18th Week in Ordinary Time 2022 - Friday - But for Wales?

 One of my favorite scenes from The Man for All Seasons, the movie version about St. Thomas More, is when St. Thomas has been brought before the high court and is being questioned by his former friend Richard Rich. From the beginning of the movie, it is clear that Richard is an ambitious man, he had high ambitions to become a powerful man in the English government. St. Thomas cares for Richard’s soul, and tries to convince Richard to consider a humbler profession, that of a school teacher, in which he may even become a great teacher.

St. Thomas had become chancellor of England, the stripped of his office and imprisoned when he would not sign a declaration that the King, rather than the Pope was head of the Church. Richard is brought forward as a witness in Thomas’ trial, and offers false testimony, accusing Thomas of treason, which carried the penalty of death.

Thomas then notices the new chain of office around Richard’s neck, he had been appointed the new Attorney General for Wales. And then Thomas delivers one of the great lines, echoing the Gospel today: “Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . But for Wales!”

You see, Richard had conspired with the government to offer false testimony against St. Thomas in exchange for political office. “But for Wales”. 

Yet, in any sin, we settle for so much less. We exchange the good of our souls, for a passing pleasure, a forbidden piece of knowledge, a petty act of revenge, a chance to climb the ladder of ambition. Sin, in the end profits us nothing, the Lord says in the Gospel today, not even if we were to gain the whole world. For the result of sin is the destruction of our soul, perhaps even its eternal loss. 

Rather, when we are being tempted to sin, we must deny ourselves, practicing self-control, temperance, and prudence—recognizing that we were made for so much more than sin. 

The Lord acknowledges that to fight against temptation sometimes feels like being nailed to a cross, but those who deny themselves, will find something—obtain something—more valuable and glorious than anything their sin could ever hope to acquire—divine life, divine grace, peace that the world cannot give, joy, that is made perfect in us by the Holy Spirit.

May the Lord keep us strong against temptation, helping us to value the things of heaven over the things of earth, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the pope, bishops, and clergy may be filled with constancy in teaching and living out the Gospel, and that our parish may bear witness with great confidence to our life-giving faith in word and deed.

For newly consecrated Bishop Michael Woost, new auxiliary for the Diocese of Cleveland, may he know abundant blessings in his new ministry, and aid the Church in stirring up the flame of faith and witnessing to the Gospel.

That politicians and government officials may protect religious freedom, promote virtue, and look to the law of Christ to guide their work for the good of nations and the human race

For all those who experience persecution for the sake of the Gospel, that they may be sustained in their faith, and bear fruit for the salvation of souls.

That all of our beloved dead and all the souls in purgatory may come to the glory of the Resurrection, especially N. for whom this mass is offered.

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

31st Sunday in OT - 2019 - God is the lover of souls

“O Lord and lover of souls, your imperishable spirit is in all things!” What a profound statement of faith from our first reading from the Book of Wisdom today.

I’d like to consider 5 points this powerful, profound line of scripture. …“O Lord and lover of souls, your imperishable spirit is in all things!”

First, we’ll consider how it speaks to what we are. Secondly, what we are not. Thirdly, what that means in daily life. Fourthly, what it requires of us. And finally, its ultimate import.
So, firstly, this line speaks of who we are. God’s imperishable spirit is in us. We are endowed by God with what philosophers, theologians, poets, and scripture call “a soul”, an immortal, rational soul. We are made by God with a body and a soul.

Harkening back to the very first book of the bible, we read in Genesis, that in contrast to all the other elements of the created universe: the stars, the rocks, the plants, the animals, God uniquely breathed life into the man and woman. in divine image he created them; male and female he created them. When God looks upon us, he sees a reflection of Himself, we are made in God’s very image and likeness. And therefore, we are capable of understanding the order of the universe. We possess the powers of intellect and free will, and the use of reason capable of recognizing our purpose of pursuing the true, the good, and the beautiful.

“O Lord and lover of souls, your imperishable spirit is in all things!”

Secondly, then, we are reminded of what we are not. Since, we have God’s very spirit within us, we are not irrational animals, we are not some consequence of random cosmic forces, we are not bound to follow every urge, appetite, or impulse we experience. Nor are we merely mortal—we share something of the immortal nature of God. Nor, are we inconsequential to God, we are not accidents. Our existence is part of God’s plan. And there is something about us that loveable even when we have misused our free will in sin.

In the Gospel today, the Son of God, Jesus, sees Zacchaeus in the tree. What does he see when he sees Zacchaeus? Does he see a cheat, a crook, an extortioner, a collaborator with the foreign enemy? Zacchaeus was all these things. But Jesus, lover of souls, saw something deeper than all of Zacchaeus’ physical and moral shortcomings—something that was loveable in Zacchaeus and is loveable in all of us, something worth dying for.

“O Lord and lover of souls, your imperishable spirit is in all things!”

Thirdly, what this means for all of us in day to day life, is that if we believe that we have God’s imperishable spirit within us, and by the way, so does every other human being on this earth, if we believe that, we must treat ourselves and others with dignity and respect, we must foster what Pope Paul VI called a “civilization of love”, what Pope John Paul II called the “culture of life” that cherishes and protects every human person from the moment of conception until death.
The very essence of our moral theology and our call to social action is the dignity of every human person—the responsibility we have for our souls and that of our neighbor. To neglect one is to neglect the other.

“O Lord and lover of souls, your imperishable spirit is in all things!”

Fourthly, what does this require of us? What does this entail? If our soul has value in God’s eyes, we must cultivate and care for it. We are usually pretty good at caring for our bodies. Most of us don’t totally indulge every bodily appetite. Most of us observe some semblance of eating right, exercise, caring for our bodies when they become ill, diseased, or broken down.

But, the care our souls, on the other hand, is certainly not one of the hallmarks of our culture. And yet it is the lack of care for the immortal soul which is at the root of most of our exhaustion, unhappiness and societal evil. We pursue so many idols: wealth, bodily pleasure, and power, and our lives our sorrier for it.

I am reminded of a powerful article written by Bishop Lennon, who passed away this week. Bishop Lennon wrote how Christians, rather than pursuing idols the idols of the world are to place “God at the center of our weekly schedules and activities, meals, chores, conversations, parenting, work, vacations, civic responsibilities, decisions, problems, crises accomplishments, and losses.” By doing so, the bishop said, “our whole lives become charged and changed by God’s presence”. Rather than unhappiness and exhaustion from pursuing idols and neglecting our souls, our life becomes filled with power and patience and resiliency and joy even amidst our many trials.

To assist us in making sure we are taking the time to cultivate our souls and placing God at the center of our lives, the Stewardship committee has put together a wonderful Time Commitment Card. We invite you to take one of these Commitment Cards home with you and pray with it throughout the week. How might God be inviting you to make a greater return of your time to Him that he may strengthen you and speak to you?

After praying with the Commitment Card throughout the week, next weekend we will collect the cards and place them before the altar. So please take a commitment card home with you today, they are located at the ends of the pews. Pray with them, ask God to help you commit to some healthy prayer habits that will nurture your soul, and bring them back to church next weekend. No need to put your name on the card or anything, your commitment is between you and God.

God is a lover of souls and wants to see your soul flourish in virtue and grace. As, St. Paul writes in our second reading, “that our God may make you worthy of his calling and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose and every effort of faith”

Finally, why does any of this matter?

It is clear that we have the imperishable spirit of God within us. God made us to live forever, to be united with Him forever in eternity.

But scripture is also clear that what we do with our time and our choices and our free will matters—what we do with that imperishable soul matters.

For those who die in God’s grace and friendship, who have become perfectly purified from sin, their destination, immediately after death, is heaven. These are the saints, those who names we know, and those whose names we don’t, whom we celebrated in a special way on All Saints Day.

For those who died in God’s grace and friendship, but have been imperfectly purified of sin, that is, who have not given the whole of their lives and minds and wills and souls to God in this life, that’s most of us, we are destined for heaven, but have some purification after death in Purgatory. We pray in a special way for the souls in purgatory during this month of November.

And those who freely choose to live and persist in grave sin, those who allow the powers of selfishness and sin to consume them in this life, their imperishable soul will suffer what Jesus himself calls “the unquenchable fire”.

By the way, I will be taking up for my second Friday faith formation these topics of heaven, hell, death, soul, and purgatory. So, consider joining us in the school cafeteria for a discussion of these topics on friday at 7pm.

Knowing these truths is Good News. For with God’s help we can preserve our souls from evil and open our souls to the life God wishes to give us. God is the lover of souls and invites each of us, urges us  through His Word, to concern ourselves with what matters most in life, the cultivation of our souls in grace, in virtue, in imitation of the Good Shepherd, the Son of Man who came to seek and to save what was lost for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: 24th Sunday of OT 2016 - Care for your eternal soul

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found the parables of today’s Gospel a bit strange.
“What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?”

And I always think to myself, “well, I wouldn’t?” Why would you put the 99 sheep at risk in order to find the 1? It’s bad business. If you are a shepherd, and your job is to protect your flock, and one wonders away, wouldn’t just count it as lost? Otherwise, if you go out looking for it, and leave the 99, you’re likely to come back to find that 45 other sheep had wandered away or worse, eaten by wolves, stolen by bandits. Kind of sounds like bad shepherding to me!

But this parable isn’t talking about prudent business decisions here, is it? Jesus is talking about the love of the father. If as a parent you have say six children, and one of them gets lost at the shopping mall, as I used to do…all the time…as a parent you wouldn’t say, “well, that’s okay, I have 5 other ones.” No parent would do that. So God, whose love for us is greater than even parents love for their children, goes to extravegent lengths to save those who have fallen away…all of us.

The parable of the woman with the lost coin is another strange image. She has 10 coins and loses 1 and then turns her whole house upside-down searching for it. The coin in question was a drachma, a silver coin. How much was a drachma worth? Some scripture scholars say it was about 65 cents, others a nickel, others a fraction of a penny. Still, with this coin, you couldn’t buy a loaf of bread for that. And yet, what does she do when she loses this coin? She turns her whole house upside-down. Maybe if I lost a twenty bucks, or a hundred, of course, but for a nickel? Not only does she rejoice when she finds this coin, she calls her neighbors over. Could you imagine, who would call up their neighbors and say, “come over, quick, I’ve got the best news, you’re not gonna believe it!” And they come over, and ask, what’s this about? And beaming, you hold up that shiny nickel…I found it! Your neighbors would slowly back up out of the house and call the men with the white coats.

And I think Jesus knew that this story was strange. For it’s not about the value of the coin…but about this amazing joy over the conversion of sinners. It illustrates just how important our souls are to God. God, in fact cares about our souls, much more than we do.

These parables, along with the parable of the prodigal son, remind us of how much God loves us, the great ends to which he is willing to go to save us, and the responsibility we have to protect our souls from evil now that they’ve been redeemed.

Why does God love us so? Why are our souls so valuable to God that he is willing to suffer and die for us—to go to extravagant lengths to save us?

What is the value of a soul? All the beauties of nature and all of the works of man do not compare in the smallest degree with the value of a soul. For nature is finite, every building or work of art is finite. But the soul is of eternal value. It will never die. You and I are going to live forever. Our bodies will die, but our souls, will never die. Your soul—your spirit—will live forever. And how we live our lives on earth, the moral choices we make, our assent of faith or our lack thereof, will determine whether our souls spend eternity in heaven or hell.

Yes, it is terrible when a person loses his health, or his money, or his friends.. But the loss of one’s soul because we fail to recognize our sinfulness and our need for God, that’s even worse, that is the truly greatest tragedy possible. On this 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the world trade center, we think of that word: tragedy. The loss of life, the violence, all of this is great great tragedy. But again, the greatest tragedy, is when a soul becomes destined for hell. A soul, destined for heaven, choosing hell through its failure to repent, is the greatest tragedy of all.

St. Peter says, God does not wish that any souls should parish, but that all should come to repentance. He gives every soul, each one of us, a super-abundance of opportunities to repent. But whether we truly repent or not will determine our eternal destiny.

It should be deeply concerning to us, when Catholics lose their faith, when they stop going to Church, when they enter invalid marriages, when they turn away from the moral teachings of the Church. Deeply concerning! For we know not the day nor the hour, when this earthly life will end and we will face our judge.

These beautiful parables this weekend remind us that God does not give up on us, he continues to reach out, to call out, He continues to search, to even do elaborate, extravagant things to bring souls to repentance and conversion…crazy things, like sending people like us out to bring in the lost sheep! If you have a family member who has fallen away from the faith, or a neighbor who has no faith, pray for them, fast for them, do penance for them, look for creative ways to bring them into contact with the saving Gospel.

We must also do our part in protecting our own souls from faithlessness. Each of us must commit to a healthy prayer life, studying the Bible daily, engaging in works of mercy. There are plenty of souls who came to church every week, but never prayed. Because they allowed the flame of faith to die out now they neither pray nor come to Church.

Prayer and reading scripture, making a frequent confession, is how we take the care of our souls seriously. Our souls are worth protecting, after all, they were worth dying for.

God comes to us in this Mass, in this Eucharistic celebration, he seeks us out to nourish us, feed us, bring us to repentance, to help us know his love for us. May we respond to his love through genuine repentance and an increased effort to cooperate with his grace for the glory of God and salvation of souls.