Friends in Christ,
Today is the feast of St. Peter Damien. He was born in the year 988 in Ravenna. Losing his father and mother when quite young, he was left in the hands of an older brother, who treated him like a slave, actually more like an animal.
Working in terrible conditions with little relief, he suddenly had the good fortune to receive a large amount of money from someone; did he use it to escape his sad situation? no. He gave it to offer many Masses for his deceased father.
But he had another brother who took pity on him, and sent him off to school to become educated. Soon he was a professor, teaching others and quite successful. But Peter continued to live a life close to the Lord, and he decided to abandon the success he had in the world. He became a hermit, and in fact, a man of great penances. His fastings and penances have become legendary. Sometimes he would force himself to stay awake all night and pray, but in doing so, he brought on a problem of insomnia which took a lot to overcome. He learned from this the need for moderation in penance.
Because of his holiness, his superiors would send him to their various monasteries to teach the monks. Soon, bishops and numerous Popes were calling on Peter Damien to reform many aspects of the Church, which he did.
In 1057, really against his will, the Pope insisted that he become a Bishop. Peter Damien continued to pound away at the need for morality and discipline, and he defended priestly celibacy when lax clerics questioned it. He never asked others however, to do a penance he was not already doing!
He was one of the great reformers of the Middle Ages. His style was powerful and blunt. In fact, he once severely rebuked the Bishop of Florence for wasting time in playing a game of chess. Immediately the Bishop admitted his sin of sloth!
St. Peter Damien, though a powerhouse against sin and laxness, was in the confessional a very gentle, kind, and understanding confessor. He also taught something in theology which is most astounding: He taught that for God, it is possible for him to erase an event from history. He can cause something, after the fact, to not have happened. This is very interesting when we think of our sins!
Peter Damien often gave advice, and once he wrote this to his nephew: “Be sure to drive out the beasts from your heart; protect yourself daily by receiving the Flesh and Blood of the Lord. Let the foe see your lips reddened with the Blood of Christ.”
Friends in Christ,
From today’s 1st Reading, it is evident that the early Church had some problems of people showing favoritism. ‘If a man with fine clothes comes into your assembly, and a poor person with shabby clothes also comes in, and you pay more attention to the one wearing the fine clothes, then have you not made distinctions among yourselves?’
St. James is warming against the unfair treatment of others. This question is part of the Cardinal Virtue of Justice;[i] Holy Scripture says that ‘God is no respecter of persons.’ (Acts 10:34), and this means that he treats all with equal dignity, regardless of outward appearance, wealth, or nationality. We are supposed to do the same.
Unfairness happens when one person is given certain privileges, not because he is more qualified or worthy, but because he is a certain person – your friend or relative – or a person who can do you a favor later.
A coach for example, with little kids, should be fair in who gets to play. Justice would demand that all the children get a chance to play. If the coach favors one child because the parents are his friends, this is a violation of justice.
If a child is allowed to be first in line to receive her Confirmation from the Bishop because her father is a big donor to the parish, this would be unjust favoritism.
I remember at Christmas time, that my parents were always very careful that each child received a similar number or quality of gifts. Though a parent might feel special attachment to one child, the parent must be sure that the children are treated with equal dignity. Of course if a child is sick, more money should be spent on medicine for that child than the others. So fairness does not mean that all are treated the same, but rather with equal dignity.
So we should look at our own behavior. At a restaurant or at the store, are we more courteous with good-looking people? Is there fault-finding with people who happen to be overweight or less attractive? Do we treat smokers or poorly dressed persons differently than we treat others?
We should look at our heart. If we are driving, do we find ourselves angry and critical of the mistakes of a driver in the shabby car, while we find a way to overlook mistakes of the Mercedes Benz?
Oh, we are patient with those noisy children at Mass, but are we the same with the children of another race?
In the pagan world, people favor those whom they please; but we Christians treat everyone with equal dignity, because all are God’s children.
[i] Summa Theologica: Justice, Q63.
Friends in Christ, [i]
In the Epistle from St. James today, he says, ‘Be slow to anger, for anger does not accomplish the righteousness of God. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, his religion is in vain.’
Anger is one of the 7 Deadly sins. St. John Vianney says, anger comes from the devil. A person caught in this passion is like a puppet, and the devil holds the strings and makes him dance as he pleases.[ii]
St. Basil says that no matter how good a person may seem, if he yields to anger, he is a monster. Anger leads us into resentment, blasphemy, detraction, gossip, and a host of other sins, and so it is called a ‘Capital Sin’ because it leads to many others.
In the passion of anger, a person’s mind does not reason well, good judgment is lost, and the person becomes more like an animal or a madman. According to St Bonventure, an angry man is incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong.
We should be angry at sin and evil when we see it, but we may never be angry at the person. As St. Augustine says, we are not allowed to hate others because of their sins.
But a person may say, ‘Did you see what he did to me? I am justified in my anger.’ Who told you that you are justified? When one’s blood is boiling, the mind is clouded, we often are not justified in our anger. For a minor slight, we become as angry as if the person committed murder!
St. Alphonsus says, if you resent an injury done to you by a neighbor, God will inflict vengeance on you for all the injuries you have done to him.’ The Holy Scriptures say: ‘You cannot expect the Lord to pardon you while you are holding a grudge. If you cannot get rid of your anger, you have no hope of forgiveness. [iii]
An angry man may be feared; he may be able to get his way; but an angry man will never be respected.
Some people are really struggling against this fault; many in confession show that they are trying to improve, maybe this is our struggle. St. Francis de Sales had quite a temper when he was young. But he worked hard at changing his ways, and eventually no one ever suspected that this was his weakness.
Some say that they are very patient; but in fact, they are patient only with their friends. To those who injure them they respond with fury. Scripture says, ‘a soft answer calms wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Prov. 15:1)
In the end, the Holy Spirit is not able to do any good in us if we are agitated or angry. So we should not lose our peace with others or with ourselves.
[i] Many ideas taken from Sermons by St. Alphonsus Liguori, p. 254.
[ii] The Little Catechism, Anger
Friends in Christ,
In Question 165[i] of the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas asks: whether ‘it is fitting that man was tempted by the devil. Some people ask, ‘why IS there temptation’ wouldn’t it be nicer if there were no temptations or problems? No one would sin, and there would be no evil.
St. Augustine says: ‘ “It seems to me that man would have had no right to any special praise, if he were able to lead a good life simply because there was no one to persuade him to lead an evil life.’
God ALLOWS us to be tempted, by Satan, and by our own weaknesses. He allows it, but he himself does not tempt us to evil.
St. James says in his Epistle today: ‘No one experiencing temptation should say, I am being tempted by God; for God is no tempter to evil, he himself tempts no one.
It is God’s permissive Will, which allows us to be tempted; tempted by the Devil, or by others, or by our own concupiscence. God allows this to happen. St. Augustine is really saying, God can’t make us great – there can be no real merit or glory in man, if we do not have to overcome anything.
If the Chicago bears play a farm-team from England and win big, easily, it really is no glory to the Bears at all. The question is, what happens against a difficult team? And if, after an epic-struggle and much adversity, they are able to win, then this is worthy of glory.
For this reason, St. James writes: ‘Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been tried, he will receive the crown of life.’
It is not wrong, when tempted, to say ‘It is God’s will, I must endure this,’ because ultimately, everything is part of God’s plan. The evil and temptations and all the results of free-will are taken into account. But God does not desire evil. His Antecedent Will desires only that all do good, but his Permissive Will allows everything to unfold, in a plan which takes into account free-will.
In the Book of Job, we see that Job was a just man, and life was good for him. But Satan told God that of course Job will be good when everything is going well for him! But let me AT him, and then he will curse you to your face. And God allowed it. Why? Because it is in difficult times, under suffering and temptation, that we are able to be great. Meet someone who has had an easy life and no problems, and you will not meet a person of good character. You must meet someone who has suffered or wrestled with temptation, in order to find virtue.
‘Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been tried, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him.
[i] In the 2nd part of the 2nd part.
Friends in Christ,
In the Epistle from St. James today, he says, ‘Consider it pure joy, when you encounter various trials. So, joy in trials?! If this is hard to understand, St. James says that we should ask God for the wisdom to understand it.
St. Alphonsus says, there is nothing more pleasing to God than to see a person who patiently and serenely bears whatever crosses he is sent; this is how love is made. ‘A soul who loves Jesus Christ desires to be treated the way Christ was treated, desires to be poor, despised, and humiliated.[i]
Now this is one of the hardest aspects of the spiritual life. But sometimes – sometimes we get a glimpse of it. If something very hard happens to us, or a big cross, or illness, once in a while we think: ‘Now I am really being like Jesus, this is an opportunity!’ And we even feel happy about it. This is to touch the best part of the Christian life; the goal would be like the saints, to always welcome trials.
A great example for us in accepting suffering in our life, is St. Therese, the Little Flower. The day after her 1st Communion, she says: ‘I felt within my heart a great desire to suffer, and at the same time the assurance that Jesus reserved a great number of crosses for me. I felt myself flooded with consolations so great, that I look upon them as one of the greatest graces of my life.
‘Suffering became an attraction, she says; it had charms about it which ravished me. I came to feel a real love for suffering and I also felt the desire of loving only God, of finding my joy only in him.[ii]
When she was on her deathbed, suffering terribly from advanced tuberculosis, horrible in those days, she is joking with the sisters,[iii] Mother Agnes writes about it: ‘Someone had given her a fan from our Convent in Saigon; she used it to shoo away the flies. When it became very hot, she began fanning her holy pictures, and she fanned us too! She said: ‘Look, I’m fanning the saints instead of myself and I’m fanning you too, to do you some good, because you too are saints!
Near her death St. Therese would say: ‘My life hasn’t been bitter, because I know how to turn bitterness into something joyful and sweet!
As St. James says, ‘Count it pure joy when you encounter various trials.’
[i] Navarre Bible, on James 1:2-4
[ii] Story of a Soul, p. 79
[iii] Last Conversations, p. 117-120
6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Beloved in Jesus Christ, being a Catholic man or woman, means having faith; faith is believing all the teachings of Holy Mother Church; But in the Sacred Scriptures, St. James says, ‘What good is it, if a person has faith, but does not do good works? So – if a person really has faith, he will live a moral life as well. Today in the Gospel, Jesus teaches us a lot about how we are to live; and what is he teaching? It is really the 10 Commandments. Continue Reading →
Latin Mass: Septuagesima Sunday
Beloved in Jesus Christ, we enter now the period of Septuagesima – a time to get ready for Lent. St. Paul reminds us today that we must work hard, even chastise our bodies – we must run the race so as to win. – Even the gospel speaks about workers in the vineyard: some come early, some late – but they have to work. Lent will be a time to get to work on Christian living, and so it seems good today, to review the Guide that we have for Christian living: the 10 commandments. Continue Reading →
Good morning Children of St. John Vianney! Today in Holy Mass, we remember two saints St. Cyril and Methodius, but in the Roman Martyrology for today, there is also another saint; this is why there are so many red hearts around, because it is the feast day of St. Valentine.
St. Valentine lived way back in the Roman Empire, when there were laws against being Catholic. You weren’t supposed to be a Catholic, but that didn’t stop people, they did it secretly.
Emperor Claudius had also issued an edict forbidding marriage. He needed to increase his army, and he thought that unmarried, single men made better soldiers. Now Valentine was a Catholic priest, and he therefore secretly met with young couples, and prepared them for the sacrament of marriage. Eventually he was arrested for doing this, but he didn’t care.
Emperor Claudius demanded that he stop this and also worship the pagan gods instead of Jesus. Valentine answered: ‘If you but knew the grace of God, you would turn your mind from idols and adore the true God who is in heaven.’ But the emperor’s heart was hardened, and he ordered that Valetine be put to death for following Christ.
Now while he was awaiting his death, he was in jail; there, Valentine prayed that the Lord would enlighten even the people in that jail. His jail guard, whose name was Asterius, had a blind daughter, and the daughter felt sorry for Valentine, and often brought him food in prison. In gratitude, he one day prayed over the girl, and her sight was miraculously restored. This led the whole household of Asterius to convert to the faith.
While in prison, Valentine would look out of his cell window, through the cold, iron bars into the blue sky, and doves would sometimes land near the window. He thought about the married couples he had prepared, and about his family. He wanted to send them a message. Well just within reach, grew a cluster of violets. Reaching between the bars, he took some of the leaves, which were shaped like a heart, and he poked holes in them with a thorn, forming words. “Remember your Valentine,” he would write. Attaching them to the doves, he sent them out. The next day, and the next, he sent more messages that simply said, “I love you, your Valentine” And so this legend would seem to be the origin of sending Valentines.
After performing many cures, and bringing so many people to love Jesus, St. Valentine was beheaded for the Faith, on Feb. 14th, 273, in Rome. He was a wonderful priest who became a martyr for Christ.
Today is a day that, following the example of St. Valentine, we send notes to people, to tell them we love them, and that we are glad they are our friends. Let’s be sure today to tell our parents that we love them very much.
Friends in Christ, just yesterday we read about Solomon and his great wisdom. He had been very blessed by God, but we see today that despite all those blessings, he did not remain faithful. He had married many wives from many nations, but they brought into his life, their pagan ways.
In order to please them, he had shrines constructed to these gods; most shocking, he built a shrine to the most horrible of them, the god Molech. It was to Molech, that people offered their own little children in sacrifice. A bronze statue of Molech had outstretched, metal arms. A child was placed in those arms, and the statue was heated to red-hot. Men beat drums in order to drown out the sound of the screams.
This is the world, without Jesus Christ. It shows the levels to which humanity will descend without the True God. This horrific child-sacrifice was practiced by a number of pagan groups, including the Cannanites.
In 1804, the artist William Blake made a painting called ‘The Flight of Molech.’ Christians believed that false gods were nothing but demons, and so in the painting, the demon is fleeing away. And present, are parents who are crying; but then a child is seen walking out from the burning statue, unharmed.
William Blake presented this event, the Fleeing of Moloch, as taking place at the moment of Christ’s birth, when Our Lord conquers the demons, and brings real life to the world. He who is, ‘the way, the truth, and the life.’
And so today we meet Jesus in the gospel – he is in the land of the Canaanites, a place where this demon Molech was once worshiped. A Canaanite woman, whose child is possessed by a demon, she seeks out Christ: the True God of Life. She comes, begging him to drive a demon out of her daughter. Our Lord sees how earnest and sincere her request is, and so he complies, and the child is free.
Our own world is falling back into the ways of Molech; an anti-life – a child-destroying world, worshiping at the altar of so-called ‘freedom.’ The world needs help. Even many we know, need help. With only a word, Christ can drive out any demon; but as the Canaanite woman shows us, we have to ask him to.
Friends in Christ,
It is not uncommon for us, to try and blame our own, inner failures on external things. ‘My husband just provokes me to anger all the time.’ ‘If I didn’t have these irritating neighbors, I would be calm, everything would be fine.’ ‘I would be pure in our relationship, if my girlfriend would only stop leading me down the wrong path.’ ‘I could be holy if only I had a decent Church in my neighborhood.’ If, if, if…
We want to blame our own sins and failures on externals, on things other than ourselves. We might call this a form of ‘rationalization.’ Our Lord today says ‘no’ to this thinking. He says that it is from within the heart that come ‘evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, envy, blasphemy, arrogance. All these evils come from within.’ William Barclay says, ‘this is a truly terrible list which Jesus cites, of the things that come from the human heart. It is a call to an honest self-examination of our own souls.’
No matter what situation we are in, no matter the externals of our life: family situation, work situation, THAT person who is against us – the Lord gives us the grace that we need to walk serenely and calmly through life, praying for our enemies, praying for help in time of temptation, keeping order and calm in our own, inner world.
St. Josemaria says,[i] we can be ‘immersed in the world, with hungry lions all around, yet never losing our peace, never forgetting that the Lord will work all the miracles we need, if and when we need them. If we are humble, and call on the Lord in every temptation and every situation, then ‘we will be safe in any environment. Jesus wants us to be full of honesty with ourselves, and never blame external things or circumstances for our own failures.
It is from within the human heart that comes the start of any sin. That means, that, relying on God, we can conquer every trial in our life: As the Apostle says, ‘I can do all things, in him who strengthens me.
[i] Friends of God, p. 153.
