Friday - 10th Week of OT 2017 - Salvation from the death that works within us

I read an article recently in the National Catholic Register, by a very good priest, Fr. John Longknecker, a former Evangelical pastor, who was received into the faith, with his family about 20 years ago. He’s a rarity, in that, he is a married Roman Catholic Priest. He was ordained through a special provision which allows for the ordination of previously married non-Catholic clergy who convert and who discern a calling to the priesthood. But that’s not the point of the article.

He wrote an excellent on the current debate in our culture concerning same-sex marriage. He tries to explain why the Church’s position, prohibiting same-sex marriage and same-sex activity is prohibited. He writes, “in the present debate over same-sex marriage Americans simply cannot comprehend that Catholics operate according to a different set of systems. We believe that same-sex activities and same-sex marriage are wrong, not primarily because we think such things are “yucky” and not because we “hate gays” or because we want to tell them they are all going to hell. We believe these things are wrong for clear and articulate reasons.”

Our culture doesn’t understand, and many Catholics who want to accommodate immorality don’t understand, that our teachings on these things are not based on sentimentality, but based on unchangeable, objective moral principles and also on the word of God.


Fr. Longnecker’s reasoning are rightly applied to not just the prohibition on same-sex marriage, but all of the moral teachings of the Church, including the Lord’s prohibition of divorce and adultery, which we heard in the Gospel today.

The world doesn’t understand us because our culture now values sentimentality over right reason, and it expects us to do the same, and will persecute us when we don’t.

But we put our faith not in the changing fancies and sentiments of man, but in the Logos, the Word-made-flesh, who came not to accommodate our sins, but to free us from them, to free us from the “powers of death at work within us” as St. Paul said in our first reading.

Yes the Lord loves us, and he loves lost sheep. But remember he goes out to the lost sheep to free them from the brambles. And the Lord will fight for those sheep who reject him, who keep returning to the poisonous brambles of sin until their last breath. But in the end, there are eternal consequences for rejecting Him and his Truth.

The forces of our sinful disordered nature conspire to keep us from rising with Christ to a life of charity and truth. Through his grace, may we know the strength we need to resist the powers of darkness within us, that we may choose life, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That our bishops and clergy may be zealous in preaching and teaching the truth of the Gospel, and that our future bishop of the diocese of Cleveland may be a man of true faith and the Holy Spirit.

For all of us who struggle with disordered attractions, sinful inclinations, and temptations to serious sin, for the grace to remain faithful to the teachings of Christ, and for mercy for those who fall.

That our young people on summer vacation, may be kept close to the truth and heart of Jesus.

That the love of Christ, the divine physician, may bring healing to the sick and comfort to all the suffering.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, for the deceased priests and religious of the diocese of Cleveland, for the poor souls in purgatory, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom.

O God, who know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.