. As Jesus has ascended into Heaven, so can you and me by entering His company, which begins here on earth in His Church. Jesus’ Ascension calls us, in the words of the Psalmist, to proclaim to the world, “God mounts His throne amid should of joy … sing praise to our King, sing praise” (Ps 472-9). We need to pray each day that the Lord judges us fit for Heaven. “Lord, teach us goodness, discipline, and wisdom, and these gifts will keep us from becoming hardened by evil, weakened by laziness, or ignorant because of foolishness” (Liturgy of the Hours). The Ascension reminds us that for believers the best is still ahead. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Pentecost: Jesus’ Church in Action
Jews from all over the world were in Jerusalem to celebrate God’s gift of the 10 Commandments through Moses (Ex 20) and the Feast of Weeks (Acts 2:1-11). The Babylonians dispersed their ancestors 500 years earlier when they conquered the Kingdom of Judah. On Pentecost, they came together to remember their history, their Charter (Commandments), and give thanks to Yahweh for His blessings.
A much smaller group of Jews also gathered in Jerusalem, but for different reasons. Peter, the other apostles and disciples were huddled together in prayer waiting expectantly for the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus. They were anxious about their future. Jerusalem was the scene of the brutal death of Jesus. His enemies were their enemies. While in prayer something marvelous happened to this little anxious but faithful band. Suddenly their fear was replaced by a spirit of courage and a zeal that was unimaginable. They left the security of the upper room and took to the streets led by Peter publicly proclaiming their faith in Jesus as the risen Lord and Messiah sent by God to save the world from sin.
What happened to Peter and the others? They received the Holy Spirit who empowered them to show that the goodness of God is stronger than man’s worst inhumanity and stupidity. The Spirit of Truth spoke through Peter and was heard by all despite their different languages. Truth and Faith transcend language. Babel was reversed. The Holy Spirit influences and guides every human spirit that is receptive to Him. He is the Spirit of Truth. There is only one Truth, namely Jesus Christ. Everyone who embraces that Truth is free to speak it. Why? Because the Truth frees us from the lies that we shouldn’t speak it lest it offend or hurt others. The truth hurts or offends only when we try to deny our sin. People who are guided by the Spirit of Truth can’t help but recognize Jesus Christ as the one who gives us the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness.
Since the Spirit fully reflects God, and God is a Community of Persons, the Spirit automatically creates community among all who receive Him. When people say they are “spirit-filled” but promote or contribute to disunity they’re led by the spirit of evil, not the Spirit of God.
St. Paul highlights the Spirit as the power that enables people to recognize Jesus as Lord (1 Cor 12:3) so that all may unite with Him and with one another in Jesus’ Church. He uses the metaphor of the human body to show how the Spirit works in everyone for the good of the whole (1 Cor 12:12-13). He explains that every organ in the body performs its own unique task to keep the whole body healthy. If an organ refused its task, the body would become diseased. The body needs all of its organs to function fully for the sake of its overall health. Each member of the Church is an organ of Jesus’ body on earth. Since “to each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit,” St. Paul points out that the Holy Spirit equips every member of the Church with gifts to be used for the health, wealth, happiness, and efficiency of the whole Church body. Just as non-functioning body parts damage a person’s health, so also non-functioning members of the Church damage the Body of Christ on earth. Listen to St. Paul’s inspired words: “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, we were all given to drink of one Spirit.” The Holy Spirit, when embraced, generates unity among Jesus’ followers that gives credibility to His saving presence before a fallen world. Those who call themselves Christian but aren’t active participants in the Church haven’t embraced the Holy Spirit and, as a result, haven’t accept Jesus as Lord and the Church as His body, His Bride.
1054 was a sad day for Christ’s body when the Patriarch of Constantinople declared the Church in the East to be no longer united under the leadership of the Successor of Peter and so caused a rupture in Christ’s body. It was a sad day for the Body of Christ when Martin Luther declared that the Bible was so self-evident and clear that men and women didn’t need any teaching authority to tell them how it should be correctly interpreted thereby creating Protestantism. He was not guided by the Holy Spirit. He called the Pope, Leo X, the antichrist. It’s interesting that there’s never been unity in Protestantism. The Truth never creates division except between those who embrace it and those who don’t. It doesn’t make sense for people to say they adhere to the same Truth, Jesus Christ, and don’t worship together. This is a scandal and weakens the Church’s ability to witness Jesus’ saving presence in the world.
One of the reasons the Church on that first Pentecost was so powerful was because Peter and all the others, including Jesus’ Mother, were united in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. They presented a united front to all in Jerusalem. Their unity with Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit and their willingness to die for that unity raised more than the eyebrows of the bystanders who heard Peter explain what was happening. It raised their curiosity and spurred their conversion. The strength of the Church down through the ages has been her adherence to what Peter and the other apostles experienced on Pentecost under the guidance of the Spirit of Truth expressed in her unity of governance, sacramental system, prayer and worship, theology, and service. The Mass is the ultimate expression of her unity with Jesus where the people identify themselves as sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus, celebrating His New Covenant and entering into a Holy Communion with Him empowered by the Holy Spirit. The Mass has been the constant and consistent sign of the Church’s unity with Her Lord and Redeemer under the guidance of His Spirit of Truth assuring her of His presence and the continuity of His teaching until the end of time. The Church herself declares, “The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life” and “the font from which she draws her energy and the center toward which she draws all her members.” The Mass has been, is now, and will continue to be the sign of Jesus’ one true Church in action in the world. In the Mass, we constantly identify ourselves as sinners and, as such, a people in constant need of forgiveness of venial sin made available in the Mass itself and grave and mortal sin in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This Sunday, when you participate in the Holy Mass, remember you’re part of the Church, which Jesus and His Father has empowered through Their gift of the Holy Spirit. We cannot know Jesus without the Holy Spirit who came to us in Baptism and Confirmation and whom we invite every day to guide, purify, strengthen and inspire our human spirit. Let our prayer be, “Come, Holy Spirit, fill our hearts with Your divine love and unite us with Jesus and His heavenly Father and with one another. Amen!” (fr sean)
Act of Consecration to the Holy Spirit
On my knees / before the great multitude of heavenly witnesses / I offer myself, soul and body / to Thee O Eternal Spirit of God. / I adore the brightness of Thy purity / the unerring keenness of Thy justice / and the might of Thy love. Thou art the Strength / and Light of my soul. / In Thee I live and move and am. / I desire never to grieve Thee by unfaithfulness to grace, and I pray with all my heart to be kept from the smallest sin against Thee. / Mercifully guard my every thought / and grant that I may always watch for Thy light / and listen to Thy voice / and follow Thy gracious inspirations. / I cling to Thee / and give myself to Thee / and ask Thee / by Thy compassion / to watch over me in my weakness. / Holding the pierced feet of Jesus / and looking at His five Wounds / and trusting in His Precious Blood / and adoring His opened side and stricken Heart / I implore Thee / Adorable Spirit / Helper of my infirmity, / so to keep me in Thy grace / that I may never sin against Thee. / Give me grace / O Holy Ghost, / Spirit of the Father and of the Son / to say to Thee always and everywhere / “Speak, Lord / for Thy servant is listening.”
Prayer for the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit
O Lord Jesus Christ / Who, before ascending into heaven / did promise to send the Holy Ghost / to finish Thy work / in the souls of Thine Apostles and Disciples / deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me / that He may perfect in my soul / the work of Thy grace and Thy love. / Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom / that I may despise the perishable things of this world / and aspire only after the things / that are eternal, / the Spirit of Understanding, to enlighten my mind with the light of Your divine truth, / the Spirit of Counsel / that I may choose / the surest way of pleasing God / and gaining heaven, / the Spirit of Fortitude / that I may bear my cross with Thee / and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, / the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself / and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, / the Spirit of Piety / that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, / the Spirit of Fear of the Lord / that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God, and may dread in any way to displease Him. / Mark me, dear Lord, / with the sign of Thy true disciples / and animate me in all things with Thy Spirit. / Amen.
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Fr Sean again.
God: A Community of Persons
This Sunday the Catholic Church celebrates her creedal belief in God as a Trinity of Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, distinct and equal in all things – but One God. This belief has been part of the Church’s Tradition which she received from the Apostles under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and is enshrined in her Creed proclaimed by her faithful at every Sunday and Holy Day Mass. That God is a community of Persons isn't explicitly stated in the Bible. However, it can certainly be reasonably inferred from Jesus’ teaching. The Bible by itself doesn’t contain all of divine revelation. Jesus’ Church is also a source of revelation through the power of the Holy Spirit bestowed by the risen Jesus and His Father on her ordained leaders on Pentecost Sunday. Jesus told the Apostles before His Ascension, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of Truth, he will guide you to all truth” (Jn 15:26-27; 16:12-15). Not everything Jesus said was written down in the Bible. “There are still many other things that Jesus did, yet if they were written about in detail, I doubt there would be room enough in the entire world to hold the books to record them” (Jn 21:25). The teaching that God is a Community of Three Divine Persons, distinct and equal in all things is one that isn’t written in the Bible but yet is a central teaching of the Church. This teaching helps explain Jesus’ references to His Father and the Holy Spirit. This is why only the Church guided by the Holy Spirit has the authority to clarify and complete the Bible’s true message and meaning.
Christianity is the only religion that believes in one God who has revealed Himself to be a community of Persons. This is what makes Christianity unique. God manifests Himself as Father who creates and sustains life; as Son who is the means through which creation takes place and who redeems and saves creation; and as Holy Spirit who empowers and sanctifies creation. God revealed His uniqueness and power in the formation of His people. Thus Moses, inspired by the Holy Spirit, reminding the Israelites of all God did for them, told them: “This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on the earth below, and that there is no other. You must keep His statutes and Commandments … that you and your children may prosper” (Deut 4:32-40).
Belief in a Triune God has many implications for us. As Christians we believe that God created us in His image and likeness. If God is a Community of Persons, completely equal and one with each other, to be created in His image and likeness means that it is in community that we best image God and act like Him. Belief in a triune God requires us to be a community where love is the central characteristic. Jesus founded His Church to be that community wherein people image God and act like Him. Our God reminds us that if we’re to be His image and likeness we must work towards forming and sustaining community. Actually we cannot be Christian without being committed to community building. “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God … You received a Spirit of adoption through Whom you can cry, ‘Abbe –Father!’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God … heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Rom 8:14-17). God entered the human world through a family, a community, wherein “He grew up in wisdom, age, and grace before God and man” (Lk 2:52). Jesus founded His Church as the family, a community, where His followers grow up in wisdom, age, and grace through uniting with Him and His Father empowered by the Holy Spirit. The Psalmist expressed his gratitude for being chosen by the Lord to belong to Him: “Our soul waits for the Lord, who is our help and our shield. May Your kindness, O Lord, be upon us who have put our hope in You …Happy the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He has chosen for His own inheritance” (Ps 33:4-22).
Belonging is a basic human need. Only community satisfies that need. We need relationships to experience belonging and know that we belong. Belonging cannot take place without commitment to and participation in community. As human beings we need relationships for our fulfillment and happiness. The greatest human pain is the experience of loneliness and isolation – the absence of community. This is why prison can be so dehumanizing. God created us to belong to a community, not one that’s temporary but one that’s eternal, namely the community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Can we build community? Not without God, we can’t. He is the Architect. When man and woman separated themselves from God they cut themselves off from the One who originates and sustains community. As a result their relationship was fractured and they became ashamed of each other. Jesus came to reunite man and woman in a new Covenant with God so they could begin to experience the community for which He created them. This is the reason Jesus brought the gift of forgiveness to mankind and why He empowered His Church with the gift of forgiveness and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. On our own we want to create community but we cannot sustain it due to our sinfulness. We see this in marriage. A man and a woman express their love for one another at the altar but later one abuses the other. What happened? One or both forgot that God alone sustains a community of love. Love requires forgiveness and elimination of sin. On our own we cannot forgive. We can organize. We can have good intentions to change. Only God can take our organization and intentions and create a community that lasts. Only God can empower us to repent, forgive and be reconciled. This is one reason every husband and wife cannot succeed in marriage without God. They need Him to become a true community and enjoy a covenant relationship. They need Him in order to forgive. Without forgiveness, community cannot continue. With forgiveness, community grows stronger because love reigns. God the Father and the Son are one in the Love of the Holy Spirit who personifies their mutual love..
Jesus commissioned Peter and the eleven apostles to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold I am with you always, until the end of the world,” (Mt 28:16-20). He was commissioning them to call all peoples to be like Him by becoming a community of persons committed to the belief that, “There is but one body and one Spirit, just as there is but one hope given to all of you by your vocation. There is but one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all, and works through all, and is in all” (Eph 4: 4-6). Sadly, today this seems to be ignored or forgotten even within the Church whose mission it is to call all people to model themselves after the Holy Trinity. Those ordained leaders of the Church and her members who reject what Jesus handed on to the Apostles do not give witness to faith in the Trinity. Rebellion, alienation, separation, fragmentation, and disconnectedness among and within people reflect Satan who hates God. Where God is absent, whether through ignorance or rejection, community is impossible and human beings become dysfunctional. Many groups today referred to as “community” aren’t communities at all but only people who have a common agenda. They do not reflect the Holy Trinity and so can easily become instruments of Satan.
Whenever we make the Sign of the Cross on our person we identify ourselves as believers in God the Father as our Father, God the Son as our Redeemer, and God the Holy Spirit as our Sanctifier and Advocate – One God who is a Community of Persons to which we belong through Baptism. We’re also reminding ourselves of our commitment to cooperating with God in the formation of community through building the Church. Our Triune God reminds us that He has destined us for community and sends us His Spirit to pull us into the eternal and unconditional love the Father and the Son have for each other. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
The Body of Christ: Visible Sign of the New Covenant
When Jesus, during the Passover Supper with His apostles on Holy Thursday, “took” unleavened , “bread, blessed and broke it and said to His apostles, ‘Take it, this is my body’” (Mk 14: 12-26), He expressed His heartfelt desire for them to physically, spiritually and intimately participate in His life in a Holy Communion. Bread symbolizes physical nourishment. He also “took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them and they all drank from it. He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which shall be shed for many.’” Blood symbolizes life. Thus Jesus entered into a New Covenant with God on behalf of mankind and signed it with His blood on Good Friday. In this action He showed that His love for mankind would be unsurpassed. “No greater love does a man have than to lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). Jesus’ love was even greater because He laid down His life not just for His friends but also for His enemies in the hopes of saving them from their sins. He instituted the Holy Eucharist as the sign of His self-sacrifice and the beginning of a new covenant to break Satan’s grip on mankind. Eating His body would nourish people’s souls and drinking His blood would give them life everlasting.
In the Book of Exodus (Ex 24:3-8) we have an account of a previous covenant between God and the Israelites. Moses assembled the people and reminded them of all that God had done for them and their ancestors. He related God’s words and ordinances that brought them protection and guidance. On hearing these from the Book of the Covenant they shouted, “We will do everything the Lord has told us… All that the Lord has said we will do.” Then Moses took the blood of a sacrificed animal saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words of His.” He sprinkled half of it on the altar of sacrifice and the rest on the people symbolizing the special covenant relationship that God entered into with them and them with Him. The sprinkling of blood on the altar and the people symbolized the mutual investment of life on the part of God and the people. A covenant is an exchange of persons lovingly investing themselves unconditionally in one another to become a unified family. Covenants are for life and the highest expression of mutual love between God and His people or between a man and a woman in holy Matrimony.
This is the love we’re called to witness and participate in at every Mass. In every Mass Jesus makes it possible for Himself to physically enter our life and for us to enter His life reflecting the covenant relationship between God and us. This is why the Mass is such a sacred covenantal experience. It motivates us to worship God with the Psalmist (116:12-18), “To You will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving, and I will call on the Name of the Lord. My vows to the Lord I will pau in the presence of all His people.” In the Mass, God the Father unites us as His children by giving us the opportunity to join with Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit as He sacrifices Himself for our freedom from sin. Reflecting this reality, the priest says in the Mass just before Holy Communion: “Blessed (happy) are those called to the supper of the Lamb” and the faithful respond: “Lord I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof, but only say the Word and my soul shall be healed.” To be blessed and to be happy is to be loved by the Creator. The Mass is both a sacrifice and a sacrament in which God tells us how much He loves us. In the Mass you and I stand at the foot of Jesus’ Cross and at the same time sit with Him at His banquet in Heaven. The Altar is both a place where Jesus sacrifices Himself and a table where He nourishes us. This is a foretaste of Heaven which affords believers the happiness of being, even now here on earth, in the company of the Lord enjoying this covenant relationship.
The term “Body of Christ” has two meanings, namely Jesus’ Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist and the family of believers we call His “Church.” In Holy Communion we receive the Body of Christ wherein He unites Himself with us in a nourishing companionship that cannot be fully expressed in words. He makes it possible for us to join our life with His in the most intimate relationship possible on this earth. His life is without end. In receiving Jesus in Holy Communion we receive life without end. We don’t receive Jesus in Holy Communion as isolated individuals but rather as members of His family covenanted together with God. Therefore, when we receive Jesus in Holy Communion along with other members of the Church, His presence in each of us calls for a deeper understanding, cooperation, and support between and among us in a Holy Community with Him as the Head leading us to His Father in the Spirit of charity. If we receive Jesus in Holy Communion and aren’t active members of the Church through using our gifts, whether in prayer or action or both, we’re not letting the Body of Christ form us into His body on earth whose mission it is to continue His mission to save mankind from sin by calling everyone into a new covenant relationship with Him. “He is the mediator of the new covenant: since a death has taken place for deliverance from sins under the first covenant, those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance” (Heb 9:12-18). The first covenant saw unfaithful man (Adam and Eve) bringing sin and death into the world. The new and last covenant sees faithful man (Jesus Christ) bringing life through sharing His Body and Blood that made repentance, forgiveness, and life after death possible.
As baptized persons you and I belong to the body of Christ, the Church that He nourishes and energizes with His Body and Blood in the Holy Mass. We need to receive the Body of Christ in the Mass so that His light shines through us to dispel the darkness of the fallen world. The body of Christ – the members of the Church – needs the Body of Christ to become a credible witness to His presence in the world offering the opportunity to come to know and love Him. There’s no other saviour who can enable men and women to rise above their selfishness, sinfulness, and the death they carry in their bodies. Jesus wants everyone to have an opportunity to join Him in the new covenant fulfilled in Heaven. He makes this possible through His Church, where He promised to be until the end of time. His Church makes this promise especially visible and effective in the celebration of the Holy Mass where we can receive His Body and Blood and, in the words at the end of Mass, “go forth to live the Gospel with our lives.” The body of Christ, the Church, cannot exist without the Body and Blood of Christ, namely the Holy Eucharist. Likewise you and I cannot be truly Christian without receiving Jesus’s Body in Holy Communion. He is “the bread of life” (Jn 6:35) without which we can’t have His life in us.
Please encourage all the baptized to keep the Lord’s Day holy by attending Holy Mass and renewing the covenant with God made possible by Jesus' sacrifice of His body and blood that alone gives life that's eternal (Jn 6:53-58). (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Keep Holy the Lord’s Day
In forming His people God told them to take care to observe the last day of the week as a time to rest from their work and worship Him. “Six days you may labour and do all your work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. No work may be done then, whether by you, or your son or daughter, or your male or female servant …” (Deut 5:12-15). In Hebrew ‘sabbath’ means ‘day of rest’ meaning to ‘cease from work.’ Keeping the Sabbath holy was enshrined in God’s third Commandment and demonstrated the people’s adherence to the first two Commandments, namely their belief in God as the only God and reverencing His Name. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (Par 348) points out “the Sabbath is at the heart of Israel’s law. To keep the Commandments is to correspond to the wisdom and will of God as expressed in His work of creation.” So keeping the Sabbath holy by devoting to God in accord with His Commandments honoured His wisdom and will displayed in His creation, especially in creating human beings in His image and likeness. It also made sure in the words of the Psalmist that “There shall be no strange God among you nor shall you worship any alien God. I, the Lord, am your God who led you forth from the land of Egypt” (Ps81:10-11). He alone freed them from slavery.
Since the Jєωιѕн Sabbath was the seventh day of the week why did the followers of Jesus make Sunday their Sabbath? The Catechism answers our question: “But for us (Christians) a new day has dawned: the day of Christ’s Resurrection. The seventh day completes the first creation. The eighth day begins the new creation. Thus, the work of creation culminates in the greater work of redemption” (Par 349). The Catechism goes on to state that, “Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the sabbath. In Christ’s Passover, Sunday fulfils the spiritual truth of the Jєωιѕн Sabbath and announces man’s eternal rest in God. The celebration of Sunday observes the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart to render an outward, visible, public, and regular worship ‘as a sign of God’s universal beneficence to all’ (Aquinas). Sunday worship fulfils the moral command of the Old Covenant, taking up its rhythm and spirit in the weekly celebration of the Creator and Redeemer of His people. The Sunday celebration of the Lord’s Day and His Eucharist is at the heart of the Church’s life” (Pars 2175-2177). Because the Eucharist celebrated in the Holy Mass is the heart of the Church’s life it is also the heart of the Christian’s spiritual life. This is why the Church makes attendance at Sunday Mass obligatory because without it the person’s spiritual life will die. “On Sunday’s and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass” (Par 21:80), because “The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice … Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin” (Par 2181). The sin is that in refusing to participate in the celebration of the Holy Mass the person is breaking the first and third Commandments, which means that the individual does not love Jesus Christ. Remember that Jesus said: “If you love me, keep my commandments (Jn 14:15); “anyone who says that he loves God but does not keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not found in him” 1 Jn 2:4-7). Neglecting to attend Holy Mass on Sunday is an act of ingratitude to God who created the individual and bestowed gifts on him or her.
At every Holy Mass the priest, on behalf of the people, addresses God in the Preface: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give You thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ our Lord.” Belonging to the Church involves being just to God which is our duty as Christians and essential for our salvation. If we want God to bring us to Heaven, then this is what we must do. If we don’t, then hell is our destiny. We attend Holy Mass because we cannot function without Him and so we are indebted to Him for everything. The Holy Spirit tells us: “ For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts, that we in turn might make known the glory of God shining on the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). Jesus brings us God’s glory, namely His surpassing power, because when “we are afflicted in every possible way, we are never crushed; full of doubts, we never despair; persecuted, but never abandoned; struck down but never destroyed. We carry in our bodies the dying of Jesus (that He suffered for us), so that in our bodies the life of Jesus may be revealed” (1 Cor 2: 8-10). It is in our weakness and frailty that God makes us victorious if we are faithful to Him.
Jesus said that, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mk 2: 23-26) along with the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Church emphasizes the importance of keeping the Lord’s Day holy by participating in the holiest of actions, namely the Holy Mass. “Participation in the communal celebration of the Sunday Eucharist is a testimony of belonging and of being faithful to Christ and to His Church. The faithful give witness to this by their communion in faith and charity. Together they testify to God’s holiness and their hope of salvation. They strengthen one another under the guidance of the Holy Spirit” Par 2182). Besides attending Sunday Mass, keeping the Lord’s Day holy also involves “refrain(ing) from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, the performance of works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body. Family needs or important social service can legitimately excuse from the obligation of Sunday rest. The faithful should see to it that legitimate excuses do not lead to habits prejudicial to religion, family life, and health” (Par 2184).
Sunday Mass is the highpoint of keeping Holy the Lord’s Day, remembering Jesus’ sacrifice and Resurrection. We attend Holy Mass not for what we can get but for what we can give. What are we doing at Holy Mass? We are worshipping and praising God, our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier who created us, redeemed us, and saves us. We being just to God, giving Him His due. We are carrying out our duty to honour His wisdom and will that He has demonstrated in His creation. We are doing what is necessary to assure our salvation. We are witnessing that we belong to God’s family and expressing our faith in Jesus Christ. We are identifying ourselves as brothers and sisters in the Lord who calls us into community in imitation of Him who is a Community of Persons, the Holy Trinity. By not attending Holy Mass we demonstrate that we don’t belong to God’s family; we disobey God’s commandments; we don’t have faith in Jesus Christ; we don’t identify with those who believe as our brothers and sisters; we are being unjust to God on whom we depend for our salvation; and we reject what God says is necessary for our salvation. Sadly, on any given Sunday, this is true of many who say they are Catholic. Do they know what they are doing and where they’re headed? (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
The Reality of Sin
The Church has celebrated all the major feasts of Jesus and now enters what she calls “Ordinary Time.” The liturgical colour is green, which symbolizes hope. During this time the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, calls her members to reflect on the state of their personal faith in Jesus. She begins this week by raising our consciousness of how sin came about, the reality of its effects on humanity, and the human need for a Saviour.
Even though Jesus began His public ministry with the words, “Reform your life, repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:14-15) and stated that His purpose on earth was “to call sinners to repentance” (Lk 5:32), it is rare today, even in His Church, to hear about sin. Someone said that the only rich desserts are referred to as sinful today. What is sin? The Catechism answers: “Sin is an offence against God. It rises up against God in a disobedience contrary to the obedience of Christ … it wounds a man’s nature and injures human solidarity” (Pars 1871-1872). Sin is forgetting or ignoring that we’re God’s creatures acting as if we were our own god determining good and evil for ourselves independently of God’s law. Sin is lawlessness. It’s any thought, word, or action that we commit or omit which endangers and undermines our relationship with God, our personal integrity, and our love for our neighbour. There are two kinds of sin: venial and mortal. Venial sin is omitting to love as we should; mortal sin is the deliberate disobedience of God’s Law. Those who say there’s no hell or that hell is empty are due for a rude awakening when they die.
Where did sin originate? It began in the Garden of Eden when Satan, the “father of lies” (Jn 8:44), persuaded Adam and Eve into thinking they could have life independently of God. Later, when God confronted them about their sin of disobedience, Adam blamed Eve. He implied it was also God’s fault: “The woman whom you put here with me gave me fruit from the tree and so I ate it.” When God asked Eve, “Why did you do such a thing?” she blamed the devil: “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it” (Gn 3:13). The blame game and the refusal to take responsibility for personal actions began. Sin epitomizes egotism. It’s the false thinking that we can be God and determine our own truth and moral standard. Sin is the free act of man and woman myopically attempting to satisfy selfish and oftentimes intrinsically evil desires that create disorder in the person’s life and in society. This is why sin is delusional. It’s the false belief that we can satisfy our needs and be happy independently of God.
The world today is riddled with sin which spawns a culture of death through legalizing abortion, assisted ѕυιcιdє, euthanasia, sodomy, and transgenderism. It rears its ugly head in sɛҳuąƖ trafficking and perversion, pornography, dishonesty, hopelessness, and a horrible disrespect for the dignity of the human person. It often disguises itself as compassion. This is why the world desperately needs Jesus Christ. This is why Jesus desperately needs His Church to “preach the Word; be ready in season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching” ( 2 Tim 4:2). The Psalmist wrote, “If You, O Lord, mark our evildoing, Lord who can stand? But with You is forgiveness, that You may be revered …He will redeem Israel from all their iniquities” (Ps 130:1-8).
Jesus’ mission was, “…to call sinners to repentance” (Lk 5:32). This is what gives us the hope that St. Paul wrote about. “We have that spirit of faith of which the Scripture says, ‘Because I believed, I spoke out.’ We believe and so we speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will raise us up along with Jesus and place both us and you in His presence … We do not lose heart, because our inner being is renewed each day even though our body is being destroyed at the same time” (2 Cor 4:13-14, 16). The outer life of our body is daily ebbing away but our soul’s life is renewed daily through the Holy Spirit purifying and leading our spirit to repentance, forgiveness, and restitution for the damage caused by our sin. This is why Jesus gifted His Church with the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
How do we renew our soul, our inner being? By making sure, in Padre Pio’s words, that it’s “a nest of love” for the Lord to reside in. To welcome Jesus as the most important Guest of our soul we must admit that we’re sinners in need of salvation. Since Jesus came to call sinners, only those who recognize their sinfulness or tendency to sin appreciate Him and show gratitude for His just and merciful presence. Recognizing ourselves as sinners keeps us aware that our spirit needs the Holy Spirit to keep it clean and directed towards God and His gifts of Heaven, freedom, and happiness. Since sin damages the humanity of the sinner and those sinned against, we must first repent, then seek forgiveness, and finally make restitution for the damage we caused. Self-righteous people think they have no sin and so feel no need for Jesus or His Church. To ease their conscience they try to manipulate the Church to suit their egotistical agenda. They shut out God’s Spirit and follow their delusional thoughts of saving the planet or controlling the climate, ignoring or rejecting God’s existence as essential for human fulfilment and saving mankind from self-destruction.
Our spirit reflects who we are, what we believe, the state of our soul, and determines our relationships. My spirit reflects what’s in my heart, which reflects the state of my soul. It reflects either a sin-stained or a grace-filled soul. When God meets us it’s an encounter between our human spirit and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit encounters our spirit and vice versa. Since we can’t recognize God’s presence unless He reveals Himself to us through Christ whom we recognize through the power of the Holy Spirit, our spirit must be receptive to His. If it isn’t, then the Holy Spirit can’t touch our heart and sanctify our soul. This is why Jesus teaches us that the only unforgivable sin is that against the Holy Spirit. “I give you my word, every sin will be forgiven mankind and all the blasphemies men utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. He carries the guilt of his sin without end” (Mk 3:28-29).
On a human level, if my spirit isn’t receptive to your spirit, we cannot have a relationship. Similarly if my spirit is closed to God’s Spirit He can’t help me. Self-righteous people sin against the Holy Spirit by refusing to admit their sin and so think they don’t need to be forgiven. It’s not that God won’t forgive them as much as they put themselves beyond forgiveness. God created us to love and be like Him. We cannot accomplish this without the Holy Spirit. Consciousness of our tendency to sin and our need to take responsibility for it makes us aware of our need for the Holy Spirit to purify our spirit and lead us to repentance, forgiveness, restitution, and amendment of our life. Thus Jesus’ presence in His Church saving us from our sinfulness should evoke our deepest gratitude and sense of joy. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Have You Found God’s Kingdom on Earth?
The theme of Jesus’ mission on earth was, “Reform your lives! The Kingdom of Heaven is close at hand” (Mt 4:17). The Kingdom of God is Heaven, which is beyond our ability to fully grasp. On earth, the Kingdom of God enables people to reform their lives. It is the visible social environment in which God fulfils His will in people’s hearts. Jesus used parables to describe God’s Kingdom. He said, “It is like a Mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, it is the smallest of seeds on the earth. But once it is sown it becomes the largest of plants and puts forth branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade” (Mk 4:26-32). This parable reflects God’s prophecy in Ezekiel (17:22-24): “I will tear off a tender shoot …It shall pour forth branches and bear fruit, and become a majestic cedar.”
Jesus established God’s Kingdom on earth that began small but has grown mysteriously, providing shelter for mankind from Satan’s onslaughts. Since God’s Kingdom on earth is where Jesus is present, everyone who’s united with Him is in His Kingdom. That union is signified in the Sacrament of Baptism. It is in entering God’s Kingdom on earth that we’re helped to make sure that our Heavenly Father’s will is “done on earth as it is in Heaven” (Mt 6:9-10). This is why Jesus taught His apostles and His followers to pray “Thy kingdom come …” (Mt 6:10). Praying for God’s Kingdom to come reflects the yearning of the human heart for freedom, justice, love, and peace that are fully experienced in His Kingdom.
God’s Kingdom is unique. “My Kingdom does not belong to this world … As it is, my Kingdom is not here” (Jn 18:36). Heaven is the fullness of God’s Kingdom where human beings who are judged worthy of it are perfected. Entry begins on earth through embracing Jesus as our King and is completed in Heaven as participants in the life of Holy Trinity.
Belonging to God’s Kingdom on earth requires us to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:6). St. Paul explains, “Now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. My knowledge is imperfect now; then I shall know even as I am known” (1 Cor 13:12). Therefore, in the inspired words of St. Paul, “Whether we are living in the body or away from it, we are intent on pleasing Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense, according to what we did in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor 5:6, 8-10).
How do we please God? The Psalmist gives us the answer (Ps 92: 2-3, 13-16): “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praise to Your Name, Most High, to proclaim Your kindness at dawn and Your faithfulness throughout the night … They shall bear fruit even in old age; vigorous and sturdy shall they be, declaring how just is the Lord, my rock, in whom there is no wrong.” We please God by worshipping Him and obeying His Commandments. To help us accomplish this Jesus founded His Church to be the visible and social environment wherein we receive what’s necessary to carry out God’s will.
Jesus’ Church, which He founded on Peter, to whom He gave the keys of the Kingdom with the power to bind and to loose, aided and abetted by the other apostles, is the visible sign of God’s Kingdom here on earth. It’s the means through which we enter the Kingdom in Baptism, and within which we remain faithful to Jesus through receiving His grace of repentance and the gift of His forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and where He nourishes us with His Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist. God the Father “has put all things under Christ’s feet and has made Him, thus exalted, head of the Church, which is His body: the fullness of Him who fills the whole of creation” (Eph 1:22-23).
As the Head of the Church, Jesus has made it the sign of His divine presence “until the end of the world.” He assures us that this is where we await us. Jesus’ Church speaks in His Name guided by the Holy Spirit. He assured His Apostles, as the ordained leaders of His Church, of His unity with them when he said, “Anyone who listens to you listens to me; anyone who rejects you rejects me, and they who reject me reject the One who sent me” (Lk 10:16).
Jesus’ Church, made up of the Father’s adopted children, the visible sign of His Kingdom on earth, is holy and perfect in her Head, namely Jesus Himself, and in her soul who is the Holy Spirit of Truth. But the institutional Church is sinful in her human leadership and membership who are in the process of being saved since all are sinners. “If we say we have no sin in us, we are deceiving ourselves and refusing to admit the truth” (1 Jn 1:8). Jesus stated clearly, “It is not those who are well who need the doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Lk 5:31-32). So the Church is the visible sign of God’s Kingdom leading us to perfection so that we can experience its fullness in Heaven. That is why the Church’s enemies focus on the sinfulness of her members rather than on the holiness of her Head, Spirit, and members striving for holiness. It’s Jesus, the Church’s Head, who saves us from sin through the power of the Holy Spirit, not her leaders or members who themselves are in need of salvation.
Jesus’ Church, then, gives visibility and entrance to His Kingdom. He is our King and we are members of His Kingdom. In His Church, the visible sign of His Kingdom, we unite with Jesus and receive His Spirit that informs, forms, and transforms us from sinners into saints in Heaven. In her Sacraments and worship we become a praying and worshipping community enjoying an intimate relationship with Jesus who calls us His friends rather than His subjects. The Holy Spirit inspires her to teach the truth about who God is, who we are, and our total dependence upon Jesus as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” In her we know we’re with Jesus because she is His Bride (Eph 5:22-33). If we want to belong to God’s Kingdom in Heaven, we must join Jesus’ Church, the visible sign on earth of His Kingdom. It is there we walk with Him by faith on earth and behold Him by sight in Heaven. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Who Alone Can Calm the Storms in Your Life
Back in 1971 song writer Gene McClelland wrote, “Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water/ Put your hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea/ Take a look at yourself and you can look at others differently/By puttin’ your hand in the hand of the Man from Galilee.” The Church relates the story of Jesus and His Apostles crossing the Galilean Sea when a sudden storm swamps their boat. All became frightened while Jesus was sleeping through it all. Panicking, the Apostles awakened Jesus, blurting out, “Teacher, does it not matter to you that we are going to drown?” (Mk 4:38). Calmly He “rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ The wind ceased and there was a great calm” (Mk4:39). Jesus queried the Apostles, “Why are you so terrified? Why are you lacking in faith?” (Mk 4:40). St. Mark records that, “A great awe overcame them at this. They kept saying to one another, ‘Who can this be that the wind and the sea obey Him?’” (Mk 4:41). Only delusional humans think they can change the climate and save the planet.
We’re all familiar with natural storms that often leave serious damage and suffering in their wake. But there are other kinds of storms we have to face such as disease, tragedy, failure, betrayal, abandonment, addictions, violence, and death itself. It’s often harder to weather these than what the elements impose on us. Personally experiencing these storms in life can be overwhelming. In trying to cope we often feel alone or abandoned. Even God seems absent in these unsettling times. Like the Apostles, the seemingly uncontrollable breeds anxiety, and we forget that the omnipotent God is with us. Instead of feeling confident because Jesus was in the boat with them the Apostles felt He didn’t care about them. That can happen when our storms hit. Fear displaces our faith, even though we know that God has promised to never abandon us. “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you” (Is 49:15).
Why does God allow turbulence in our lives? Because they can be blessings. How? It’s the storms in life that test our faith, our love and our hope in Him. The storm on the Sea of Galilee tested the Apostles’ faith in Jesus. It gave Jesus the opportunity to reveal to them that He was the Messiah, the Lord of the Universe and Master of the world. Were it not for the storm they wouldn’t have come to know that Jesus’ presence dispels fear of death.
It’s the difficulties in life that remind us of our need for God and the fact that He never abandon’s us in our difficulties, but it’s us who abandon our faith in His presence. In our anxiety we abandon the security of faith and allow ourselves to be ruled by fear. This is why God tells us, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10). That Psalm gave rise to a hymn of faith: “When the oceans rise/ And the thunders roar/ I will soar with You/ Above the storm./ Father You are King/Over the flood/ And I will be still/ And know You are God.”
To be able to trust in God in the midst of tragedy, violence, and failure we must practice our Faith in the good times so that we will have Faith in Him in the bad times as well. We do that through daily prayer, Sunday worship and developing a charitable attitude. In Baptism God made us a new creation where Jesus lives within us. Through the power of the Holy Spirit He brings us to His Father who makes us heirs to His Kingdom. “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold new things have come” (2 Cor 5:14-17). The old attitude of fear has passed away and is replaced with a new attitude of Faith. We must take time out and be quiet so we can be with Him and hear Him assuring us of His protection. God is present in the stillness. He doesn’t involve Himself in our hysteria. He tells us to stop worrying and be confident of His presence. He’s in our boat and nothing can sink it. Instead of being anxious and worrying that we’ll drown in our miseries, we must let Jesus’ calming presence quiet our minds so we can focus on God’s providence. That’s what supernatural faith is about – recognizing that God is here and His hand guides everything that happens to us for our benefit. St. Paul reminds us: “God will not let you be tested beyond your strength. Along with the test he will give you a way out of it so that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13).
In the midst of our storms the Psalmist tells us, “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His goodness endures forever! ... They rejoiced that they were calmed, and He brought them to their desired haven… They cried to the Lord in their distress; from their straits He rescued them, He hushed the storm to a gentle breeze, and the billows of the sea were stilled” (Ps 107:1, 23- 31). The storms in our life are blessings because they give us an opportunity to know God’s care for us on a deeper and more personal level. This is the beauty of the supernatural Faith that God gives us as a gift. But we must practice it. The storms in life may initially frighten us but fear disappears when we turn to God for His help. He’s always with us in our boat so we no longer have to be afraid of drowning. So just put your hand in the hand of the Man who stills the water and calms the sea, and you can be confident that everything will work out for you as He wants you to be. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
The Thrust of Trust
Are you a trusting person? Trust is defined as “the firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing.” (Heritage Dictionary) Trust is the emotional expression of faith both on a natural and supernatural level. Trust in others is natural faith. Natural faith is not enough to sustain the trust that friendship requires. We need faith in God to sustain friendship. Trust in God is the emotional expression of supernatural faith. The Bible describes faith as, “…confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things we do not see” (Heb 11:1). Faith is “… the power that has conquered the world ….” (1 Jn 5:4). Trust, which is faith in God on an emotional level, thrusts us forward in hope that everything will be for our good, even when we can’t see or know how things will turn out. Faith isn’t the same as optimism. Optimism is simply wishful thinking with nothing concrete to back it up. Faith, on the other hand, is backed up by God. We can have firm reliance on His integrity, ability and character. Therefore, we can trust in Him completely. He is always faithful to His promises as we see in Holy Scripture.
Most of us have difficulty with trusting especially when our natural faith has been betrayed. Even when we believe that God is totally trustworthy we still don’t fully trust in Him on the basis of our human faith because our natural faith is not strong enough. We need the virtue of Faith that only God Himself can infuse into our heart. Trust is all about trusting ourselves enough to entrust ourselves to another. To entrust ourselves, put ourselves in another’s hands, requires a high level of inner security on our part. We don’t possess ourselves sufficiently to fully entrust ourselves to another, even to God. We need God’s help to trust in Him, in ourselves, and in one another. Trusting takes time and prayer. Jesus teaches, “I assure you, unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of God” (Mt 18:3). Children are secure in their innocence and completely entrust themselves to their parents. The older we get the less trusting we become as we lose our innocence and become more infected by our desire for self-sufficiency, or by the betrayals and disappointments in those on whom we rely.
How do we overcome this problem? By deepening our knowledge of God and His love for us. Trusting in God thrusts us forward to risk putting ourselves completely in His hands. Trust or mistrust is influenced by our concept of God. We all seek a life that is fulfilled, happy, successful, and joyful. But life has to contend with failure, sickness, and death. We need to realize we can trust in God because He is a God of life, happiness and peace. “God did not make death, nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living” (Wis 1:13). God doesn’t send us death, disease, disappointment, depression, etc. “God made us imperishable; the image of His own nature He made us” (Wis 2:23). “By the envy of the devil, death entered the world” (Wis 2:24). Sin brought separation from God and with it came death, disease, lies, betrayals, and failure. To cope with these things and conquer them we need to unite with God who gives life, love, and a bright future to hope in. Trust in God empowers us to pray, “I will praise You, Lord, for You have rescued me. You have changed my mourning into dancing” (Psalm 30).
We see the thrusting effect of trusting in the healing of a woman suffering from a hemorrhage and a girl who died. The woman suffered for twelve years. Doctors couldn’t cure her. She heard about Jesus. Despite her fear, her trust in Jesus thrust her toward Him. “If I just touch His clothing I shall get well” (Mk 5:28). Jesus said to her, “Daughter, it is your faith that has cured you. Go in peace and be free of this illness” (Mk 5:34). Her faith moved her forward to entrust herself to Jesus hoping He would heal her. Then there was Jairus whose twelve-year old daughter was dying. Faith in Jesus thrusted him forward to humbly entrust his child to Jesus. “My little daughter is critically ill. Please come and lay your hands on her so she may get well and live” (Mk 5:23). The neighbors were afraid she was dead. Jesus’ response was, “Fear is useless. What is needed is trust” (Mk 5:36). Jesus brought the girl back to life and health. It was trust in Jesus that thrusted the woman and the child’s father to humbly entrust themselves to Him who alone was able to refresh them in their need.
God is a God of life, hope, love, mercy, healing, peace and resurrection. The Psalmist reminds us that God, “preserved me from going down into the pit… You changed my mourning into dancing” (Ps 30: 2-13). If we want these things, we must turn to Him and entrust ourselves into His hands. Faith without trust isn’t faith at all. Trust isn’t trusting unless we entrust ourselves completely to God and rely on His integrity, ability and character. Genuine faith provides the impetus which thrusts us forward to risk entrusting ourselves to the Lord without fear. All this happens when we live in the supernatural with its power for good, and strong in its purpose of becoming holy. Do you have the kind of trust in Jesus that thrusts you into active Church membership? Just do it and enjoy the peace you’ll receive. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
There’s Strength in Weakness
How can a weakness be a strength? Aren’t weaknesses to be hidden? Are you comfortable admitting your flaws? Who likes going to confession? Even though we say we’re not perfect we’d all like to be seen as perfect. We’d all like to belong to Garrison Keillor’s fictitious town of Lake Woebegone, “Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” Of course there’s no such town or people. Alexis de Tocqueville, traveling in America in the 19th century, observed that the nation’s greatness came from the Biblical sermons proclaimed from her Christian churches’ pulpits. He identified rugged individualism as the nations’ greatest weakness. Why? Surely being a rugged individual is a positive trait? Who wants to be weak in the face of what Shakespeare calls “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”? Rugged individualism is a weakness precisely because it refuses to admit weaknesses.
We don’t consciously seek to be weak. However, weakness is part of our makeup due to our fallen nature with its weakened will and darkened intellect. If you and I sat down to compare our strengths and weaknesses, I’ll guarantee that we will discover more weaknesses than strengths. None of us is firing on all cylinders. We’re all deficient in some way. So there’s no point in denying our deficiencies. We might as well identify and admit their existence. If you don’t name it, you can’t tame it. Weaknesses can be blessings. How? First of all, they destroy our illusions of self-sufficiency and force us to admit our need for others. Secondly, they make us realize that we must look to God for happiness rather than to material things. And thirdly, they make us realize that in our darkest moments only God can give us faith, hope and love to survive and thrive. Fourthly, it makes us humble. The Lord is our true Shepherd.
St. Paul is a great example of discovering strength in weakness. He turns a weakness in himself into strength. How? By admitting it to God and letting Him intervene. He describes his weakness as a “thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to beat me and keep me from getting proud” (2 Cor 12:7). Three times he asked God to remove this weakness. But God refused, saying, “My grace is enough for you, for in weakness power reaches perfection” (2 Cor 12:9). How can power reach perfection in weakness? Not your or my power, but God’s power. Our weaknesses become strengths when we use them to turn to God for His help. Jesus reminds us, “… apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5) Paul proclaims, “… for when I am powerless, it is then that I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10b). Paul, in his weakness, relies on Jesus and is able to be content with “weakness, mistreatment, with distress, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ” (2 Cor 12:10a). God didn’t take away Paul’s affliction. We don’t ask God to take away out weakness but rather to use it to let Him work His grace in our soul. Sadly, those who deny their weaknesses deprive themselves of God’s grace. Jesus alluded to this when He said, “A prophet is only despised in His own country among his own relations and in his own house” (Mk 6:4). Jesus “could work no miracle there” (Mk 6:5). Why? Because they refused to admit their need for Him. “He was amazed at their lack of faith” (Mk 6:6). They heard Him but didn’t heed His teaching. Pride, arrogance, conceit, denial blinds us to our weaknesses that cause us to eventually stumble and fall on our face. It is one thing to be a fool and know it, but it is a whole other thing to be a fool and not know it or refuse to admit it.
Sadly, we waste our energy covering up our weaknesses that become exposed anyway. Instead of admitting our addictions, sinfulness, failures, tragedies, disappointments, flaws and using them to turn to Christ and His Church we allow them to turn us away from God’s grace. Then we become bitter, not better. In our trials we should pray, “As the eyes of a maid are on the hands of her mistress, so are our eyes on the Lord our God, till He have pity on us” (Ps 122: 2). We don’t have to fear, deny or be ashamed of our weaknesses. They can be turned into strengths. We can’t perfect ourselves but Jesus can and will if we let Him. The Church prays this Sunday, “In the abasement of Your Son You have raised up a fallen world … for on those You have rescued from slavery to sin You have bestowed eternal goodness.” Jesus was viewed as weak on the cross, but it was that weakness, turned over to God’s grace, that provided victory for His followers in His Resurrection. Jesus injects His Spirit into us when we turn to Him in our inadequacies. When we’re weak and vulnerable Jesus invites us to come to Him: “Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:28-30). Just as He yoked Himself to His Father and in His weakness was able to pray, “You’re your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46) as He died on the cross, so by yoking yourself to Jesus as a faithful member of His Church you in your weak moments will be able to commit your spirit into His hands and He will refresh you. Thus in your weakness He makes you strong and with His strength you can do all things and overcome all things. That’s the power of the Christian faith. Do you believe that? (frsos)
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Fr Sean again.
Acceptance of Jesus Spurs Rejection by the World
God sent Amos (7:12-15) to prophesy to His people. They knew him because he told them they would suffer for their sins. However, it didn’t stop him from being faithful to God by preaching His Word. Jesus sent out His Apostles in pairs and gave them authority over demons. He told them to rely on God’s providence rather than on human support. Thus He prepared them for rejection. “If any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them as you leave” (Mk 6:11). Jesus reminded them that they spoke in His Name, not in their own. “The one who listens to you listens to me, and the one who rejects you rejects me; and he who rejects me rejects the One who sent me.” (Lk 10:16). Preparing the Apostles for what was to come, Jesus cautioned them, “Remember the word I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also” (Jn 15:20). Knowing what lay ahead, namely crucifixion, Jesus also knew that persecution was in store for His Church’s leaders and members. Worldly people would create their own god in their image worshipping pleasure, popularity, power, and possessions while rejecting the God who created them to live prudently, justly, courageously, and temperately by embracing Jesus Christ as members of His Church.
On the platform of a train station there was a large crate with a big dog inside. He had the saddest look imaginable. A lady asked a bystander about him and why he looked so sad. She was told: “You would look sad too if you were like him. You see he chewed the tag off the crate, and doesn’t know where he is going.” How many people in the world today are like that dog? They don’t know where they are going. They have no purpose. Their false gods have abandoned them. Only the God revealed and expressed by Jesus Christ is able to tell us who we are, what our purpose is, who the true source of our power is, what values are worth embracing, where we’re headed and how to get there.
Jesus provides us with the wherewithal to be fully human and fully alive. Mental, spiritual, emotional, moral, social, and even physical well-being depend on our relationship with Jesus. Why? Because to be healthy in each of these dimensions of our makeup we need to know and feel acknowledged, affirmed, and be treated with affection. Everyone needs to feel that his or her existence is acknowledged, his or her priceless value affirmed, and know that he or she is loved unconditionally. `We need these not just periodically but consistently. Without these we’re doomed to be dysfunctional and miserable. As a child I was taught that, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.” We used to rattle that off when someone ridiculed us or called us ugly names. That helped us to look the persecutor in the eye and not be intimidated. Of course we also needed parents’ and teachers’ support. But above all we knew that God acknowledged our existence, affirmed, and loved us unconditionally. We knew that Jesus proved this love by dying on the Cross to save us from sin and eternal death. That knowledge gives us power over those who reject us. When we know that God loves us we have no fear.
Why does the world hate the Catholic Church? Catholics are the most persecuted group of people in the world today. Jesus sent the Apostles, “preaching the need of repentance, expelling many demons, anointing the sick with oil, and working many cures” (Mk 6:12-13). Why would anyone reject that? G.K. Chesterton wrote that, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” What’s difficult about Catholic teaching? In Jesus’ Name, it confronts us with the truth about God, ourselves and our role in the world and why we are totally dependent on Him for every good thing. The problem is that human beings want to be God and please themselves by using creation for their own selfish ends. The idea that we’re sinners-in-need-of-repentance flies in the face of our prideful ego that says “whatever satisfies me is what’s good and freedom is doing what I want!” We see that in abortion, euthanasia, atheism, Marxism, same-sex “marriage”, pornography, adultery, disrespect for human life, etc. So we see worldly governments and even some cardinals, bishops, and clergy, rejecting God’s Revelation, the Natural Law, and two thousand years of Jesus’ Church’s teaching. Those who want to be God hate Catholic teaching because it constantly reminds them that they’re not God, but rather false gods making false promises leading themselves and others to hell.
Catholic teaching calls for repentance, which implies the humility to face our sinfulness and accept our need for Jesus to save us through participative membership in His Church where He makes the Sacrament of Reconciliation available to us. It requires us to amend our lives according to God’s Commandments. Therefore, we pray, “May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we may know what is the hope that belongs to our call.” (Eph 1:17-28) The basis for that hope is the knowledge that God “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens … to be holy and without blemish … in Him we have redemption … forgiveness of sins. …In all wisdom and insight, He has made known to us the mystery of His will … In Him we were chosen … that we might exist for the praise of His glory … In Him we have heard the word of truth, sealed with the Holy Spirit” (Eph 1:3-14). With the Psalmist, Jesus’ Church calls us to promise that we “…will hear what God proclaims: the Lord – for He proclaims peace. Near indeed is His salvation to those who fear Him” (Ps 85:9-10). Peace implies justice. Justice means being right with God, our self and our neighbor, which requires repentance and forgiveness. It is only when we’re right with God that we can be right with ourselves and others. Those who make themselves the standard of what’s right reject those who see God’s commandments as the true moral standard for human behavior. Standing up for Catholic moral teaching often brings down the wrath of those who refuse to admit that what they are doing is sinful. The Catholic Church, founded by Jesus on Peter, offers solid hope for genuine peace and permanent happiness. If I know that God is for me, it doesn’t matter who is against me (Rom 8:31), because I know that God acknowledges, affirms, and loves me so that I don’t need to kowtow to others for their acceptance, affirmation, and affection. This is the power we receive from embracing the Catholic Faith. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Sheep without a Shepherd Get Lost
A crowd of over five thousand followed Jesus. St. Mark (6:30-34) tells us that, “When Jesus saw the vast crowd, His heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.” Why do sheep need a shepherd? Because sheep aren’t the smartest of animals and they tend to wander off, get lost, or become victims of other animals. Was Jesus insulting the crowd when He likened them to sheep? I don’t think so. As human beings who’re supposed to be intelligent we often act foolishly trying to be independent and lose the run of ourselves, and become victims of our own stupidity. A math teacher asked her students, “If there were ten sheep in a field and one jumped over the fence, how many would be left?” All the children, except one, said nine. The teacher asked the lone boy for his answer and he said “none would be left.” She said to the boy, “You don’t know your math,” and he said, “Maybe not, but I know sheep!” [Cassini: I presume because the nine would follow the one out of the field] Just as sheep need a shepherd who knows what they’re like and what their needs are, so we need a leader who knows us and what we’re like. We need a good shepherd who has “the right or desirable quality” to “lead, tend, and guard” us in the world so that we don’t wander off, get lost, or be led astray by false prophets (Mt 7:15). That shepherd is Jesus Christ. He identified Himself as the “Good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep” (Jn 10:11).He demonstrated His shepherding in Mk 6:37 when He asked His apostles to provide food for the hungry crowd. A good shepherd is always attentive to the needs of the flock.
In the Old Testament God imaged Himself as a shepherd (Jer 23:1-6) in relation to His people. He promised His scattered people, “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock…I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they no longer fear and tremble … I will raise up a righteous shoot to David; as king He shall reign and govern wisely, he shall do what is just and right in the land.” This, of course, is a prophecy about the coming of Jesus who will become the Kingly Shepherd and Saviour of all who repent and seek His forgiveness as He leads them to His Heavenly Father and eternal happiness. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Psalmist (Ps 23:1-6) proclaimed: “The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing I shall want … He guides me in right paths … I fear no evil for You are at my side with Your rod and your staff that give me courage.”
Knowing that in His human nature He wouldn’t be in the world very long, Jesus appointed men to continue the shepherding of His people in His Holy Name. These were the Apostles to whom He handed on His example and teaching. He founded His Church on Peter to be the pasture where He would give visibility to His flock and where he would nourish and give them courage. In His Church Jesus’ followers would hear His word and experience His Real Presence as He continues His shepherding through those whom His Church appoints in His Name. These are the Bishops, successors of the Apostles, and the priests and deacons as their helpers in shepherding God’s people, Jesus’ flock. Jesus gave three tasks to Peter (Jn 21:15-25) to be carried out for the good of the sheep – the members of His Church, namely: “Feed my lambs…Feed my sheep…Tend my sheep” (Jn 21:15-25). That involves supporting, nourishing and encouraging the faith of those who are loyal to Jesus and His Church; supporting, nourishing and encouraging charity toward the neighbour; and protecting and providing for the weakest and most vulnerable members of the flock from conception to natural death.
As shepherds acting in the Name of Jesus, the bishops, priests and deacons have the responsibility of carrying out three threefold task which Jesus gave to Peter. That involves evangelizing and catechizing the members of the Church which requires preaching the Gospel “in season and out of season, convenient or inconvenient (2 Tim 2:4-9). It involves the solemn and reverential celebration of the Holy Mass and the solemn administration of the Sacraments. It involves the moral teaching of the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. It involves the formation of every Church family and group as Eucharistic communities guided by the Holy Spirit who equips each member with wisdom, understanding, counsel, courage, knowledge, prayerfulness, and fear of the Lord as needed in the life of each member and community. In the Sacrament of Holy Orders, through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus conforms men to Himself as bishops, priests and deacons exercising His role of Priest, Prophet and King in order to nurture and nourish the priesthood of the laity. The laity participate in Jesus’ ministry of Priest, Prophet, and King through offering their sacrifices to Him, evangelizing and catechizing their children, and witnessing Christian virtue at home and in the workplace. Thus the shepherds lead, advise and nurture the sheep who in turn witness to their faith in Jesus to those who don’t know Him.
When I was in the seminary in America, professors used to tell us that God will judge bishops, priests, and deacons by a higher standard than lay people because of the graces He bestows on them as shepherds in His Holy Name. One professor used to say that only bishops and priests go to hell for being unfaithful to their vocation. That was frightening. God spells this out through the prophet Jeremiah: “Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them. But I will take care to punish your evil deeds” (Jer 23:1-6).This is God’s word which mustn’t be taken lightly by bishops and clergy. What God said yesterday He says today and will say tomorrow because He doesn’t change His teaching. Sadly, today there is much confusion and anger within the Church which is generated by bishops and clergy promoting heresy and blaspheming the Lord. We must pray for good shepherds who feed and tend the lambs and the sheep with the Word of God and the Body and Blood of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who died to save His flock, the Church. Similarly, bishops, priests, and deacons must be willing to walk in Jesus’ footsteps as He calls every man and woman to “reform your life, repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Faith in Jesus Is Always Tested
A student said to me once, “School would be great if it weren’t for tests.” Many adults deprive themselves of further education because they fear having to take exams. Why? Is it because we’re afraid of failure? Fear of exposing our weaknesses prevents us from achieving success. Testing is essential to identify strengths in order to develop them and expose weaknesses in order to eliminate them. Would you buy an automobile without a test drive? No intelligent person buys the proverbial pig in a poke. Unless we test something we can’t know if it will achieve its purpose. Religious faith, like everything else in life, needs to be tested to see if it’s real. If your Faith isn’t tested, you aren’t Catholic. Look at how Abraham's faith was tested when God asked him to sacrifice his son (Gn 22:2).
Just before the Jєωιѕн feast of Passover, Jesus miraculously healed many sick and demon-possessed people. Large numbers of people spent a whole day listening to Him. By the end of the day Jesus saw that the people were hungry, both physically and spiritually. He said to Philip, one of His apostles, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” (Jn 6:5). St. John tells us that Jesus, “… knew well what He intended to do but He asked this to test Philip’s response” (Jn 6:6). Philip, based on what he saw rather than on his faith in Jesus, answered: “Not even with two hundred days’ wages could we buy loaves enough to give each of them a mouthful!” (Jn 6:7). Andrew intervened saying that a boy in the crowd had five loaves of bread and a couple of fish and opined, “but what good are these for so many?” Both Philip and Andrew failed Jesus’ test. Philip and Andrew focused on what seemed impossible. Jesus, on the other hand, focused on what He could do knowing that His Father would provide. “Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them … and also as much of the fish as they wanted.”
Both Philip and Andrew acted out of their senses rather than their faith in Jesus. What is faith? It is the ability to trust in God, in one another, and in ourselves. Natural faith isn’t enough; we need supernatural Faith which is a gift from God bestowed on us in Baptism. The Holy Spirit tells us, “Only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for, or prove the existence of the realities that at present remain unseen” (Heb 11:1). Faith enables us to hope for what we need even though we don’t see how it will come about. Faith always generates hope. That’s why we need faith to guarantee the blessings that we hope for. We hope for love, happiness, peace, forgiveness, mercy, justice, health and ultimately Heaven. But it’s our faith in Jesus Christ that makes that hope more than just wishful thinking. Faith proves the existence of these realities that at present remain unseen. The Holy reminds us, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7). Our problem is that we limit ourselves by wanting to walk by sight rather than by faith. Why? Because walking by sight put us in charge. Walking by faith makes us realize that God is in charge and we are dependent on Him. Our faith is tested when we face realities whose outcome we can’t see. Then we find out if our Catholic faith is real or superficial – intentional or cultural. When we’re faced with cancer, death, a business failure, or some misfortune or other we find out if our faith in Jesus is real. If my faith in Jesus’ Christ is real then, no matter what happens to me, I know He will make it all work out for my good and that of everyone else. I don’t see how, but I know through supernatural faith that I will emerge as a better person because I put my trust in Him through the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s supernatural faith. Natural faith isn’t enough because it’s based on what I see. As St. Paul, that great man of faith inspired by the Holy Spirit, attests, “We know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who have been called according to His decree” (Rom 8:28). The Divine virtue of Faith tells me that if I love God, all things, no matter how bad, will work for my good and the good of those whose paths I cross.
Having supernatural faith means we trust in Jesus’ power to provide for our needs. The Psalmist sums it up when he proclaimed: “I will extol You Lord, for You drew me clear and did not let my enemy rejoice over me … You preserve me from going down into the pit ...Hear, O Lord, and have pity on me … You change my mourning into dancing” (Ps 30:4-13). In a crisis our tendency is to focus on what we don’t have rather than on what we do have. Jesus exemplifies what we should do, namely taking the little we have and asking Him to bless it. Then God the Father will provide us with more than we need. That is the power and consolation of the Catholic Faith. But for that to happen we must truly believe with all our mind, heart, soul, and strength. The Holy Spirit reminds us through St. Paul: “I urge you to live In a manner worthy of the call you have received with all humility, gentleness, and patience … striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:1-6).
The message is that God provides for all our needs. But we must put all our trust in Him. How? By asking the Lord to bless what we have, however little it might be. If we do, the Lord will provide more than what we need. This is how the Catholic Faith makes a telling difference in our life. When we trust in God’s providence we know that the “Lord will guide you always and satisfy all your needs” (Is 58:11). Then we’ll pass the test of supernatural faith and show, in the inspired words of St. Paul, that, “In Him who is the source of my strength I have strength for everything” (Phil 4:13). We don’t know we’re Catholics until our faith in Jesus is tested and we pass the test. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Satisfying Your Soul’s Hunger
You and I are a combination of body and soul. They are integrally related since our soul penetrates every organ of our body. Actually we’re more spiritual than physical. Our body will die one day but our soul, our self, will continue. Both need nourishment while on this earth. But which one gets our attention? Olivia Newton John sang the raunchy song, “Let’s Get Physical”, that ended with, “Let's get animal … Let me hear your body talk.” The Holy Spirit, though, has a different emphasis: “I urge you not to indulge your bodily desires. By their nature they wage war on the soul” (1 Pt 2:11). The body talks selfishly. Hedonism is the philosophy that promotes the pursuit of sensual pleasure as the most important goal in life. Pain is to be avoided at any cost. This philosophy of self-indulgence or pain-phobia is reflected in the notion that “I’m entitled to comfort!” This is why the Spirit revealed that, “You must give up your old way of life; you must put aside your old nature, which gets corrupted by following illusory desires, and acquire a fresh spiritual way of thinking” (Eph 4:22). Thinking that pleasing the bodily desires will satisfy us is an illusion because our body can’t avoid suffering and death. “A man will reap only what he sows. If he sows in the field of the flesh, he will reap the harvest of corruption; but is his seed-ground is the soul, he will reap everlasting life” (Gal 6:8). Satisfying what doesn’t die, namely the soul, makes sense. Why would you put all your efforts into what doesn’t last?
Why does the body get more attention than the soul? The blind messages of the body are, eat, drink, and reproduce. These are animal instincts and need to be controlled for the good of our humanity which stems from our spiritual soul. The belly growls when it’s hungry but the soul doesn’t. So we forget the importance of nourishing our soul from which our humanity comes. It’s our soul that makes us human, not our body. Our humanity flows from the fact that we’ve a human soul that gives us the ability to think and freely make choices. If we couldn’t think or choose we would be like animals that are ruled by instinct. The animal part of our brain instinctively wants to eat, drink and reproduce. But the human part of our brain, informed by our spiritual soul, wants to belong, be free, be powerful and be joyful. It’s through our ability to think about and freely choose what we need to do in order to belong, be free, be powerful and be joyful that we’re able to control and direct our urges to eat, drink and reproduce. It’s our soul that gives us that capability. So if our soul isn’t properly nourished it loses its power to guide our bodily instincts or desires. Thus the Holy Spirit teaches us: “Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can put on the new nature that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth” (Eph 4:24). That takes place in Jesus’ Church.
Jesus Christ is God’s way to happiness for human beings. There’s no other. He shows us how to rise above our selfish desires and discipline our body so that it doesn’t overshadow our soul’s needs. A large percentage of our personal and communal problems stems from our malnourished souls. The demands of the body should never distract from the needs of the soul. God sent Moses to free the Hebrews from slavery. In the desert their bellies did the talking expressing their ingratitude to God for freeing them from slavery. “Why did we not die at the Lord’s hand in Egypt, when we were able to sit down to pans of meat and could eat bread to our heart’s content!” (Ex 16;2). Our body just wants immediate satisfaction very often to the detriment of our freedom, power and joy. Our soul, on the other hand, focuses us on belonging, freedom, being powerful and joyful which God through union with Jesus in His Church guided by the Holy Spirit.
When the soul is deprived our thinking is distorted and our will is weakened so that we make bad choices that leave us feeling empty and dissatisfied. Jesus came to free our soul from sin and fill it with God’s grace through the power of the Holy Spirit so that we might be fully human and fully alive.
Just as our body needs food, so does our soul. Jesus made Himself our soul’s food. As God provided bread for the hungry people in the desert, (Ex 16:2-4), so He now provides bread to satisfy our hungry soul in the Person of Jesus. When Jesus miraculously fed over five thousand people with five loaves and two fish, they wanted to make Him their King. But He knew they were only concerned with their bodily needs, not their soul’s nourishment. He told them: “You are not looking for me because you have seen miracles but because you had all the bread you wanted to eat...” (Jn 6:26). Then He added, “Do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you…” (Jn 6:27). Jesus explained, “… for the bread of God is that which comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world” (Jn 6:33). The people begged Jesus, “Sir, give us that bread always” (Jn 6:34). Then Jesus revealed: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry; and he who believes in me will never thirst” (Jn 6:35). Jesus is the bread of life, food for our soul, not symbolically but literally. This is what He does in every Holy Mass – He feeds our soul by giving Himself to us, body, soul and divinity, under the form of bread and wine changed by the priest in Jesus’ name at the Consecration and given to us in Holy Communion. A well-nourished soul is the foundation for good thinking and making good choices that deepen our sense of belonging to Jesus’ Church where He frees us from our sins, empowers us with His grace, and brings joy to our hearts. Earthly bread won’t satisfy the hunger for heaven; only heavenly bread will satisfy that hunger. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
The Holy Eucharist: The Life-Giving Miracle
When Jesus taught His disciples to pray He included among the petitions, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Mt 6:11). The importance of bread as food for the body is evident in every civilization. Bread is one of our most basic foods. Even fasting doesn’t forbid the eating of bread. It’s considered essential for sustaining the body’s energy. It’s even used as a slang term for the money necessary to provide for our needs. Money is also referred to as “dough,” necessary for baking into bread. When we’re hungry we look forward to a slice of bread to calm a growling stomach. Without bread we’re dead.
In the Old Testament we read about the prophet Elijah escaping from Jezebel’s vow to kill him. Tiring, he sat under a broom tree and cried, “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers” (1 Kgs 19:4). In his exhaustion, he fell asleep under the tree. An angel woke him up and found that, “at his head a hearth cake and a jug of water” (19:6). After eating, Elijah went back to sleep. Again, “The angel of the Lord came back a second time, touched him and ordered, ‘Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!’” (19:7). Elijah obeyed, and strengthened by the bread, walked for forty days and nights to the mountain of God, Horeb. God provided him with bread to restore his energy. In a similar way the bread we eat to strengthen our body as we journey through this world to where God wants us to be is a gift from Him. Every good thing comes from God. Our Faith must be that of the Psalmist: “I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears… Taste and see the goodness of the Lord; blessed the man who takes refuge in Him” (Ps 34:2-9).
Just as our body needs bread, so also does our soul. We can bake bread to nourish our body, but where do we get bread for our soul? Again it has to come from God, since only He can nourish our soul since He created it. How does He provide the necessary nourishment? He does so in the Person of Jesus Christ who identified Himself as “the bread of life that came down from Heaven” (Jn 6:41). Many of those who heard Him reacted with disbelief and no longer followed Him. They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? … How can He claim to have come down from Heaven?” (Jn 6:42). Jesus didn’t say, “I’m just speaking symbolically or figuratively and I don’t want you to take me literally.” Instead He reinforced His declaration by saying, “I myself am the living bread come down from Heaven. If anyone eats this bread he shall live forever; the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world… Let me solemnly assure you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (Jn 6:51, 54). Jesus revealed that without eating His body and drinking His blood we are lifeless, dead.
Jesus revealed how He was going to make this possible at the Last Supper when He took bread, blessed it, broke it, and said, “Take this and eat of it, this is my body” (Mt 26:26). He did the same with the cup of wine, declaring, “this is the cup of my blood … take and drink…” Here Jesus changed bread into His body thereby making Himself the “Bread of Life.” Thus He made it possible for all believers to, “Taste and see how good the Lord is; blessed the man who takes refuge in Him” (Ps 34:9). To make it possible for all generations to taste Him, Jesus ordained His Apostles to, “Do this in memory of me” (Lk 22:19). Jesus’ Church, in the person of her ordained bishops and priests, has been doing this since her birth at Pentecost in the Holy Mass until the end of time. Thus Jesus continues, through the ordained successors of His Apostles, to miraculously give us the gift of His body, blood, soul, and divinity to fill our soul with His life. Do you believe in this miracle? Do you taste and see the goodness of the Lord when Jesus miraculously gives Himself to you in Holy Communion?
This miracle takes place at every Holy Mass. Every Holy Mass is a miraculous encounter with Jesus sacrificing Himself in order to give life to our soul. We can see it only with the eyes of supernatural Faith? When Jesus encountered His listeners’ disbelief about accepting Him as the “bread of life come down from Heaven,” He reminded them that they were rejecting the Holy Spirit and weren’t acting as God’s children. He told them: “Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from Him comes to me” (Jn 6:45). St. Paul warns us, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph 4:30). To hear God the Father and believe fully in Jesus as the “bread of life” it’s necessary to let the Holy Spirit enlighten our spirit. Remember that, “No one can say: ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 12:3). That’s the basis for supernatural Faith, a divine virtue and a gift from God. Many who identify as Catholic reject Jesus as the bread of life when they refuse to attend the Holy Mass and, as a result, deprive their soul of the eternal life for which it yearns. St. Paul urges us to, “Be imitators of God, as His beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed Himself over for us as a sacrificial offering for God for a fragrant aroma” (Eph 5:2). This is the life-giving miracle Jesus performs every time we celebrate Holy Mass. In receiving Jesus in Holy Communion, we receive the “Bread of Life.” Jesus is the Life-Giver who miraculously gives Himself to us and who empowers us to imitate God by being “kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ” (Eph 4:32). The bread for our body won’t prevent it from dying. But the Bread for our soul, namely Jesus, will ensure it lives happily forever. The celebration of the Holy Mass is the visible witness of Jesus’ life-giving miracle enlivening our souls making us into a Holy Community as members of His Church. Do you realize this is a fact? (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Are You Living Wisely or Foolishly?
Wisdom is the quality of knowing how to make good judgments. A good judgment is a decision or choice where you gain much more than you lose, especially in the long term. Gaining or losing must be measured by what brings us closer to God or moves us farther away from Him. Biblical wisdom is the proper ordering of one’s life in accord with the rules of Faith in God. The long-term gain is eternal happiness. Foolishness is the living of one’s life in accord with the rules of the world. The long-term gain is eternal misery.
The Holy Spirit warns us: “Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of the Lord … Giving thanks always and for everything in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father” (Eph 5:15-20). God spoke to His people about the importance of wisdom: “To the one who lacks understanding, she (Wisdom) says, ‘Come, eat my food, and drink the wine I have mixed! Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding’” (Prov 9:1-6). Knowledge and understanding of the truth, Jesus Christ, is intellectual and spiritual food and drink.
I think that everyone would prefer to be wise rather than foolish, making the most of every opportunity to make good decisions. No one deliberately makes decisions they think are bad for them. What makes the difference is how we define “good” versus “bad.” These are evil days in the Church and in the world that confuse people as to what’s good or bad, wise or foolish, right or wrong, just or unjust. Nowadays people view truth, morality, as relative to them. That makes them their own god telling them that they are deciders of what constitutes good or evil. Satan loves this state of affairs because it gives him the opportunity to tempt people to think that there is no objective good – no one God who is all good and the Determiner of what is good or bad, right or wrong, true or false, wise or foolish. The Psalmist (34:2-7), guided by God’s Spirit, knew that there is only one God who is all good and the source of wisdom. He shared his experience of the One, True God: “I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears…When the poor man called out, the Lord heard, from all his distress He saved him.” A lack of understanding of the truth always leads to making foolish decisions, which in turn lead to fears and distress. Wise decisions, on the other hand, lead to confidence and peace.
We see how this lack of understanding led to unwise decisions when Jesus revealed to His listeners (Jn 6:51-58): “I am the bread of life that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Instead of asking Him how He would make that possible, they decided that because they knew Him and His family and where He lived that He was just like them so they concluded that He wasn’t making sense. Because they viewed him as like themselves, they said, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So they decided to leave His company and walked away from the only One who could give them a life of eternal happiness. They made a foolish decision because they decided what Jesus couldn’t do rather than trusting in Him that He could do what He said. They were stupid. How did Jesus respond to them? He doubled down on what He already said, warning them: “I say to you, unless you each the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you…my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will have life because of me … Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” Their lack of understanding and unwillingness to order their lives according to what Jesus was teaching led them to live foolishly rather than wisely. The same is true for you and me. To whom or what do we look or rely upon to decide what is wise and what is foolish? Is it Jesus or is it the world?
Those people knew Jesus and saw Him performing all kinds of miracles but they didn’t bother to try and understand who He really was, what He came to do, and how He was going to accomplish what He said. The inspired words of St. Paul warns us: “Do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of the Lord.” It is the will of God the Father that we follow in the footsteps of His Son, Jesus Christ, if we want to enter Heaven. Jesus Himself revealed that, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent” (Jn 17:3). “Knowing” a person biblically is to have an intimate relationship with him or her. Therefore, to “know” God and Jesus Christ is to have a personal relationship with them. This personal, intimate, relationship finds its highest and holiest expression in the Holy Mass where Jesus, through the ordained priest conformed to Him, changes bread and wine into His flesh and blood to be consumed by the Baptized faithful. Therein God the Father and His people as individuals and as a community enter into a Holy Communion with one another initiated by Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Just as in the days of Jesus Himself, many today walk away from the Holy Mass or try to reduce it to a symbol, thereby acting in ignorance and depriving themselves of the life Jesus wants to give them in and through the Holy Eucharist. The Catholic Church makes attendance at Sunday Mass obligatory because every Holy Mass is about “giving thanks always and for everything in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father” (Eph 5:20). In justice we owe that to God. We owe God all our thanks especially for the opportunity to live in Jesus and to have Him live, both physically and spiritually, in us through His Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist which is the only way the faithful can receive the gift of Himself as “the Bread of Life”. This act reflects a person’s true understanding of Jesus, present in His Church, and how He gives us the gift of His life that transcends death. Thus a person lives wisely and not foolishly. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Understanding Leads to Staying or Leaving the Church
Understanding is about grasping the meaning of some event whether it’s a word or an action. Meaning is that which the word or event intends to convey. Understanding is the act of knowing clearly what is being conveyed. That is why asking God questions to clarify what is said or done and giving good feedback to make sure that the intended meaning is grasped by the listener is essential for good communication. The content doesn’t always do justice to the intent, and it’s the intent that matters. The intended meaning of words and events isn’t always clear so we need clarification. Words and events, when taken superficially, don’t always mean that we understand what is intended. Just as the proverbial proof of the pudding is in the eating, so the proof of communication is in the understanding. Things get easier once we understand. Every time we ask “What, why, when, where, or how?” we’re seeking understanding. Sometimes we can’t answer “Why” questions because we can’t fully understand and must accept the mystery. Understanding is the goal of our intelligence and the motivation to delve deeper into the mystery that is God, ourselves, and creation. Without it, relationships would wither and die. Like the rungs of a ladder, each degree of understanding gives us a foothold to scale the heights of truth about God, ourselves and one another. The chief cause of human problems today is that there is a dire lack of understanding of who God is, who we are as humans, and what is natural, and what Jesus meant His Church to be.
God spoke through Joshua (24:1-18) and called the people and gave them a choice: Him or false gods. Joshua declared his own faith and that of his household in God saying, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord for the service of other gods. For it was the Lord, our God, who freed us from slavery … Therefore we will serve the Lord for He is our God.” Worshipping God calls for subordination by the people. Subordination did not mean being slaves but rather revering Him and living an orderly life. St. Paul (Eph 5:21-32) extended this notion of subordination as something necessary for order in the family. He called his listeners to “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.” That means when we revere Christ He empowers to respect one another. Then he talks about order in the family in terms of how roles complement one another: “Wives, be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord … Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed Himself over for her to sanctify her … Husbands should love their wives as their own body. He who loves his wife loves his own body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh… children, be subject to your parents.” The husband is the head of the household and the wife is the home-maker where both focus on serving one another as Christ serves them. A lack of understanding of this Scripture views this as treating a wife as lower in rank than the husband. Subordination here is about disciplining one’s own selfish desires in order to serve the good of the other. God expects the husband to serve the good of his wife by being willing to die for her. The wife is the conceiver, nurturer, and formator of the children, and is loved, protected, defended, and provided for by her husband. The relationship of husband and wife is an image of the relationship between Jesus and His Church.
The opposite of understanding is ignorance. There are two kinds: vincible and invincible. Vincible ignorance is due to ignoring available information about the true meaning of something. Information is available but the individual ignores it. Invincible ignorance is when we search but can’t find the necessary resources to help us understand. Vincible ignorance regarding what it means to be a faithful Catholic is rampant in the world and even within the Church herself. Bishop Fulton Sheen said, “There are not one hundred people (in the world) who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive the Catholic Church to be.” They haven’t sought to understand the true meaning of the mission of Jesus’ Church. Perception without solid information is very subjective and myopic, which leads to misinterpretation. Ignorance is the greatest enemy of Jesus’ Church. Satan loves people to be ignorant of Jesus’ and His Church’s teaching. He doesn’t want people to understand the Church and how she’s Jesus’ instrument of salvation outside of whom there is no salvation. Satan wants people to go to hell so he promotes lies, false perceptions and ignorance of the truth. As Hosea spoke on God's behalf: “My people perish because of ignorance!” (Hos 4:6). To understand Jesus is to be receptive to the Holy Spirit, listen to Him, heed Him, love and praise Him as He guides our human spirit through the Church and our conscience. To understand Jesus’ Church we must belong to her, participate in her Sacraments, especially in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and love her as Jesus’ Bride and our Mother within whom we are reborn in Baptism. Then the words of the Psalmist (34:2-3, 16-21) become real for us: “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord…when the just cry out, the Lord hears them, and from all their distress He rescues them. The Lord is close to the broken-hearted; and those who are crushed in spirit He saves.”
We see an example of vincible ignorance in John’s Gospel. Jesus informed His followers, “I myself am the living bread that came down from Heaven … the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world … If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (Jn 6:51-52). Many reacted, “‘This sort of talk is hard to endure! How can anyone take it seriously?’ From this time on, many of His disciples broke away and would not remain in His company any longer” (Jn 6:60, 66). Their doubts could have been resolved if they had asked Him to explain how He would make what He said possible, but they ignored Him. Thus in their vincible ignorance they walked away from Him. They acted out of their own biased perceptions, and chose not to accept that Jesus had the power to make possible what He taught. Many who call themselves “Christian” today also reject this teaching of Jesus through imposing their own misinterpretation on it and viewing Jesus’ revelation as purely symbolic.
Why do Baptized Catholics walk away from the Church as unbelievers or view the Holy Mass just as an obligation? It’s because they are closed to the Holy Spirit and lack the understanding provided by God’s gift of Supernatural Faith they received in Baptism. Jesus explained, “no one comes to me unless it is granted him by my Father” (Jn 6:65). True believers are those who open themselves to receive God’s Spirit. It’s the Holy Spirit that gives us the supernatural faith to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and as the “Bread of Life” in the Holy Mass. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, St. Paul tells us that, “…no one can say: ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3). The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth who, “When He comes, however, being the Spirit of truth He will guide you to all truth” (Jn 16:13). Jesus is the Truth, the Way, and the Life (Jn 14:6). It’s this Spirit who brings us the gift of understanding Jesus and His Church, which He guides as her Soul. The Spirit is the life-giving breath from God to us bringing “a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, counsel, courage and fear of the Lord” (Is 11:2) that enlightens our mind. It was this Spirit that motivated Peter to respond to Jesus when He asked His Apostles, “Do you want to leave me too?” (Jn 6:67). Peter replied, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe; we are convinced that You are God’s Holy One” (Jn 6:69). Peter not only had knowledge of Jesus but he also understood Jesus because he was receptive to the Holy Spirit.
It is our understanding of Jesus that determines whether we join, remain, or leave His Church where |He is present. Hence the need for our bishops, priests, and deacons, the ordained leaders of the Church, to devote themselves to evangelize and catechize the people, thereby being faithful to Jesus’ triple command to Peter: “Feed my lambs … Look after my sheep… Feed my sheep” (Jn 21:15-17). When the lambs and the sheep are well fed where they are able to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord,” they will not wander away from the fold. The more we know the Lord the more we will understand Him and subordinate ourselves to Him. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
The Wise and Intelligent Obey God’s Law
The purpose of law is to guarantee order in society. Order is essential for both the common good of society and the individual members. Order requires rules that are followed by everyone. Without order it’s impossible for individuals and society to uphold the common good because chaos undermines it. The common good is the pursuit of freedom, justice, love, and peace, individually and communally. But it’s important to ask, “Who defines the common good?” Is it the people, courts, politicians, governments, the culture, or God?
Does good follow from law or law follow from the good? If law defines the good, then it’s dependent on what legislators say it is. Law, then, would be the final arbiter deciding the good. In that case there would be no such thing as bad law. However, we know from history that’s not the case. Since death is never good, laws that legalize killing, such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted ѕυιcιdє, are bad.
The common good for creation can be determined only by the Creator. Law, whose purpose is to protect the common good, must protect moral living, which in turn flows from religion that gives structure to the relationship between the human and the Divine which is initiated by God. If the “good” of society contravenes the law of God everyone suffers. There’s a clear sequence here and with reason. The word “good” etymologically derives from the word God. God has revealed standards of behavior that uphold and promote the common good in both private and public life. A good law reflects the moral behavior, which human beings learned from their relationship with God that’s essential in maintaining their relationship with Him and with one another. Thus religion gave birth to morality, which defined the good to be protected and assured order in the life of individuals and society.
God revealed that His law reflects His love for us and obedience to His law reflects our love for Him. Without God’s law we would not know how to love Him. This is why He revealed to His people that, “The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul; the decree of the Lord is trustworthy, giving wisdom to the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the command of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eye” (Ps 19:8-9). Again He tells us that, “The love of God consists in this: that we keep His commandments – and His commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn 5:3) because obedience stems from love. What we love is never burdensome. Because God loves us, what He asks of us is never burdensome because He provides us with the wherewithal to accomplish it. Our part is to choose to do it.
The tragedy today is that there’s an obsession on the part of many to dismiss religion, especially Catholic Christianity, as well as anything remotely related to it, as having nothing to do with the good of society, its order, protection, and promotion. Sadly, many philosophers and moralists have tried to separate morality from religious doctrine and base their definition of the good solely on human reason or feeling while ignoring Divine Revelation expressed in God’s Law as the ultimate source of what is real, true, good, and beautiful. Any time something is separated from its origin, it always suffers an identity crisis and becomes watered down losing its true meaning and purpose. The true purpose of law will become blurred or lost when separated from morality. In the same way, morality will become blurred or lost when separated from God and His Church’s Apostolic Tradition. Therefore, with the Psalmist, we must admit to God: “… Your law is like a lamp that guides my steps, a light that shows the path I should take. Your laws are good and fair. I have promised to obey them, and I will keep my promise.” (Ps 119:105-112). St. James urges us to “Humbly welcome the Word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls. Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves” (Jas 1:15-27).
We rely on God and the teaching of His Church for our understanding of what’s good and the rules that assure us we’re embracing that good in our thoughts and actions. People may belong to different religions and ecclesial groups, but still have certain basic principles in common. The major world religions recognize five basic commands from God to human beings: 1. Don’t kill. 2. Don’t lie. 3. Don’t steal. 4. Don’t practice immorality. 5. Respect parents and love children. (How Good People Make Tough Choices, Kidder, Rushworth M., Simon & Schuster). All of these are reflected in the 10 Commandments. Another work (Moral Rules: A New rational Foundation, Harper & Row) points out that humanity in general embraces a set of core values that seem to be universal. 1. Don’t kill. 2. Don’t cause pain. 3. Don’t disable. 4. Don’t deprive of freedom or opportunity. 5. Don’t deprive of pleasure. 6. Don’t deceive. 7. Keep your promises. 8. Don’t cheat. 9. Obey the law. 10 Do your duty. These basic moral rules reflect the aspirations of reasonable people listening to their consciences. Where do they come from? Certainly not from man-made law. Rather law comes from them. God has written His law on every person’s heart (Rom 2:12ff).
God’s Ten Commandments don’t contain anything that contradicts reason. They reflect an objective set of standards that are essential if human beings are to live ordered lives and build just communities. A non-religious person may not embrace the first three Commandments, which outline the minimum requirements for an ordered relationship with God. But even a non-religious person can accept that reason supports the notion of only one God who is All-Good and the source of all good. There can be only one leader in any organization. If there are more, it leads to division and weakness. The family of mankind needs one Divine leader who can offer the hope of achieving unity with one another. Reason supports respect for God. Reason supports worship of God. Because God is God, He deserves to be worshipped, not because He needs it, but because His followers owe Him in justice for all His gifts and need to publicly display that none of them seeks to be in competition with Him.
The last seven Commandments seek to ensure healthy, respectful, and safe human relationships with our neighbors. Honoring one’s father and mother is for the good of the family. Avoiding killing, adultery, stealing, lying, and coveting is for the good of everyone, both individually and communally. They insure order in one’s personal and communal life.
Moses addressed the people regarding the 10 Commandments: “Observe them carefully, for thus you will give evidence of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations, who will hear of all these statutes and say, ‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people'” (Deut 4;1-8). Twelve hundred years later Jesus criticized the people who prided themselves for their devotion to the observance of the law: “You disregard God’s commandments but cling to human tradition” (Mk 7:14-15). What did He mean? They replaced God’s rules with their own so they were serving their own interests instead of God’s. Their laws were subjectively motivated and they defined “the good” to suit themselves rather than the Good revealed by God. Jesus, quoting from Isaiah (Mk 7:1-13), described them: “This people honors me with their lips but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines mere human precepts.”
Just as the vision of the founders of a country is enshrined in its Constitution, so God’s vision for moral living and a lawful society is articulated in the Ten Commandments. Just as there are those who would try and change the Constitution to suit their own egotistical purposes, so there are those who would try to change God’s Law and the law of His Church. Those who would remove the 10 Commandments as the basis for moral living and the context for determining the good of individuals and society demonstrate neither intelligence nor wisdom. Thus today many leaders and those who support them are foolish and creators of chaos. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Be Sensible!
God revealed in the Book of Genesis that He created man and woman to be the high point of His earthly creation. After He created man and woman He declared them “very good” as distinct from the rest of creation, which He calls “good” (Gen 1:31). Creation is good while man and woman are very good. Another mark of distinction between man and the rest of creation was that God created them in His “image and likeness,” (Gen 1:26-28) while the rest wasn’t so privileged. God created man and woman as unique creatures and received the special purpose of subdue and filling the earth as its stewards (Gn 1:28). The tragedy today is that man and woman have become deaf and blind to the fact that they are accountable to God for how they treat human life from conception to natural death and that the earth is to be used for the benefit of all men and women.
Through human beings God puts His stamp, as it were, on His creation. This is why He created us in His image and likeness. Therefore, we must be continuously conscious of ourselves as God’s image and likeness to make sure that we are God’s instruments through which He continues to influence and direct His creation. If we are deaf and blind to God’s revelation we will stamp creation with our own human image and impose our own limitations and sinfulness upon it.
Our job, then, is to use creation in a manner that it too reflects the spirit of the Creator and shows that indeed we, as its stewards, show that we are God’s image and likeness on this earth. How do we know what it means to be the image and likeness of God? Who can tell and show us God’s image and likeness? God Himself made His image and likeness audible and visible when His Word took on human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Jesus is God’s Word-made-flesh. Jesus is the visible Model of what it means to be the human image and likeness of God. Therefore to be God’s image and likeness in the world you and I must make it our business to turn our eyes and ears to Jesus Christ who is present in His Church until the end of time (Mt 28:20).
To live calls for exercising all our abilities and gifts. God has gifted us with the ability to think and to choose. Thinking involves the mind whose nature is to know the truth. Choosing involves the will whose nature is to choose the good. The will is very much influenced by the mind since the good that is chosen is what the mind knows. Knowledge of the truth is an essential pursuit if we want to choose what’s truly good. Ignorance sentences us to less than the best. Since God is truth and is omniscient, all-knowing, He created us to know the truth. It’s unnatural for a human being not to want to know the truth.
Knowing always begins with experience. Everything that happens to us begins as an experience – either as a word or an event in our life. If we don’t experience something, it has no meaning for us. How do we experience it? With our senses. To experience something we must see, hear, smell, taste, or touch it. God has created us as sensible creatures. The animal level of creation has senses too, but it’s limited since animals, birds, and fish do not have the ability to reflect and evaluate what they sense. Only humans can reflect on and make decisions on what to do with their experiences.
A sensible person is one who uses one’s his or her senses to the fullest in order to collect as much information as possible about his or her environments. When we describe something as “nonsense” we imply that one or more of the senses contradicts it. When I say that something doesn’t make sense, I’m implying that it doesn’t square with what I see, hear,, smell, taste, or touch. When parents tell their children to be sensible, consciously or unconsciously they want them to use all their senses to collect correct information so they can make good decisions. If God gave us at least five senses, He means for us to use them so that we can make good decisions based on the sense knowledge we have cleaned. Seeing and hearing are two of our most important senses helping us to be secure and productive.
Jesus came to restore us to our senses, both physically and spiritually. This Sunday Jesus’ Church draws our attention to Him as He restores hearing and speech to a man who had lost the use of both (Mk 7:31-37). “He took the man away from the crowd, put His finger in the man’s ears, and using His spittle, touched his tongue. “He looked up to Heaven, groaned and said to the man, ‘Ephphatha – Be opened.’” Jesus was fulfilling the prophecy from Isaiah (34:5-7): “Be strong, fear not! Here is your God … He comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf be cleared … the tongue of the mute will sing…” Here we see how the impairment of one sense affects the others. The healing or development of one sense enhances the others. When a person is deaf his or her speech is also adversely affected. When a person hears well he or she is able to speak more plainly.
An old saying reminds that “There are none so deaf as those who don’t want to hear.” The same goes for seeing. Hearing is a very important sense when it comes to the Christian faith. The Holy Spirit reveals through St. Paul, “Faith comes through hearing and hearing comes through speaking the Word of God” (Rom 10:17). Deafness, not just physical but especially mental, emotional, moral, and social, causes faith in God to die because it guarantees that His Word is not heard. Reluctance to preach the Word by bishops and clergy causes faith in God to die. If the Word isn’t spoken it can’t be heard and if it isn’t heard it cannot remind and encourage the hearer to be what God wants him or her to be, namely His image and likeness in the world. Deafness to the Word of God and impediments to speaking it are sure causes of the faith crisis in the Church today.
As a result of not hearing God’s Word people become spiritually dumb and insensitive to what God offers them, namely freedom from sin, the ability to see Jesus in the Sacraments of His Church, especially the Holy Mass, companionship to the lonely, hope to the despairing, love to the, loveless, faith to the faithless, protection to the vulnerable, the orphan, the widow, and thwarts the wicked (Ps 146:7-10).
Our prayer daily must be, “Heavenly Father, please open the ears and mouths of the bishops and clergy of Your Church so that I might hear You and know how to speak Your Word to all I know, so that, using their senses, they might be filled with Your Love and realize that You have created them in Your Holy Image and Likeness to bring back the world to Him. I ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen! (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Why Jesus asked, “Who Do People Say I Am?”
Have you ever wondered about how people perceive you? Who does your family, friends, co-workers, and the people in your neighborhood say that you are? Sometimes people claim they don’t care what others view them. What really matters is who God says I am! It’s important to realize that who others say I am determines the relationships we have or don’t have. In the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” (Mk 8:27-35). Why did He ask that question? Was He feeling insecure? Why did He care about how others saw Him? Because He knew that image was important in fostering relationships.
People who want to be popular put time and effort into developing an attractive image of themselves. Politicians spend lots of money trying to get people to view them favourably. The image they portray often makes the difference between winning and losing elections. Was Jesus interested in popularity? No. Was He interested in running for a political office? No. Why, then, did He ask the question about how others perceived Him? He wanted to know if the people really knew Him.
We collect information about the world through our perceiving functions. We tend to base our decisions on our perceptions; on how we see things. For many, perception is reality. If our perception is incorrect our reality isn’t real. Whether our perceptions are true or false will determine whether our relationships are real or fake. The problem with perceptions is that they’re affected by the limitations of our observations. Remember the old saying, “Don’t judge the book by the cover.” First impressions shouldn’t always be lasting. Perceptions or images always need to be examined objectively before memorizing them.
Who we say we are and who others say we are determine the strength or weakness of our relationships. We relate to one another based on the images we’ve developed of one another. We are imaginative creatures with an imagination whose purpose is to create images of reality. Our images are our ways of managing reality. We’re incapable of grasping the totality of reality, even of ourselves never mind that of another. All we know for sure about another is what he or she tells us either verbally or nonverbally. Since we can’t grasp the totality of reality, we must settle for pieces of it. The pieces of reality that we grasp are called images. When you and relate to one another we don’t relate to the fullness of who we are but rather to the image we have developed of one another. The reality of the relationship between two people is in proportion to how well the images they have of each other reflect the reality that is each person. If my image of you truly reflects you, and your image of me truly reflects me, then we can have a genuinely productive relationship. However, if the images we have of each other are false, a genuine relationship is impossible.
Jesus knew that people would relate to Him according to the image they had developed of Him. If the image didn’t reflect His true identity they couldn’t have a real relationship with Him nor let Him have a true relationship with them. We learn from the Gospel that the majority of people had a false image of Jesus, thinking He was an Old Testament prophet, Elijah, Jeremiah, John the Baptizer. He asked His closest disciples what their image of Him was. Peter answered on their behalf, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him, “Blest are you, Simon, son of John! No mere man has revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father” (Mt 16:13-17). Having a true image of Jesus requires divine revelation. St. Paul reminds us that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3). Therefore to form a true image of Jesus our mind and spirit must be receptive to the Holy Spirit as was Peter. Where does the Holy Spirit guide us? In the Bible interpreted by Jesus’ Church guided by the Holy Spirit. We cannot have a true image of Jesus without listening to His Church.
Even though Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, had a true image of who Jesus was, namely Immanuel, God-with-us, he still tried to make Jesus change His mission. He tried to stop Him from facing death in Jerusalem. Even though we have a true image of Jesus we all attempt to get Him to do what suits us rather than what He chooses to do in fidelity to His Father’s will.
This week Jesus asks you and me, “Who do you say that I am?” What is your image of Him? Your image of Him influences how you relate to Him, His Church, its purpose, and your role in it. Why do some people actively participate in the Church while others are simply observers? Participants have an image of Jesus as the Lord calling them to be His eyes, hands, legs, mouth, mind, emotions, body, etc. Those who are merely observers have an image of Jesus as someone who has come to save them but doesn’t expect them to do anything. Participators have an image of Jesus as the Lord who continues to save mankind from hell in collaboration with them through the community of His Church. Observers seem to have faith, but it is dead. “Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (Jas 2:14-18). Faith in Christ based on a true image of Him MUST be expressed in good works. There is no room for observers and volunteers in the Roman Catholic Church of Jesus Christ. Every Baptized and Confirmed member of the Catholic Church has received at least one spiritual gift from God to be developed and shared. Therefore, every person has a ministry in the Church. If a member of the Church isn’t doing at least one of the Spiritual or Corporal Works of Mercy, then he or she doesn’t have a true image of Christ. Without a true image of Christ, there can’t be a true relationship with Him. That is why He said to the foolish virgins, “I don’t know you ...” and didn’t let them into the banquet hall ( Mt 25:1-13). We can’t have a true relationship with someone when we have a false image of him or her and so we can’t have the benefits of the relationship.
Sadly, there are too many in the world, and even in the Church, who have a false image of Jesus and His Church. He is viewed as “nice” and His Church as “the Church of Nice.” But salvation comes only from the real Jesus and His true Church. The real Jesus warns us that, “If a man wishes to come after me, he must deny his very self, take up his cross, and follow in my steps. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s will preserve it” (Mk 8:34-36). The real Jesus warns us that, “If anyone in this faithless and corrupt age is ashamed of me and my doctrine, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes with the holy angels in His Father’s glory” (Mk 8:38). The real Jesus reveals that “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn 14:6). Jesus is the only way to Heaven. You won’t find these Scriptures proclaimed from the pulpits of the Church-of-Nice.
Just as in human relationships developing a true image of one another is essential for true and genuine relationships, so is the development of a true image of Jesus and His Church essential in order to be a true Catholic Christian. Sadly, the image of Jesus and His Church that is promoted today by many in the Church is false because the Holy Spirit is being rejected so that Jesus is sanitized and His Church treated as another NGO. Let us turn to the Apostolic Tradition in which the Apostles hand on the true image of Jesus they developed of Him through spending three years in His company and guided by the Holy Spirit. Jesus founded His Church to faithfully protect and hand on that Tradition that contains the true image of Himself so that all people can come to know Him and form a true relationship with Him. Without the Church humanity and the world cannot know who Jesus truly is.
Reason tells us that if we want to have a genuine relationship with Jesus we must have a true image of Him. Our image of Him determines the caliber of our Christianity. Jesus said, “Where I am, there will my servants be.” If my image of Jesus is true, I will see Him as the One who has come to bring the world back to God and who asks me to let Him save the world through me. With that image of Jesus, I must ask myself, “What am I doing to make Jesus known as the only Savior of mankind?” (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Ambition: Good or Bad?
The word ‘ambition’ comes from Latin and was first used as a political term meaning a ‘going around’ or ‘striving for favour,’ soliciting votes for political office in Roman times. To be ambitious is to seek what we think will bring us some distinction, power, or fame that will make us stand out from the crowd or achieve something important to us. Is ambition good or bad? Who doesn’t want to be recognized, honoured, or achieve success? Who doesn’t want to be noticed, admired or favoured? Maybe introverts don’t like these things in public but they appreciate them in private. The fact is that every man, woman, and child is ambitious for what makes them happy. The problem isn’t ambition but what we’re ambitious for and what we do to attain it. The question is: Am I ambitious for the right or wrong things? When ambition is grounded in humility we’ll use it to serve others. When it’s laced with pride, arrogance or a superiority complex, we’ll use it to be served. This is what Jesus teaches us in the Gospel according to.
Jesus had just finished explaining to His Apostles (Mk 9:30-37) that betrayal, suffering, and death awaited Him as God’s Messiah. “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise” (Mk 9:31). St. Mark records that “they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question Him” (9:32). Instead they fell to arguing among themselves about which of them would be the greatest. Personal ambition occupied their thoughts. Who would be the most powerful, admired, or get the most votes? They were looking out for themselves. Nothing wrong with that, you might say! We all do it. Jesus was probably smiling as listened to them thinking to Himself, “There they go again thinking like humans and not like God. Will they ever learn?” Remember that Jesus is always listening to our conversations, even when we’re unconscious of His presence! When they arrived at their destination Jesus confronted them: “What were you arguing about on the way?” (Mk 9:33). Feeling embarrassed because Jesus had been talking about His forthcoming death while they were concerned with their own status, no one answered Him. Jesus used their silence as an opportunity to teach them about what ambition meant in His Church. He told them then, and He is telling us now through His Church, that “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all” (Mk 9:35). God teaches that ambition isn’t for glorifying one’s own ego, fueling vainglory, but for serving others.
Jesus didn’t condemn ambition. It’s natural to want to be acknowledged, affirmed, and receive affection. Without it we wouldn’t accomplish anything. Rather, He showed that ambition is good only when it leads to serving the needs of others. That requires the virtue of humility; it’s about putting thee before me. The way God sees things and the way we see things aren’t the same. God looks out for the whole of creation. We have a fallen nature and live in a world that says, “Look out for yourself!” Therein lies the problem. God is selfless and we are selfish. God wants us to be, as St. Paul wrote, “ambitious for the higher gifts … but if I am without love, it will do me no good whatever” (1Cor 12:31-13:3). Real love is by its nature sacrificial. The ambitious person who is humble realizes that every good thing comes from God. St. Paul confirms this when he wrote, “In any case, brothers and sisters, has anybody given you some special right? What do you have that was not given to you? And if it was given, how can you boast as though it were not?” (1 Cor 4:7). God’s gifts are not so much given to us as they are to be shared with others through us.
The humble person’s ambition is graced with gratitude that expresses itself in worshiping God and in serving those in need. To achieve fame, power, wealth, honour in God’s eyes, we must be the best servant we can be. Humble ambition empowers us to put others above ourselves. This is the man or woman who prays daily, “O God, by Your Name save me, and by Your might defend my cause. O God hear my prayer; hearken to the words of my mouth … Behold God is my Helper; the Lord sustains my life” (Ps 54: 4, 6). Wisdom (2:12, 17-20) depicts those people whose ambition is bad because they were prideful and sought only their own self-aggrandisement. “Let us beset the Just One, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings, reproaches us for transgressions of the Law and charges us with violations of our training … Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him.” The “just one” refers to the promised Messiah. He came to confront sin in order to save people from their sins and so He identified the sins committed by the people for which they would have to repent, seek forgiveness and amend their life in order to saved. But they were prideful rather than humble and so set out to destroy the Messiah. They then sought to soothe their consciences by reminding themselves that the Just One said God would take care of Him. Selfish ambition served to put Jesus on the cross. It also tries to shut down Jesus’ Church today by trying to change her Traditional teaching. The conflict between those who use their ambition to serve Jesus in His Church and those who use their ambition to use Jesus and His Church to serve their prideful purposes is evident today.
Self-serving ambition is always destructive both outside and inside the Church. Why? Because it is blind and causes people to “sow in the flesh and so reap corruption” (Gal 6:8). St. James highlights the consequences of egotistical ambition: “Wherever you find jealousy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and every kind of wicked thing being done… You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force. Why you don’t have what you want is because you don’t pray for it; when you do pray and don’t get it, it is because you have not prayed properly, you have prayed for something to indulge your own desires.” (Jas 3:16-4:3) St. James cautions that, “If there are any wise or learned men among you, let them show it by their good lives, with humility and wisdom in their actions” (Jas 3:13). If we temper our ambition with humility, we’ll be instruments of God’s blessing on society viewing ourselves as servants and not lords. If we don’t, we’ll be sores on the skin of the Church and of society. What matters is that our ambition runs on the tracks of humility and service seeking God’s glory whose favour and votes are the only things that count. In the words of St. Paul (12:31-13:13) “Be ambitious for the higher gifts…There are in the end three things that matter: Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the greatest of these is Charity.” Supernatural Faith, Hope, and Charity must drive all ambition if it is to be good and reflect God’s will which alone matters for our future. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
The Effects of a Diseased Soul
Pathology is the branch of medicine that studies the nature of disease, its causes, processes, development, and consequences. The term comes from two Greek words, namely ‘pathos,’ which means disease, and ‘logos,’ which means study. Since we’re composed of body and soul integrally related, we can suffer from illnesses in each of these areas. Our soul is as prone to sickness as is our body. Sickness of the soul affects our intellect and our will, our thinking and our choices. Therefore, in order to ensure health we need to be alert to the existence of disease in each of these components for the sake of our well-being. However, when it comes to the soul we don’t always view it as being diseased or sick. Sickness of the soul may very well be the root cause of some of our physical and many of our mental illnesses. Sin infects the soul and causes it to become sick. That’s why it needs to be freed from sin if we’re going to be healthy human beings. A healthy soul is crucial in order to be a healthy person. Why? The soul is the person’s substance that expresses itself through the mind and body. The signs of a healthy soul are faith, charity, trust, prayerfulness, freedom, patience, hope, joy, prudence, justice, chastity, fortitude, temperance, wisdom, faithfulness, and understanding. A diseased soul will cause unhealthy thinking that generates feelings and expression in evil physical actions. The signs of an unhealthy soul are addiction, infidelity, cowardice, hesitancy, folly, hypocrisy, conflict, meanness, harshness, lewdness, ugliness, vengefulness, covetousness, etc. A person who is greedy, lustful, lazy, jealous, wrathful, prideful, or envious has a sick soul. Our body will ultimately die whether or not it’s diseased. But our soul will not die; it will continue beyond physical death in either a healthy or a sick state. In its healthy state the soul will enjoy eternal happiness. In its diseased state the soul will experience eternal hell. Hence the urgent need to rid the soul of disease that damages its “organs,” such as the intellect, mind, unconscious, decision-making, conscience, memory, and the “spark of God.” Since the soul is what gives form to the body, makes it human and determines whether it is male or female, what happens to the soul affects the body. The Body reflects the soul. A body that reflects a damaged soul is not relaxed or at peace. We can try to change the body with drugs or surgery but we cannot change the soul. Since the soul is the essence of the person, who the person truly is at the depth of his or her being, the state of the soul determines that state of his or her humanity.
Jesus came to rid the human soul from disease through repentance and the forgiveness of sin. This is why the Sacrament of Reconciliation is so essential and why Jesus gave His Apostles, and through them their successors in His Church, the power to forgive sin. He empowered His Church under the leadership of Peter to make forgiveness of sin available to those with repentant hearts. “Then He breathed on them and said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven them; if you held them bound, they are held bound’” (Jn 20:22-23). Jesus made forgiveness an integral part of His Church’s mission emphasizing God’s love, justice, and mercy. But it’s also essential to realize that forgiveness requires repentance on our part if we want God to free our soul from spiritual sickness. Repentance, in turn, requires a contrite heart, confession of sin, doing penance, making restitution for the damage done to ourselves and others, and amending our life in fidelity to Jesus and His Church.
Amending our life means identifying our soul’s disease, recognizing its nature, identifying its cause and consequences, and taking the steps necessary to maintain spiritual wellness. Jesus addresses the seriousness of this when He told His listeners, “If your hand is your difficulty, cut it off! ... If your foot is your undoing, cut it off... If your eye is your downfall, tear it out!” (Mk 9:43-49). He told them that it was better for them to enter Heaven maimed, crippled, and blinded than to enter hell with an intact body. Jesus isn’t advocating self-mutilation, rather He is using hyperbole to emphasize the dire need to do what’s necessary, no matter how painful, to get rid of anything that damages our soul. As I have indicated, our soul is our self – our essence, what makes us unique and human. When we’re physically sick we often have to submit to surgery in order to remove an organ or part of an organ that if left there will bring about our physical death. The same is true of the soul when its sickness threatens us with spiritual death. We don’t excise the spiritual “organ,” rather we ask God to free it from its disease by restoring the soul to its healthy state where it restores its organs to health. We need to get rid of anything that threatens the health of the soul. The ultimate consequence of bodily disease is physical death if it isn’t cured. The ultimate consequence of spiritual disease is eternal hell if it isn’t cured before we leave this world.
We hear the Psalmist proclaim that, “The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul; the decree of the Lord is trustworthy, giving wisdom to the simple … Though Your servant is careful of them, very diligent in keeping them, yet who can detect failings? Cleanse me from my unknown faults!” (Ps 19:8,12-13). Loving obedience to God’s Law “refreshes the soul.” Dishonesty sickens the soul. St. James (5:1-6) warns us that those who become rich at the expense of others will lose everything, especially their soul’s eternal happiness. Why? Because what was ill-gotten infects the soul with greed and injustice. The consequence, if dishonest people die unrepentant and without making restitution, an eternity in hell awaits them.
The law of God keeps us on Jesus’ path loving God and neighbour in a spirit of service that promotes freedom, charity, justice, and peace, the characteristics of a healthy soul. The more we strive to serve the more Satan tempts us to focus on ourselves and our own gain so that we do only what will be personally rewarding. When selfishness kicks in our soul becomes dehydrated resulting in a narrowing of our thinking and pettiness in our choices. That’s why we need to confess our sins and seek Jesus’ and His Church’s forgiveness at least once each month, and preferably more often. Our prayer each day should be, “Have mercy on me, O God, in Your goodness; in the greatness of Your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me” (Ps 51:1-4). The effects of a diseased soul are deadly and dehumanizing. A clean soul brings joy to the heart, peace to the mind, and the promise of eternal happiness. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Marriage Is God’s Creation, not the State’s
God alone declares a relationship to be a marriage which He instituted between a man and a woman for the purpose of creating a family. The State can legalize a relationship but it has no authority to declare it a “marriage.” God revealed that, “‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I shall make a suitable partner for him’ … God then built up into a woman the rib he had taken from the man (who said), ‘This, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken’” (Gen 2:18, 22-23). Thus God made man and woman uniquely suited to one another not only physically, but also spiritually, mentally, emotionally, socially, and morally. Two men or two women can give each other compliments but they can’t complement one another as only a man and a woman have the ability to accomplish. That complementarity is uniquely expressed in an indissoluble marriage union. “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). The fruitfulness of their union is made visible in the procreation of children and in their mutual love for one another that’s unconditional. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish … birds … and over every living thing…” (Gen 1:28). “The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame” (Gen 2:25) because, before they sinned, they related to each other in love rather than lust.
Satan entered the picture tempting Adam and Eve that they could be God’s equal by eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Then they would know what was good for them independently of God. Thus the scourge of relativism entered the world. Morality would now be subjective based on people’s likes and dislikes. With this came selfishness and sin. Thus the natural complementarity and solidarity between man and woman became severely damaged. While man and woman were still attracted to one another, often through disordered desires, alienation, and blaming pitted them against one another – Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the devil (Gen 3:13). Marriage, which called for complete union and unconditional love, was undermined making it more of a contract than a covenant. Man and woman no longer viewed each other in terms of collaboration but in terms of self-gratification. By rejecting God they rejected the source of unconditional love and eternal life, giving birth to selfishness and death. While human nature, despite its fallen state, brought man and woman together in marriage, they didn’t have the grace of God to help them love one another unconditionally or forgive one another so divorce entered the human scene.
The Pharisees confronted Jesus regarding divorce and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” (Mk 10:2). They reminded Him that, “Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.” Jesus reminded them that, “Moses wrote you this commandment because of the hardness of your heart. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together no man or woman may separate” (Mk 10: 5-9). He reinforced God’s teaching when He told them that, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mk 10:11). A divorced man or woman who “remarries” isn’t married in God’s eyes but is living in a state of adultery. Adulterers are deprived of Heaven (1 Cor 6:9-11) unless they repent and get out of that sinful state.
Jesus stated that “What God has joined, man may not pull apart” (Mt 19:6; Mk 10:9). Jesus made marriage into a Sacrament wherein He provides the necessary graces to the man and woman to remain faithful and grow in their sacrificial love for one another in a holy covenant. What God joins He provides the wherewithal to remain joined. He revealed in Ps 128 1-6, “Blessed are you who fear the Lord, who walk in His ways … Blessed shall you, and favoured. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the recesses of your home; your children like olive branches around your table. For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork…”
Divorce reflects either the fact that one or both spouses refused to receive the graces God bestowed on them through the Sacrament of His Church, or the fact that these two people should never have entered marriage. Marriage is a vocation made in Heaven but it has to be lived on earth. The Church provides a divorced man or woman with the opportunity to examine the attempted marriage to see if God did join them together in the beginning. It is called the Annulment Process. Jesus gave Peter as the head of His Church the power to bind and to loose from bonds. If the Church’s conclusion is that God did join them but one or both decided to leave she cannot declare the marriage null and void. This is a reminder that in the mind of God and His Church marriage is a very serious undertaking for a man and a woman, hence the need for a thorough preparation to make sure that they are answering God’s call to them to marry. It is a fact that some people should never be married either because they aren’t called to that state or they are too immature and ignorant of what marital obligations entail. Marriage is for mature people who realize that God will judge them on their willingness to sacrifice themselves for one another.
Divorce is the scourge of the family. Broken families translate into broken societies. Broken societies breed dysfunctional people whose need to belong, be free, be powerful and be able to be joyful is not met. The Church should become much more stringent in her requirement of couples who present themselves for marriage. Preparation programmes should be intensified with a major emphasis on the spiritual and religious aspect of marriage. Couples who enter a sɛҳuąƖ relationship before marriage reduce the possibility of a successful marriage to 20%. The Church should require them to be chaste for at least a year before entering marriage. If people abuse their sɛҳuąƖity before marriage they will abuse it after marriage. Because marriage is created by God, not by human beings or the political government, man and woman individually need God’s unconditional love to keep them loving each other unconditionally. The vows are “until death do us part.” But one person can’t make a marriage. It takes both husband and wife with each needing Jesus as their Saviour and His Church as the means through which He spiritually nourishes and nurtures their relationship and the development of their children. Marriage calls people to be soul mates and if their souls are sick from sin so their relationship will be severely diseased. By making marriage a Sacrament of His Church Jesus assures the bride and groom of His unconditional love so each of them knows the source of the love that never runs out. Since God created marriage, only He can keep a man and woman in love with each other in a covenant relationship. This is why Jesus came to call sinners to repent and seek forgiveness from God so they could forgive one another and be reconciled so they could resume their complementary relationship. This requires humble and loving obedience to God’s will as the determiner of good and evil rather than following our own selfish notion of what’s good or bad for us. To highlight this Jesus reminds us, “Amen, I say to you whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it” (Mk 10: 15). The implication is that we must trustingly accept what God’s Kingdom requires of us if we want to enter it rather than satisfying our own ego. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Only The Poor Go To Heaven
Jesus taught that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle (a small aperture in the Jerusalem wall) than for a rich man or woman to enter heaven. Jesus stated that, “It is hard for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God!” (Mk 10:17-30). I find this statement to be a wakeup call to practice poverty, namely making what we have available to help those in need. This particular Scripture is very important in a culture obsessed with the false god of wealth. Success or failure in political leadership is measured by how financially well off people are. The wealth of a person as a measurement of how successful he or she is not how God measures our success. This standard for measuring our wellbeing tends to completely omit morality, integrity, virtue, faith, and our obligation to share. A line in the hymn, “All My Trials Lord” reminds us that “If living was something that money could buy, the rich would live and the poor would die.” Money cannot buy Heaven. The rich have status on earth but the poor have status in Heaven. Status on earth is temporary but status in Heaven is permanent.
The famous are usually the materially rich and the materially rich are usually the famous. We seem to pay more attention to what we have than on who we are as persons and where we’re headed. People are rarely honored for the kind of person they are. People are more often than not rewarded for what they do, regardless of the kind of life they lead. In the big picture, who a person is rather than what a person does or has is far more important. Doing flows from being. However, the behavior of a person can be deceptive. On the surface, the action may seem to reflect a spirit of generosity but can be motivated by the false god of popularity. Look at the politicians who make all kinds of promises before an election but fail to fulfill even a fraction of them. They seem on the surface to be concerned with the welfare of the people but are mainly interested in money, power or prestige for themselves. Who a person is – the kind of character he or she has developed and continues to build – is far more important than what a person does or has.
St. Mark relates an encounter between Jesus and a rich young man who approaches Jesus and asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He addresses Jesus as “Good teacher.” Jesus makes a very important statement in response: “No one is good but God alone.” Only God is good and the source of all. Therefore, no one can do what is good without God. Whatever we call “good” is so only because it reflects God. Nothing that doesn’t reflect God is good, no matter how good it looks.
This young man is well off materially but lacks spiritual fulfillment. Jesus asks him if he has kept the Commandments, the minimum requirement for being a Jew. Jesus doesn’t mention the first three Commandments that spell out the minimum requirement for fidelity to God. He mentions some of those Commandments that spell out the minimum requirements for the building of a just community: you shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and mother.” The young man was pleased with himself because he was able to say, “Teacher, I have observed all these from my youth.” Jesus looked at him with love. The young man at this point probably thought he could sit back on his laurels and cruise the rest of the way to Heaven. Then Jesus threw him for a loop. “You are lacking in one thing.” What was that? Jesus told him to “Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in Heaven; then come, follow me.” Mark wrote that, “The young man went away sad, for he had many possessions.”
Since he was young he probably had inherited a lot of material wealth. He would be considered a “good man” because he obeyed the Commandments. His encounter with Jesus exposed the fact that he was possessed by his possessions. He put more faith in his wealth for his security than in Jesus. In this exchange Jesus is telling us that if we wish to inherit eternal life we must stop relying on things and start relying on God. Trusting in material things for one’s security always sets up a person for deep disappointment and a starved soul that makes us less human in our attitude towards others. The wealthier people become the more they rely on what is material than what is spiritual and religious. To inherit eternal life a man or woman must be eligible for such an inheritance. An inheritance is a gift. A gift cannot be bought. On the surface, it looked like this young man was a truly godly man. In reality, he wasn’t. This story demonstrates that material possessions can be huge obstacles to religious Faith and trust. The only way material possessions can help is if we use them according to God’s will. Jesus teaches us God’s will in this story. This young man found out he followed the Commandments but he didn’t trust in God. Because he didn’t trust in God, he was unwilling to share what he had with God’s family, especially those who were the poorest. The result: “his face fell, and he went away sad,” addicted to his things and rejecting Jesus’ invitation to follow Him. Wisdom is putting knowledge of God into action. This young man was unwise, a fool. Don’t let your possessions make a fool of you. You will die one day and have to let go of all of them. Then what will you have to cling to for security and happiness?
We cannot enter Heaven unless we’re poor. Jesus revealed that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to the poor (Mt 5:3). To be a Christian is to practice a spirit of poverty. Poverty is reflected in a spirit of availability – making our time, talent, and treasure available to our family, parish Church, and all who are in need . Jesus said, “Where your treasure is there your heart will be” (Mt 6:21). Where our heart is determines what we look to for security, power, meaning, purpose, peace, love, and life. These can never be fully attained here on earth. If our treasure is in Heaven, then our heart will be joined to the heart of Jesus that perfects our heart and fills it with a joy and a happiness that is eternal. Jesus taught, “Where I am, there will my servants be.” He spent the bulk of His time on earth with the poor, the needy, the condemned, the orphans and widows, the weak and the lost. Today He is in His Church continuing to call us to reform our life, repent and believe in the Gospel. That’s where we must be too, letting Him reform us through repentance for our sins and sharing our blessings with the poor so that they can feel blessed. That’s where Jesus needs us.
Every one of us will leave behind our material possessions when death comes. We cannot take our bank accounts, stocks, or property with us. Corpses do not have suitcases and hearses do not have luggage racks. We mustn’t wait for death to force us to give up our possessions. We must invest what we have through practicing the virtue of poverty that God translates into building up treasure in Heaven. When we invest what we have through totally relying on God’s providence we will become poor because to be poor is to recognize that whatever we give will be rewarded beyond our imagination. Jesus told His Apostles that whatever we give for His “sake and for the sake of the Gospel will receive a hundred times more now in this present age… and eternal life in the age to come. You and I cannot enter Heaven without becoming poor. The paradox of Christianity is that to become rich in eternity we must become poor here on earth. It is in giving that we receive. It is in giving that we know God’s love is aflame in our heart. The amount that we give and the attitude with which we give it, will be used by God to determine what is given back to us. (fr sean)
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29th Sunday
Fr Sean again.
Heaven Is for Servants – The World’s Unimportant People
The worldly expectation is that the important people are to be served while the unimportant people have to serve themselves and others. In Victorian England servants were viewed as the lower class and referred to by their last name, while the Master and Mistress of the house were the upper class to whom the servants bowed. To be someone’s servant assigned him or her to a lower class of people. Society categorizes the educated and wealthy as more important than the illiterate or the poor. Those claiming royalty were viewed as ‘blue bloods.’ Ironically, the origin of the term ‘blue blood’ stemmed from the skin and veins turning blue due to the use of silvery cutlery and goblets which, of course, only the materially wealthy could afford. ‘Blue blood’ was actually a disease. Society divides the labour force into “white collar” and “blue collar” workers. The managerial, professional worker is associated with belonging to a higher class than the manual labourer. This is the world into which Jesus came and confronted. It’s a world that continues today in one form or another despite two thousand years of Christianity.
Jesus changed the world’s value system by exposing its inhumanity and replacing it with God’s will for man and woman. He challenged the notion of class distinction by changing the standard for measuring people’s importance. “He raised up the lowly and deposed the mighty from their thrones” (Lk 1:22). Jesus warned, “What profit does a man show who gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his soul in the process?” (Mk 8:36). Saving the soul is more important than amassing possessions. Saving one’s soul comes about only through living according to the example and teaching of Jesus who guaranteed His presence in His Church until the end of time saving men and women from the sins of pride, greed, lust, wrath, sloth, covetousness. He revealed that the truly great are those who enter Heaven by living a life of service to God and neighbour. He turned the world’s standard for measuring importance and success on its head by making servanthood rather than knighthood the criterion for entry to Heaven. He also made suffering a means to salvation by showing that if accepted and united with His suffering it would lead to resurrection from the dead and help to save others. God revealed through Isaiah that the promised Messiah (Jesus) “By His suffering shall …justify many, taking their faults on himself” (Is 53:10-11).
Jesus set the example by proclaiming, “The Son of Man has not come to be served but to serve – to give His life in ransom for many” (Mk 10: 45). To follow in Jesus’ footsteps, to be a true member of His Church, requires us to be like Him, namely to be a servant to others by sharing our gifts with them. He made caring for the needs of others a necessary requirement to be Christian. On Holy Thursday evening, after Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist and ordained the Apostles to “Do this in memory of me,” He washed their feet. Then He commanded His newly ordained priests, “You address me as ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and fittingly enough for that is what I am. But if I washed your feet – I who am Teacher and Lord – then you must wash each other’s feet” (Jn 13:13-14). To impress the importance of service as a visible sign of faith in Him, Jesus added, “What I just did was to give you an example: as I have done, so you must do” (Jn 13:15). This is what makes Christianity both unique and difficult for us because we are sinners and basically selfish. Struggling with a fallen nature we’re prone to egotism and self-obsession. We expect a payoff for what we do. But service doesn’t always guarantee a payoff because those who’re being served often can’t pay us back. It’s easy to serve when we’re being rewarded but it takes Christian Faith and fortitude to continue serving when we’re not rewarded. True service lies in giving without counting the cost. For that we need supernatural Faith, Hope and Charity.
Jesus’ apostles, James and John, were thinking about themselves when they put in their application for good jobs in God’s Kingdom. “Grant that in Your glory we may sit one at Your right and the other at Your left” (Mk 10:37). Don’t we all tend to look out for our own security? Jesus asked them if they knew the kind of service and suffering their request would entail. He didn’t scold them for their self-importance but took the opportunity to teach them a key lesson that we all need to learn, namely that, “Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all” (Mk 10:43-44). God's Kingdom is inhabited only by those who are willing to suffer and serve as the least important in society.
Service and suffering aren’t always easy because they involve sacrifice. Like Jesus, serving others requires that we sacrifice ourselves for their benefit. The biggest sacrifice of all is to put you before me. That involves giving up our own comfort and convenience in the process of responding to other’s needs. If Jesus sacrificed Himself for us, and if we want to be His followers, we must sacrifice ourselves for our neighbour if we want to be Christ-like – Christian. G.K. Chesterton reminds us that, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” Christianity has been left untried.” Why? Because it calls for humans to serve instead of being served, to be other-centred instead of being self-centred. The motivation stems from recognizing that, “Our soul is waiting for the Lord. The Lord is our help and our shield” (Ps 31:4-22). The more we serve the more our soul encounters the Lord who is our help and our protector enabling us to be selfless in our thoughts and behaviour.
It’s service to one another that the world is most in need of every day. Imagine what the world would be like if each of us was oriented to serving others instead of feeling entitled and expecting to be served. Service calls us to practice the virtues of generosity, humility, and charity. These virtues displace the vices of pride, lust, greed, jealousy and envy. They support and promote the preciousness of human life, thereby eliminating war, violence, abortion, euthanasia, sɛҳuąƖ trafficking, etc. While the world divides people into classes creating class distinction that generates conflict, abuse, jealousy, envy, disrespect, virtue signalling etc., Christian service promotes repentance and reconciliation. This is why the world is in dire need of Christianity, like dry land needs water, to create communities that are productive and fruitful. A spirit of service is what the world needs now and what Jesus came to instil in the heart of every human being. Let’s not resist that spirit that reflects the Holy Spirit’s truth and love. The salvation of our souls depends on it. We cannot enter heaven without being servants. As servants we pray, “May Your kindness, O Lord, be upon us who have put our hope in You” (Ps 32:22). (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Make Problems Opportunities
Someone defined a loser as an individual who when opportunity knocks at the front door, he or she is out back looking for four-leafed clovers. My father used to say that the problem with us humans was that we didn’t view problems as opportunities for enrichment. What he said didn’t make sense to me then. It does now. Two brothers were fighting with each other. Their father punished the one who started the fight by sending him to clean the stable. The other was rewarded by being allowed to play with his toys. After about half an hour, the father checked on both. The boy that was rewarded with the toys was crying. He was upset because he couldn’t make up his mind about which one to play with. The father expected the boy in the stable to be feeling bad because of the dirty task imposed on him but was amazed to hear him whistling. On entering the stable, he saw his son using a shovel throwing horse manure out the back door with a big smile on his face. The father asked the son why he seemed to be so happy. The boy replied, “Well, with all this horse manure there has to be a pony in here somewhere.” What makes the difference is whether we view what life hands us or what we create ourselves as problems or opportunities.
The world is full of problems. We’re bombarded with them every day in the media. When we meet one another more often than not the conversation centers on problems, personal and otherwise. Is it any wonder why more and more people are depressing? The T.V. news is usually bad news. If we don’t view problems as opportunities we doom ourselves to misery and hopelessness or we become cynics. When we focus only on our problems we can feel overwhelmed but God turns them into opportunities. God gives us the wherewithal to benefit from everything that happens to us if we put our trust in Him to show us how our problems can be blessings.
St. Augustine defined evil as the absence or deterioration of good. Evil is a negative reality. It cannot exist on its own. It needs a host like a leech needs a living creature. The host is the good in us. Therefore, wherever we see evil we know that good is not maintained. Evil tries to suck the good out of us like a mosquito or a leech. Without the existence of goodness, evil couldn’t exist since it wouldn’t have anything to feed off. When a person lives a good life evil has no power over him or her. It’s too easy to become overwhelmed by evil since it’s given much more press than goodness receives. We must view evil in light of the good that that is being attacked. Like the boy believing there’s a pony given all the horse manure in the stable, wherever there’s evil there must be good somewhere. The more good is identified and restored the more evil is starved and dies. We can’t eliminate evil unless we restore the good that it is attacking. Evil cannot exist if the good is maintained. This is why we need God because He is all good and the source of all that is good.
St. Mark records an event where Jesus eliminated the evil of blindness by restoring the goodness of sight (Mk 10:46-52). He turned a problem into an opportunity. A blind man along the roadside called out for help. He had been blind for many years and was relegated to begging for a living. His blindness was a huge problem because he couldn’t get employment and there was no welfare. He heard that Jesus would be passing by and took advantage of the opportunity to ask that his sight be restored. He had faith and hope that, somehow, an opportunity for healing would one day knock on his door and he made sure to take advantage of it. He couldn’t see Jesus, but he could hear and shout hoping to be heard. “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me,” he yelled. The apostles tried to hush him up, but the more they did the louder he shouted, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” Jesus heard the cry - He always hears the cry of the poor - and ordered His apostles to bring the man to Him. Jesus asked him, “What do you want to do for you?” The man said, “Master, I want to see.” Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the way.
The blind beggar was a man of faith and hope. He had learned from Jeremiah (31:7-9) that “The Lord has delivered His people … (and promised to) gather them from the ends of the world, with the blind and the lame in their midst, the mothers and those with child … (and) console them and guide them … (saying) For I am a Father to Israel.” Jesus told him that it was this faith in God that healed him.
Here is a man who had a problem but turned it into an opportunity to have restored what he had lost. Jesus who came into a world full of problems in order to turn them into opportunities for experiencing His Father’s love. Every problem is an opportunity to turn to God where He meets us in our needs through His Church in faith, love, and hope. St. Paul was inspired to write in Romans 8:28, “All things work for the good of those who love God according to His design.”
As children of God we need to take advantage of every opportunity to ask for His help. The term “opportunist” has some negative connotations. It’s used to describe a person who takes full advantage of every opportunity to achieve his or her own ends without regard to morality. We must be opportunists to use the problem of evil as an incentive to ask God to help us by the power of the Holy Spirit to restore the good that is being attacked. That involves a commitment on our part to live the morally good life by upholding the good that is of God, since only He is good. Our commitment to the good commands us to take full advantage of every opportunity to protect it by nurturing, defending, and restoring it when it’s abused or undermined.
Every problem is a challenge to our faith and an opportunity to express our trust in God “who does great things for us; we are glad indeed.” He promises us that, “Those who sow in tears shall reap rejoicing” (Ps 126:1-6). Harry Emerson Fosdick, in his book, “On Being a Real Person”, wrote, “Life is a landscaping job. We are handed a site, ample or small, rugged or flat, picturesque or commonplace, whose general outlines and contours are largely determined for us. Both limitation and opportunity are involved in every site and the most unforeseeable results ensure from the handling – some grand opportunities are muffed, and some utterly unpromising situations become notable.”
The power of our faith in Christ lies in the belief that through, with, and in Him every problem is an opportunity for receiving what He has to offer us. We must become Christian opportunists. The next time you have a problem of one kind or another or when someone brings up a problem, instead of commiserating about it, focus on the opportunity that it presents for turning to God and trusting in Him to restore or give you what you need. Then you won’t be overwhelmed by it. Our prayer must be prompted by the man in the Gospel: “Master, help me to see opportunities for being blessed by You where others may see only problems. Amen!” We must ask Jesus to help us view our life through the eyes of supernatural Faith so that we can see every problem as an opportunity to receive His blessing. Faith in Jesus helps us to see what we could never see with our physical eyes. (fr sean)
Five Keys from The Bible For A Happy Home:
1. Give God the first hour of each day. Pray in the morning (St. Mark 1:25).
2. Give God the first day of the week. Serve in your church to save your community (I Corinthians 16:2).
3. Give God the first portion of your income. Keep books on what you give to be sure you do not think you are giving more than you actually are! (Proverbs 3:9, I Corinthians 6:2)
4. Give God the first consideration in every decision. This includes your choice of house, close friends, work, church, school, etc. (St. Matthew 6:33).
5. Give God's Son first place in your heart always. Live in His presence as though He were the unseen guest in your house - He is, you know! (2 Corinthians 8:5). Ord L. Morrow, Good News Broadcaster
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Fr Sean again.
Why We Must Identify Ourselves as Sinners
Jesus revealed that He came to save sinners, not the self-righteous. “I have not come to call the self-righteous to a change of heart, but sinners” (Lk 5:32). St. Mark records Jesus announcing His mission: “This is the time of fulfilment. The reign of God is at hand! Reform your lives and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15). The reformation Jesus called for is about changing our life from a sinful state to a state of grace and holiness. Self-righteous people are those who think they have no sin and, of course as a result, see no need to reform their lives. I have had the experience of people coming to Confession saying, “Bless me, father, I have no sin.” Because we can’t hide from God, Jesus’ Church requires us to “recall our sins” as we begin every Holy Mass. In the Penitential Rite of the Holy Mass we admit that we’re all sinners and in need of prayers so that we might receive the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness, which are gifts from Jesus in and through the Sacraments of His Church. God gives us His Commandments so that we can know what virtuous, righteous living is and what vicious, unrighteous living is.
God’s Commandments are the signposts that we’re loving Him through freely obeying them. Jesus revealed that, “You will live in my love if you keep my commandments, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and live in His love” (Jn 15:10). Prior to saying that, He warned that, “A man who does not live in me is like a withered, rejected branch, picked up to be thrown in the fire and burnt” (15:6). Jesus came to call sinners to be transformed from a state of sin to a state of grace by living in His love through obeying His commandments. Here Jesus is fulfilling what God said through Moses in Deuteronomy 6:2-6: “Fear the Lord, your God, and keep, throughout your lives, all His statutes and commandments… and thus have a long life … that you may grow and prosper and benefit from God’s promises.” God called His people to “love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today.” Later God declared, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18).
Jesus was asked by a scribe which of God’s commandments was the greatest. The Pharisees had broken down the Ten Commandments to 613 laws so people wondered which one was the most important to keep. Jesus answered by quoting from both Deuteronomy and Leviticus where He combined love of God with love of neighbour, namely love God with everything you are and have and love your neighbour as yourself. Thus Jesus summed up the Ten Commandments into two groups integrally connected, the first three telling us how to show our love for God and the last seven showing us how to show our love for our neighbour, our father and mother being our first neighbours. Our love of God is no greater than our love for our neighbour. It’s against the backdrop of this Law of Love that we’re forced to admit we’re sinners who need to repent and seek forgiveness with a commitment to live a holy life.
The commandment (this is not just a suggestion) to love God, ourselves and our neighbour with all our heart, soul, and strength is impossible without God’s help. To have any hope of doing this we must humbly pray with the Psalmist (Ps 18:2-4): “My God, my Rock of refuge, my shield, the horn of my salvation, My stronghold!” Why? Natural love isn’t enough to love God and neighbour consistently. We need supernatural love which only God can give us. Which of us loves God, ourselves, and our neighbour with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength consistently and constantly? If we’re honest, we have to admit that none of us, even the holiest among us, loves God and our neighbour with all we are and have. This is the kind of love that is unconditional love and is given without counting the cost.
So where does this leave us? It leaves us with the reality that we’re sinners because we don’t consistently love as God expects us to love. To the degree that we are inconsistent in our love, we’re sinning either by commission or omission. This is why we’re in constant need of the grace of reconciliation, which God, in His mercy and justice, has made possible through Jesus, who is sacramentally present in His Church, particularly in Reconciliation where we can repent and receive forgiveness for mortal and grave sins, the Anointing of the Sick where mortal and venial transgressions of the Law of Love are forgiven when a person is unconscious, if he or she has a repentant heart, and in the Holy Mass where venial sins are forgiven those with a repentant heart.
Sinners don’t go to Heaven. Heaven is for repentant sinners who seek forgiveness. Forgiveness is a gift even to the holiest among us because only God can forgive and none of us deserves it. God alone perfects us because He alone can free us from sin and its effects. But He won’t do that unless we admit our sin not just out of fear of punishment but because God is so good in Himself and so deserving of all our love.
The Catholic Church is the visible sign of God’s wish to save every man and woman from sin. The Church brings Jesus to us in each Sacrament in which He both purifies and strengthens us to do good and avoid evil. The Holy Spirit revealed that Jesus “is always able to save those who approach God through Him since He lives forever to make intercession for them” (Heb 7:23-28). The Catholic Church makes it possible to personally approach God through Jesus who is present in her, especially in the Holy Mass.
The Church traditionally devotes this month of November to remembering and praying for the souls in Purgatory, which “is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be released from their sins” (2 Macc 12:46). It’s also a time to think about our own death and the need to ask and answer this question: “How consistent am I in obeying God’s Law of Love?” Admitting that we don’t love as we could, and should, makes us conscious that we’re sinners who cannot save ourselves from hell. This prompts us to ask the Holy Spirit daily for the grace to repent, seek forgiveness, and double our efforts to love God, ourselves and our neighbour with all we are and have. We’ll be judged by how much effort we put into joyfully living in accord with God’s Law of Love. (fr sean)
Indulgence through Praying for the Souls in Purgatory
You can get a plenary indulgence any day this November? The Vatican grants Catholics a plenary indulgence if they visit a cemetery to pray for the dead, and follow the required conditions, on any day in the month of November.
Last year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Apostolic Penitentiary issued a decree that extended the availability of some plenary indulgences because of concerns about avoiding large gatherings of people in churches or cemeteries. The Vatican has issued the same decree this year during the month of November.
What is a plenary indulgence?
A plenary indulgence is a grace granted by the Catholic Church through the merits of Jesus Christ, Mary, and all the saints to remove the temporal punishment due to sin. The indulgence cleanses a person of all temporal punishment due to sin. However, it must always be accompanied by a full detachment from all sin, including venial sin.
Requirements: Sacramental confession, Holy Communion and prayer for the intentions of the pope. Sacramental confession and receiving the Eucharist can happen up to about 20 days before or after the act performed to receive a plenary indulgence.
It is appropriate that Communion and the prayer take place on the same day that the work is completed. One sacramental confession is sufficient for several plenary indulgences. However for each plenary indulgence one wishes to receive, a separate reception of the Eucharist and a separate prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father are required.
The Vatican decree issued due to the pandemic allows Catholics who are unable to leave their home, such as the sick or elderly, to still obtain a plenary indulgence by reciting prayers for the dead before an image of Jesus or the Blessed Mother. Examples of prayers homebound Catholics can pray include the rosary, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, lauds or vespers of the Office for the Dead, or by performing a work of mercy by offering their pain to God.
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Fr Sean again.
Would Jesus Draw Attention to Your Giving?
Sigmund Freud described the human psyche as a combination of three forces: ego, id, and superego. In Greek, psyche means spirit or mind. Our psyche is our spirit and it differs from our soul. Our soul is unchanging and eternal while our spirit develops and changes according to our values and circuмstances. Our soul is our vital principle, that which makes us human. Our psyche or our spirit is demonstrated in our thinking, acting, and through our personality. You could say that our spirit is our mental attitude towards the world. Freud attempted to show that our mental attitude is the result of the interaction between the ‘Id’ as our desire for pleasure, the ‘Superego’ as our conscience, and the Ego as the balancer between them. He rejected religion as a neurosis and believed that pleasure was our main motivating force. The Ego’s job, according to Freud, is to ensure Id’s desire for pleasure is balanced by the Superego’s sense of right and wrong. Ego, in Greek and Latin, means the personal pronoun, “I.” From it we get the words egotism, egotistical, egomaniac. All have negative connotations. Why? Because they reflect self-centeredness and selfishness. The unholy trinity is Me, Myself and I!
Because of our fallen nature we’re all prone to selfishness and, as a result, sinfulness. Do you enjoy the company of selfish people? Do we enjoy being selfish? Yes, but we don’t like to admit it. Does it makes us feel good? No, not in the long term. To be selfish is to be a taker rather than a giver. Our ego wants us to continually look out for ourselves even at the expense of others. Like Oprah, we “love expensive presents.” Someone noted that in Heaven the busiest angels are those answering the phones in the Office of Requests, while the least busy angels are in the Office of Thanksgiving. Selfishness and gratitude aren’t partners. We’re always asking God for help but how much time and effort do we put into thanking Him through sacrificing our time and effort for the benefit of others as He has sacrificed Himself for us? We see this selfishness loud and clear on Sundays and Holydays in our country where only a small minority worship God in the Holy Mass. Is it any wonder that a culture of death prevails? Egotism always leads to the death of the human spirit and the starvation of the soul’s need for God.
The antidote to selfishness is generosity. Jesus Christ epitomized generosity of spirit by sacrificing Himself to ransom us from Satan’s grip on our soul through his appeal to our ego. Christianity is about practicing generosity in imitation of Jesus. Through His Church’s Sacraments, Jesus gives us the grace to eliminate our selfishness by putting Him first and then, through His love, putting others first thus conquering our tendency toward Me-ism. God’s Spirit inspired St. Paul to write, “Do not forget: thin sowing means thin reaping; the more you sow, the more you reap. Each one should give what he has decided in his own mind, not grudgingly or because he is made to, for God loves a cheerful giver. And there is no limit to the blessings which God can send you – He will make sure that you will always have all you need for yourselves in every possible circuмstance, and still have something to spare for all sorts of good works” (2 Cor 9:6-8).
There are three kinds of giving: Giving out of our surplus, giving what we don’t need ourselves, giving to get something in return, and giving without counting the cost or expecting a reward. Only the last kind of giving provides the antidote to selfishness. The first two are self-serving. St. Ignatius of Loyola prayed: “Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do your will. Amen.” He prayed this prayer hoping to receive the grace to be selfless and thus Christ-like, a faithful Catholic Christian.
God has revealed in the Old and New Testaments what He considers to be a generous spirit, an attitude that comes from the heart. The Book of Kings relates the story of a widow of Zarephath whom God’s prophet, Elijah, asked to bake a cake for him from her last portion of flour and oil before she and her son faced certain death by starvation. She trusted in the Lord’s promise through Elijah that He would provide for her if she shared her last bit of food with him (1 Kgs 17:10-16). God is always faithful to His promises, which is why all reasonable people should have faith in Him. The New Testament records brings another poor widow donating her last pennies to the Temple treasury. Her generosity drew Jesus’ attention. As Jesus put it, “”She contributed all she had, her whole livelihood” (Mk 12:44). He contrasted her donation to that of the scribes who donated out of their surplus, while she gave out of her poverty and trust in God’s providence. Their giving was self-serving. Her giving was selfless and an act of Faith in God.
One of Satan’s ploys is to convince us that we must rely on ourselves. That’s our unconscious motivation for why we’re selfish. But the fact is we can’t function without God who alone can save us from sin and death. That’s why Jesus tells us clearly, “The man who seeks only himself brings himself to ruin, whereas he who brings himself to naught for me discovers who he is” (Mt 10:39). We make ourselves naught for Jesus and discover ourselves as His followers when we give without counting the cost. As Proverbs reminds us, “The generous soul will prosper, he who waters will be watered” (11:25). We can’t be Christian and at the same time act selfishly. Giving isn’t always about money or things. It’s about being present to others, listening to them, praying with them, greeting them with a smile, offering them a helping hand, being patient with them, forgiving them, expressing gratitude for their existence – even those who annoy us or are our enemies, understanding them, encouraging them, affirming their gifts, recognizing, etc. I’m reminded of the last verse of a song made popular by Glen Campbell, “Let me be a little meeker/With the brother who is weaker, /Think a little more of others/And a little less of me.”
How do you and I want to face God’s judgment at death? The Holy Spirit reminds us: “Just as it is appointed that men die once, and after this the judgment, so also Christ offered once to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to take away sin but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await Him” (Heb 9:24-28). It is our choice now to decide whether we want to meet Jesus Christ as selfish or as generous people who give Him our total self - all our mind, heart, soul, and strength. He will judge you and me according to our deeds. Will our generous deeds outweigh our selfish acts, or vice versa? Now is the time to decide. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
What’s Ahead for You?
What’s ahead for each of us is either the best or the worst, depending on whether we die as Jesus’ friends or His enemies. The best for each of us is to enjoy eternal happiness in the presence of God who is our Father, our Saviour, and our Sanctifier, accompanied by all the angels and saints. The worst is the loneliness and self-hatred of Hell that results from making someone or something else other than God the centre of our life here on earth. If we want the best, reason tells us that we should invest in the best, and there is no one better than Jesus Christ who is present in His Church. That entails lovingly obeying the Ten Commandments, the laws of Jesus’ Church, and humbly living the eight Beatitudes. Someone said that the only two things we can’t escape are death and taxes. Whatever about taxes there’s no escape from death. Regarding death Jesus warns us: “The Son of Man is coming at an hour you least expect” (Mt 24:44). Since none of us knows when we will die it makes sense to be ready every day to meet Jesus face to face as our Judge. Daily asking ourselves, “Am I following Jesus today in my thoughts and actions is like when you’re driving and you see a police car in your rear-view mirror you immediately check your speedometer.
The Holy Spirit revealed that: “Just as it is appointed that men die once, and after that be judged, so Christ was offered up once to take away the sins of many; He will appear a second time not to take away sin but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await Him” (Heb 9:27-28). At death each of us will be judged according to our deeds in this world. That judgment will bring us either the best or the worst, not just temporarily, but for all eternity.
God never stops warning us as to what lies ahead. Jesus’ Church reminds us that in the Old Testament He chose Daniel to encourage the people to continue to be faithful in the midst of persecution. He promised that because of their fidelity the best was still ahead for them. “At that time there shall arise Michael, the great prince, the guardian of your people … your people shall escape, everyone who is found written in the book” (Dan 12:1). God sent the Archangel Michael “to be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil” so that we might remain faithful to our Baptismal vows. The day we were baptized Jesus wrote our name in Heaven’s book as His adopted brother or sister. If we want to look forward to the best, we must strive to be a faithful and loyal brother or sister to Jesus by giving witness to our faith in Him to lead us through this world by the power of the Holy Spirit guiding us in His Church. As Jesus’ adopted brothers and sisters we proclaim daily in the words of the Psalmist: “O Lord… You it is who hold fast my lot. I set the Lord ever before me: with Him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed … You will show me the path to life, fullness of joys in Your presence, the delights of Your right hand forever” (Ps16:11).
God gave us the intellect to read the signs of the times and determine what choices we need to make in order to prepare ourselves for what’s to come. We’re able to read the signs that predict the coming of the seasons. We must also read the signs that tell us our end is near. Jesus reminds us that no one knows when the world will end. “But of the day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mk 13:32). It makes sense to be prepared. We should prepare ourselves to do what’s necessary in order to receive a favourable verdict from Jesus on how we lived our life. How do we do that? By faithful membership in His Church where He transforms us through His Word and Sacraments. He reminds us that, “The heavens and the earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mk 13:31).
Everybody wants to bet on a winner. No one likes losing. If everything in this world will come to an end, betting on it or on anything in it means backing a loser. The only thing that lasts is God’s Word which becomes His flesh in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass celebrated by His Church? His Church will last because she is His Bride and He promised that “the gates of hell will not prevail against her” (Mt 16:18). Fidelity to Jesus in His Church means that evil cannot overpower us. Because God is everlasting everything He says and does is also everlasting. God’s word is God-become-flesh, Jesus Christ conqueror of sin and death, the One who alone promises an eternal life filled with joy. He is the only one who can assure us of winning in the end because he won in the end through His Resurrection. Does it make sense to invest our time and effort in anyone or in anything else? Jesus wants each of us to be a winner and to look forward to the best, namely to enjoy eternity in the presence of God and His angels and saints. This is why Jesus warns us that He is the true Messiah and there are no others. “If anyone tells you, ‘Look, the Messiah is here!’ ‘Look, he is there! – do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will appear performing signs and wonders to mislead, if it were possible, even the chosen. So be constantly on guard! I have told you about it beforehand” (Mk 13:21-23).
Finally, Jesus tells us not to waste our time worrying about when the world will end or even about when we might die. While He says there will be signs happening that remind us the end is coming but we mustn’t fall into the trap of predicting when the end will come. Our focus must be on living the Christian life in the present so that at the moment of death we’ll hopefully hear Jesus say to us: “Come, you have my Father’s blessing! Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world” (Mt 26:34). May these words of Jesus be ahead for all of us. So what’s ahead for you? It is up to you! (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
This Year of Grace Ends Honoring Jesus as Our King
The Catholic Church devotes the last Sunday of her liturgical year to honoring Jesus as King of heaven and earth. St. John (Jn 18:13b-17) records an exchange between Pilate and Jesus prior to Pilate handing Him over to be crucified. “Pilate said to Jesus, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?’ Pilate answered, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom does not belong to this world.’ … Pilate said to Him, ‘Then you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say I am a king. The reason I was born, the reason I came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’” Jesus came into the world to grace us with the truth about God, ourselves, and what we need from Him.
Pilate was looking out for his own interests, which centered mainly on keeping his job. To do that, he had to keep the Jews happy. Otherwise, their report card on his governance might make him look bad to the Roman Emperor. Jesus, on the other hand, was also looking out for His interests, which centered on carrying out the will of His Father. His Father’s will was that every human being would experience His love through repenting their sinful state, seeking His forgiveness. While Pilate was concerned about himself, Jesus was concerned about all human beings. Pilate’s notion of kingship and Jesus’ concept were diametrically opposed. For Pilate being a king meant power, adulation, comfort, riches, servants, honor, and being first. For Jesus being a king meant being a servant to all. Which concept of kingship are you and I more attracted to? Pilate’s or Jesus’? What would the world be like if everyone adopted Jesus’ understanding of kingship? Imagine a world where people would be vying with one another over who could serve the most?
Have you ever reflected on what you are asking for when you say in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come”? When we ask God to send us His Kingdom we must be willing to serve others and testify to the truth because that’s what membership in His Kingdom calls for. Jesus as the King sets the tone and standard for all in His Kingdom. Membership in Jesus’ Kingdom gives its members assurances that cannot be given by any other power: unconditional love, eternal life, eternal happiness, complete freedom, justice, and peace. His Kingdom is the only Kingdom that will not end. All earthly kings are subject to Jesus. All earthly kingdoms give way to Jesus’ Kingdom. A year of grace is a year of benefits from God’s presence to those who are members of His Kingdom
Jesus pointing out that His Kingdom was a Heavenly one he said to Pilate: “If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.” Worldly kings use force to keep their positions. History attests to the belief that might is right and so the powerful rule the powerless. But in Jesus’ Kingdom the members express their power in serving others rather than making servants of others. That is what a member of Jesus’ Kingdom does as a graced person during each year of grace. A year of grace is a time period in which God is present in and to the members of His Kingdom, which is visible here on earth in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
If Jesus is King and His Kingdom isn’t of this world, it follows that reasonable people, especially Christians, would use their time in this world to be active members of His Church, the visible sign of His Kingdom on earth. Since so many are using this world to deny, ignore, or compete with Jesus, we can conclude they are irrational. Why would we focus on something that doesn’t last? The Holy Spirit revealed that, “Jesus Christ is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth … Behold, He is coming amid the clouds, and every eye will see Him… I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, ‘the One who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev 1:5-8). This is the truth to which Jesus Himself attested. To refuse to believe it is stupid.
Given this fact about Jesus, why would we embrace someone or something other than Him? Nothing else lasts or enables us to cross from a world that’s temporary to a world that’s permanent - where every tear will be wiped away; where there is no death or dying, no suffering or crying, no conflict or deprivation, no betrayal or irritation; where there is only fulfillment and happiness forever. As human beings endowed with the ability to reason and freely make choices, our behavior so often reflects a woeful lack of intelligent choices. When we look at ourselves, we have to admit that too much of what we do and say ignores what Jesus tells us. We think and act more out of stupidity than intelligence!
Next Sunday we begin a new Liturgical Year. Jesus’ Church calls it a “year of grace” because it offers us a new opportunity to be receptive to Jesus’ presence in us and among us as members of His Church. In the Person of His Son, through the power of the Holy Spirit, God the Father graces us with His presence. He is our Father who calls us to be present to Him as His adopted children whom He loves unconditionally. The highpoint of this grace-filled meeting takes place in Worship – the Holy Mass. The most central and vital action of every Christian is to worship God. As the priest proclaims in the Preface of every Holy Mass: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give You thanks …” In worship, we recognize that God is God and we are His creation, totally dependent on Him for every good thing. In worship, we express order in the universe recognizing that God is in charge. In worship, we express the truth about who we are and our need for community. At Holy Mass in the company of Jesus, we testify to the truth that He saves us through His sacrifice on the Cross and recognize that it alone sets us free.
We cannot testify to the truth without publicly witnessing our relationship with Jesus since He is the Truth. The truth about Jesus is that He is the King of all creation and before Him “every head will bow and every knee will bend” (Rom 14:11). Reason amplified by Revelation tells us that we should take every opportunity during this new year of grace to bow our heads and bend our knees in the presence of Jesus whose Kingdom is without end. As rational creatures we must admit that there is no other king or kingdom that can compare to Jesus and His Kingdom. Jesus is the only king whose kingdom will not come to an end. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Advent: God Fulfils His Promise
The word ‘promise’ literally means to ‘put forth or to send forth.’ The Oxford Dictionary defines promise as “a declaration or assurance that one will do something or that a particular thing will happen.” Promises always imply fulfilment. We should never make a promise that we can’t or don’t intend to fulfil. To do so is to be deceitful and untrustworthy. One of the things that makes God stand out is His total trustworthiness. He always fulfils His promises. This is why it is reasonable to have faith in what God says and does. Not to have faith in Him is irrational.
Since every human being has the use of reason, why do so many not believe in Him? It has to be that they don’t know Him. A person who doesn’t know God and His promises doesn’t know what gives man and woman life, meaning, purpose, power, identity, salvation from sin, and a bright future in which to hope. St. Philip Neri noted that “He who wishes for anything but Christ, doesn’t know what he wishes; he who asks for anything but Christ, doesn’t know what he is asking; he who works, and not for Christ, doesn’t know what he is doing.” Knowing God and His promises informs us what we should wish for, ask for, and work for and that He will deliver on all three beyond our wildest imagination.
God informed His people through Jeremiah that, “The days are coming when I will fulfil the promise I have made to the House of Israel ...I will raise up a just shoot; he shall do what is right and just in the land” (Jer 33:14-16). What is “right and just” for every human being? The priest gives us the answer in the Preface of each Holy Mass, “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give You thanks, holy Father, Lord of heaven and earth, through Christ our Lord.” Doing what’s right and acting justly is all about worshipping and thanking God.
The “shoot” God promised was none other than His Word that became incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, namely the Person of Jesus Christ. Jesus in turn founded His Church on Peter as His instrument through which He would show and enable all peoples until the end of time how to be “right and just” in God’s eyes. Thus Advent, meaning the “Coming” is the time Jesus’ Church devotes to contemplating the impact of Jesus’ birth, His presence in His Church, and His promise to return as Judge of the living and the dead. It marks the beginning of another liturgical year during which Jesus continues to offer salvation through His Church to those willing to repent and do what’s right and just. It’s time for us to ask: “Am I wishing, asking, or working for something or someone that’s not of God? Do I truly believe that God means what He says and says what He means? Do I pay close attention to Jesus’ promises in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5) and what I must do if I want to be blessed? Just as God is faithful to His promises to me, am I faithful to my promises to Him?”
Advent is a time of prayer, repentance, contemplation, and worship in which the Holy Spirit purifies our mind and heart to more fully recognize Jesus as the fulfilment of God’s promise to love us and give us a joyful life that will last forever. To benefit from Jesus’ birth, His presence in His Church, and be prepared for His second coming as our just Judge, we must pray daily with the Psalmist, “Your ways, O Lord, make known to me; teach me Your paths, guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are God my saviour, and for You I wait all the day. Good and upright is the Lord; thus He shows sinners the way. He guides the humble to justice, and teaches the humble His way” (Ps 25:4-5, 8-9). Since Jesus is “the way,” and His way is the “Way of the Cross,” which He taught His Apostles and they handed on to His Church, this Way is the only way to Heaven. He informs us that, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6). Jesus is the only one who can make God’s ways known to mankind and guide us in His truth. “He alone shows sinners the way and guides the humble to justice” (Ps 25:8). The way to Heaven isn’t the so-called “Synodal way.” Jesus doesn’t need to listen to us because He knows us better than we know ourselves since He created each of us. But we need to listen to Him on a daily basis because we need Him to guide “our feet into the way of peace” (Lk 1:79) each day.
This is a time during which God is reminding us that the world is Satan’s kingdom still, and he tries to lull our minds and hearts into believing we can find hope, faith, joy, love, and peace independently of Jesus Christ and His Church. This is why at the beginning of Advent Jesus urges us: “Be on your guard lest your spirits become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap … Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man (Lk 21:25-36). The “great day” for each of us is when we face God’s judgment. The Holy Spirit tells us, “Conduct yourselves to please God” (1 Thess 3:12-4:2). When we do, Jesus assuages our fear of suffering and death when He ordered his listeners to, “Stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is close at hand.”
Jesus’ Church uses the Advent Wreath to symbolize what we should be meditating on during these weeks before Christmas. The wreath, a circle of green palms with four candles, three purple and one pink, symbolizes that life is continuous, reminding us of eternity. A purple candle is lit on the 1st and 2nd Sundays, the pink candle on the 3rd Sunday, and the 3rd purple candle on the 4th Sunday. Purple symbolizes our recognizing of Jesus’ sovereignty – King of kings. Purple also symbolizes repentance and our need for forgiveness and commitment to do what’s right and just. Pink symbolizes joy at Jesus’ coming to save us. In the centre a white candle is sometimes lit on Christmas Eve symbolizing Jesus’ birth to be the Light of the World. The candle lit on the first Sunday is called the “Prophet’s candle” symbolizing the Hope that God’s promises will be fulfilled. The second candle is called the “Bethlehem candle” symbolizing Faith in the fulfilment of God’s promises in the Incarnation of His Son. The pink candle is called the “Shepherd’s candle” symbolizing Joy at Jesus’ birth. The fourth candle is called the “Angel’s candle” symbolizing the Peace that only Jesus can give and the world can’t.
This Sunday light the first candle on your Advent wreath and ask the Prophets, those who attested to the fulfilment of God’s promises, to intercede for you that during this holy season of Advent you may be made worthy of the promises of Christ! (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Time to Discern What Is of Value to You
God creates every human being to be a steward of the earth which He created for man’s use and benefit. Every man and woman is called by God to, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living animals on earth” (Gen 1:26-28). That means that each of us must take what God gives us and use it to glorify and serve Him through our use of what He has given us. Thus He commissions us to “be fruitful.” As stewards of God’s creation we’re primarily managers of what He has given us for the benefit of all. For that purpose He has given each of us gifts to be used for the common good. The common good is the perfection of humanity through using our will to freely choose God’s will in all things. To make sure that we manage what God has given us fruitfully we must be in constant touch with Him in order to be faithful and productive. To ignore the earth’s Creator leads us to think we’re the creators and view ourselves as gods acting as if we have carte blanche to do whatever we want without any accountability. The notion that we’re our own god, self-created, masters of the world, so prominent in today’s world, is one of the deadly effects of Original sin, that blind us to injustices of all kinds. Therefore we need, periodically, to re-evaluate our values and recognize that God has come on earth in human form reminding us that He is the Creator and that we are accountable to Him for our stewardship.
Jesus’ Church calls us as we begin this second week of Advent to reflect on the role God has given to us as the stewards of the world. The Holy Spirit encourages us in the words of St. Paul (Phil 1:4-6, 8-11): “I am confident of this, that the One who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the Day of Christ Jesus … May your love increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless in the Day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness, that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.” Advent is a time to “discern what is of value to us so that we don’t waste and desecrate what God has given us by using it for our own self-gratification. When we’re bad stewards we bring sorrow and distress to the world as is evident today in advocating the killing of the innocent in the womb and those who suffer physically or mentally. God wants us to “take off your dress of sorrow and distress and put on the beauty of the glory of God forever, and wrap the cloak of the integrity of God around you” (Baruch 5:1-2) by being good stewards who enhance the dignity and sanctity of human life in each of its developmental stages.
How do we discern what’s of value to us? What we spend our money on tells us a lot about our values. Our life centres around four main areas of involvement, namely God/Religion, Marriage/Family, Work/Career, and Leisure. Identify the three important things that you value most in each of these areas of your life. In each category rank the three values from 1 to 3 in order of importance. These constitute your core value system which directs your thinking, feeling and acting, both unconsciously and consciously. Are these the values that you want to live by and be known for or do you want to change them? Which of these values would you say that you would definitely die for? Remember that a real value is one that you would die for. If you discern that you have a value you wouldn’t publicly stand up for and be willing to die for, then it’s not a real value for you. It’s only superficial. Are these values that you have discerned real values for you that enable you to be a good steward in the eyes of God?
Good values must reflect God because only He is good (Mk 10:18), and all goodness comes from Him. So for something to be good it must lead to God. If it doesn’t, then the fact is that it isn’t good and what’s not good is evil. That’s the reality. As God’s stewards our actions must reflect His Spirit in order for them to have a good effect on the world. This is why we must always recognize and honour the fact that “The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad indeed … Those that sow in tears will sing when they reap” (Ps 126:1-6) and “the Lord is leading Israel (His stewards) in joy by the light of His glory, with His mercy and justice for company6” (Baruch 5:1-9).
As stewards of the earth, God has given us the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes to teach us the difference between good and bad values. Our problem is that we too often choose what looks good but turns out to be bad because we view it through the lens of the world rather than through the eyes of Jesus Christ. As stewards, we have the capacity to use the resources available to us either constructively or destructively. It was with this in mind that St. John the Baptizer “went through the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins … A voice of one crying out in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths” (Lk 3:1-6). Bad stewardship and wrong values can only be overcome and replaced through repentance and forgiveness. God made this possible through Jesus for whose coming John prepared the people.
Jesus came to show and teach us how to live fruitful lives through being constructive in all our thoughts, words and actions through possessing and upholding the Christian values He taught, namely freedom, justice, peace, and love. We learn about these in the Gospels and His Church’s teaching. These values lead us to be fruitful stewards, giving glory to God in all we say and do. God sent His Son, the Word Incarnate, as the perfect human being. Why? Baruch tells us: “God means to show your splendour to every nation under heaven, since the name God gives you forever will be, ‘Peace through justice, and honour through devotedness” (Bar 5:4). Justice means that we live the values of Christianity by doing what’s right according to Jesus’ teaching. Hence we need to discern whether our values are such that they sustain our relationships with God, others, and ourselves. Good stewardship is living justly. Justice brings us a peace and assurance from God that can’t be provided by New Age therapy, mindfulness, yoga, Reiki or any other worldly pagan programme. This peace and assurance comes from God alone. “Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you” (Jn 14:27).
To experience this peace we must “Make ready the way of the Lord. Clear Him a straight path” (Lk 3:4). So let us take the time to discern what is of value to us, repent of our selfish values and seek forgiveness so that the Lord who began this great work of redemption and salvation in us the day we were baptized can bring it to completion the day we die. This is our challenge this 2nd week of Advent. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
What Should I Do?
Morality is distinguished from all other behavioral sciences such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc. because it alone prescribes or judges what we should or ought to do. The others describe what and why we do what we do. Morality asks and answers three basic questions: What kind of person should I be? What kind of action should I do? What kind of relationships or communities should I build? The reasonable answers provided by morality to these questions are: 1. You should be a person of good character. 2. You should do right actions. 3. You should build just relationships and just communities! Christian morality, based on God’s revelation and affirmed by reason, tells us the truth about what constitutes good character, right action, and just relationships. It’s important for us to examine what kind of character we’re building, what kind of actions we’re performing, and what kind of relationships and communities we’re building.
The question of what we should do is one we need to continually ask ourselves and answer as we live our daily lives. This is why we need an objective standard of morality as a measuring rod. What we do flows from our character, our sense of right and wrong, and the kind of relationships and communities we’re in. Our actions in turn affect our character and our relationships either positively or negatively. They’re all inter-related. As we continue our Advent preparation for the celebration of the sacred occasion of Christ Jesus’ birth and the cosmic event of His Second Coming, what should we be doing?
There is a marvelous scene in the Gospel according to St. Luke (3:10-18) which helps us answer the question of what we should be doing as preparation for celebrating Jesus’ birth, His sacramental presence now in His Church, and His second coming. John the Baptizer was preaching repentance of sin to the crowds. Their spiritual hunger drove them to seek out John’s guidance. The lies, deception, insincerity, violence, political intrigue, and materialism offered by false prophets have left them confused about what they should be doing. So, they’re curious to hear what John has to tell them. They want to know what they should be doing in order to find happiness and joy in their lives.
John gave them a lesson on moral living. He told them that, “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. And whoever has food should do likewise.” To be moral we must practice charity by developing the virtue of generosity. Our Christian morality tells us we should practice a spirit of poverty by sharing our time, talent, and treasure with others who are less fortunate and voiceless. Jesus teaches that, “Whatever you give to these the least of my brothers and sisters you give to me” (Mt 25:40). Jesus cautions us that “the measure you use to give to others will in turn be used to measure back to you” (Lk 6:38). Paradoxically, you will only get what you give. We receive only in proportion to what we give. If we give our all we’ll receive God’s all, which far outweighs our all. There are no misers in Heaven.
John told the tax collectors that they must, “Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.” He tells them to practice the virtue of honesty. We must be truthful in our dealings with others. There are no dishonest people in Heaven.
John told the soldiers that they must, “not practice extortion, (or) falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your wages.” We must practice the virtue of justice and not abuse our authority or power for our own gain at the expense of others well-being. We must be fair, truthful and grateful in our attitude. There are no greedy people or liars or ungrateful people in Heaven.
John’s morality is clear, simple, and direct. If we want to be Jesus’ disciples our conduct should be studded with charity, honesty, justice, truthfulness and gratitude. These virtues dispose us to the peace Jesus brought into the world and promised to all men and women of goodwill. This is a peace the world cannot give because it supports the opposite of these virtues. All human beings crave the peace Jesus offers but many deprive themselves of it because they choose vices instead of virtues and so do what they should not do. It was the absence of this peace in their hearts that drove the crowds out into the desert in hopes that John would show them how to possess it. He did so by telling them that Christ, the Prince of Peace, was coming and would give them His peace if they embraced Him as their Messiah and Savior and did what he asked.
What should we do to receive Jesus’ peace? We should be charitable, practice poverty, be honest, tell the truth, and be just in carrying out our obligations in our relationship with God, ourselves, and with one another. The result will be that, “God will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in His love” (Zeph 3:14-18). Knowing Jesus as the giver of the peace we crave and knowing what we must do to receive it motivates us to “Rejoice in the Lord always … our kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:4-7). So let us rejoice because now we know what we should do to have peace of mind, heart and soul. So, without further delay, let’s do it! (fr sean)
The 7 Ups for Advent
1. Wake Up !! Decide to have a good day. "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24
2. Dress Up !! The best way to dress up is to put on a smile. It is the most inexpensive way to improve your looks. "The Lord doesn’t look at the things man looks at. Man looks at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 1st Samuel 16:7
3. Hush Up!! Learn to listen. God gave us two ears and one mouth, so He means for us to spend twice as much time twice as talking. "He who guards his lips guards his soul." Proverbs 13:3
4. Stand Up!! … for what you believe in. Stand for something or you’ll fall for anything. "Let us not be weary in doing good; for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good..." Galatians 6:9-10
5. Look Up !! … to the Lord. "I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me". Philippians 4:13
6. Reach Up !! .. . . for something higher. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path." Proverbs 3:5-6
7. Lift Up !! … your prayers. "Don’t worry about anything; instead PRAY ABOUT EVERYTHING." Philippians 4:6
Prayer for the Week
God indeed is my savior; I am confident and unafraid. My strength and my courage is the Lord, and He has been my Savior. I thank You Lord, I acclaim Your Name; I will make Your actions known to everyone I meet. I will proclaim how exalted is Your Name. I will sing praise to You Lord for Your glorious achievement. I want this to be known throughout the land. I will shout with joy, for You are in our midst, O Lord, Holy God. Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ is present in His Word and Sacrament in His Church, Christ will come again. Amen. (Based on Is. 12:2-6)
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Thank you, Father Sean.
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Fr Sean again.
See the Face of God in the Manger
To prepare us for the awesomeness of Christmas Jesus’ Church proclaims the beautiful story of two women who played a key role in God’s plan to save mankind from sinfulness. On this last Sunday before Christmas we read about these two women in St. Luke’s Gospel (1:39-45). After the angel Gabriel announced that the virgin Mary was called by God to enable His Word to become flesh, she left Nazareth to visit Elizabeth knowing that both were pregnant in a most mysterious and miraculous manner. All she knows is that the angel spoke about things that were naturally impossible. The angel assured her that God can do all things and she placed all her trust in Him. Therefore, she willingly said “Yes” to God’s request. Mary believed that God was all-good and wouldn’t ask her to do anything that would cause her disgrace or failure.
Pregnant with the Christ-child, Mary set out alone to visit Elizabeth and her husband, Zechariah. Imagine the thoughts that went through her mind! Elizabeth was past childbearing age and she and Zachariah had resigned themselves to being childless. But while carrying out his priestly duties, an angel appeared to Zechariah with the news that Elizabeth would give birth to their child. He was dumbfounded. Was this a cruel joke? Well, as the angel said to Mary, he found out that “Nothing is impossible with God.” Have you ever tried to imagine what that meeting of these two women must have been like? Elizabeth, though elderly, was six months into her pregnancy while Mary, newly married to Joseph but not yet living together, was pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
God chose these two Jєωιѕн women through whom He would change the course of history. John would become known as the “Baptizer,” preaching a baptism of water calling for repentance for sin in preparation for Jesus Christ who would actually make forgiveness of sin possible for those who repented. God chose the Jews as His people to bring His blessings to all people. This mission was epitomized in John who announced that the Messiah had come to redeem and save “all the nations.” Through Mary God fulfilled His promise of a Messiah in the Incarnation of His Word in her womb. In Mary, Jєωιѕн faith in God reached perfection in her unconditional “Yes” to welcome His Word as Savior of the world.
What do Mary and Elizabeth teach us? First of all, both women lived their faith. Elizabeth’s words of praise for Mary, “How does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Blessed is she who believed that the Lord’s promises to her would be fulfilled” reflects her deep faith in the Lord’s promises in the Old Testament. She was “filled with the Holy Spirit” who enabled her to recognize Jesus’ presence in Mary’s womb. This was the same Spirit that empowered Mary to be the Mother of Jesus. The Holy Spirit brings people to Jesus, never just to Himself. Jesus explained the role of the Holy Spirit: “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My Name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have told you” (Jn 14:26). St. John teaches us that, “This is how we can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that recognizes that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God” (1 Jn 4:2-3, 16).
The faith of these two women wasn’t just adhering to a set of Jєωιѕн beliefs. They demonstrated their faith through cooperating with God when He asked them to participate in a unique way in His plan to save mankind from self-destruction. Both of them challenge you and me to live the faith we say we have through seeking to do God’s will for us. It’s easy to say “I believe” until God asks me to do something that brings us discomfort. It’s easy to talk about faith in God but it isn’t easy to put all our trust in God. We need His Spirit to do so. The Spirit brings us to Jesus and Jesus brings us to His Father who has adopted us as His children and protects us from all our enemies. Both Mary and Elizabeth said “Yes” to the Holy Spirit and were able to put their faith in Jesus who had not yet been born. They were women filled with the Holy Spirit who united them with Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
The Holy Spirit calls us to Jesus even while we are still in the womb. Listen to Elizabeth upon Mary’s arrival: “For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.” God’s plan of salvation, through His Word-made-flesh in Mary’s womb, blesses all pregnancies from the moment of conception. Every baby is a sign of God’s hope for mankind. The womb is the locus for God’s greatest creativity.
What is God teaching us here? Here we see that life in the womb is human, a person, directly created by God and very much aware of God’s presence, even in this physically undeveloped stage. How do we know this? John, as a sixth-month old fetus, was aware of the presence of the God-man even as a fetus in Mary’s womb. Here God reveals that human life and personhood begin at conception. Abortion breaks God’s 5th Commandment, namely “Thou shalt do no murder” and destroys His new hope for mankind.
When Elizabeth identified Mary as “blessed among women,” she was speaking a truth that we all need to embrace. That truth is that God blesses all those who say “yes” to Him by embracing Jesus and bringing Him to others as faithful members of His Church carrying out the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy. The Psalmist’s prayer, “Let us see Your face and we shall be saved” (Ps 80:2-19) was fulfilled when Jesus was born. In blessing Mary for allowing her womb to be the first sanctuary for His Son, God was blessing all men and women who allow Christ to be born through them as they live their masculinity and femininity to the fullest by being life-givers in accord with their abilities. In Jesus’ birth God showed us His Face that radiates Faith, Hope, and Love. God’s love shone perfectly in Jesus but His love also shines forth in the face of every infant.
As Advent ends, Christmas begins. Christmas is the celebration of God’s act of love in letting us see His face in human form through Jesus’ entry into our world where He joins us in the Sacraments of His Church, especially in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. In Jesus God blessed humanity by giving all men and women hope of eternal happiness through the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness. Christmas is a time when we remember how blessed we are despite our total unworthiness. God has sanctified us, thereby making us worthy of respect and protection – something that too many in our culture seem to have forgotten. Christmas isn’t a time to be merry. It’s not a time primarily for giving. Rather, it’s a time to remember. True giving flows from the memory that God has given us the gift of Himself by showing us His face in the Baby Jesus born in a humble cave because the world had no room for Him. It’s a time to remember that without Jesus we’re hopeless. Therefore, it’s a time of joy as we remember that God has come among us as one of us “in all things but sin.” Knowing that God blesses us with His presence, we’re equipped and encouraged to bless others with our presence. So when you view the Crib in your church and in your home see the Face of God in the Holy Child who radiates freedom, justice, love, hope, and peace. He is God’s present of Himself to you, so make your presence your present to those around you this Christmas. Jesus is Immanuel, God-with-us.
My prayer for you this Christmas is:
May you have Christ in your heart.
May you have Health in your body, mind, and soul.
May you Reap the reward of your labors.
May you Inform the world about the Lord.
May you Seek the truth.
May you Treat others well.
May you Mind what is precious.
May you Ask for God’s guidance.
May you Sow what you would be proud to reap.
Nollaig Shona agus Ath Bhlian Faoi Mhaise Dhaoibh Go Leir.
Fr. Sean
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Fr Sean again.
Wisdom to Bring You Happiness in 2025
This New Year marks the end of the first quarter of 21st century. The beginning of each year brings new hope that is realized only by those who have faith in God because hope flows from faith, not wishful thinking. For some, 2025 will mark their beginning in the womb; for others it’ll be their last year on earth. One thing is certain for the followers of Jesus, namely that God makes everything work for our good if we act according to His design (Rom 8:28). The Holy Spirit advises us that, “If it should be God’s will that you suffer, it is better to do so for good deeds than for evil ones” (1 Pt 3:17). Suffering is inevitable but with Jesus residing in our heart we emerge from it better rather than bitter.
On New Year’s Eve people usually wish each other happiness. But how many realize that happiness is impossible without God? The wisdom of St. Thomas reminds us that whatever can be taken away from us can’t make us happy. Only God can’t be taken away from us against our will and therefore He alone can make us happy. We can reject Him ourselves but no one can separate us from Him. The wise person seeks what he or she desires only where it can be found. A wise person doesn’t seek gold in a piece of lead. The wise person seeks happiness by lovingly obeying God who is the only source of human fulfilment that lasts. Jesus, God’s Word-become-man, assures us that, “The heavens and the earth will pass away but my word will not pass away” (Mt 24:35). It’s foolish to invest in what doesn’t last.
This year the Church concentrates on the Gospel of Luke. To be wise in 2025, we would do well to read and reflect on this Gospel along with reading the Wisdom Books in the Old Testament (Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus/Sirach, and Psalms). In these Holy Scriptures we grow in our knowledge of God’s wisdom as He teaches us how to live in freedom, justice, peace, and love. Here we find the divine truths to live by that are guaranteed to help us make wise decisions. But knowing God’s Word isn’t enough in itself. We must let it form our attitude towards God, ourselves, and our neighbour. Without formation there’s no transformation and so we don’t change for the better. How many people identify as Catholic but don’t practice the Faith? How many are baptized but live pagan lives? How many who call themselves “Catholic” but do not attend Holy Mass every Sunday? Why are some in the Church trying to change her to suit their own disordered desires? The answer is that they haven’t let God’s Word direct their spirits and do not benefit from God’s wisdom. Formation comes about when we build our life daily on what Jesus tells us through His Church’s Apostolic teaching in Word and Sacrament. Thus we become transformed into intentional children of God who live as His faithful sons and daughters. It’s important to ask whether the way we’re living is based on information that’s true or false. Will it lead me to happiness or misery in the long term?
As I said earlier, a wise man or woman is one who lives in a manner that brings him or her happiness. What is happiness? It’s the state of well-being mentally, spiritually, emotionally, morally, socially, and physically. The Dictionary defines wisdom as, “the ability to recognize or judge what is true, right, and lasting.” Our sinfulness makes it obvious that this ability is severely flawed in us. Wisdom is no longer innate in us. We can only acquire it through the power of the Holy Spirit whose gift it is. We are wise when we live according to God’s revelation.
We need God in order to be wise. Why? Because He is the Creator and knows us much better than we could ever know ourselves regarding what we need for fulfilment and contentment. He alone sets the moral standard for us in the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes demonstrating wise behaviour. Besides giving us this information so that in living it we’re formed and transformed in His image, we need God to help us embrace the truth about what’s right and what frees us to be fully human and alive. Our problem is that we’re sinful, short-sighted, and tempted by Satan, we arrogantly think we know what’s best for us. Just because something feels good doesn’t mean that it is good. The Holy Spirit reminds us that “The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom” (1 Cor 1:18). Many have knowledge of God from reason, the Bible, and the Church but are foolish because they don’t act on that knowledge.
Knowledge of God by itself doesn’t make us wise unless we put it into action in our lives. The Holy Spirit revealed that “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Prov 9:10). God has instilled the emotion of fear in each of us for our safety. Fear of the Lord protects us from the danger of losing our friendship with Him and dooming ourselves to eternal suffering and death. Fear of the Lord, a gift of the Holy Spirit, (Is 11:2-3), alerts us to make sure we don’t separate ourselves from God through sinning. God seeks to communicate with everyone and for that reason He has “written His law in everyone’s heart. Their conscience bears witness together with the Law, and their thoughts will accuse or defend them on the day when, in accordance with the Gospel … God will pass judgment on the secrets of men through Christ Jesus” (Rom 2:15-16). The wise man or woman makes sure to develop a well-formed conscience through listening to Jesus’ authoritative teaching. The Holy Spirit warns: “See to it, then, that no one deceives you through any empty, seductive philosophy, a human wisdom based on the principles of this world rather than on Christ”(Col 2:8).
We just celebrated Jesus’s birth, God’s Word-become-man (Jn 1:1-18). He is Wisdom in the flesh. Jesus is God’s truth and the only One who can determine what’s right, just and enduring. Anything contrary to Jesus’ teaching is a lie, immoral, and corrupt. A wise person makes Jesus the centre of his or her life. How? Through repentance and faith in His Gospel as a loyal member of His Church. With Jesus as our centre, despite trials and tribulations, we’re able to proclaim: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has bestowed on us in Christ every spiritual blessing in the heavens! God chose us in Him before the world began, to be holy and blameless in His sight, to be full of love. He destined us for adoption to Himself through Jesus Christ such was His will and pleasure – that all might praise the glorious favour He has bestowed on us in His Beloved” (Eph 1:3-6). Thus the wise person, knowing that God has chosen him or her to be holy, blameless and full of love, is able to be happy despite pain.
During 2025 let God’s wisdom help you to see that only He can bring you a true sense of happiness that lasts, which you won’t find anywhere else! (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
God’s Favour Rests on the Baptized
Jesus began His public ministry by seeking the baptism John was offering at the River Jordan. It was a momentous occasion when God revealed Himself as a Trinity of Persons. After John baptized Jesus the Holy Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove, and God revealed Himself as Jesus’ Father speaking from the clouds affirming Him as His beloved Son: “You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you” (Lk 3:22).
To be beloved is to be favoured and to be favoured is to be loved. To be favoured is to be honoured. To be loved is to be held dear by another. That day in the Jordan River God the Father revealed that He honoured Jesus as His Son and held Him dear by bestowing the Holy Spirit on Him as He began the mission of telling everyone that God the Father wanted them to be able to enjoy His love. God’s love would be enjoyed in the act of receiving the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness for sin. God originally created man and woman in His image and likeness but they disobeyed Him and so lost their likeness to Him. St. Augustine referred to this as the Original Sin, the consequence of which was the loss of holiness and eternal life. Only God could restore what man lost, since man and woman couldn’t redeem themselves. They were no longer pleasing to Him and lost their right to life and love dooming themselves to hell. The Church teaches us that, “Original sin is the loss of original holiness and justice due to Adam's sin. As a result man is alienated from God and also other men. Man has a wounded nature inclined towards evil. A denial of this fact can only lead to serious errors in education, politics, social action and morals (CCC 407).
In requesting John’s baptism of repentance for sin Jesus signified how He was going to restore man’s lost holiness. This is why Jesus commissioned His Apostles to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20). Only a sinless man could make up for the damage caused by sinful man.
Because Jesus never sinned, His Baptism was a baptism of repentance, not for His own sins since He had no sin, but for the sins of men and women. His Baptism by John was by immersion of His body not just into the waters of the Jordan but the immersion of His human nature into the Holy Trinity in order to restore humanity to the state that it was in the Garden of Eden. John revealed to the people: “I am baptizing you with water but one mightier than I is to come … He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Lk 3:16). John’s baptism called for repentance for sin. Jesus’ baptism called for personal transformation through becoming an adopted child of God and in the process becoming free from Satan’s grip through reconciliation with God and His Church. It wasn’t just a cleansing from Original sin. The Greek word “baptizo” means immersion in the sense of dye penetrating a piece of cloth. The Holy Spirit reveals that in Jesus’ baptism, “you put aside your old self with its past deeds and put on a new nature, one who grows in knowledge as he is formed anew in the image of his Creator” (Col 3:9-10).
The Sacrament of Baptism that Jesus gave to His Church, is a rebirth into a redeemed nature with which God favours us. John’s baptism called for a radical change in behaviour, but Jesus’ baptism calls for a radical change in one’s nature. The “baptism of fire” which is the transforming power of the Holy Spirit’s actions in our soul, makes us a new creation, a re-born anointed child of God favoured and beloved by Him.
Baptism restores the capacity to be God’s true image and likeness – to be Christ-like. This makes the sacrament of Baptism so awesome and yet it is so little understood not only by those who receive it but all too often by those who administer it. It’s one thing to have the capacity for something but it’s quite another to exercise that capacity. That requires commitment, fidelity, and discipline. Hence the need to deeply understand this Sacrament that is essential for salvation.
God promised comfort to His people (Is 40:1ff). The greatest comfort a child can experience is the visible nearness of the parent’s love. God promised to come to His people so they would feel His nearness. “Like a shepherd He feeds His flock; in His arms He gathers the lambs, carrying them in His bosom, and leading the ewes with care” (Is 40:9-11). This is what God is doing with us in Baptism. The Psalmist expressed the deep human need for God’s nearness: “If You take away their breath, they perish and return to the dust. When You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and You renew the face of the earth” (Ps 104:29-30). The Holy Spirit makes our spirit new in Baptism where He honours us and holds us dear. Through it God takes us into the love of the Father and Son for one another expressed in the Person of the Holy Spirit. We receive a new Father and Mother (God and His Church), a new family (the Church on earth and in Heaven), a new identity (God’s gifted child whom He calls by name), a new mission (save our soul), a new purpose (know, love and serve God here on earth and after death to be eternally happy with Him in Heaven), a new knowledge (God is among us and present in His Church), a new standard of love (love others as Jesus loves us), a new morality (love your neighbour as yourself), and a new destiny (Happiness in Heaven).
This is why Jesus gave His Church the Sacrament of Baptism so that, until the end of time, all men and women could experience God’s nearness as He prepares them for Heaven.
Take the time this week to reflect on your Baptism and what it means to you.
Do you realize that through Baptism God has favoured you and bestowed His love upon you calling you His “beloved”? That day Jesus began shepherding you and me as a member of His flock - His Church - cleansed from Original sin, and freed from Satan’s power over us. That day God the Father adopted us as His children and said to us individually as the water was poured over our head in the Name of the Holy Trinity, “You are my child, my beloved; my favour rests on you.” He was delighted that our parents put us up to be adopted by Him. He sent us His Spirit to guide our spirit to Jesus who showed us the way to live, taught us the truth about life and love, and offered us Himself as our life that’s eternal. “Because of His mercy He saved us through the bath of rebirth (Baptism) and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that we might be justified by His grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7)
Someone said that “God meets us where we are, but He loves us too much to leave us there.” God, as a loving father, wants the best for us. He made us heirs to His Kingdom and all that the Kingdom offers, such as supernatural freedom, justice, peace, and love. He favours us with His presence in the person of Jesus in the confession boxes and on the altars of His Church. He gives us the gift of prayer and the divine virtues of faith, hope, and charity. He never abandons us.
How much of our time do we give Him – prayer, adoration, meditation, Holy Mass? Jesus continually knocks on the door of our heart seeking to enter our life with His warmth, compassion, and assurance that He is only too willing to help us shoulder our burdens.
He never asks anything of us that He doesn’t give us the wherewithal to accomplish. How grateful are we to Him for all His gifts, especially the supernatural gifts of Faith, Hope, and Charity??
But what is our response? Do we reflect on the Baptismal vows that we renewed in the sacrament of Confirmation? Are we truly obedient children of God? Are we any different in our attitude and behaviour than someone who has no faith? Have we taken ownership of the vows our parents made on our behalf the day we were baptized? Remember that only the Creator can perfect the creature. You are I are creatures and God is the Creator who alone knows what is best and most fulfilling for us. I have included a prayer for the renewal of Baptismal Vows – will you take ownership of these vows, renew, commit yourself to be faithful to them from this day forward? Our eternity depends on our fidelity or infidelity to them. (fr sean)
Renewal of My Baptismal Vows
Almighty and Eternal God! You know all things. You see the very bottom of my heart, and You know that, however sinful I have hitherto been, I am resolved, by the help of Your grace, to love and serve You for the remainder of my life. And therefore, O my God, kneeling before the throne of Your mercy, I renew, with all the sincerity of my soul, the promises and vows made for me (by me in case of adult Baptism) in my Baptism.
I now renounce Satan with my whole heart, and will henceforth have no connection with him. I renounce all the pomp of Satan, that is, all his lies and the vanities of the world, the false treasures of its riches, honours and pleasures, and all its corrupt teachings. I renounce all the works of Satan, that is, all kinds of sin.
To You alone, O my God, I desire to cling; Your word will I hear and obey; for You alone I desire to live and to die. I believe in You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen. This is my Faith. I am proud to profess it through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Fr Sean again.
God’s Favour Rests on the Baptized
Jesus began His public ministry by seeking the baptism John was offering at the River Jordan. It was a momentous occasion when God revealed Himself as a Trinity of Persons. After John baptized Jesus the Holy Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove, and God revealed Himself as Jesus’ Father speaking from the clouds affirming Him as His beloved Son: “You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you” (Lk 3:22).
To be beloved is to be favoured and to be favoured is to be loved. To be favoured is to be honoured. To be loved is to be held dear by another. That day in the Jordan River God the Father revealed that He honoured Jesus as His Son and held Him dear by bestowing the Holy Spirit on Him as He began the mission of telling everyone that God the Father wanted them to be able to enjoy His love. God’s love would be enjoyed in the act of receiving the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness for sin. God originally created man and woman in His image and likeness but they disobeyed Him and so lost their likeness to Him. St. Augustine referred to this as the Original Sin, the consequence of which was the loss of holiness and eternal life. Only God could restore what man lost, since man and woman couldn’t redeem themselves. They were no longer pleasing to Him and lost their right to life and love dooming themselves to hell. The Church teaches us that, “Original sin is the loss of original holiness and justice due to Adam's sin. As a result man is alienated from God and also other men. Man has a wounded nature inclined towards evil. A denial of this fact can only lead to serious errors in education, politics, social action and morals (CCC 407).
In requesting John’s baptism of repentance for sin Jesus signified how He was going to restore man’s lost holiness. This is why Jesus commissioned His Apostles to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20). Only a sinless man could make up for the damage caused by sinful man.
Because Jesus never sinned, His Baptism was a baptism of repentance, not for His own sins since He had no sin, but for the sins of men and women. His Baptism by John was by immersion of His body not just into the waters of the Jordan but the immersion of His human nature into the Holy Trinity in order to restore humanity to the state that it was in the Garden of Eden. John revealed to the people: “I am baptizing you with water but one mightier than I is to come … He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Lk 3:16). John’s baptism called for repentance for sin. Jesus’ baptism called for personal transformation through becoming an adopted child of God and in the process becoming free from Satan’s grip through reconciliation with God and His Church. It wasn’t just a cleansing from Original sin. The Greek word “baptizo” means immersion in the sense of dye penetrating a piece of cloth. The Holy Spirit reveals that in Jesus’ baptism, “you put aside your old self with its past deeds and put on a new nature, one who grows in knowledge as he is formed anew in the image of his Creator” (Col 3:9-10).
The Sacrament of Baptism that Jesus gave to His Church, is a rebirth into a redeemed nature with which God favours us. John’s baptism called for a radical change in behaviour, but Jesus’ baptism calls for a radical change in one’s nature. The “baptism of fire” which is the transforming power of the Holy Spirit’s actions in our soul, makes us a new creation, a re-born anointed child of God favoured and beloved by Him.
Baptism restores the capacity to be God’s true image and likeness – to be Christ-like. This makes the sacrament of Baptism so awesome and yet it is so little understood not only by those who receive it but all too often by those who administer it. It’s one thing to have the capacity for something but it’s quite another to exercise that capacity. That requires commitment, fidelity, and discipline. Hence the need to deeply understand this Sacrament that is essential for salvation.
God promised comfort to His people (Is 40:1ff). The greatest comfort a child can experience is the visible nearness of the parent’s love. God promised to come to His people so they would feel His nearness. “Like a shepherd He feeds His flock; in His arms He gathers the lambs, carrying them in His bosom, and leading the ewes with care” (Is 40:9-11). This is what God is doing with us in Baptism. The Psalmist expressed the deep human need for God’s nearness: “If You take away their breath, they perish and return to the dust. When You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and You renew the face of the earth” (Ps 104:29-30). The Holy Spirit makes our spirit new in Baptism where He honours us and holds us dear. Through it God takes us into the love of the Father and Son for one another expressed in the Person of the Holy Spirit. We receive a new Father and Mother (God and His Church), a new family (the Church on earth and in Heaven), a new identity (God’s gifted child whom He calls by name), a new mission (save our soul), a new purpose (know, love and serve God here on earth and after death to be eternally happy with Him in Heaven), a new knowledge (God is among us and present in His Church), a new standard of love (love others as Jesus loves us), a new morality (love your neighbour as yourself), and a new destiny (Happiness in Heaven).
This is why Jesus gave His Church the Sacrament of Baptism so that, until the end of time, all men and women could experience God’s nearness as He prepares them for Heaven.
Take the time this week to reflect on your Baptism and what it means to you.
Do you realize that through Baptism God has favoured you and bestowed His love upon you calling you His “beloved”? That day Jesus began shepherding you and me as a member of His flock - His Church - cleansed from Original sin, and freed from Satan’s power over us. That day God the Father adopted us as His children and said to us individually as the water was poured over our head in the Name of the Holy Trinity, “You are my child, my beloved; my favour rests on you.” He was delighted that our parents put us up to be adopted by Him. He sent us His Spirit to guide our spirit to Jesus who showed us the way to live, taught us the truth about life and love, and offered us Himself as our life that’s eternal. “Because of His mercy He saved us through the bath of rebirth (Baptism) and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that we might be justified by His grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7)
Someone said that “God meets us where we are, but He loves us too much to leave us there.” God, as a loving father, wants the best for us. He made us heirs to His Kingdom and all that the Kingdom offers, such as supernatural freedom, justice, peace, and love. He favours us with His presence in the person of Jesus in the confession boxes and on the altars of His Church. He gives us the gift of prayer and the divine virtues of faith, hope, and charity. He never abandons us.
How much of our time do we give Him – prayer, adoration, meditation, Holy Mass? Jesus continually knocks on the door of our heart seeking to enter our life with His warmth, compassion, and assurance that He is only too willing to help us shoulder our burdens.
He never asks anything of us that He doesn’t give us the wherewithal to accomplish. How grateful are we to Him for all His gifts, especially the supernatural gifts of Faith, Hope, and Charity??
But what is our response? Do we reflect on the Baptismal vows that we renewed in the sacrament of Confirmation? Are we truly obedient children of God? Are we any different in our attitude and behaviour than someone who has no faith? Have we taken ownership of the vows our parents made on our behalf the day we were baptized? Remember that only the Creator can perfect the creature. You are I are creatures and God is the Creator who alone knows what is best and most fulfilling for us. I have included a prayer for the renewal of Baptismal Vows – will you take ownership of these vows, renew, commit yourself to be faithful to them from this day forward? Our eternity depends on our fidelity or infidelity to them. (fr sean)
Renewal of My Baptismal Vows
Almighty and Eternal God! You know all things. You see the very bottom of my heart, and You know that, however sinful I have hitherto been, I am resolved, by the help of Your grace, to love and serve You for the remainder of my life. And therefore, O my God, kneeling before the throne of Your mercy, I renew, with all the sincerity of my soul, the promises and vows made for me (by me in case of adult Baptism) in my Baptism.
I now renounce Satan with my whole heart, and will henceforth have no connection with him. I renounce all the pomp of Satan, that is, all his lies and the vanities of the world, the false treasures of its riches, honours and pleasures, and all its corrupt teachings. I renounce all the works of Satan, that is, all kinds of sin.
To You alone, O my God, I desire to cling; Your word will I hear and obey; for You alone I desire to live and to die. I believe in You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen. This is my Faith. I am proud to profess it through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Thanks, Cassini. And Father.
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Fr Sean again.
True Catholics Follow the “Mary Principle”
Can you identify the basic principles by which you live your life? What is a principle? The Webster Dictionary defines it as “a basic rule, law, or assumption that guides or explains something." A Catholic principle is a basic truth, rule, law, or assumption that explains why a person would belong to the Catholic Church. The “Mary principle” is the basic belief that doing what Jesus tells you enables you to be changed from being a sinner into being a saint and that you belong to the Catholic Church because that’s where Jesus is present and tells you what to do so that you can be converted and prepared for Heaven.
Someone pointed out the following principles as essential for human maturity. 1. I must actively search for my spiritual center, as that center holds all of me together and enables me to grow emotionally and spiritually. 2. I need to learn to give up trying to control anyone or anything outside myself and some things inside myself as well. 3. I must learn to become aware of, trust in and use God’s power to help me in my search for what fulfills me. 4. I am free to embrace God or not, as I will, but if I set my will against God, I suffer unnecessarily because I make it impossible for myself by not allowing this Power to help me. When I flow with God’s power, my life becomes beautiful and serene. The choice is entirely mine. 5. With the help of God, I must become increasingly honest with myself about my past and present attitudes, feelings, emotions, thoughts, behavior patterns, and motives. 6. I must become increasingly open with at least one other person, but preferably more, about all my emotions and emotional patterns as I discover them. 7. I must increasingly accept myself exactly as I am – without hiding, disguising, distorting, or rejecting any part of myself. 8. I must recognize my need to repent of my sins, seek forgiveness and come to freely forgive all who have wronged me and with the help of God to remove what blocks my growth as a Catholic. Without principles we’re doomed. To be principled is to base our lifestyle on particular truths that are time-tested and enhance integrity.
Life must be based on certain principles that must be upheld if we’re to be real, true, good and beautiful individuals. Our behaviour should be determined by the “principle of the thing” rather than by what’s popular, politically expedient, or pleasurable. When we’re principle-based nothing can shake us from our convictions. To be a Catholic Christian is to live our life according to the principles laid down by Jesus and His Church. The first principle of Christianity is that personal faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Son of Man through membership in His Church, who redeems mankind from Satan’s grip in order to enjoy an eternal life of happiness with God the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit with the angels and saints. Adherence to this principle is essential as a true member of Jesus’ Church. “Eternal life is this: to know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (Jn17:3). To know God personally it is essential to know Jesus since He is God in human form. Knowing Jesus means having an intimate relationship with Him, which becomes visible and real in the Holy Mass. When we act out of our principles we are true to ourselves. When we don’t we betray ourselves.
Mary is our great example of living a principled Faith. At Cana Mary and Jesus were guests at a wedding when the wine ran out. Mary was concerned for the young couple’s inevitable embarrassment of having no more wine for the guests. She came to Jesus who seemed to initially rebuff her, “Woman, why turn to me? My hour has not yet come” (Jn 2:4). Undaunted in her faith in Jesus, she simply said to the waiters, “Do whatever He tells us” (Jn 2:5). This command of Mary to the waiters is known as the “Mary Principle.” It’s a basic principle that explains the heart of Christianity. Christianity is all about doing what Jesus tells us. This is the rule that says those who wish to be Christian must do exactly what Jesus tells them. This is what faith in Jesus is all about – total obedience and trust in Him. He reminded His disciples, “If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in His love” (Jn 15:10). As Mary’s faith and love for God was visible in her obedience to God’s call to her, she calls us to show our faith and love for Jesus by doing what He asks of us. Doing what Jesus tells us is a basic principle of being a Christian. To call ourselves Catholic and disobey Jesus is to be unprincipled. To follow someone other than Jesus is to break the First Commandment. Like Mary, Christians must be willing to do whatever He asks of us through His Church. Similarly His Church must do what He asks of her, namely to faithfully hand on the Apostolic Tradition and traditional moral teaching to each generation. He places His Church and each of her members under the guidance of the Holy Spirit who provides the necessary gifts to accomplish what He asks of us. “The particular way in which the Holy Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose.” (1 Cor 12:7) Like Mary, a principled Catholic does whatever Jesus tells him or her. Jesus tells us what to do in the Holy Scriptures and in His Church’s Catechism. So the faithful Catholic reads, listens and implements the Gospels asking the Holy Spirit to help discern what Jesus is telling him or her to be and to do. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Is Your Vision and Mission that of Jesus?
Everyone has some kind of vision for their life, even though they may not be conscious of it? Having a vision for our life is very important because it determines how we’ll try to live it. The vision motivates the mission. Vision and mission are bound together. A vision is a mental picture of what we ultimately want to achieve. A vision focuses our efforts and gives us a dot on the horizon toward which we move and hope to reach. Our mission, then, carried out in the present, is to procure and use the necessary resources that enable us to achieve our vision. A mission’s success is measured by how well it leads to attaining the vision. The vision inspires the mission and the mission makes the vision more tangible. Without a vision a mission is unfocused and ultimately fails. This is true in relationships, marriage, business, politics, education, careers, and Church.
God’s vision for everyone is that they would be like Jesus who is the perfect image of God because He is both God and man. “God created man in His image; in the divine image He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen 1:27). God’s mission for man and woman as His image is to: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it .... cultivate the earth and care for it” (Gen 1:28; 2:15). Sadly, Satan tempted man and woman with a new vision, namely that of being gods themselves so they abandoned God’s vision for them. With this new vision of being gods came a new mission, namely using God’s creation to gratify themselves. This is called sin where ego is supreme. Sin is man’s distorted mission to achieve his egotistical vision of himself. God didn’t give up on stupid man, so He intervened. He called Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and then Moses to form a people who would embrace His original vision and mission for the salvation of humanity. He promised through Moses: “I will take you as my own people, and you shall have me as your God” (Ex 6:7). But again the people chose a vision and mission contrary to God’s will and abusing their freedom ended up being exiled. God inspired the pagan Persian, Cyrus, to free them and so return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and once again embrace God’s vision for them. The priest, Ezra, “opened the scroll so that all the people might see it … he read plainly from the Book of God’s law interpreting it so that all could understand what was read …Today is holy to the Lord your God. Do not be sad and do not weep – for all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the Law” (Neh 8:5-9). The people wept because they were introduced once again to the vision of God’s love for them and the peace that came from participating in the mission that would restore their faith in God’s will and a true identity as His children that assured them of fulfilment.
God made His vision and mission for His people visible in the Person of Jesus Christ, His Word-made-flesh. After His baptism Jesus came to Nazareth, His home town, and entered the ѕуηαgσgυє on the Sabbath. Taking the Book of Isaiah He opened the scroll, like Ezra hundreds of years earlier, and read from it. Then He said, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4:16, 21). What was in the passage? “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore He has anointed me. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind and release to prisoners, to announce a year of favour to the Lord” (Lk 4:18-19). Jesus announced that He is indeed the Promised Messiah to reiterate God’s vision for His people and show how to attain it. What did God envisage for His people? He would lead them Himself bringing the good news that the poor would become rich, those captives of a fallen nature would be freed, those blinded by ignorance and false teaching would be able to see clearly, those imprisoned by sin would be released, and a time where people would be blessed by God was at hand. He founded His Church to keep that vision before all generations and establish a mission in which all can participate in order to attain the vision.
As a child in school I learned what God’s vision for me and everyone else was, even though I didn’t understand it. The teacher would ask us, “Who made you?” We learned to answer: “God made me.” Then he would ask, “Why did God make you?” We would answer: “God made me to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this world and afterwards to be happy with Him forever in heaven.” God’s vision for all of us is to know Him, love Him, and serve Him here on earth and ultimately to be with Him in everlasting happiness. To attain this vision we need Jesus’ Church to participate in the mission of doing what is necessary in order to know, love, and serve God. We need Jesus’ Church because that is where He is present offering us the graces through the power of the Holy Spirit to hear His Good News and to be freed from our spiritual poverty, from what physically and spiritually captivates and imprisons us. We need Jesus Church to provide us with a visible sign of God’s favour in the graces which He bestows on us through the Sacraments, and especially in the Holy Mass. This is the reason why the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation.
Fidelity to God’s vision for us and active participation in the mission to attain it that’s provided by Jesus’ Church always fosters freedom, justice, peace, and charity. But sadly, when this vision is abandoned or distorted the mission becomes diseased, malignant, by man-made visions that bring confusion and division in the Body of Christ. Tragically this is a reality today in the Church. St. Paul addresses this problem and uses the metaphor of the human body to describe how all Christians must work together for the Church’s credible promotion of Jesus’ vision and mission. “The body is one and has many members; but all the members, many though they are, are one body; and so it is with Christ. It was in one Spirit that all of us … were baptized into one body” (1 Cor 12:12ff). Jesus founded only one Church. God has only one vision and one mission for His people. Each person has been given gifts to participate in that mission so as to attain that vision which is a community endeavour. Each person, like each bodily organ, has a purpose making him or her necessary to the health of the whole Church. No one is unnecessary. Like the bodily organs, all Christians must use their gifts for the health and unity of the body of Christ if God’s vision and mission are to be brought to a fallen, spiritually and mentally captivated, blind, misguided and egotistical and sinful world. God favours us with His mercy by sending us Jesus who shows us how to be God’s servants, the stewards of His creation, and not its masters for our own selfish ends. God’s vision and mission, fulfilled and made visible in Jesus present in His Church, unifies all who embrace them. Thus your life is meaningful, purposeful and happy. Does your vision for your life correspond with God’s vision for you? What does your use of your resources tell you about your vision and mission? Any vision and mission other than that given by Jesus dooms us to failure. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Mary and Joseph Presented the Infant Jesus to God in the Temple
The Catholic Church celebrates the event of Jesus’ presentation to God in the Temple by Mary and Joseph. They did this in accordance with the Law of the Lord as obedient Jews. Mosaic Law required that the first born in every family and in every herd of animals were to be consecrated to God signifying that he possessed them. The Church celebrates this event because it is the first public recognition that Jesus is the Promised Messiah. This event is remembered in the 4th Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary. It is celebrated with the blessing of candles reminding us that Jesus is the “Light of the World” and promised that “Anyone who follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (Jn 8:12). The blessed lit candle in churches and in homes is a sacramental that leads us to realize that Jesus is the light that enlightens everyone.
Four hundred year or so before the birth of Jesus the Old Testament prophet Malachi prophesied the presentation of Jesus in the Temple. “Thus says the Lord God: Lo, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me; and suddenly there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek, and the messenger of the covenant whom you desire. Yes, he is coming…He will purify the sons of Levi, refining them like gold or like silver that they may offer due sacrifice to the Lord” (Mal 3:1-4). The Temple represented God’s presence for the Israelites and that was where they offered sacrifice in their worship of Him. The Messiah and the Temple are directly connected and this was affirmed by Jesus when He went missing in Jerusalem after the Passover celebration and Mary and Joseph found Him in the Temple. When scolded by Mary, Jesus responded, “Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s House?” (Lk 2:49). When the Temple was replaced by the ѕуηαgσgυє and the ѕуηαgσgυє was replaced by the Church founded by Jesus He promised to be with His Church until the end of time (Mt 28:20). By presenting the baby Jesus in the Temple Mary and Joseph were presenting Him to God the Father. Similarly in Baptism when parents present their child in the Church they are presenting him or her to Jesus who in turn asks His Father to adopt the child as His child. The Church is the sign of Jesus’ presence amongst us.
In the Presentation not only was Jesus revealed as the Messiah and Saviour of the world for both the Jews and Gentiles but also that He would cause division. In the Temple Mary and Joseph were greeted by two holy people, Simeon and Anna. Both were waiting for the Messiah to come and now, inspired by the Holy Spirit, recognize the infant Jesus as the One promised by God. Simeon took the baby Jesus from Mary and holding Him in his arms “blessed God saying: ‘Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to Your word, for my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You prepared in the sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory for Your people Israel’” (Lk 2:28-32). Both Mary and Joseph “were amazed at what was said about Jesus” and both Simeon and Anna were overjoyed by this divine revelation that God had once again fulfilled His promise to personally save His people by coming among them Himself. But then, Simeon, after blessing Mary and Joseph, while still holding the infant Jesus in his arms, looked directly at Mary and said, “Behold, this child is destined for the rise and fall of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted – and you yourself a sword shall pierce – so that the thoughts of many may be revealed” (Lk 2:34-35). The Holy Spirit revealed that Jesus would set the standard that would determine salvation or damnation and that He would suffer piercing Mary’s motherly heart.
The presentation of Jesus in the Temple is a central part of our Catholic Faith because it sets the stage for what is to come in terms of Jesus’ mission and that of His Church. Our relationship with Jesus determines whether we rise or fall, whether we live sinfully or gracefully, whether we prepare ourselves for Heaven or hell. He sets the standard that shows us what is good and what is evil. He is our Judge. As religiously faithful parents Mary and Joseph followed the Mosaic Law. As religiously faithful Catholics we must follow Jesus’s Law that includes the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. By living according to them we will continue Jesus’ mission to save mankind. But, like Mary, we must be willing to endure suffering imposed by those who reject Jesus and His Church. The day we were presented to Jesus in His Church to be baptized we received the capacity to be what God wants us to be, namely intentional disciples of Jesus constantly giving both private and public witness to His presence in and among us in and through His Church. This we show the world that Jesus is the Light who enlightens each of us as to what is real, true, good, and beautiful. Thus we, in Jesus’ company, help to save the world. Only Jesus can raise us up from suffering and death, otherwise we sink into the depths of suffering and death – the death of supernatural faith, hope, and love. As you enter the Church building this Sunday, reflect on Mary and Joseph as they brought Jesus to the Temple along with your own presentation in the Church the day you were baptized and publicly declared a Christian and a gifted child of God. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
God Always Equips Us to Do What He Asks
Someone said that God doesn’t look for qualified people to do His will; rather he qualifies those whom He calls. I thought about this when reading the story of Peter and his fellow fishermen who were encouraged by Jesus to cast their nets for a catch of fish once again even though they had caught nothing all night (Lk 5:1-11). He gave them the necessary faith to try again. At the sight of the catch Peter “fell at the knees of Jesus and said, ‘Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.’” In response Jesus said to Peter, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” Probably Peter and the other disciples didn’t have a clue as to what Jesus was saying. They would no longer be netting fish but rather spreading the net of Jesus’ Church to bring more people to Him so that He could save them from sin. Jesus called them to participate in this mission not because they were qualified but because He would give them what they needed to do what He asked. The Old and New Testaments are filled with examples of unqualified people whom God qualified to do His bidding. God called Isaiah to speak His word. Immediately Isaiah recognized his incompetence: “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips…” To qualify Isaiah for the task God sent an angel to free him from his incompetence and immediately he responded: “Here I am, send me!” (Is 6:1-8). Similarly Jeremiah protested when called to be a prophet, “Ah, Lord, I am too young…” and the Lord responded, “Have no fear … because I am with you to deliver you…” (Jer 1:6-8). Inspired by the Holy Spirit, St. Paul tells us, “It is not that we are entitled of ourselves to take credit for anything. Our sole credit is from God, who has made us qualified ministers of a new covenant, a covenant not of written law but of spirit … the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3: 5-6). God asks each of us to bring the Faith to others and we excuse ourselves by saying, “Oh, I could never do that!” or “I don’t know enough about my religion!” We must remember that God qualifies the unqualified, so we have no excuse.
God calls each of His children to be faithful members of His Church. In the Preface of the Holy Mass the priest proclaims on our behalf that, “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give You thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ our Lord.” We give thanks to God especially in the Holy Mass but also in our daily prayer and through sharing the gifts God has given to us. The most important gift He has given to us is that of supernatural Faith because it’s the foundation of our relationship with Him and with one another. Without faith there’s no hope and without hope we’re closed to God’s love. God gives us this gift of supernatural Faith to demonstrate to the world that Jesus is our Saviour and that we, through active membership in His Church, are being saved by Him. It’s this Faith that empowers us to pray with the Psalmist (138:1-8), “I will give thanks to You, O Lord, with all my heart, for You have heard the words of my mouth: in the presence of the angels I will sing Your praise; I will worship at Your holy temple and give thanks to Your Name…Your right hand save me. The Lord will complete what He has done for me; Your kindness, O Lord, endures forever; forsake not the work of Your hands.” It’s this Faith that motivates us to share the contents of this prayer with others.
As dutiful Christians who care about the salvation of others, you and I have an obligation to tell others about this Faith and how to receive it. St. Paul told the Corinthians (15:1-11) regarding the Gospel: “I handed it on to you as of first importance what I also received.” What he received was the knowledge of Jesus who died to save mankind from sinfulness and rose again showing that He had conquered sin and death. Handing it on was his first priority. Given the fact that Jesus’ Church has cells all over the world, why haven't the majority of the earth’s citizens converted to Jesus over the past two thousand years? Given the social media coverage of the world today there’s no excuse for anyone to claim that they haven’t heard of Jesus Christ. The problem is that it’s not enough to hear about Jesus; people need to be able to meet Jesus. How and where can that happen? It happens through Christians witnessing their Faith in Jesus through living the Faith at home, at work and through evangelization and catechesis that foster and reflect the supernatural gifts of Faith, Hope, and Charity. Why don’t Catholics witness the Faith that God has given to them? All too often, as I said, their excuse is that they don’t feel qualified. Whose fault is that? There’s no doubt that today ignorance of the Catholic Faith by even baptized Catholics is at an all-time low. Why?
The Church has produced Catechisms down through the centuries to help the members of the Church to understand the Catholic Biblical Faith and how to live it. Just as St. Paul saw that handing on the Faith was of first importance to him so the Pope, bishops, priests, deacons, parents, and godparents must see that handing on the Faith is of first importance to them. Because God qualifies those whom He calls, people in positions of authority in the Church, such as those mentioned above, have no excuse for not handing on the Faith, not a watered-down version or a culturally-friendly version but the true faith in all its authenticity and traditional integrity and continuity. Jesus’ teaching hasn’t changed. His Church’s teaching hasn’t changed because she is His Bride. Today it seems that the only sin that must be avoided is the truth enshrined in Jesus’ Church. Ignorance of Jesus and His Church’s teaching is the greatest enemy of Catholicism because it leaves Satan’s lies without any exposure. The Catholic schools and universities used to be instruments of the Church in her mission of handing on the Faith and helping to form Christian students. Sadly, that’s no longer true since most of these schools have consented to teach what the Church considers as immoral. The Church has always taught that parents are the primary educators of their children and at the baptism of their children they promise to raise them “in accord with the teaching of Jesus and His Church.” Thus they have a duty in justice to faithfully fulfil this promise. The bishops, priests, and deacons have a moral duty to assist the parents in evangelizing and catechizing their children. There’s a serious faith crisis in the Church today, namely a lack of belief that when God gives us a task He also provides the wherewithal to accomplish it. God always more than compensates for our feelings of inadequacy if we have faith in Him. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Therefore God gives the necessary graces to each of us to do what He asks of us and so we have no excuse when we don’t exercise our responsibilities. Each of us is responsible for bringing others to the Lord, beginning with our family. We are our brother’s and our sister’s keeper (Gen 4:1-9). Imagine someone going to hell because you didn’t share the Faith with him or her??? Remember the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-30) and what happened to the man who buried his talent? (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Do You Feel Blessed or Cursed?
Do you feel blessed or cursed at this point in your life? How do you know? You’re blessed when you’re grateful. Gratitude signifies that a person feels blessed. What is a blessing? Biblically a blessing is a favor from God. The world sees a blessing as simply good luck. The root meaning of “blessing” is to be made holy. A curse is to impose evil on oneself or on others. It’s safe to say that no reasonable person wants to be cursed. Everyone wants to be blessed. But do they understand that to be blessed means to be made holy? When God favors you it’s not because you’re special but that He wants to make you holy. To be holy is to be like God, who is all-Holy and the only source of holiness. Remember that when you ask for a blessing you’re asking God to make you holy, through what you’re doing or will do. What does it mean to be holy? It means to be Christ-like. That is why God sent His Son to show us how to be holy like Him.
In the Old Testament God entered into a series of covenants with His people telling them, “I will be your God and you will be my people” (Jer 30:22). The covenant carried with it blessings and curses. The blessings followed fidelity to the covenant agreement and curses followed infidelity. Whether people were blessed or cursed depended on their choices to either be faithful to God. All blessings come from God while curses are brought down on the people through their freely chosen rejection of God’s love. So faith and blessings go together. Infidelity and curses go together.
Blessings are usually seen as coming from God. People pray to God to bless them. But many people also think that God curses them. There’s no doubt that blessings come from God because only God can make us holy. But curses do not come from Him. God doesn’t impose or wish evil on anyone. Neither does He deprive anyone of any good thing if they trust in Him. He is a provident God. His love for every human being is unconditional, and He wants to bless everyone to make them holy. The problem is that people don’t realize that because of their unrepentant sinfulness they bring curses on themselves. So to benefit from God’s blessing a person must be willing to change through repentance, seek forgiveness in the Sacrament of reconciliation, and bring his or her lifestyle in line with God’s will. God does not bless anyone who refuses to be holy. He cannot bless sin nor does He bless the sinner who remains in his or her sin. He blesses the sinner who is striving to be reconciled with Him and His Church. Sadly, some Church leaders have given false teaching concerning blessings saying that a priest can bless people in a sɛҳuąƖ relationship outside of marriage between a man and a woman or those involved in an adulterous relationship. Such teaching lacks a true understanding of blessing and causes scandal.
Since evil is the opposite of holiness, and cursing is the imposing or wishing of evil or harm on another, a curse is the visitation of the unholy whether it be on oneself or on others. Curses originate in ourselves. We bring curses on ourselves when we sin and continue to curse ourselves when we refuse to repent and seek reconciliation with God and His people. Jesus taught that it’s not what goes into a man’s mouth that makes him impure, but what comes out, since what comes out comes from his mind and heart (Mt 15:11). Blessings come from God, but we curse ourselves by being unfaithful to Him.
The Prophet Jeremiah tried (17:5-8), as God’s messenger, to raise the consciousness of his people regarding blessings and curses. He told them, “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord.” We curse ourselves when we make our ego, a creature or a thing the center of our lives. When we make God insignificant in our lives we become unholy and curse ourselves with inevitable disappointment and failure. The more we rely on God as the only source of our power and meaning the holier we become – the more blessed we are. The more we rely on ourselves or others or things as the source of success the more we turn away from God and the more unholy –cursed – we become. Why? Anyone or anything we look to for power and meaning other than God leads to disaster. No creature can fulfill the needs of another creature. Fulfillment of the creature is the remit of the Creator alone.
Jeremiah goes on to tell them what they need to do to be blessed. “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is in the Lord.” God blesses us, but to be the beneficiaries of His blessing we must be willing to trust and hope in Him to make us holy. If we’re not properly disposed, we won’t allow ourselves to benefit from His grace. It’s like offering a pearl to a pig.
Jesus’ Church gives us Jesus’ teaching regarding blessings and curses in St. Luke’s Gospel (6:17.20-26). Jesus tells us what is necessary in order to receive God’s blessing and how people bring curses on themselves. Jesus tells us that the blessed are those who are poor, hungry, grieving, and hated because of their faith. Being poor, hungry, sad, and persecuted don’t seem like blessings to reasonable people. They aren’t. Jesus isn’t endorsing poverty, hunger, sorrow, and persecution? What is He saying? God blesses those who have a spirit of poverty, namely an attitude whereby a person shares his or her time, talents, gifts, and money with those who don’t have the bare minimum demanded by human dignity. To be poor is to realize that every good thing comes from God and isn’t so much given to us as it is through us to others. Those who grieve for one’s own sins and the sins of others and hunger for God and the purification of a sinful world are blessed. Those who empathize with the suffering in this world are blessed. Those who stand up for their faith regardless of the obstacles or persecution are blessed by God. Such people rely on God as the center of their lives and source of their hope for the salvation of everyone.
Jesus goes on to identify those who deprive themselves of God’s blessing and curse themselves in the process. Who are they? Those who rely on their wealth to gratify their desires while ignoring those in need. The self-satisfied who are so obsessed with themselves that they ignore the hungry. The good-timers who are so caught up in their own entertainment that they ignore the grieving and those in sorrow. The populists who are so addicted to applause that they compromise their principles and lose their integrity.
We have to be careful that what we think is a blessing in this world doesn’t turn out to be a curse. What the world considers a blessing may very well be a curse. Jesus points out clearly that all these people whom he identified as ignoring the materially or spiritually poor, the hungry, the grief-stricken, and the weak will have the tables turned on them. Let’s make sure that when we ask God to bless us we’re not heaping curses on ourselves. It is the difference between seeking holiness and being selfish – between being God-centered and being self-centered. (fr sean)
Count Your Blessings
When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
And you will keep singing as the days go by.
When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;
Count your many blessings—money cannot buy
Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.
So, amid the conflict whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged, God is over all;
Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.
(Johnson Oatman, Jr. 1897)
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Fr Sean again.
Are You an Earthly or a Heavenly Thinker/Feeler?
Jesus has made Christianity, visible in the Catholic Church’s teaching, worship, and service, the only hope for the salvation of mankind. G.K Chesterton noted that, “The problem with Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting; rather it has been found difficult and not tried.” In other words, Christianity is found difficult because it moves people from earthly to heavenly thinking. Even those of us who belong to Jesus’ Church are more earthly in our thinking than heavenly. Why? Because we live in the world and we are constantly exposed to worldly thinking. Christianity is found difficult because it doesn’t fit worldly thinking. Jesus founded His Church and calls us to be members in order to expose us to heavenly thinking. Christianity calls us to focus on the things of Heaven rather than on the things of this world (Mt 6:33). Paradoxically, the more we focus on getting to Heaven the more we’ll use earthly things in a manner that expresses our love for God.
I remember a bumper sticker that read, “Don’t get mad, get even”? We live in a worldly culture that says, “Please yourself.” The golden rule of, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Mt 7:12)” has been turned upside down to say, “Do unto others before they do unto you” “Look out for number one!” This is all earthly thinking. Christianity is foolishness to self-centered people. Why? Because they think they can perfect themselves and don’t need Christ. Christianity’s heavenly thinking preaches and demands charity, which demands generosity which demands love without expecting a reward.
St. Paul explains that the difference between Christian and worldly thinking is the difference between Adam and Christ Jesus (1 Cor 15:45-49). “The first man, Adam, became a living being, the last Adam (Christ) a life-giving spirit. … The first man was from earth, earthly; the second man, from Heaven. As was the earthly one, so also are the earthly, and as the Heavenly one, so also are the heavenly.” The first Adam sinned. The second Adam (Jesus) brought forgiveness. The earthly man thinks selfishly and sinfully. The heavenly Man thinks charitably. You and I bear the image of the earthly Adam, but through Jesus’ gift of Baptism into His Church, we now bear a new image – the image of Christ and a new way of thinking that is heavenly rather than earthly.
We see an example of Heavenly thinking in the story of how David spared the life of Saul who had sworn to kill him (Sam 26:2 -23). He found Saul asleep. His military leader, Abishi, urged David to kill the sleeping Saul. But, David refused saying, “Do not harm him, for who can lay hands on the Lord’s anointed and remain unpunished.” David expresses heavenly thinking. He replaced revenge with mercy and justice by being charitable toward his enemy.
To be a Christian is to be anointed by Christ in Baptism into His Church and, as a result, graced to think like Him. The meaning of the word “Christ” is “The anointed One” – specially chosen by God to be His representative on earth. Christ Jesus wasn’t only God’s special representative, He was His Son – His Word-made flesh. As God’s anointed One, Jesus bore the image of God over His earthly image. He is the perfect image of God in human form. The same is true of Christians. In Baptism God placed the image of Christ over our earthly image making us His adopted children, and heirs to His Kingdom. This makes us different in our thinking and action from all others who don’t bear the image of Jesus Christ over their earthly image.
Jesus points out (Lk 6:27-38) how the bearing of His image over our earthly image transforms our thinking and attitudes. Here we clearly see the difference between the worldly man and the stance of the spiritual man. We can also see why the world considers Christianity as senseless. The world mocks Christianity as “pie in the sky” or as Marx called it, “the opium of the people.”
Jesus taught His disciples to practice heavenly thinking. “To you who hear what I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” The world hears this and says, “Are you crazy? Do you know how long you would last in the world with that mentality? Don’t get mad, get even.” The world views the Christian way as the surest way to be a victim. Enemies must be killed, not loved; curse those who hate you, or hate them back; get revenge on those who mistreat you! This is the only way to win. Heavenly thinking, on the other hand, decries this attitude because it makes things worse.
Heavenly thinking calls us to show our enemy what God calls him to be. Christians, then, displace hate with love, revenge with mercy and justice, violence with peace, hurt with forgiveness, selfishness with generosity, etc. “To the one who strikes you on one cheek, offer him the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic.” Earthly thinking views this as weakness and silliness. “Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” The world says, “What will you have left for yourself? Don’t you know that people will take advantage of you? People are basically selfish. What will happen when you have given away everything and are destitute? You must look out for yourself and not for others.” Ironically, the world makes itself a victim of its illusion of self-salvation. As Christians we’re never victims because we believe with St. Paul that, “if God is with us who can be against us” (Rom 8:31). As Christians we’re always victors because our heavenly thinking assures us of who alone can save us and we’re not dependent on the world for our security. The Christian way enables us to be in control because we know that God is in control of everything.
Christian thinking enables us to rise above the worldly fray by outdoing others in doing good and giving good example. “For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even unbelievers love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even unbelievers do the same.”
Jesus tells us, “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.” As Christians we must judge character, actions, and relationships to determine whether they’re good, right, and just. However, we never judge the person since we know that’s reserved to the individual and to God. Enlightened by Jesus we condemn bad character, wrong actions, and unjust relationships, but we never condemn the person since that’s God’s domain. The focus of Christian thinking and action is always on the improvement of one’s witness to the success of the Way of Christ in a world that scoffs at it.
Worldly thinking focuses on taking while Christian thinking emphasizes giving. “Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in turn be measured out to you.” Here we find the answer to the question why does Christianity lead to happiness while a worldly outlook doesn’t. Christianity focuses on giving, which requires reliance on God’s providence. The world focuses on taking because it never has enough. It’s in giving that we become aware of our riches and give thanks to God for them. It’s in grabbing that we impoverish others and take what doesn’t belong to us. What we do to others we do to ourselves. If we don’t give, we won't get. The giver is always a winner. To help Jesus save mankind we must practice heavenly rather than earthly thinking (Col 3:2). (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Are You Living According to the Jesus’ Wisdom
Wise living follows from making decisions that ensure we gain more than we lose, especially in the long term. Foolish living is about losing more than we gain. It’s therefore very important that we determine what’s gain and what’s loss for us. Reasonable people would probably say that gain is anything that enhances life and loss is what undermines it. But what enhances life and what undermines it? The purpose of life is to die well, and that means dying in the friendship of Jesus Christ since He is the door to Heaven.
The Dictionary defines wisdom as the ability to make a decision based on the combination of knowledge, experience, and intuitive understanding or the ability to know and apply spiritual truths. Where do we find spiritual truths? Lots of religions, groups, and individuals offer “spiritual truths,” but they don’t specify where they come from. So how do we know they’re true? Spiritual truths come from the Author of truth, namely Jesus Christ who revealed Himself as “the Truth” (Jn 14:6). Reason says that to discern what’s spiritual truth, we must go to the origin of Truth, namely Jesus Christ. Living wisely, then, means living according to what Jesus teaches about what perfects our life, brings us happiness, and assures that our life won’t end and that we will be fulfilled, free from sin and death.
Wise living involves making choices that combine knowledge and experience of Jesus who frees us from our human limitations that are either imposed or self-imposed upon us. Freedom is probably our most important value, maybe even more than life itself. It’s the ability to be what God created us to be, namely His image and likeness. Wisdom and freedom go hand-in-hand. From a secular perspective, Don Miguel Ruiz, in his book, “Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom,” identifies what he calls “four agreements” that help a person live wisely. 1st: “Be impeccable with your word” by speaking with integrity, making sure that what you say is true, helpful, and kind. 2nd: “Don’t take anything personally” by realizing that what other people say and do reflects their choices, not yours, and so avoid needless suffering. 3rd: “Don’t make assumptions” by communicating with others as clearly as possible in order to eliminate misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. 4th: “Always do your best” in every circuмstance and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret. Ruiz thinks that, from a psychological and emotional perspective, by making these four agreements with yourself and expecting others to do likewise people live wisely. This seems insightful but there’s more to us that the psyche and emotions. We are body-soul creatures with a spiritual soul that yearns for God. Therefore we need to know how to live wisely as spiritual persons created by God.
Spiritual wisdom is the ability to know and apply spiritual truths. Spiritual truths reflect the nature of the Holy Spirit and His impact on our human spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. Our human spirit reflects our identity, attitude, character, worldview, what we say and do at any given moment in our life. The truth about the Holy Spirit is that He is the third Person of the Holy Trinity and is the personification of the unconditional love shared by God the Father and God the Son. The truth about our spirit is that it is imperfect and prone to selfishness and sin. Our spirit needs the Holy Spirit to purify, strengthen, inspire, and perfect it. Our spirit reflects what’s in our heart, which in turn reflects the state of our soul that is either fulfilled or deprived in its yearning for God. Therefore, knowing and applying spiritual truths means allowing the Holy Spirit to envelop our spirit and bring us to Jesus present in His Church. We know God personally through Jesus Christ. We come to know our self through self-discovery in our relationships and experiences. The more we come to know God the more we come to know and understand our self as His image and likeness. The more we know God the more we know our strengths and weaknesses. Jesus, the model of what it means to be perfectly human, teaches us the truth about what we need to be a fully human and fully alive person, imagining and acting like Jesus.
Knowing and applying spiritual truths make us aware that we need Jesus if we’re to live wisely and freely. Experience, if we’re honest, tells us that to be impeccable in our words, avoid taking things personally, avoid making bad assumptions, and committed to doing our best in every situation requires help that we can’t give our self. That help comes from God. Jesus asks us, “Can the blind lead the blind … can the disciple be superior to the teacher … can good fruit come from a rotten tree …?” (Lk 6:39-45). The answer is a resounding “No!” Jesus points out that “a good man out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but and evil man out of the store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (Lk 6:45). What’s in our heart comes from the thoughts we put in our mind. “The fruit of the tree shows the care it has had, so too does one’s speech disclose the bent of one’s mind” (Sir 27:4-7). Our human thoughts are influenced by the world and the culture in which we live and are changeable as the world and culture changes. Our human thoughts aren’t sufficiently grounded in truth without the help of the Holy Spirit. It’s the Holy Spirit who leads our spirit to embrace Jesus Christ who is truth personified. By following Jesus, present in His Church, we’re able to use His truth as the filter to distinguish truth from lies. Making Jesus’ truth the lens through which we view everything, we can, in the words of St. Paul, “be firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord. Knowing that in the Lord (y)our labour is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:54-58), and we will make wise decisions. Jesus promises us that, “Any man who follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (Jn 8:12).
By living according to Jesus’ teaching nothing that we say or do is in vain. Then we’ll speak with integrity and courage; we won’t be victims by taking things personally; we won’t assume what we don’t know, and we’ll put our heart into doing our best. Through meditating on God’s Word as interpreted and taught by Jesus’ Church we’ll fill our mind with thoughts that open our heart to divine goodness and the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Then with joy we’ll proclaim with the Psalmist, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praise to His Name, Most High, to proclaim Your kindness at dawn and Your faithfulness throughout the night … they that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God…They shall bear fruit even in old age; vigorous and sturdy shall they be, declaring how just is the Lord, my rock, in whom there is no wrong” (Ps 92:2-3, 14-16). This expression of Faith generates enthusiasm and a zest for eternal life.
The Christian life is a life lived wisely. It’s a productive life because the decisions always lead to gain rather than loss, especially regarding perfection, happiness, and a life that lasts forever. The application of spiritual truths revealed by Jesus defines and refines us so we can withstand the trials and tribulations of life on earth. Christianity makes us wise with the truth that comes from God who never fails us and is ever-faithful to His promises to love us unconditionally. The person living wisely makes the most of the present and looks forward with high hopes to the future – a future that brings a perfection, a happiness, freedom, and a peace, and a love that never ends. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Lent: Spiritual Spring Cleaning
I have the greatest respect for homemakers. Trying to keep a house clean is a never-ending chore. It’s amazing how dust keeps gathering on furniture, clothes, floors, etc., almost immediately after they’re cleaned. I guess it’s a reminder that our body is dust and into dust it will return (Gen 3:29). There’s another kind of dust or grit that accuмulates in our heart, namely sin. Just as we need to wash our body, floors, windows, clothes, cars, etc., we also need to clean our hearts. This is why Jesus’ Church gives us the Liturgical season of Lent. It’s a time to spring-clean our soul, both as individuals, as family and Church community. Our spiritual soul gives us the faculties of intellect and free will. The choices we make through thinking and will determine the kind of person we become. If our heart isn’t clean because our soul has been stained by sin, then our thinking becomes distorted and we will make bad choices. We make bad decisions by choosing what looks good but turns out to be bad. Lent is a time to discover, through the light of God’s grace, the sad state of our soul by examining what is in our heart and asking the Lord to purify it. Our thoughts produce our feelings, which spawn actions that identify us as persons of either good or bad character; people who practice virtues or vices.
Spring-cleaning our sin-stained soul is about exposing and getting rid of the evil in our heart by replacing our vices with virtues, our lies with truth. Sin is a word, action, attitude, desire, or pattern of behaviour that offends truth, reason, and right conscience. God hates sin. “God shows His anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom 1:18-32). Sin is a failure to genuinely love God, neighbour, and our self. To expose and rid ourselves of sin we need truth. Sin is the lie that we can make ourselves happy. Jesus Christ is the truth about what it means to be truly human, fully alive and fulfilled. He is God-become-man. It’s in embracing Jesus - “the Truth,”- that sin is exposed (Jn 14:6). Sin is always a lie, and truth always exposes lies. That’s why the demons ran from Jesus. Jesus calls Satan the “father of lies.” “He brought death to man from the beginning, and has never based himself on truth; the truth is not in him. Lying speech; he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44). A lie is the basis of every sin. How? A sin is putting faith in someone or something other than God to satisfy our desires, which is a lie since only the Creator can fully satisfy the needs of the creature. Sin is a lie because it masquerades as something good for us. The temptation of Jesus by Satan brings us face-to-face with the battle between truth and lies, good and evil. Jesus calls us to counter our tendency to self-gratification with fasting; our tendency to be prideful by being prayerful; and our tendency to be greedy by giving alms.
Preparing for His public ministry, Jesus fasted and prayed in the desert for 40 days. Satan figured Jesus was at least physically weak and tried to tempt Him by appealing to His bodily need for food and the human need for power and to prove that God can be trusted. St. Luke (4:1-13) depicts Satan presenting himself as Jesus’ friend offering to fulfil His needs. This is how Satan always presents himself to us. We don’t sin because it looks and feels bad, rather we do it because it looks and feels good in the moment, like the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden looked delicious to Adam and Eve. Satan always appeals to our desire for immediate self-gratification. Jesus resisted Satan’s temptations by shining God’s Word – the Truth – on them and exposing them for the lies they were. To cleanse our heart we must let God’s Word fill our soul thereby exposing the lies we tell ourselves in order to justify our sins. This exposure opens us to the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness which Jesus made available in His Church’s Sacrament of Reconciliation. This we recommit ourselves to Jesus as our Truth and the true nourishment of our soul.
We all struggle with an inherited fallen nature that makes us susceptible to the lie that power, prestige, possessions, popularity and pleasure will make us happy. Satan promised these to Jesus if only He would put His faith in him rather than in God. But Jesus, as the Truth, saw through the devil’s deceitfulness and exposed his promises as fraudulent. Power, popularity, possessions, and pleasure actually undermine our happiness, because they make us addicted to them and we lose our freedom. Only God’s word is the bread that satisfies our hunger for eternal happiness. Only by worshipping God and serving Him will we receive true power and glory for they belong to God alone. “The Kingdom, the power and the glory are Yours now and forever.” God is trustworthy and our Protector. We don’t need to test His care for us by pulling stupid stunts.
What lies does Satan use to tempt you and me to commit sin? He recommends that if something feels good we should do it. Something might feel good in the short term but can turn out very bad in the long term. He urges us to live only for the moment. Yes, it’s important to make the most of the present, but ignoring the past and dismissing future consequences is disastrous. Living only for the moment is conducive to selfishness and ignores our responsibility to others in the future. Finally, Satan emphasizes the necessity to look out only for ourselves. That translates into conceitedness and selfishness. Putting yourself first before everyone is the opposite of what Jesus teaches, namely “if you want to be the greatest, be the servant of all” (Mt 20: 26). These are the lies that underlie our sinfulness. These are the lies we buy into in the hope of achieving happiness, but they only bring us disappointment and betrayal. This Lent, let the Holy Spirit enlighten our thinking and examine our choices to expose the lies that motivate us to sin, so that we can spring-clean our heart through making Jesus the honoured Guest of our soul, so that we can think clearly and make good choices. Then, we will understand the words of the Psalmist (91: 1-2): “You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust.” (fr sean)
St. Peter’s Teaching for a Spiritually Productive Lent
1. “Love one another intensely from a [pure] heart.” 1 Peter 1:22
Love can involve feelings, but it is an act of the will; it means seeking and desiring what is best for the other person. That includes everyone around us—the sick, the elderly, the preborn, and the people we don’t particularly like. Love is not just reserved for our friends and family. Furthermore, love takes sacrifice. If we are going to love intensely with a pure heart, we must show that love by giving of ourselves, by walking with others through their suffering, by spending time with others, by giving our time to those who need it, and by truly listening when people need a friend.
2. “Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, insincerity, envy, and all slander.” 1 Peter 2:1
This may seem like a tall order to some, as ridding ourselves of these vices can be incredibly difficult. But think of a life riddled with these sins. It’s the very opposite of the love St. Peter highlighted. When we allow ourselves to be overcome with lies and hatred, we give the devil a firm foothold on not just our lives but also our bodies. We allow him to direct our words and deeds. By doing so, we push God further away. So, if we truly want to advance the Kingdom of God on earth, we will , as faithful Catholics, do our best to act as Jesus would and to treat others with the respect and dignity they deserve as God’s children.
3. “Give honour to all, love the brothers and sisters.” 1 Peter 2:17
What does it mean to love the Church? Remember that love requires action, so loving our Church community means taking action to help one another when in need. Charity begins at home. But we can’t simply stay inside our homes and never give of ourselves to others. God asks us to think often about what others need and to perform what the Church calls “The Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy, e.g., visiting the sick, counselling the doubtful, admonishing the sinner, feeding the hungry, visiting the homebound, etc. These acts of love allow Jesus to shine His light on the world while building His Kingdom here on earth.
4. “All of you, be of one mind, sympathetic, loving toward one another, compassionate, humble.” 1 Peter 3:8
Jesus taught the Golden Rule in His “Sermon on the Mount” – do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This rule seems to be forgotten in today’s world. Compassion and sympathy are in short supply today. The anonymity of social media has allowed people to say vile things to others, not caring about the damage it does. We must use our gift of speech to build others up, judge what is evil but also be merciful, not to tear down a person’s character. We must use our words to speak the truth about our Catholic Faith and God’s love, justice, and mercy experienced in the grace of repentance and the gift of repentance. This is how we truly love others.
5. “Be hospitable to one another without complaining.” 1 Peter 4:9
If, when we do something for others, we do it with a complaint on our lips or in our hearts, we aren’t truly doing this service out of love. This takes effort and practice, but we must lean to joyfully give of ourselves through sharing our time, treasure, and talent. We must thank God for the opportunities he gives us to put others before our own convenience. Think about those who helped you when you were sick or injured and how their caring made a difference in your recovery. Mother Teresa said that she saw the face of God in all the people she cared for. Let’s follow her example and look for God in everyone around us (His bleeding and Divine Face) in everyone around us, especially those who need our help.
Lent is a time to examine what kind of person we are becoming through our behaviour and make positive changes – changes that we will make part of our life from here on out. Jesus calls us to be like Him – He gave the ultimate sacrifice – Himself – and in a truly painful and horrible way nailed to a tree. His agony and His death were pure gifts to us so that we can spend eternity with Him in a glorified manner. (from the Internet)
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Fr Sean again.
Is a True Relationship with Jesus Your Ultimate Concern?
A woman recently sent me a text with the question: What are you willing to die for? It set me to reflecting on what is my greatest concern as I look to the future? Concern is defined as that which affects our happiness, or wellbeing. It can also be an expression of anxiety or caring for someone or something. Jesus calls us this 2nd week of Lent to reflect on how much concern we show for our relationship with Him. We have lots of concerns such as family, work, health, finances, children, spouse, neighbours, growing old, school, career, physique, appetite, food, addictions, or the future. But what’s our ultimate concern? What would we be willing to die for? Why is that important? Because our ultimate concern, our greatest value, is what consciously or unconsciously directs us in dealing with our day-to-day concerns. What do you want most for yourself and those you love and how will you attain it? Your answer will tell you much about your life’s goal. Our ultimate concern identifies what we think we’re here on earth for and what will bring us lasting happiness.
Lent is a time to identify our desires and direct them in such a way that satisfying them deepens our relationship with Jesus. All too frequently we’re driven to satisfy our physical desires rather than our soul’s desires. We’re much more concerned with pleasing our bodily desires, our ego, than we are with addressing our soul’s desire for God. Think about how much time you spend on thinking about food, what, when, where, and with whom you’re going to eat or cook. Eating is a major concern for everyone because it’s necessary for the health of our body. But it can become such a concern that it drowns out the cry of a starving soul. St. Paul told the Philippians: “Don’t make your stomach your God.” We can have a well-fed body but a malnourished soul and it shows in our selfish attitude. No matter how concerned we might be with feeding our body, we should be much more concerned about properly feeding our soul. The seven deadly sins, namely pride, anger, lust, greed, sloth, envy, jealousy, gluttony and an obtuse spirit reflect a soul that is famished. That’s why God, who fully revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, is essential in our life. He is the necessary food for our soul. We can satisfy our physical desires but only Jesus can satisfy our spiritual desires. An ill-nourished soul always causes life to be sluggish, no matter how well-fed the body might be. Our ultimate concern should be how we can have a healthy soul so that we can live fully and joyfully.
Since God created our soul, we must turn to Him to nourish it. Our spiritual soul is what makes us human and is the essence of who we at in the depths of our being, our self. Our parents created our body but God directly infused a spiritual soul into our body at the moment of conception, which makes us God’s creation and not just our parents’ child. To be concerned about our soul is to be concerned about our self – the kind of person we are and want to become. The more we ask God to nourish our soul the more positive and self-possessed we will be. A miserable, angry, mean, greedy, lustful, slothful, prideful, jealous, envious, gluttonous self always signifies a mal-nourished soul. Jesus alone can feed our soul and free us from these vices by replacing them with virtues, making us pure and wholesome. He has made Himself the “Bread of Life” for our soul (Jn 6:35).
To ensure that we possess a well-nourished soul, a healthy self, we need to realize that God created us to be citizens of Heaven and therefore Heaven should be our ultimate concern. “As you well know, we have our citizenship in Heaven; it is from there that we eagerly await the coming of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will give a new form to this lowly body of ours and remake it according to the pattern of His glorified body, by His power to subject everything to Himself” (Phil 3:20-21). God the Father makes us citizens of Heaven through Baptism into Jesus’ Church where He transfigures our fallen nature and makes us adopted brothers and sisters of Jesus through the love of the Holy Spirit. A good citizen is recognized by making a positive impact on the world. That means you and I must strive to make a positive impact on the Church and the world. To be good citizens of Heaven we must freely subject ourselves to Christ as members of His Church by doing what He teaches. Why? Because, in the words of the Psalmist, Jesus is, “…my light and my salvation … the Lord is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid?” (Ps 27:1). As our light, Jesus focuses us on what makes us fully human, namely our soul. The more we focus on our soul’s health the more we will also maintain a healthy body and keep its desires in check, thus avoiding self-gratification and binging. We want our body to be the means through which we express who we are in our soul, what makes us who we truly are. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation Jesus shines His light on us to expose our sinfulness, so that we can repent and be cleansed by His grace, thus refreshing our soul. What affects our soul affects our body and vice versa. Sin is a sign that we’re abusing our soul by overindulging our bodily and its blind desires. Jesus asks, “What gain, then, is it for a man to have won the whole world and suffered the loss of his soul?” (Lk 9:25).
Jesus’ light is always for our good, as experienced by Peter, James and John when they saw Him transfigured before them. Peter, totally awed by the vision, exclaimed, “Master, how good it is for us to be here” (Lk 9:33).Then God revealed to them, “This is my Son, my Chosen One. Listen to Him” (Lk 9:35). This is why Jesus gently chided Martha when she was upset that Mary sat listening to Jesus while she felt alone preparing dinner: “Martha, Martha you are concerned and upset about many things; one thing only is required. Mary has chosen the better portion and she shall not be deprived of it” (Lk 10:41-42). Martha’s concern was different from |Mary’s. Martha’s concern was preparing dinner. Mary’s concern was spending time listening to Jesus. You and I may be concerned or anxious about many things, but what should concern us most is being with Jesus Christ. This calls for us to sacrifice our time to be with Him in prayer, adoration, and Holy Mass. Only He can nourish our soul and make us happy. This week, examine your many concerns and decide to make your relationship with Jesus your ultimate concern. That will put all your other concerns and anxieties in perspective making sure you won’t become overwhelmed. If you want to be happy, let your ultimate concern be about deepening your relationship with Jesus Christ in His Church. It’s always fulfilling to be with Jesus listening to Him because He has the words of eternal life. But for that to happen, my relationship with Him as a member of His Church must be my ultimate concern! Because Jesus is the only one who died for love of me, He is the only one worth dying for love of Him. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Without Repentance There’s No Forgiveness
In the lives of the Church’s saints the one thing all have in common is that the closer they came to God the more conscious they became of their sinfulness and their need for repentance. Lent is a special time when God gives us the grace through His Church to prepare ourselves to be like Simon and help Jesus carry His cross. The more we focus on empathizing with Jesus on the Way of the Cross the more we experience the great sacrifice He made on our behalf so that we might be saved from our sinfulness. The more we see how much He suffered for us the more we will be motivated to stop nailing Him to the cross by our sins which are our refusals to love Him and do what He tells us. Repentance and a commitment to change our sinful behaviour are necessary for forgiveness. Jesus reminds us that “if you do not repent, you will perish” (Lk 13:5) because forgiveness without repentance means that we aren’t truly sorry and therefore we’re neither receptive to the grace of forgiveness nor willing to change our sinful behaviour. Remember that God gives us only so many chances to get our lives in order so let’s not procrastinate.
Repentance is the freely chosen act of recognizing and deeply regretting our wrongdoing, accompanied by a deep desire to atone for the damage our sins have done to ourselves and to others. Apart from its spiritual value, repentance is essential for the mental and emotional wellbeing of our relationships with God and with one another. The spiritual writer, Thomas a Kempis, noted that “the acknowledgment of our weakness is the first step toward repairing our loss.” In repenting we face who we are and what we need to change if we want to be truly faithful members of Jesus’ Church. Jesus’ Church emphasizes the importance of repentance, which must be heartfelt, by teaching us that His “call to conversion and penance, like that of the prophets before Him, does not aim first at outward works, ‘sackcloth and ashes,’ fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false …” (CCC 1430). Remember that “Nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him impure; that which comes out of him, and only that, constitutes impurity …wicked designs come from the deep recesses of the heart” (Mk 7:15, 21). It is what’s in our heart that drives us either toward good or bad.
To repent is to change one’s heart. How? The Holy Spirit tells us, “Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God” (Joel 2:12-13). Jesus reminds us that “where your treasure is there is your heart also” (Mt 6:21). Repentance comes from recognizing God as our most precious treasure and to Whom we give our whole heart. God wants our whole heart, not just a piece of it, because He wants to inflame our heart with His to bless, heal, and perfect our flawed humanity. Jesus has no time for half-heartedness. “But because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Rev 3:16). Repentance is about coming back to God with ALL our heart. What does this involve?
Jesus’ Church teaches us that repentance involves a radical conversion. To be radical is to get to the root of something, the basics, and the kernel of who we are, namely sinners who can’t save ourselves and are in desperate need of God to raise us up from the corruption. The Church teaches us that, “Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end to sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time it entails the desire and the resolution to change one’s life, with hope in God’s mercy and trust in the help of His grace” (CCC 1431). The motivation for this “radical reorientation” comes from God Himself through Jesus present in His Church by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit promises us that by repenting God “pardons all your iniquities, heals all your ills. He redeems your life from destruction, crowns you with kindness and compassion … secures justice and the rights of the oppressed … so surpassing is His kindness toward those who fear Him” (Ps 103:1-11).
We hear a lot about inclusion today but we don’t hear much about repentance and the fact that if we don’t repent God doesn’t include us in His Church. Why? God’s Word is neither taught or preached by many bishops and priests, nor understood by many Church members. Relativism and self-absorption along with the illusion of saving the planet are our downfall. We’re so stuck today on thinking that we must save the planet that we can’t risk admitting our flaws and our sinfulness demonstrating that we can’t even save ourselves. Without God there is only death on our horizon. Instead of repenting for our sins we avoid them by making everything permissible even though it leaves us stressed, lonely, and isolated in superficial, broken or perverted relationships. We suffer from the illusion that we can heal and forgive ourselves. St. Paul warns us: “Whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall” (1 Cor 10:12). But without God’s Spirit we can’t help but fall since we’re all sinners. Sin is like cancer; even if we don’t admit that we’ve sinned it still eats away at our soul and disposes our heart to Satan’s wiles that cause our humanity to deteriorate. Again, like cancer, the sooner we recognize sin’s existence in us and repent the better are our chances of healing and living joyfully.
Repentance is powerful. In a homily, St. John Chrysostom (c. 388 A.D.) noted that repentance, “alone will turn a wolf into a sheep, make a publican a preacher, turn a thorn into an olive, make a debauchee a religious fellow.” It brings about a radical reorientation of our heart toward the things of God expressed in faith, hope, and charity. To facilitate this need for repentance in preparation for forgiveness Jesus bestowed on His Church, through her bishops and priests, the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This is a powerful expression of God’s initiative in saving us from our sinfulness. Here He enables us to enter into a more intimate relationship with Jesus and through Him with one another empowered by the Holy Spirit. The grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness are two of the most important gifts Jesus brought to this fallen world. Repentance calls for an examination of conscience: Where have I failed to lovingly obey God’s Commandments and live Jesus’ Beatitudes along with fidelity to the laws of the Church? Let’s remember to repent, confess our sins, and experience the forgiveness of God that brings us a refreshed sense of wellbeing. You and I, with a repentant heart seeking forgiveness can experience God actually saving us when the priest pronounces the holy words of Absolution in the Sacrament of Penance. It is in the repentance and forgiveness of sins that we know that God is saving us in that moment (Lk 1:77). (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
The Marvelous Ministry of Reconciliation
The Church has now passed the midpoint of her holy season of Lent. In Jesus’ Name she speaks to us about the ministry of reconciliation. Reconciliation etymologically means “calling together again.” Thus the ministry of reconciliation is actually God the Father calling us together again after we’ve separated ourselves from Him and from one another through our sinfulness. He initiates that call through Christ. Thus God wants us to be "re-newed" - freed from the corruption of sin - and restored to His original design for us. St Paul (2 Cor 5:17-21) under the guidance of the Holy Spirit informs us that, “Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” Jesus replaces the old things reflecting the way of sin with new things that reflect the way of grace. “And all of this is from God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation …”
Grace is God’s presence to us in the Person of Jesus, present in His Church in His glorified body, making us new through rebirth into a new Kingdom giving us a new hope – the hope of Heavenly happiness. He brought the ministry of reconciliation to the fallen human world. Christ is God’s Reconciler. Jesus is the means through which the broken relationship between human beings and God has been mended through the New Covenant that we break when we sin. That renewal of the Covenant relationship between God and us is experienced in reconciliation and celebrated in the Holy Mass. Reconciliation is the visible sign that forgiveness is real and relationships have not just been mended but made new, deepened and enriched because of confession, contrition, satisfaction, and absolution from sin. All this Jesus makes possible in and through His Catholic Church.
If Jesus is the reconciler, His followers must be both beneficiaries and promoters of reconciliation. This is one key way that we show that we are His followers and participants in the salvation of the world. We can truly represent Jesus only if we thoroughly believe in and promote reconciliation in our families, parishes, workplaces, wherever we are. His greatest gift to mankind is the gift of reconciliation which He brought about in uniting divinity and humanity in Himself – one Person with two natures. We, as His followers, must be promoters of this essential gift necessary for salvation from sin. Reconciliation is about the reunification of humanity and divinity.
St. Paul reminds us that we “are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us.” Appealing for what? God appeals to everyone to seek the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness. The word “ambassador” means servant or minister.
What does it mean to be an ambassador of Christ? In the secular world an ambassador represents a political government or group and serves its interests by promoting its values. An ambassador of Christ serves the interests of Jesus’ Church by explaining and promoting and defending its values. As Christ’s ambassadors, we must be able to give reasonable explanations of the teachings of Christ and policies and disciplines of His Church. Bishops, priests, and deacons have a special role as ambassadors of Christ because Holy Orders leave an indelible mark on their souls designating their unique service and ministry to the laity.
Every member of the Church, whether ordained or lay, is obligated to give witness and hand on the Faith. Therefore each of us must be trustworthy in serving Jesus according to our ministry. Trustworthiness requires us to be obedient to Christ as faithful Catholics, honest, reliable, loyal, and people of integrity unafraid to confront those who would mock or destroy Catholic teaching. An ambassador must have the utmost respect for his or her government or organization. As Christ’s ambassadors, we must have total respect for Him and His Church. Respect requires us to always be civil, courteous, decent, and tolerant, but never at the expense of His truth. It also requires us to be autonomous by taking responsibility for ourselves. We must make sure that our sense of honesty is not diluted by self-interest, self-protection, self-deception, and self-righteousness.
An ambassador has an acute sense of responsibility to be loyal to his or her government or organization. As Christ’s ambassadors, we must be responsible and loyal to Him and His Church. Responsibility calls for accountability and a commitment to excellence. This calls for prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance enhanced by the supernatural virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. The ambassador as a servant of Jesus in His Church must pray daily in the words of the Psalmist (34:2-7), “Glorify the Lord with me, let us together extol His Name.”
Jesus is God’s Ambassador and the Reconciler par excellence. We hear Him in action this Sunday in His Church’s proclamation of the parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:1-2, 11-12). In this story, Jesus demonstrates what it means to be an ambassador of reconciliation in the person of the father who willingly welcomes back his repentant son and pleads with his hard-hearted and unforgiving older son to be happy that the family is intact once again. Jesus reveals that His Father is a God of reconciliation waiting for us to repent and seek His forgiveness for our selfishness. Jesus is His Ambassador calling all people to come together and be united with Him in His Church. We as the Church are Jesus’ ambassadors. Thus we must be believers in reconciliation both for ourselves and others. This is our challenge during this season of Lent. The unity of the world is depending on the example of the Church members practicing repentance and forgiveness through the grace of God. How privileged we are to have the great Sacrament of Reconciliation available to us that engenders hope in our hearts despite our proneness to sin! Let us benefit from it frequently so that, as God reconciles us to Him and to His Church, we in turn may be able to genuinely call others to benefit from this divine grace that reflects God’s justice and mercy in the ministry of reconciliation. (fr sean)
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Fr Sean again.
Let Go of Your Past and Let God into Your Present
Everything we do is motivated by the belief that there is some benefit in it for us. The moment we see that there’s no benefit in it, either directly or indirectly, we stop doing it. A psychiatrist asked his patient what was the problem. Patient: “It’s my wife, she’s historical!” Doctor: “You mean, hysterical?” Patient: “No! I mean historical. She keeps bringing up the past.” Alcoholics Anonymous have a slogan, “Let go and let God.” God is the One who is always present – Yahweh. Holding on to the past prevents us from living in and making the most of the present. The value of the past is that it shows us our mistakes and sinfulness so that we can avoid them in the present. So seeing that what we thought benefited us in the past actually was bad for us, we’re now able to see through its false promise and the good we thought was in it for us was actually evil disguised as good. If we’re to be free we must let go of the past and let God perfect us in the present rather than trying to perfect and make ourselves happy. We must neither become victims or prisoners of our past nor fearful of our future. Refusing to let go of the past or put aside fear of the future robs us of making the necessary changes in the present, which is the only time we have to live life as fully as possible.
Jesus’ Church alerts us to God’s call not to be stuck in the past but to focus on what He is doing in us in the present. “Thus says the Lord,…Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new! … I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink…” (Is 43:16-21). What is He doing in and for us that’s new? He slakes our spiritual thirst for Him. The human spirit longs for the divine Spirit for its refreshment, encouragement, hope, perfection, passion, and joy. But this requires us to surrender to God, admitting that we can’t move forward and be happy without the Holy Spirit in us watering our soul. That means we must be present to God who helps us to live fully in the present, having learned what to avoid from the past. We can’t undo the past, but we can learn from it what’s good or bad for us. What we think will make us the happiest determines what we see as good or bad for us. What we think is good for us, we allow to control us. The only one to whom we give control over us without losing our freedom is God.
The Psalmist prayed, “The Lord has done great things for us, we are glad indeed … Those that sow in tears shall reap rejoicing” (Ps 126:3, 5). What great things has the Lord done for you and me? He sent a Saviour to save us from our sinful past, so we can let it go in order to enter a peaceful present with a joyful future in which to hope. That’s why St. Paul proclaimed, “I believe nothing will happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…. I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in Him. I am no longer trying for perfection by my own efforts … but I want only the perfection that comes from faith in Christ, and is from God and based on faith” (Phil 3:8-9). The great thing Jesus did for Paul was to help him see that what he thought would benefit him as a Jew would actually lead him away from the God he thought he was serving. Jesus helped St. Paul to let go of his past beliefs and embrace God’s new revelation that would bring him to Heaven. Having let go of his past that he thought would benefit him, Paul concentrated on the new way to perfection through faith in Christ Jesus. “My entire attention is on the finish line as I run toward the prize toward which God calls me – life on high in Jesus Christ. All you who are spiritually mature must have this attitude” (Phil 3:14-15). St. Paul let go of his past and let God enter his present showing him what would truly perfect him, namely unity with Jesus, now and forever.
St. John’s Gospel demonstrates why Paul considered everything he relied upon as rubbish compared to being in the presence of Jesus. We see the great things God does in the story of the woman caught committing adultery. She’s both a victim and a prisoner of her past immorality. According to Jєωιѕн law her past actions were punishable by stoning to death. The scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus to determine her fate based on her past. They didn’t really care about the woman but were using her to try and trap Jesus into breaking the law. If He didn’t condemn her they could accuse Him of breaking the Mosaic Law and have Him put to death. If He condemned her they could ridicule His teaching on mercy and forgiveness. Jesus saw through them and went to the root of the matter, namely the hypocrisy of sinners calling for punishment of other sinners. He challenged the accusers to reflect on their own sins: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (Jn 8:7). They all walked away beginning with the oldest. No one is without sin and, therefore, no one is in a position to cast a stone at anyone else. Jesus was the only one without sin, and the only one who could cast a stone of condemnation. So He asked the woman, “Has no one condemned you? … Nor do I condemn you. You may go, but from now on don’t do sin anymore” (Jn 8:10-11). Jesus didn’t come to condemn the sinner to death but to call the sinner to repentance and to amend his or her life. He condemns sin in all its forms but not human beings. He loves the sinner to repent and seek His forgiveness. He saved her from her sinful past and told her to let it go, so she could enter a grace-filled present and a hope-filled future free from the slavery to her sinfulness. He came to tell us that our sin which we do because we think it benefits us actually destroys us. He told the woman not to sin anymore because if she did there might not be anyone to save her. Jesus helps us let go of our sinful past, our tendency to judge others as worse than us, and recover the freedom God wants us to have, namely the freedom that comes from growing in His image and likeness witnessing justice, peace, and mercy to others. Let go of your past and let God enter your present with His promise of a bright future as a faithful member of His Holy Church. He does new things in you when you meet Him in the Sacrament of Penance and in the Holy Mass. (fr sean)