22nd Sunday in OT 2020 - "Do not conform yourself to this age"

Well, St. Peter has gone from hero to zero pretty quickly, hasn’t he? Last week, the Lord was extolling Peter’s faith: “You are Peter, the rock, and upon this rock I build my Church.” For Peter’s faith, he is chosen as prince of apostles. He and his successors would be given the powers to loose an bind, to teach, govern, and sanctify Christ’s holy Church. The faith and leadership of the head of the Church would impact profoundly the faith of the members.

But this week, just a scant seven verses later in Matthew’s Gospel, the Lord refers to Peter as Satan: “Get thee behind me Satan. For thou art an obstacle to me.” One can hardly imagine a more stern and bone-chilling rebuke…not a very good first day on the job for the first Pope. Peter you have become a stumbling block, an obstacle to the will of God, to the mission of God’s son. You are obstructing God as Satan does. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

Why does the Lord rebuke Peter so sharply? When the Lord explains how he must go to Jerusalem to suffer and die, Peter reacts not with trust or faith, not with openness to God’s will, but out of something that is pitiful and cowardly and fallen about the human condition, “For thinking has human beings do,” the Lord says. There’s something in us, in all of us, that left to its own devices, if pressed and tried, obstructs the will of God himself. 

It’s in us. It’s in all of us. A part of us that gives-in to pressure all too easily, a part of us that caves when obedience to God requires a little bit of effort. We see this all the way back in the garden of Eden. At the foot of the tree—Eve begins to cave when faced with temptation. She struggles, recalling the warning of God—but she gives into that voice uttering empty promises that her own will, her own strength, her own plan, could bring her happiness. And she caved.

So, too with Adam. But with Adam, we see even less of a struggle. When presented with the forbidden fruit from the hands of his wife, we don’t even see an argument. We don’t see Adam calling to mind the command of God and the consequences for sin: “Do not eat of the tree,” God says, “or else you will die”. Adam caves without resistance. How pitiful! And yet, that weakness is in every single one of us.

Paul had this human weakness in mind in many of his letters, particularly in today’s reading. When St. Paul was preaching to the Romans—he knew he was bringing to the Gospel to a…strong-headed people—people who valued strength, honor, patriotism, and hard-work. But, Paul also recognized a great weakness in this people. The Romans loved conformity. They believed that the way to spread and work for the spread of the Roman Empire and the glory of Rome—was through conformity to the Roman gods and the Roman values.

Paul knew, that if the Romans were to accept the Christian Gospel—they would be faced with tremendous pressure from their fellow Romans. And, Paul knew about worldly pressure. After all, he was once a persecutor of his fellow Jews who accepted Christ. Paul knew that Romans would experience, likewise, tremendous hostility for accepting Christ.  And so Paul dares to write, as we hear in his epistle today, “Do not conform yourselves to this age”. 

While some of those Roman virtues align just fine with the Gospel, the attitudes of the prevailing culture frequently oppose the values of God. That’s true for ancient Rome, and it’s true for 21st century America. Yes, there are wonderful American values that align with the Gospel: the defense of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Respect for your fellow man. Free speech. Freedom to obtain and defend private property. A disdain for corruption on all levels. Desire for justice and care for the oppressed. An attempt to live peacefully amidst many competing and contrasting values. Wonderful.

So, when Paul warns the Romans--urges the Romans—do not conform yourselves to this age—he’s not saying that they cannot have any role in Roman society, or that they have to abandon what is good in their culture. No. But, he is saying that in his age and every age there are cultural values and practices contrary to the way of Jesus Christ. You will not find a nation, state, county, or town in perfect conformity with Christ’s teachings. And so Christians, need to be extremely careful that they do not adopt the anti-Christian ideals surrounding them like the winds of the sea of Galilee. 

What guidance does Paul offer for Christian to resist these pressures? “Renew your minds” he says.  “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”

The Christian must seek to know, understand, and interpret the world and make moral choices with a mind renewed by the teachings and grace of Jesus Christ. The Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the writings of the saints, must be the interpretive lens, the filter, the hermeneutic, to understand all things, and to shape and guide and inform all of our decisions. This is what Paul means by “putting on the mind of Christ”—to think, to chose, to act, as Christ in the world. 

And if we arrive at some conclusion contrary to the Gospel—well we have not thought and prayed long enough.

When we allow ourselves to be guided and informed by the word of God—we become like Peter walking on water, Peter exalted by the Lord—made a prince of the Church—a stable rock for his friends, his brethren, his family. A rock of faith against the instabilities and chaos of the world. But when we turn from the truth, and allow fear, pressure, worldly error to shape our actions—we become stumbling blocks for the building-up of the Church, and the saving mission of Christ. 

The Satanic spirit which tempted Eve and overwhelmed Adam, which led Peter to think and speak with human error, which pervaded ancient Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and Rome seeks to possess us, to possess our nation, parish, and families. And it’s relentless. It is found in classrooms, workplaces, political parties, television stations, pop songs and movies, internet forums, and it has even infiltrated the Church in many places, as it has in the past. So the Christian must be on guard. Always. “Be Sober and Alert,” St. Peter says in his New Testament letter. “For the Devil is prowling like a roaring lion, looking for souls to devour. So resist him by being solid in your faith.” 

We can see Satan at work, creating division—turning man against brother—Christian against Christian—undermining right religion, frustrating domestic tranquility, spreading terrible confusion—duping even Christians to embrace attitudes and behavior which is repugnant to the word of God. 

But, as I said two weeks ago, God chose us to live in the year 2020, with all the confusion, in the midst of this nearly-all pervasive Satanic spirit—to show the world another way, the way. To show and to witness, to follow and to suffer for the one who says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father, except through me.”

The Catholic of 2020 must be a bullwork of orthodoxy—of right faith—and a fountain of right practice, who pursues the true, the good, and the beautiful in opposition to the error, corruption, and ugliness of the world. The Catholic of 2020 must take up the cross and follows Christ—no matter the hostility or pressure from the Satanic spirit. You are chosen for this. You and I were made for this. May we be faithful to this great responsibility for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

1st Sunday of Lent 2020 - "We want God"

Just a few weeks after being elected Pope, Saint John Paul II, a proud son of Poland and former bishop of Krakow, returned to his native land, and stayed for 10 days, June 1 to June 10, 1979. There is a documentary on his visit called “10 Days which changed the World”. Henry Kissinger said that during those 10 days,  John Paul II did for the people of Poland what Winston Churchill did for the people of England during the darkness of the second world war.

World War II essentially began with Poland being conquered by Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union. After the defeat of the Nazi’s, the Communists ruled Poland ruthlessly. Poles were shipped to Gulags, enemies of the Communist Party were arrested and killed. The Atheistic Communist Police State restricted many freedoms, the Church was forced underground, seminaries were closed, priests were killed.

So imagine, the new Polish Pope, who himself was ordained during this period of religious oppression, returns home and begins to speak about God, publicly, openly. Crowds for his masses grew and grew, for the first time in decades, the Poles began to raise their heads and look around. They began to recognize the great strength that comes from culture, tradition, national unity and their Catholic faith. Seeds of hope were planted on that trip, which eventually saw the fall of the Iron Curtain due to the great Polish Solidarity movement that formed after the Pope’s visit.

Well, on the last day of the Pope’s visit, two million Poles gathered in victory square in warsaw. And something happened that day which changed history. As the saintly Pope preached, a few people from one corner of the gathering began to chant three words. And those three words began to spread throughout the crowd, to the point where two million began were those three words in unison. What did they chant? “Russia go home”, “Down with Communism?” No. Nor did they even chant “Long live the Pope”. The people of Poland, two million strong, began to chant “We want God”, “We want God”. Two million people, it went on for 30 seconds, a minute, two minutes. An advisor approached the Pope and suggested that he calm down the crowd, and he said, no way, this is why I’m here. “We want God” for Seventeen minutes, two million people chanting “We want God”

When the iron curtain fell, and the archives of the KGB were opened, a telegram from the Commandant of Warsaw was discovered giving an account of that day. And it ended with the phrase “It’s all over”. The people of Poland had openly and publicly confessed they wanted God, not a totalitarian regime who acted as if they were.

“We want God”, “I want God” is the most ancient, embedded desire in the depths of our souls. We were made by God, we were made for God, we long for God. And yet, rivaling that most profound longing is a counterfeit proposal: “I don’t need God”.

This rivalry, this battle within our souls goes all the way back to the garden of eden, as we heard in our first reading, the ancient temptation which our first parents faced and caved to. Adam and Eve, will you obey God or turn your eyes and face from Him? Will you kneel before the divine will of heaven or put yourselves on the throne? Are you going to let God be God or are you going to play act and pretend that you are God? We know the result, and every human sin in history has been that same choice played over and over.

In today’s Gospel, we hear of Jesus, too, facing temptation, during his Lent, his 40 days in the desert. Jesus, will you follow and obey the will of your Heavenly Father or not? Will you, Son of God, be subject to the Father’s will or seek to supplant it?

One of the characteristics not just of communist Russia, but the growing secularism within our own current culture is the claim that we can build a society without God, we can get along just fine without God, we can create through purely human efforts a utopian state without reference or relationship to God.

But, this error, is the same lie told to Adam and Eve, “you don’t need God, you won’t die.” But godlessness, the failure to recognize the dignity of each human person created in the divine image, only leads to doom.

Now, most americans claim to believe in god or a higher power, still, about 80%... down from near unanimous belief in God not too many years ago. And yet, the first reading and the gospel highlight that believing in God is not the same as obeying Him. The perennial, ancient temptation is to refashion God in our own image, according to our own wants and desires. Yes 80% of Americans claim to believe in God, but for many, that’s a god of their fashioning, a god who doesn’t care if you go to church, doesn’t care if you cheat in business or on your spouse or who you sleep with, doesn’t care if you commit infanticide or kill the baby in the mother’s womb o kill your body and mind with excessive alcohol or illegal drugs. The voice that claims that Christian morality is a relic to be discarded is not the voice of God.

And that voice, the voice of the rebel, fallen angel, the voice of the serpent, speaks to all of us, tempts all of us, “you don’t need God” to be happy, “you don’t need to pray”, “you don’t need to obey”.
But, the Lord Jesus show us that we must and can stand firm against temptations, and shows us how. In each of the temptations, in the Gospel today, we see the Lord resisting the temptations of the devil by recalling the words of the Holy Scriptures.

The tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” He said in reply, “It is written: One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” And so on. After 40 days of fasting bread looked good, just like the fruit of that forbidden tree. In the face of temptation, the Lord recalled the scriptures, and applied them to his situation.

In the second temptation, we see that the devil knows the scriptures, too. He’ll quote them out of context for his vile purposes. So, we need to know them better, always reading the scriptures with the mind of the church

This is why we should know our scriptures well, that when we are faced with temptations and moral dilemmas, we may recall the word of God, and allow that word, not the voice of temptation to guide us. To recognize we need God in order to live, and to live well, to live righteously. We need God, to guide us and give us strength.

During Lent we confront our sins and our temptations. We look at the sins into which we’ve fallen over the past year, we repent of them, and seek God’s word to strengthen us against future sin. We read and ponder the word of God. We do well to meditate upon the readings from daily Mass, and the passion narratives from the Gospels to come to appreciate the great victory Christ won for us through his suffering and death.

As we engage in the Lenten works of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we are united with Catholics around the world, and Catholics of all ages, who in the face of the oppressive powers of darkness and the temptations of the flesh, cry out to heaven, “we want God” …for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Ash Wednesday 2019 - "Return to me with your whole heart"

“Return to me with your whole heart”, the first words of the first reading of Lent, sums up pretty well, the entire purpose of the Lenten season. We have ashes imposed upon our foreheads as a stark reminder of the need to return to the Lord with our whole heart. It’s the purpose we abstain from meat today and fast: as a reminder that we need to return to the Lord with our whole heart.

You and I are here today because there is at least a portion of our heart is for the Lord—a portion of our heart which recognizes the need for God—the need to love God, follow God, and serve God. But God doesn’t want just one piece of our heart-he wants all of it. “Return to me with your whole heart.”

Since the Garden of Eden, from that first sin, mankind has had that terrible affliction of keeping our whole hearts from God. But we were meant to, and we were made to love God with our whole hearts. As ashes are placed on our foreheads we will hear today those words, “Remember you are dust” recalling that we were made by God from the dust of earth. This is the call to remember who made us, and why He made us. He made us to love Him and each other, he made us to trust Him, to obey Him, to follow Him…always. He made us from the love in His heart, that we may love Him back with our whole hearts.

“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” is a reminder of the consequences of our failure to love God with our whole hearts, our sin. “The wages of sin is death”. We return to the dust of the earth from which we were made as a result of sin. We are excluded from heaven because of our sin, for heaven is the place not just for those who love God with some of their hearts, but for those who love God with all of their hearts.

We place ashes on our foreheads, we fast, we pray, we give alms, we make a Lenten confession, as a way of saying, God help me. I fallen into sin, I have failed to love you, help me, to return to you with my whole heart.

Each of us have strayed from God in our own ways: my sins are different from your sins, but what brings us all together today is the recognition that we have sinned, and we need God’s help.  For we are in such a sorry state, we can’t return to God on our own, we need God’s help, we need the grace of His Son Jesus.

Allow the grace that flows from Jesus’ Sacred Heart to repair your broken hearts, to enflame your tepid hearts, to purify your lust-filled hearts, to expand your selfish hearts, to humble your prideful hearts, to embolden your fearful hearts, to discipline your rebellious hearts, to teach your foolish hearts, to heal your wounded hearts.

Look to Jesus this Lent as often as you can, that you may have Him as your example, of the one whose heart is on fire with Love for the Lord, whose heart is wholly and fully devoted to doing the will of God no matter the suffering involved. Let his Sacred Heart help you to love God with your whole heart that you may be counted among his blessed ones in eternal life for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the Church will experience the graces of profound renewal during this season of Lent.  We pray to the Lord.

That God will rescue all those who live at a distance from him because of self-absorption or sin.  We pray to the Lord.

That all families will recommit themselves to fervent prayer this Lent so as to grow in greater love and holiness.  We pray to the Lord.

That this Lent we will be faithful to fasting and to all the ways that the Lord sanctifies us.  We pray to the Lord.

For those preparing to enter the Church at Easter: that they will be profoundly blessed in their preparation for full initiation into the Body of Christ.  We pray to the Lord.

For the needs of the poor, the hungry, the homeless, those who are sick, unemployed, or suffering from addiction, mental, or physical illness, and those most in need: that the Lord in his goodness will be close to them in their trials.  We pray to the Lord.

For all those who have died, for all the poor souls in purgatory, for those who have fought and died for our country’s freedom, and for [intention below], for whom this Mass is offered.  We pray to the Lord.