Knowing

1 JN 2:3-11

Beloved:
The way we may be sure that we know Jesus is to keep his commandments. 
Whoever says, "I know him," but does not keep his commandments
is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
But whoever keeps his word,
the love of God is truly perfected in him. 
This is the way we may know that we are in union with him:
whoever claims to abide in him ought to walk just as he walked.

Beloved, I am writing no new commandment to you
but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. 
The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 
And yet I do write a new commandment to you,
which holds true in him and among you,
for the darkness is passing away,
and the true light is already shining. 
Whoever says he is in the light,
yet hates his brother, is still in the darkness. 
Whoever loves his brother remains in the light,
and there is nothing in him to cause a fall. 
Whoever hates his brother is in darkness;
he walks in darkness
and does not know where he is going
because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

I am a person that knows a lot of stuff.  That does not make me special, it means that I have had some education and the knowledge that has been discovered by those that came before me has in part been instilled in me.  It is safe to say that if I were to be sent back to the 1700's and ended up in Salem Massachusetts that I would have been arrested and tried and hung for being a warlock because I have knowledge of things that they could not even dream about.  Can you imagine if I told them about a light that used no fire?  Or what if I told them about a power source, such as radium, that had the potential of powering the light that used no fire forever.  Oh, they would hang me alright because they could never understand things that they had no inkling about. If you were to send me back to Europe, in the time of DiVinci, he would understand some of what I was speaking about and he would consider me a genius.  Yes, I have a lot of knowledge but so what? 

I know a lot about Jesus and his life and his Church and how to live a good Christian life but again if I do not do it, then what good does all of this knowledge do for me?  It not only does me no good because if I know it, I am responsible for it and should incorporate it into my life.  This is what John is telling us on the chilly December morning.  It is not enough to know about Jesus, you must know Jesus and follow Him by carrying your cross too. 

The poor souls need your help.  Please pray for them today. 

The Sound of Silence

Jesus said to his disciples: "I tell you, everyone, who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God. "Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

There is a cost to being silent and it is a terrible price to pay indeed!  If we acknowledge Jesus, He will acknowledge us. If we deny that we know Him before others, He will deny that He knows us as well.  Can you imagine arriving at eternity and being friendless?  At the judgment, it will truly be a case of not what you know but who you know!  Some of us will gather there and feel self-assured because we studied hard and we know all about Jesus, every fact, the significance of every word He spoke that is recorded in scripture, the fine nuances of every parable and the history of the time Jesus lived and even why He came. But, when we look for Him on that awful day we will not see Him because we only knew about Him but we never truly knew Him. Standing to our right will be that little man who spent his life in obscurity, who gave to God what was God's and who ministered to The Christ by acts of piety and charity that went unseen by those with means and power on the earth.  This little, insignificant man will be trembling with excitement because he will be able to clearly see Jesus, his friend, his counselor, his king. He will jump up and down with great excitement and holler, "There He is, there He is."  Tears of joy will stream down his face while on your face they will be only tears.  The little man spent His life ministering to people that needed it.  Although he had very little, he gave what he could and cared for each person as if they were Jesus Christ in the flesh.  He spoke out when he saw a wrong, and it cost him on this earth, but he could not remain silent while the mighty stepped on the meek.  He will be shepherded into the flock that will join Jesus in heaven while you will be sent with the goats. 

Others on that day will be surprised when they are condemned when they are told that their sin against the Holy Spirit, their blasphemy against the very Love of God for the Son and the Son for the Father.  They will ask when they did such a monstrous thing and they will be told that they died in their sins and refused the promptings of the Holy Spirit to repent and so chose the road that is wide and easy to tread. 

I know that this is not a "God is Love Feel Good" message today.  But we have to remember, our lives, our actions, our speech, our acknowledgment of the primacy of God in our lives will matter more than the knowledge that we have about God.  We have to know Jesus and follow His way.  Which way is that you ask?  It is the Way of the Cross. 

Those brothers and sisters that have gone before us and are in Purgatory need our prayers to help them finish the purging of the effects of sin and the temporal effects of sin on their soul. Offer your Mass this week for them and please if you have time, say a Rosary for them. 

Taking Root and Growing - The 2nd Step of Knowing

Those on rocky ground are the ones who, when they hear,

receive the word with joy, but they have no root;

they believe only for a time and fall away in time of temptation.

The parable of the sower and the seed is a familiar story to most Christians. The sower goes out and sows the seeds and they land in different places. Some land on the path where there is no soil and the birds come and eat the seeds. Some fall on the rocky ground and they sprout up but have no roots and they die. Some of the seeds fall among thorns and are choked out. Finally, some seed falls on good earth and it provides a good yield. 

I would tell the owner of this farm to sow his seeds more carefully but since the seed represents the truth of the Gospel, it is to be sown near and wide to everyone.  The soil it lands in is how we receive and take the word to heart. Today, we are going to concern ourselves with the seed that landed on the rocky ground.  Jesus says that this seed represents people who joyfully receive the Good News but believe it only for a short time and they fall away. What on earth could cause this?  Surely, the Gospel is news of great joy and paying attention to it will help bring the hearer of it to a joyful union with God in heaven, who would want to lose that?

We Catholics are probably the Christian people most at risk for becoming the seed in the rocky soil.   Many of us have not taken the time to learn more about our faith since we were confirmed.  Our Protestant brothers and sisters tend to be more deeply rooted in the Word of God and are not afraid to let people know that they are Christians, that they love God and Jesus.  Now they have their problems too.  They also tend to believe in the very dangerous doctrine "once saved, always saved" where once you have accepted Christ as your personal God and Savior, you are absolutely and positively going to heaven no matter what sins you commit during your lifetime.   We know, based on Scripture that knowing the Word is not the same as living the Word.  We have to live the Word for it to be effective in our lives.  

The one problem about not being rooted deeply in your beliefs comes at the time when turmoil strikes your life. A person with only a smile and a nod to the teachings of Jesus will look at his or her situation and decide that this Jesus stuff can be favorably compared to the pile of horse exhaust on the horse barn floor.  They will then go off on their own and after forgetting the teachings of Jesus, really make a mess of things.  Those of us who are deeply rooted in Christ will know that the troubles of this world are but temporary and we will know where to turn and the experience will actually make us stronger in Christ. 

How can you stay off of the rocky path?  It is simple. Develop a hunger for truth.  Study the Catholic faith, read the doctors of the Church.  If that is too theological for you, there are dozens of good Catholic books put out by authors grounded solidly in the faith who write in simple and easy to understand ways.  If you don't like to read, buy a Kindle, it will read books to you!  Make it a point to learn one new fact about your Catholic faith each month and soon you will be a brilliant scholar that can help your spouse, children, friends, and family to a better life with more happiness and fulfillment in it than ever before.  I guess the secret is to challenge yourself to be better.  This will help you to grow and growing is always better than withering and dying.  

Matthew Kelly, a wonderful Catholic Christian writer, and speaker says it best.  If you are called home to God after 60, 70, 80 or more years on earth, how are you going to explain to God that you did not have time to read His Book?   

Leave the rocky ground beginning today and transplant yourself and bear lots of fruit!  

Pray for the poor souls in Purgatory. They live with great joy and great hope because they will soon be with God. They cannot help themselves, they depend on us.  A simple Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be said for them takes so little of our time but beans so much for the,.  Won't you pray for them now?  Someone you know might be one prayer away from being freed. Do it now. 

Miracles of Love,Healing, and Faith

After Jesus left the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon.
Simon's mother-in-law was afflicted with a severe fever,
and they interceded with him about her.
He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her.
She got up immediately and waited on them.

This story shows a miracle of Jesus.  His miracles were not for the person that received them alone.  If it was just for that person alone, it would have been done in private without even the disciples around to see it.  In this miracle, Jesus intervened in the natural order of things, being sick and having a fever is very natural and in His time most certainly might have ended up with the woman dying. For her part, she is cured and immediately arises from her sick bed and begins to wait on them. 

Jesus may not so far have intervened in our lives in such a dramatic fashion but we know that He has even if we have not recognized it at the time it happened.  What Jesus has done for us, things that we do acknowledge, are the things that should give us energy and like Peter's mother in law, we should use this energy to spread the Good News, to proclaim a time of favor and mercy from God.  We are all miracles because we are loved by God.  I do not mean that He loves us in some sort of generic way.  He loves you as a person, He knows you intimately, He is interested in everything that you do, say, and feel.   He wants us to know Him as well as He knows us.  This too is the news we have to share with those around us. The all-powerful God of the universe loves and wants a personal relationship with each of us.  Rise up off of your bed and begin to serve those around you for you are a miracle of love.