Friends in Christ, very often, I hear people who are shocked and saddened by so many evils going on in the world today. Our government’s pressure on the church, society’s promotion of the gay-lifestyle; heart-break over irreligious children, so many things. Yet we should note that from the earliest times of the apostles, there, in the heart of the Church, was Judas.
St. Augustine says[i] that in seeing Judas, we are taught the duty of tolerating wicked people, lest we divide the body of Christ. St. Augustine is saying, that while we sometimes must tell someone they are sinning, – we try to guide the sinner – yet most of the time we must be patient; we must tolerate evil for the good of the whole.[ii]
Advisors urged Pope John Paul II to correct and discipline more people who dissented against the Faith; they wanted him to bring down the hammer. He did discipline some; but often not. He said, ‘We must wait for the situation to mature.’ Because he was thinking of the whole Body of Christ.
So there are times when what God wants, is for us to tolerate the wicked; yes, pray for he or she, of course – but it is not always the time to chastise. Often patience is called for, as was Jesus with Judas.
When the Samaritans were not welcoming Christ, John said: ‘Lord, let’s call down fire from heaven on them.’ ‘You do not know what kind of spirit you are,’ he said. There must be patience with evil.
Jesus was patient with Judas. He knew from the start what he was, and what he was doing. He knew that he often stole money from the purse, he knew he would betray him. But he allowed it. ‘Allow the weeds to grow with the wheat, he says; if you pull up the weeds, you may hurt the wheat.
I have seen some people become so upset with the sins of others, that in their anger and lack of charity, they themselves commit sin. St. Augustine says: ‘tolerate the wicked, you who are good, that you may not fall into the punishment of the wicked.’
There are many times when, for the good of peace in the family, in the Church, in society – we have to tolerate the wicked, with patience. Why did the Lord tolerate a thief like Judas? To show that his Church should tolerate sinners, while she suffers for them.[iii]
We have to be patient with sinners, because the Lord has been patient with us. We will see how patient he is with us, on Good Friday.
[ii] See also Summa Theo. II, II, Q43 on passive scandal.
Friends in Christ,
I recently read an article,[i] written by a Catholic from Europe, who describes what is happening in her country. She says that there, many Catholics are just going through the motions. They grew up in the Faith, but they really believe only what their culture tells them. The vast majority do not attend Mass.
At Mass, she says, people often listen to gray-haired priests go on and on about politics and a hundred things that are not related to Jesus Christ. But the people have tuned it out long ago. Their country is quite liberal, with theologians often demanding that Rome give up its ‘out-dated’ ideas.’ We of course have some of this in our country as well, but what caught my attention, was what the author said, sort of mater-of-fact. She said that a kind of Arian catholicism is present there.. It was a striking statement.
Arianism is a heresy which hit the Church in the 4th century. It is the belief that Jesus is not Divine, he is not God. But Jesus’ Divinity is one of the most important doctrines of the Faith; He is fully God and fully man. It is God the Son who took Flesh, to be born of the Virgin. Yet it is surely true, that many today are really Arians, who think that Jesus was just a good man who taught some nice things.
The writer I mentioned says of her country: There are few seminarians studying for the priesthood, because studying ‘about a nice guy in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, doesn’t draw too many students.’
A ‘nice guy from Jerusalem’ cannot save us; he cannot change our life, he cannot raise us from the dead anymore than Buddha or Gandhi or Mr. Magilicuddy can. But for the honest person, this is not an option. Jesus does not allow you to say that he is ‘just a nice guy.’ He claims to be God. ‘You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?, they asked. ‘Who do you make yourself out to be?’ And he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” This is his claim – to be God; its why they tried to stone him.
So as we approach Holy Week, the question lies before every person: If Jesus was just an ordinary man who was crucified, it means nothing. But if he is the Son of God, and has risen: it makes all the difference in the world.
[i] The Secret Catholic Insider Guide to Germany, Beverly De Soto; http://reginamag.com/secret-catholic-insider-guide-germany/
‘If you remain in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Friends in the Lord, True freedom is freedom in Christ. What does this mean? Well, it doesn’t mean what the popular culture means by freedom. Many think that freedom is doing whatever you want. Money makes me free, so I can buy what I want and do what I want. Contraception makes me free, so that I can indulge myself anyway and anytime I want. The list goes on: today, the idea of freedom is what used to be called license.
Freedom embraces responsibility and is guided by virtue; license is choice without restraint. License is the throwing off of all responsibility. It is a carte blanche to do as we feel. Therefore, it is incompatible with virtue. License leads to absurd and dangerous action. On the personal level, license leads to moral chaos. If my actions are based merely on whim or the impulse of the moment, they are completely unpredictable, even to myself. On the social level, license leads to anarchy — the lack of all dedication to the common good.
Following our own whims and desires is not freedom, and we can even see how this destroys lives. Jesus says: ‘If you remain in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Sin is slavery, it is a bondage, says the Lord. Freedom in Christ is true freedom.
Recently, the Holy Father asked: ‘What exactly is Christian freedom?’ Well, doing what you want and not what God wants – this is a sin, he says – a sin of idolatry. “Christian freedom is to discern what the Spirit is doing in my heart, what the Holy Spirit wants, where the Spirit is taking me. And to obey. To discern God’s will, and then obey.”
True freedom does not look only inward, to our own interests, but acts for the good of others as well; acting in true freedom builds a peaceful community, selfish, me-first freedom tears down community.
Pope John Paul II said that freedom in Christ is not the freedom to do what we want, it is freedom to do what we ought. This is the freedom that builds up the City of God.
Friends in Christ,
When Our Lord was in the bloody sweat of the Agony in the Garden, anticipating his Passion, he asked his Father if it were possible, that the cup of suffering would pass by – He was not asking to be spared death, because he had already committed himself to it at the Last Supper: ‘this is my Body, given up for you,’ he said. Nor did Christ wish to avoid the physical suffering and torments and nailing which he knew would happen. It was more than that.
As Frank Sheed says in his book,[i] many other people had suffered the same or worse crucifixion or torture, but the agony of Jesus, no other person ever suffered. Isaiah said it: ‘He was wounded for our iniquities and bruised for our sin. The Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.’[ii]
Jesus took upon himself not only the suffering that our sins deserved, in we who commit them, but he also took to himself all the sorrow that sinners ought to feel, and did not feel, for their many and sins. That, as Sheed says, was the heart of his agony. He took upon himself the guilt we should all have, the sorrow for sin. “Him, who knew no sin, he has made sin for us, that we might be made the justice of God in him.’
Who, since the creation of the world could ever handle that? The pain that we feel when we do something very wrong, when we hurt someone – Jesus takes all that pain for our faults, and sadly, the pain for the sins that we never thought twice about. He takes it all upon himself.
This great act of Redemption was foretold in the desert: ‘And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and whoever looks at it after being bitten will live.’
This is a prophecy of the events of Good Friday. It was reiterated by Christ: “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM.”
Lord Jesus, thank you, for dying for me; thank you for dying for this sinner, that I may live.
[i] To Know Christ Jesus, p. 349
Friends in Christ,
In the Book of Exodus, we see how our ancestors were set free from the bondage of Egypt. Moses guided them through the Red Sea, then through the desert – to Mt. Sinai. But while Moses was on Mt. Sinai speaking to God – while he was gone, the people fell back into their old sins – into idolatry. They made the Golden Calf and worshiped it.
After this sin of the Golden Calf, God instituted the entire system of temple sacrifices: the sacrifice of cattle, sheep, and goats. Why? What was the purpose of these animal sacrifices?
Well, Israel had lived for a long time in Egypt, and those pagan ways were deeply rooted in the people; this is why they quickly returned to idol worship.
Just like us; we have perhaps conquered a past sinful habit, we are going along fine, we’ve left the slavery of Egypt, but then comes the temptation to return to our old sin, and there we go – This is what the people did.
Perhaps the greatest rabbi in history, Maimonides, says that the Egyptians worshiped: cattle, sheep, and goats – these were their gods, among others. The greatest crime in Egypt would have been to dishonor or harm those gods, the cattle-god or the goat-god for example.
So the Lord gives the command to Israel, that they will now, day after day, slaughter cattle, sheep, and goats, and offer them up. Killing these gods daily, will be a reminder, that their former ways of idolatry can never save them. This they would do for 1400 years.
These temple sacrifices, which were symbols, they ended when Christ came. Jesus has come, and gives his life for us, so that we will have the power to drive the idols out of our life. The Lord says, ‘I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or lambs, or goats. Rather, ‘cease to do evil. (Isaiah 1:11)
So it is not slaughtered animals that must die in order to drive “Egypt” out of our souls. It is ourselves who must die to the idols in our life. Therefore, we offer spiritual sacrifices to God. The best spiritual sacrifice we can make, is when we are tempted to sin, to immediately pray. We stop what we are doing, for a moment, and we ask for help from the Lord. Then we bring these spiritual sacrifices and offer them here at Mass with the True Golden Calf – Jesus Christ.
Friends in Christ, Today we see in the gospel, Jesus finds this man at this pool of water. The water there apparently had some kind of curative power, but not always. Now this man had been sick for 38 years! That’s a long time. Our Lord asks him: ‘Do you want to be cured?’ For sure he did. And Jesus did cure him.
But it is interesting that later on, Our Lord tracks this man down, and speaks to him again: “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
In this incident, we can see a lesson about the Christian life. When the man is cured, this is analogous to a person first becoming Catholic, or it could be a big religious experience of faith, that we might have at one point in our life.
Sometimes people stray from the Church, even for many years, but then something happens – God grants them a special grace, a certain circumstance – and….they are on fire with Faith! In some ways we may all have had some manner of awakening of Faith at some point in our life.
But that experience, which may involve a lot of emotion – it may not be built on rock, sometimes it is more like sand; when feelings wane, or difficulties come in life – when we don’t FEEL God’s consolations every day, our faith-life can slacken.
In the gospel, we see that after this man is cured of his disease, Jesus returns to him later. He tells the man not to sin any more, so that nothing worse might happen. Jesus is implying that sin leads to sickness of the soul; and that if, after our soul is healed, we should go back to a sinful way of life: Look out! It will end even worse for us.
We see then, that rather than living off of one ‘spiritual experience,’ we need more visits from the Lord in life. Jesus went to see the man again; so should we. To remain ‘cured,’ we need to call on our Savior often, pray daily, meditate each day, aspirations, examine our conscience, asking his help – as they say, ‘it’s a work-in-progress.’
Many of us have known a person who had a ‘born-again’ experience, but later in life is found living in a pagan way, long-forgetting that experience. On the contrary, we should invite Jesus into each our of our day, and if we do, we will find he is there with us at the end of our life.
Friends in the Lord,
Yesterday was called ‘Laetare Sunday.’ It comes from the Introit in Latin for yesterday’s Mass, ‘Laetare, Jerusalem, et conventum facite.’ ‘Rejoice Jerusalem, and all who love her!’ Yesterday, the Violet vestments of Lent gave way to a happier Rose color. We rejoiced a little, because we are half way to Easter. Easter: is our salvation.
Today we read Isaiah’s words about this beautiful future ahead: ‘Thus says the LORD: I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; The things of the past shall not be remembered, instead, there shall be rejoicing and happiness, for I create Jerusalem to be a joy; This is a vision of the New Jerusalem, a promise that we will be resurrected in the New World to come. The Christian should always have this hope.
St. Peter says, ‘Be ever ready to answer those who ask the reason for the hope that is in you.’ Our hope is the resurrection, and in a few weeks we will re-live the first Resurrection, that of Jesus.
With this in mind, we can perhaps see today, when this man comes to Jesus to ask him to heal his dying child – this man who seems to have no hope in anything beyond this life – well, Christ seems a bit frustrated: ‘Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.’ As if to say, ‘Death is not the end at all; you should know this, that a new world awaits, in which you will see that child in joy, and anyone who might die.’
If our child is dying, we would of course wish to ask Jesus to save him. But with a different faith than this man. We would come to the Lord and say, ‘Lord, I am not afraid of death and I know that in the New World ahead our families will be reunited; but if it be your will, grant him more time with us now.’
And he said to him, ‘You may go; your son will live.’
St. Alphonsus says[i] that according to the senses, death brings about fear and worry; but with the eyes of faith, it can be consoling, the end of our earthly suffering and labor.
I knew a woman who felt sad a long time over the death of her young daughter. One day I was at the hospital, and she was there. She said, ‘Father, today is my birthday, and I was just told that I have terminal cancer.’ I said, ‘Then this is news that you will see your daughter.’ Her smile was the best I ever saw.
St. Ambrose says, ‘The present life is given to us, not for rest, but that we may labor, and merit eternal glory in the life to come ‘
[i] Preparation for Death, Liguori, p. 87.
Friends in the Lord,
The saints tell us that throughout the earthly life of Christ, he had before him always, the Passion that he would undergo for us. As the God-Man, his Divine Mind always saw, not only all of creation – always there, in his mind – but also the Passion that he would endure.
Knowing this, we can consider what Our Lord says today, when asked: ‘What is the greatest Commandment?’ – What is it, Lord, that God asks most of us? –
As Jesus answers, he is teaching this scribe before him how to live, yes, but he has in his mind as well, his Passion. ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ He did this.
Christ IS Divinity; from his Divine perspective, all events are ONE, before him. And so those words he FEELS as he says them, as if uttered at every time in his life, as if said on the cross. ‘You shall love the Lord with all your heart.’
Jesus will give all, he will pour out all in his offering to the Father. The night of his Passion, when Peter denies that he even knew him, Jesus looks at Peter, and those words are in his heart: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself – and he does; he still loves Peter. Christ will fulfill these commands perfectly; giving all and loving even his neighbor: who betrayed him.
But the Divine Mind of Christ is not in any way limited to the events of his earthly life; on the cross, he has in his mind each one of us as well. Each of us. We are all his ‘neighbor.’ This Savior dies for each one of us in particular, knowing our whole life, our deepest thoughts and joys and failings.
All he asks is for our love in return, that we will love the Lord with all our heart, and mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourself. Because if we do, he will be able to say to us: ‘You are not far, from the kingdom of God.’
Friends in the Lord,
In the Gospel today, some of the people said of Jesus: “Its by the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that he drives out demons.” They begin to say that he is in league with Satan, and that this is where he gets the power. But our Lord explains that if it were really Satan who was casting out demons from people and curing them of possession, Well, that would be crazy; Satan does not work against his own kingdom. He doesn’t work against his own kingdom, but the devil does wish to attack God’s kingdom, and he does it by division.
Diabolos, diabolical – these words mean to ‘divide.’ The devil’s game is division. He wishes to stir up rancor and discontent among people; he tries to divide families, pitting one person against another; he wishes to divide husband and wife, stirring up resentment and distrust and argument. Division is his game. When we see politicians trying to pit one race or group against another, stirring up envy, and trying to divide people instead of unifying them: this is diabolical. But it does not end there.
The Devil wishes to divide the interior of the person. When people try to live a double-life there is no interior peace. The boy who pretends to be good, but secretly he is doing bad things – he will be an unhappy child. The person who puts up a good front on the outside, but in reality is not following the Lord, or is involved in sinful things – this person will have no peace. We say that he has no ‘unity of life.’
Unity of life is to live the same way on the outside as on the inside; to do as the Lord wills in all areas of life; it is to be rid of those little ‘compartments’ in the heart which are not touched by the gospel.
To avoid the divisions of the devil, we must seek peace on our inside, and try to bring peace on the outside, to others. The Lord desires that we promote harmony in our families, setting aside our own preferences for the good of peace. Scripture says: ‘If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. (Rom 12:18) St. Paul says, ‘Pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. (Rom 14:19) Division is of the devil, peace is of God. So let us be at peace, on the inside and on the outside.
Friends in Christ,
Today in the Gospel, Jesus says that the least in the kingdom of God are those who teach others to break the commandments. This is called scandal, or giving bad example. (see Tour of Summa) Giving scandal happens when by our words or our actions we lead others to do bad things. Giving bad example is a sin against charity, because we hurt the soul of our neighbor. Scandal is opposed to the good virtue, called fraternal correction, which means helping a person to turn from their faults.
Examples of scandal:
Suppose that a lazy boy is passing the afternoon with a friend, and this friend is a conscientious student. The lazy boy says, ‘I don’t think I’ll do my homework tonight, the teacher doesn’t really care if we do it anyway.’ Now he hopes the other boy will do the same thing, so that he won’t be the only one without his homework. This is scandal, or giving bad example.
Two kids are in the store, and one steals something; he not only breaks the 7th commandment, but gives bad example for the other child.
Two ladies are eating lunch at a restaurant; one lady thinks: ‘I should probably suggest that we pray before we eat;’ but out of worry of what the other might think, she says nothing. Bad example has taught the other lady not to pray.
Scandal is a venial sin if we don’t fully intend to lead another person to sin, or if it is not a serious matter. Giving bad example is a mortal sin, if it is a serious matter, and we want to tempt the other person to commit sin.
Now if a person is not really bad, but ACTS bad, this too is giving scandal. This can happen when a person who is good, wants to fit in, and so acts bad like the others. Joe’s co-workers ask him to golf on Sunday morning, so he is careful to go to Mass Saturday evening. But while golfing, one of them says ‘the ol lady wanted me to go to Mass, but what a waste of time.’ Joe smiles as if he agrees, because he wants to fit in – but in doing so, he gives a very bad example, because he led him to THINK that he skipped Mass also.
Some kids act like druggies or pretend to have had sexual exploits just to fit in: in doing so, they give scandal, even if they do not do those things.
Now the more innocent is the person that we lead into sin, the greater our sin. This is why Jesus says that whoever leads a little one into sin should have a millstone tied around his neck and thrown into the sea.
We should try to please the Lord by giving good example, then, not only will we have a good reputation, but the aroma of our holy life will lead others to Christ.
