Blackstone Films, a Catholic film company, is ready to work on a new and MUCH needed project, but they need our help. Check out their website and watch the 4-minute video and pray about whether you might be able to help them - and our world.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Hear, O Israel!
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| Mezuzah - Shema on Doorposts |
Deuteronomy 6:2-6
Psalm 18:2-4, 47, 51
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 12:28-34
This weekend Mother Church
recalls that ancient creed of the Jewish people, the Shema:
“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our
God, the LORD alone! Therefore you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your
heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
This prayer was one of the most
common prayers for the Jewish people, comparable to our Hail Mary and Our
Father as Catholics. Jews were prayed it in the morning and evening, had to
keep it posted on their doorposts and touch it when coming or going, bound it
on their hands and foreheads during certain prayer times, and were encouraged
to make it the last words spoken before death. It was for them a most powerful
prayer and one that must be prayed frequently and reverently. As our ancestors
in the faith, it still has great importance for us today.
It’s significant to note that the
first word is ‘Hear.’ We are meant to listen! To listen is to acknowledge,
firstly, that someone is speaking – namely, the Lord. And to hear rather than
speak means that we are submitting to the one speaking. As listeners or hearers
for the LORD, we recognize that we are called to be attentive to the words
spoke and to strive to put them into action, not to take the words and attempt
to craft our own rules or plans. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, forgot this
reality and when they heard the Lord speak to them they heard with their ears
but they didn’t really listen with their heart. Rather than receiving the Word
purely they twisted it to become what they desired rather than what the Lord
willed. And ever since that first fall into sin, we have the task, by God’s
grace, of striving to actually hear the God speak to us purely, without
ourselves getting in the way.
We’ve all likely played the
telephone game where you start with a phrase and whisper it to the person next
to you and quite often when it gets to the last person it resembles nothing of
the original phrase. In reference to our faith, we are called to receive it purely
and to convey it purely so that the same message we receive from God is the
message we live and pass on to the next generation. This is what God desires
for us. As the Shema continues, it points out that the LORD is our God, the
LORD alone! This means that not only are other things supposed to take a back
seat to the LORD, but that in hearing His Word, we are not able to change it.
God is God and we are not; He sets the rules and we are to hear and heed them.
Lately with all the talk about
moral issues, economics, foreign policy and the like, I’ve seen a number of
people – nationally and more locally – who call themselves Catholics and yet at
the same time reject the very teaching that the Church has upheld since her
founding by Christ. Archbishop Charles Chaput responded to this recently,
saying:
“’Catholic’ is a word that has real meaning. We don’t control or invent that meaning as individuals. We inherit it from the Gospel and the experience of the Church over the centuries. If we choose to call ourselves Catholic, then that word has consequences for what we believe and how we act. We can’t truthfully call ourselves “Catholic” and then behave as if we’re not.”
It can be tough to conform
our minds to that of the Church and none of us is exempt from the struggle to
do so. Sometimes the teachings of the Church are things beyond what we can
comprehend, seem useless or overly pious, or even oppressive and out of touch
with the world today. No matter what the issue, the reality is that if we
differ from the teaching of the Church on a major issue that she has stood
firmly on, then it is not she who needs to change but rather we who need to
change. It is interesting to note that when Christ says the Shema in the Gospel
passage the phrase “with all your mind” is added. He knew well that much of
what He spoke was difficult for people to grasp in their mind and consent to.
We see it most clearly in John 6 when He teaches on the Bread of Life and
people leave because they are hard words to accept. Christ didn’t change His
teaching, he clarified and invited those who could accept it to continue with
Him. The same applies today. As we hear the Shema today, the Lord invites us to
hear His voice and His truth and to rest in it and to live it out. In this we will
find peace and eternal joy. May God grant us today the grace today to hear well
His words, to set ourselves aside and love Christ with our whole heart, whole soul,
whole strength, and whole mind.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Gaining Graces for the Dead!
All Souls' Day is tomorrow (November 2) and it is
good to think about the many graces that are available for those who have gone
before us and are undergoing their spiritual purification in purgatory. They may
be our loved ones, members of our community, or souls we don't know from all
places of the world and history. To pray for them is to help them in their
journey to Heaven. And once they attain their heavenly reward, they'll be
praying for us before the Throne of God! So let us take up this great act of
charity for souls in helping them along their way.
A plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in
purgatory, is granted to the faithful who fulfill the following conditions:
•
Visit a Church on November 2, All
Souls' Day
•
Offer an Our Father and Hail Mary for
the Pope's Intentions
•
Offer an Our Father and the Creed for
the Faithful Departed
•
Make a good confession within a week and be free from all attachment to sin
•
Receive Holy Communion that day (or
ASAP following if unable that day)
A plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in
purgatory, is also granted to the faithful who fulfill the following
conditions:
•
on any and each day from November 1
to 8, devoutly visit a cemetery and pray, if only mentally, for the departed
(the 'Eternal rest grant unto them...' suffices)
•
Offer an Our Father and Hail Mary for
the Pope's Intentions
•
Make a good confession within a week and be free from all attachment to sin
•
Receive Holy Communion that day (or
ASAP following if unable that day)
Monday, October 29, 2012
Social Costs of Pornography
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| Available at Amazon.com |
Jeremiah 31:7-9
Psalm 126:1-6
Hebrews 5:1-6
Mark 10:46-52
“Every
priest is taken from among men and made their representative before God, to
offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal patiently with the
ignorant and erring, for he himself is beset by weakness and so, for this
reason, must make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people.”
This passage has always stuck out to
me, especially as I discerned and pursued a vocation to the priesthood, because
it clearly reminds me of who I am. I am a sinner, beset by weakness. I’m not
better than anyone because I’m a priest. I’m not holier than anyone because I’m
a priest. I have a past, parts of which I’m not particularly proud of, but I am not confined or defined by it. Rather, I am defined by the
life I choose to live as my life moves forward and the same goes for all of us. We have all done things in our lives that were sinful, but the reality is that God’s grace is bigger than anything in the past
and the Mercy of God is so generous that even the most grievous offenses are
forgiven instantly when we simply come to open our hearts to the One who died
to ransom us for Heaven. There is always hope.
For the past several weeks we’ve all
been hearing the presidential and vice-presidential debates, the ads on TV, the
news, webpages and other media sources talk about all of the things going on in
the world today, particularly the problems that must be addressed. We’ve heard
endless discussions on things such as the economy, foreign policy, energy, and a
list of other things. But one thing that I haven’t heard a word spoken about is
actually one of the most destructive forces in our world today, and that
destructive force is the reason you received those white ribbons when you came
into Mass today: pornography.
I came across a book a while back
that really interested me because it was a book entitled The Social Costs of Pornography, but which wasn’t written from a religious perspective. For the
Catholic Church or a group of religious people to write a book against it would
be for the world to chalk it up as religious belief trying to justify itself by
coming up with facts to back up beliefs. Instead, this book is written by
regular people who have to deal with the effects of pornography in our world:
lawyers, psychologists, sociologists, computer techs, and other professionals
who see it every day in the people they serve. This book comes together to give
us some disturbing information.
-45% of teens view it regularly; not occasionally – regularly!
-90% of children between 8 and 16 years of age have viewed online pornography.
Some
might see those numbers and be unconcerned because they think pornography isn’t
really a problem. It is simply a private thing that doesn’t affect anyone and
those who act it out are doing so freely, so what’s the big deal, right? Well,
the big deal is that it is destroying the culture around us by destroying the
way that we interact with other people.
For
starters, the people who are in the videos or images are often there not
because they enjoy it but because they’ve been coerced. Many who have been able
to get away from this industry describe how drugs were offered to the actors
and eventually they became dependent upon them, such that they were willing to
do anything for the camera in order to get another high. Also, human
trafficking is a major problem, as there are an estimated 13,000-15,000 people
who are bought and sold into this market of sexual exploitation each year;
slavery is still going on in our world today.
The
part that is more notably affecting the world outside of those actors and
producers is not much brighter. The statistics and findings of the report in
that book on the social costs of pornography indicate a number of very serious
problems – and below is just a small portion of the findings. The fact that
internet pornography is so readily accessible on phones, notepads, computers,
and every other electronic device means that it is there at our fingertips
24-hours a day, which encourages addictive behavior. Divorce lawyers indicated
that nearly 25% of divorce cases indicated pornography use as a major factor in
the separation.
But
more fundamentally, it distorts the view of the human person.
It has been noted that the problem with pornography not that it shows
too much of the human person but that it shows too little. A picture or video cannot
capture the soul of a person, it cannot show the whole person who is there but
rather reduces them to their body parts. Pornography essentially makes people
who are meant to be loved into objects that are used instead and this transfers into normal social interaction. Thus, users of
pornography find it more difficult to enter into actual intimate relationships
because they are unable to truly love but rather are gratifying themselves at
the expense of the other. This means that faithfulness in marriage and
relationships in general is drastically decreased. Also, users are constantly
fed lies that distort the reality of true intimacy, hide the negative effects
of unfaithfulness and extra-marital sexual encounters, and fail to provide any
accurate depiction of what it means to be a man or woman and how to interact
with the opposite sex. In general, pornography takes everything that can build
up the human person and strengthen family life and does the exact opposite. Is
it any wonder that as the dignity of the human person is denied in our world we
see an increase in violence, promiscuity, and addictive behavior? This evil
silently destroying our country and unless we personally and communally take a
stand against it, we will continue to see the family and human person become
less and less honored in our world.
So
I end with this – pornography affects each and every single one of us. If it is
affecting you or has in the past because of your use of it, there is always
hope. As I said at the beginning of the homily, there is no sin that Christ won’t
forgive and for that reason we don’t have to be bound up by the sins of the
past. In fact, Christ longs to free us from these sins and to bring us to
wholeness because we weren’t created for slavery and sin but for freedom and
life eternal. We simply need to come to Him with open hearts, recognizing that
Christ has the power to do anything. Like Bartimaeus in the Gospel today, we
must cry out for the Lord and know that we are heard and He desires to effect
the healing the same as He did for Bartimaeus.
For
those not affect by it personally, thank God and pray for those who are. Pray
for our youth who are being bombarded with it. Pray for families being broken
apart by it. Pray for those still caught up in the industry themselves. God’s
love is being our understanding and His grace works in powerful ways if we call
upon Him and Our Blessed Mother is a perfect reflection of that love and all
grace passes through her hands, so let us also pray through the intercession of
Mary, Undoer of Knots, that the bonds of sin might be broken and true freedom
would be known by all.
*****
For more information on pornography and getting help:
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Servants for Many
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| Jesus Jokes! |
Isaiah 53:10-11
Psalm 33:4-5, 18-20, 22
Hebrews 4:14-16
Mark 10:35-45
Did
Jesus give his life up for all people or for many people?
Back in Advent, when the new translation of
the Mass began to be implemented, one of the significant changes was that of
the consecration prayer for the wine, which was changed from Christ’s blood
being shed “for you and for all” to it being poured out “for you and for many”.
Many began to wonder at this point – had the Church’s theology changes? Were we
becoming more exclusive? And most significantly, did Jesus only die for certain
people while leaving the rest on their own? The answer to each of those is a
resounding ‘No!’
The reason the reason the translation was
changed to indicate ‘for many’ rather than ‘for all’ is because of the
scripture passages this weekend. When the Lord spoke those blessed words over
the chalice at the Last Supper with the disciples, he used the term meaning
‘for many’ so as to implicitly point to the fact that He Himself is the
suffering servant of Isaiah 53. Jesus is the one the Isaiah prophesied would
come to give His life for sin that others might find life, and to justify
humanity through His suffering. Jesus is the one that would come to ‘justify
many’. How then do we reconcile such statements with the words of St. Peter,
whose First Letter tells us that, “Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the
unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but
made alive in the spirit”?
Catholics believe and have always professed
that Christ died not for a few people but for the whole of humanity. In taking on
our flesh, we were all joined to Him in the justification that took place in
His death. But the reality is that we each have free will and must choose to
receive the gift of salvation that God offers to us. To say that Christ died
‘for many’ can in a sense be a positive statement indicating the large number
of souls that have found eternal life through Him. But the flip side is the sad
reality that not all are saved because not all desire to be saved and not all
live according to the commandments of Christ and merit that salvation. Salvation
is open to all, we just have to take the steps to open ourselves to receive it.
And the Lord gives us a clue today on how that happens: by becoming servants.
When we think of becoming servants toward
others we often think of doing acts of charity, like that done by Christ in the
washing of the disciples’ feet. We think of the corporal works of mercy -
feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and so on. But with
the context of these scripture passages today, we see that the greatest act of
the servant is His death that brings life. And since we are supposed to be
imitators of Christ Jesus, we are called in the same way to put ourselves to
death that others might find life. For some in the history of the Church that
meant a martyrdom of great physical suffering and death; for us it means a
martyrdom of a different kind.
St. Jean Vianney once said, “What will
convert [a soul] is the sanctity of your own life.” The service we are called
to by Our Lord is that of dying to ourselves daily, a sort of bloodless
martyrdom, so that we can be people of holiness and help bring others to the
faith, Christ Jesus and salvation. This sounds like a huge task, but it is surprisingly simple and we get a few
pointers in the scriptures today.
First, we must have a relationship with Jesus
Christ. When Our Lord asks James and John what they wanted from Him, He already
knew the answer. He simply wanted them to speak with Him and say it themselves;
He wanted the relationship aspect because He knew it was important for them.
The same applies with us – He doesn’t need us to say anything to Him because He
knows it already, but He desires it because we need that relationship to find
life.
Second, we must go to the Sacrament of
Confession or Reconciliation. To be free to walk the path of holiness we must
let go of the burden of sin in our lives. The Letter to the Hebrews commands us
to “confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace
for timely help.” The font of God’s Divine Mercy flows with abundant grace, but
many unless we actually make use of it, it is there in vain.
And lastly is that more commonly understood
sense of service. After we have come to know Christ and experienced the freedom
from sin that He bought us at the price of His blood, we are called to go out
and live the Gospel – to do the corporal works of mercy, to speak about Christ,
to spread the Good News that we have been redeemed and that many will be saved
if we but open ourselves to the gift held out to us.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Having Faith
Wisdom 7:7-11
Psalm 90:12-17
Hebrews 4:12-13
Mark 17:17-30
“At this statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many
possessions.”
As we hear this statement about
the Rich Young Man in the Gospel going away sad, we should feel a similar
sadness in our own hearts. The main point is not that the young man is so
caught up in the worldly possessions he own. This is a story of a great lack of
faith – he followed all the laws and commandments, yet he did not have faith in
the Divine Lawgiver or the promise of heavenly treasure. It is because of his
lack of faith that he does not come to know Christ. If that thought doesn’t
evoke sorrow for him within our hearts, it’s time to do a little soul-searching
because if we have come to know Jesus Christ personally in our own lives and
experienced the incredible gift of being friends with the Lord, it should hurt
us to see others come so close to Him and not experience the same.
This past Thursday, Pope Benedict
XVI began the Year of Faith, lasting from October 11 of this year until
November 24, 2013. Thursday was the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and the 20th Anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. But that wasn't the primary reason for the Holy Father calling this Year of Faith. Rather, it was because of what he has identified as a 'profound crisis of faith.' Namely, the world around has lost the sense of God, faith, and anything other than what the world around us offers. To combat this, this year is supposed to be one in which each of us focuses
on our own “authentic and renewed
conversion to Christ” so as to be more compelled and better able to share
our Catholic faith with the world around us; and our Gospel passage today gives
us a beautiful outline of how to do so.
St. Mark’s description of the
young man running up to Jesus seems to imply some urgency on his part; he has
something important to ask. “What must I
do to inherit eternal life?” How do I get to Heaven? This is an important question and one which all of us should have asked ourselves before and must ask again from time to time. This is the first point in authentic conversion
to Christ – we must realize that we have been created for something more than
this life. We have been created for Heaven and that inheritance awaits us, but
we must first walk the path to get there.
This brings us to our second point in conversion to Christ. Upon hearing the young man’s question, Our Lord recalls
the Commandments. In speaking of these laws, Jesus is telling the young man the
actions that must be done or avoided. This is necessary because doing what God
desires is the path to Heaven. For us today, this path is quite clearly marked
out for us by the Church. Guided by the Holy Spirit, the teaching of Jesus
Christ has remained the same in its essence for nearly 2000 years. This faith
has been beautifully preserved in the Catechism
of the Catholic Church, a book published 20 years ago under the guidance of
Blessed John Paul II that outlines all the essential elements of our Catholic
faith. We Catholics must know our faith so that generations after us can
benefit from the beauty and wisdom of the teaching of Christ just as we have.
Upon hearing the Lord’s response
about the Commandments, the young man says that he follows all the
Commandments. Then something unexpected happens - Our Lord invites the young
man to go an extra step and place his trust not in commandments or created things,
but in Jesus Himself. He says simply, “follow me.” This personal invitation to
relationship with Jesus is the key to personal conversion. Surely we must long
for Heaven and we must know the teaching of Christ on how to get there, but
most important of all is the relationship with Jesus Christ. Without this there
is no conversion, there is no change of heart. The Letter to the Hebrews,
written years after the death and resurrection of the Lord reminds us that “the
word of God is living and effective” – Jesus Christ is still alive and very
much at work in the world and in our lives. In the same way that Jesus looked
at the young man and “looking at him, loved him” He does the same with us. In
this moment Jesus in all of His glory is looking at each of us, loving us and
inviting us to renew our commitment to follow after Him. The Gospel passage etches into history
the reality of the young man’s lack of faith. Let us today begin a new story
wherein each of us is etched into the memory of our family, friends, and
community around us not as a person who lacked faith but rather as a person who
was fully alive with faith in Christ Jesus.
And how do we become those people
of renewed and vibrant faith? We can read about our faith, we can put faith
into action by acts of charity, and we can come to various classes and meetings
to build us up in faith. But most of all, we must simply draw closer to Jesus
Christ and know in our heart that He is alive and He loves us. This knowledge
can only be found in prayer. So, in the end, while we are called to do many
things, we must done only one – pray, pray, and pray.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Respect for Life Sunday
Genesis 2:18-24
Psalm 128:1-6
Hebrews 2:9-11
Mark 10:2-16
The more I hear confessions and
the more I become aware of my own sinfulness, it becomes increasingly clear
that the problem is not the litany of sins that we name when we go to
confession but rather is the one sin that can often go unnamed - pride . The Catechism
of the Catholic Church defines pride as “undue self-esteem or self-love, which
seeks attention and honor and sets oneself in competition with God.” This
competition with the Lord is simply the necessary first-step to sin – we put
our human will against the God’s Divine Will and then we make the choice in
favor of ourselves.
This exaltation of self and
opposition to the Will of God, though is nothing new. Adam and Eve being
brought up in our first reading only helps to connect the links that they were
the first to sin against God, choosing to taste of the forbidden fruit rather
than refrain. And thousands of years later, as a human race and as individuals,
we still haven’t learned our lessons.
As we gather this weekend we
celebrate Respect Life Sunday, if we’re honest with ourselves, we recognize
that our country today isn’t really all that respectful of human lives. Each year in our nearly
1.4 million children are killed from the horror of abortion. In the recent
universal healthcare legislation, contraceptives to prevent pregnancy will be
covered as ‘preventative healthcare’ as if a child were some sort of disease to
be avoided at all costs. Additionally, three states have already legalized
physician-assisted suicide and other states have begun working to move forward
with such legislation. And as each year go by more and more people who suffer
from mental, physical or psychological issues are being cast aside as they are
said to have ‘poor quality of life’ or have lost their productivity in our
society. All of these things and many more are grave injustices that are taking
place right before our eyes and we, the people of God in America, have an
obligation to work and pray for an end to it and that the Kingdom of God would
truly reign in our society.
When Adam and Eve first chose to
eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they knew it was opposed to the
Lord’s command. But they let themselves be convinced by the devil that it
wasn’t wrong but that the Lord simply didn’t want them to become like Him. They
bought into the lies and tried to change the rules, saying they had the right
to eat of the tree. And they merited death for themselves and for us, their
children.
Like our first parents, our
country’s leaders have looked at the laws that God set up – laws that protected
the unborn, that promoted the dignity of every human person from conception to
natural death, and worked for the good of all people – and they have listened
once again to the lies of the devil. Hearing that little whisper that we know
better, that we have evolved, that God and His commandments are outdated, our
country has begun to change little by little the laws of God. In addition to
those named above, we could easily add the anti-life mentalities of many of our
policies regarding immigration, war, the economy, and even sexuality. Ultimately
what has happened is that people are no longer regarded as valuable because they
have God-given dignity from being created in His image and likeness. Rather,
people are valued based on what they can do for others, like products to be
used rather than people to be loved.
For that reason we must pray and
we must work to remedy these failures to follow after the Divine Will of God.
Beginning with ourselves and spreading through our country and our world, we
must be people who have a radical trust in God and His Will. In the Gospel Our
Lord reminds us that “whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child
will not enter it” and so we must strive to be childlike, accepting as true
what the Lord speaks to us through His Church and the Scriptures. This is
something unique to our Catholic faith. Other individuals rely upon their own
thought, their personal interpretations, and their study of particular things. But
as G.K. Chesterton so beautifully put it, “A Catholic is a person who has
plucked up courage to face the incredible and inconceivable idea that something
else may be wiser than he is.” In other words, we know that God is bigger than
us and for that reason we must trust in Him and His Will and defend it until
the day He brings us to enjoy our Heavenly reward.
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