16th Week in Ordinary Time 2021 - Monday - Prideful rejection of Truth

 “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”  At this point in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus had offered more than enough healings and exorcisms and other miracles to show that he was not only from God, but also that He himself was God.  And at this point, you really begin to wonder, are the Pharisees really seeking the truth about Jesus here, or are they seeking to validate their own narrow view. 

In a sense, they are looking for a sign, but not a sign that Jesus is God and his word is truth. They are looking for a sign to prove themselves right. 

The Lord exposes the Pharisees here as belonging to an evil and unfaithful generation who have closed their hearts to God. They don’t acknowledge God when he is standing right in front of them. They don’t acknowledge truth when it is clearly being explained to them.

Why? Certainly the sin of pride is at work. Pride doesn’t care about the truth. It blinds us to the truth. 

St. Thomas Aquinas gives a thorough treatment of the sin of pride. He says, pride is when we make ourselves out to be more than we are. In the case of the Pharisees, they wanted to be the arbiters of truth. They wanted to dictate what is holy, rather than receiving that teaching from God. They pridefully refused to be corrected by the data right in front of them.

Thomas continues. He says, Pride is an assumed self-sufficiency which omits or discounts God in considering what one is. The atheist essentially is a prideful soul because he refuses to acknowledge that we live, and move, and have our being because of God. And even though that God is the author of life, they refuse to bow, to worship, to obey, to heed his commandments. Christians who allow pride to dominate their life become practical atheists.

St Thomas then quotes St. Gregory who teaches that pride is a claiming of excellence not possessed. The pharisees do this all the time, they claim to be holy, without possessing authentic holiness. The Lord exposes them for this over and over. Then Gregory says, pride ultimately consists of “despising others and wishing to seem the exclusive possessor of what one has”. The prideful soul is a spiteful, yet lonely soul. Refusing in the end to acknowledge the goodness in others, it is a self-imposed prison.

We can see why pride is a mortal sin. There is no place for pride in heaven. We must be rid of every ounce of pride before we can enter heaven. Freedom from pride is certainly one of our ongoing projects as followers of Jesus. And most of us will still require some purgation of pride after shedding our mortal coil. But, when, cooperating with grace, we become empty of pride, the humble goodness of Jesus fills our souls. 

 

That Church leaders will humbly lead God’s people in the ways of righteousness and truth. 

For the conversion of hearts hardened to the Gospel, for those who have fallen away from the Church, for non-believers and unrepentant sinners, for atheists and those who reject the word of God. 

For all those who suffer from violence, war, famine, extreme poverty, addiction, discouragement, loneliness, and those who are alienated from their families.  For all those who suffer illness, and those in hospitals, nursing homes and hospice care.

For the repose of the souls of our beloved dead, the deceased members of our families friends and parishes, for those who fought and died for our freedom, and N. for whom this Mass is offered.

Grant, we pray, O Lord, that your people may turn to you with all their heart, so that whatever they dare to ask in fitting prayer they may receive by your mercy. Through Christ our Lord.

1st Week of Lent 2018 - Friday - Repentance is a matter of Life and Death

Lent is a powerful call to repentance, and repentance is a matter of life and death. As we heard from the prophet Ezekiel this morning: "If the wicked man turns away from all the sins he committed, if he keeps all my statutes and does what is right and just, he shall surely live, he shall not die."

Recalling the story of Adam and Eve, we recognize the spiritual death, the separation of God, which sin brings between God and man. Sin, which says, I’m going to choose another path, a path separate from the ways of God.

We certainly offer up our Lenten penances, our sacrifices—we pray for the conversion of those trapped in cycles of mortal sin, those who have so corrupted their moral compass that the course of their life is leading them to eternal separation from God.

But notice, Ezekiel says, that the wicked man must turn from “all” the sins he committed. Each of us has an obligation to strive to be free from “all” of our sins: mortal and venial sins. We should not be content with habitual or sporadic venial sins in our life.

St. Augustine remarks that those who want to walk in the love of God and in his mercy cannot be content with ridding themselves simply of grave and mortal sins. “Even less grave sins” Augustine said, “if they are ignored, proliferate and produce death.”

The good news is, the Lord is ready to forgive us. The Lord does not grow as tired of forgiving us our venial sins as we do of confessing them. It’s when we stop confessing them, when we stop seeking to overcome them through God’s grace, that they will fester and “proliferate” as Augustine says.

“Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” This sounds like an impossibly high standard. And it is, humanly impossible. But it is not impossible for God to lead us in the ways of surpassing holiness. It is up to us, with the help of grace, to identity those sin, to repent of them, and to surrender to the grace that gives us strength to amend our life.

Lent is a desert experience in which we separate ourselves from the things that hinder our growth in grace, and it is also a time of new spiritual life, as we open ourselves to God’s mercy and life-giving grace, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For the whole Christian people, that in this sacred Lenten season, they may be more abundantly nourished by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

For the whole world, that in lasting tranquility and peace our days may truly become the acceptable time of grace and salvation.

For sinners and those who neglect right religion, that in this time of reconciliation they may return wholeheartedly to Christ.

For ourselves, that God may at last stir up in our hearts aversion for our sins and conviction for the Gospel.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Grant, we pray, O Lord, that your people may turn to you with all their heart, so that whatever they dare to ask in fitting prayer they may receive by your mercy.

May 22, 2017 - St. Rita of Cascia - Battered wife, sorrowful mother, stigmatist, saint

St. Rita is a truly remarkable figure in the history of the church and the history of the saints. She was born in Umbria in 1381. From an early age she wanted to become a nun, a religious dedicated entirely to God. But her parents had other plans for her. They wanted her to marry, and so she did; she obeyed her parents’ insistence and married at a young age. But her husband turned out to be cruel and harsh and the marriage was very difficult, Rita’s only consolation during these years was God; she united herself often, in prayer, to Christ’s sorrowful passion.

After 18 years of a difficult, abusive marriage, her husband, who was a quarrelsome fellow got himself killed in a brawl. When her two sons vowed to avenge their father's murder, she feared for their souls. She tried to persuade them to let go of their anger, but to no avail, they began to plot a murder.

So she prayed, and she petitioned God to prevent her sons from sinning and losing their souls, even if it meant that they lost their earthly life. And it so happened that the sons developed dysentery; but, they were reconciled to God before they died, repentant of their hatred.

Free from earthly ties, St. Rita entered the Augustinian nuns in the nearby town of Cascia. She became renowned for her austerity, devotion, prayer, and charity; and for her patience in long-standing illness, she received visions from heaven and the stigmata—a wound resembling the crown of thorns on her forehead, which she bore until her death, which occurred on May 22, 1457.

So many spiritual lessons, from this brief description of her life:

She united her suffering to passion of Christ. And she followed God’s call to a life of religious consecration. I wish we lived in a culture where it was more common, as it was in those days, for men and women to enter religious life, and to become dedicated to God in prayer and fasting.

And she understood the consequences of mortal sin and the value of the souls of her sons. She understood that sin is the greatest of evils because its effects are eternal. So many parents these days are overly concerned about their children’s earthly successes without greater concern for their eternal welfare. The neglect of religious formation is deeply troubling.

St. Rita is one of the patron saints of impossible causes, we certainly invoke her intercession for the transformation of our culture whose conversion seems quite difficult these days. May St. Rita continue to teach us, inspire us, and challenge us, that we may reach the perfection for which we were made for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That Christians may grow in grace by uniting their sufferings to the Sufferings of Christ and know God’s presence with them in their sufferings.

For all those in difficult or abusive marriages, that the Lord will protect victims of abuse and bring healing and reconciliation where it is possible.

That all young people may come to value discipleship of Jesus Christ above all earthly pursuits, be preserved from sin, and grow in grace and holiness.

For an increase in vocations to the priesthood and consecrated religious life, and for a strengthening of all vocations of service.

For all those impossible cases which only the grace of God can remedy.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, for the repose of the soul of Fr. Robert Wendelken, longtime pastor of St. Rita parish, for all of the pour souls in purgatory, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom.

Homily: Thursday - 2nd Week of Lent 2017 - The Great Chasm

Monday night, I attended the parish mission over at St. Paschal’s, at which Fr. Tom Dragga used today’s Gospel passage to help prepare the attendees for the sacrament of Confession.

One of the points, that I’m going to steal from his reflection, and by the way, Fr. Dragga taught me to steal, he was one of my homily professors in seminary. As he would say, “if Fr. Estabrook preaches well, you can thank me, if Fr. Estabrook preaches poorly, then he should have payed better attention.” And one of the lessons he taught was to “steal, steal, steal” material for a homily!

Fr. Dragga spoke about a particular detail in the Gospel—a word we don’t use too often in our common parlance, the great “chasm”—“the chasma mega”, in the Greek—which separated the rich man and Lazarus—the chasm between heaven and hell. Why do we go through the humbling, perhaps even embarrassing ordeal of the sacrament of confession? To be free of those things which create a chasm between us and God.

Why do we subject ourselves to the rigors of Lent? Why do we follow the sometimes mysterious precepts of the Catholic faith? Why do we sacrifice our time, talent, and treasure for the needy instead of enjoying our earthly goods in their entirety? To avoid the chasm…to avoid the mistake that the Rich Man in the Gospel made in choosing to ignore the poor man at his gate.

We do believe that sin and selfishness create a chasm between us and God, and that some sin is so deadly, as the apostle John explains in his first letter, that the chasm becomes unpassable, uncrossable; the way of the wicked leads to doom, as Psalm 1 says, and nothing in life save for the grace of God particularly dispensed in the Sacrament of Confession, can heal that chasm.

Sometimes we think that our venial sins “aren’t that bad”, but all sin creates chasm, separation, wound. And so we seek not simply the absolution of our mortal sin, but to root out venial sin from our life.

Our Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving disposes us to grace, they help to strengthen us against the temptations to sin, they certainly soften our hearts which can becomes so easily hardened by selfishness and self concern. For the abyss, the chasm separating the rich man and Lazarus did not simply appear in the afterlife, he dug that abyss  each day that he disregarded his fellow man during his life.

May our Lenten observances open our eyes to the needs of the poor, heal our sinfulness, and help us to experience and become instrument’s of God’s saving mercy for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That our Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving may bring about conversion and renewal within the Church.

For those who have fallen away from the Church, who have become separated through error and sin, for those who reject the teachings of Christ, for their conversion and the conversion of all hearts.

That our Lenten observances may deepen our commitment to the needs of the poor who seek our assistance.

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation or illness: that the tenderness of the Father’s love will comfort them.  We pray to the Lord.