All Are Called

ACTS 10: 34 - 38
Peter proceeded to speak to those gathered
in the house of Cornelius, saying: 
"In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.
Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly          
is acceptable to him.
You know the word that he sent to the Israelites 
as he proclaimed peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all, 
what has happened all over Judea, 
beginning in Galilee after the baptism
that John preached, 
how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and power.
He went about doing good 
and healing all those oppressed by the devil, 
for God was with him."

The Catholic Church is called Catholic because it is universal, that is, it is for everyone. Headquartered in Rome, the Churchs' ongoing mission is to preach the Good News of Jesus to the whole world.  For approximately fifteen-hundred years her voice was the sole voice that cried out in the wilderness.  Then, tragedy struck.  A man named Martin Luther tore the Church asunder and founded his own brand of Christianity and stepping away from the Church that Jesus founded, he led people astray.  Some of those people who broke from the Church did not agree with everything that Martin Luther taught. They broke away from him and founded their own church that was more comfortable with the way they thought that salvation was wrought.  Everything was fine but then a few more people broke away from the churches that sprung up in the wake of Martin Luther's rebellion because their view did not correspond with the view of the person that founded their former brand of Christianity.  Today, because of Martin Luther, Christian denominations number about thirty-thousand, each professing a different version of what they say is Christian truth. 

Through it all, the Catholic Church remained faithful to her founder and His teachings. Jesus wanted one Church and one people and He expressed this desire at the Last Supper when He prayed that we be one as He and the Father were one. The next day, Jesus, of His own free will took up His cross and died for the sins of all.  This is an important thing to remember; He did for all of us.  He knew from the beginning that the Church would remain faithful to Him and His teachings. But, He knows the ways of man and He knew that there would be discord and division.  His plan allowed for this to happen because He knew men of good will would sometimes wander off the path he made for them and He knew that the Father loved all of His children and so He would accept them all. 

I've wondered about the ultimate fate of each of the great reformers in the Protestant revolt.  Did Martin Luther give up his salvation because of the stubborn pride that caused him to create a schism in the Church?  What about some of the others?  I have no doubt that in their hearts they were men of good will but did they realize what they were doing?  Are these men that drew so many away from the Church in heaven or are they in hell teaching religion to Hitler and Stalin along with the Rev. Jim Jones?  I do not know about their fate just as I do not know the ultimate fate of Judas who betrayed the Lord. Come to think of it, while I suspect, I do not really have a clue as to where Hitler and Stalin or Jim Jones are spending their eternity.  I leave this up to God and his judgment, justice, and mercy for I will have enough to answer for when I stand before Him. 

Peter makes it very clear in our reading that Christ opened heaven for everyone who calls Jesus, Lord and who acts uprightly.  So, I've said this before and I will say it again.  The people who populate all of the denominations that are NOT Catholic can attain heaven just as a Catholic can.  The difference is that the occasions of Grace are just not as prevalent in the Protestant world as they reject the seven sacraments and they believe that the Eucharist is a mere memorial to Jesus and not the Real Presence that it is, discounting the teachings of Christ in the Gospel of John. 

We Catholics have advantages that our Protestant friends do not have.  This makes it easier for us to live a Christian life and to be true followers of  Jesus.  Because our separated brothers and sisters do not have these advantages it simply means that we need to pray for them and pray that one day all unity is restored.  For Jesus, Himself said that there will be one Shepherd and one flock.  The victory is already His. 

One day I will draw my last breath and leave this earth behind. I will know at that moment that I am not ready or fit for heaven yet. I will choose Purgatory so I can make turn my whole heart over to God.  I would hope that there would be someone to pray for me to lessen my time.  Please, pray for those in Purgatory, remembering your relatives and friends and especially for the soul that has been their the longest and has no one on earth to pray for them.

Are We Being Punished ?

The world we live in today is positively crazy. Around the world, things could not be crazier.  In North Korea, we have a fat little man wanting to play with nuclear toys.  In the Philippines, there is a psychotic serial murderer as president.  In Mexico, there is no real government except what the drug cartels allow.  In the United States I will leave it up to you to judge our president, but we as a people have a lot to answer for as the corpses of innocent murdered babies pile up.  Forgive me for being so graphic with that last sentence. 

It is said that Our Lady, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the bride of the Holy Spirit, has appeared in history and has warned us that if things don't change there will be a chastisement.  In the twentieth century, there were two such chastisements that we can easily point to. We called them World Wars One and Two and millions upon millions of people died.  Mary warned us when she appeared at Fatima. 

Today, we have the scourge of radical Islam murdering Christians in the places where it has existed for two thousand years.  ISIS has used the very symbol of our religion to martyr our brothers and sisters in the middle east.  But, force of arms, God willing, may end this reign of terror.  But the punishment from this direction will continue because, in America, we have embraced birth control and abortion.  The birth rate of children being born to households where Christianity is at least marginally practiced is falling while Islamic families are experiencing a baby boom. Will there be sharia law in America? Not in my lifetime but it is very possible that it will happen in the lifetimes of our children.  We baby boomers have not been the best at passing the torch to our children.  A common attitude has been to let the children decide for themselves about God and which religion to follow. We see how well this has worked out.  Today, for example, in the Catholic Church we have a lack of men offering themselves to the priesthood.  In families where it was once thought of as an honor to have a son or daughter opt for the religious life or priesthood, now that is not even given a remote thought.  

My original question in this post was, "Are we being punished?" I think that God does not have to send a chastisement down upon us because we, ourselves, are doing very well at reaping the rewards for our sloth in spiritual things. So, right now I do not believe we are undergoing a chastisement from God.  This scares me a bit because I believe that one is coming that will make all of the terrible things that are happening in our world today seem like child's play. 

Okay, I can almost see you rolling your eyes, shaking your head, and thinking the Michael the Lesser has finally slipped his moorings and is now a candidate for a rubber room in a fool farm somewhere.  The bad things that we are paying for today are the simple result of what we have done, no more, no less.  I believe that God has given us what we have earned in the hope that we would recognize what we are doing and turn back to the right way of living.  It is evident that we have no desire to change things and turn ourselves around.  God is a loving Father and wants us to be with Him forever in heaven.  He will do what is necessary to get our attention, and it will not be pleasant.   

There are a lot of good people in this world. It is time for them to put on the armor of prayer, draw the sword of righteousness, and start using their talents to point out to family, neighbors, friends, and fellow citizens that God loves us and that He wants us to change, to repent, to come back home.  We are all prodigal sons and daughters.  We are all born to live in the light of God. We just need to make the slightest effort, cooperate just a little, and God will welcome us back. 

Begin today to rebuild the Kingdom. Start small and carry one brick at a time. Use prayer to soften the hearts of your neighbors. I suggest the Rosary as the prayer to use.  This prayer is one of the best in our arsenal.  If you don't like the Rosary, pray whatever prayer you want to, just get started. 

Am I going to turn myself into a street preacher, yelling about fire and brimstone descending upon the land?  No, I am not going to do that.  I have confidence that if each of us does just a little bit to change the world, to slightly correct the course we are on, our combined actions will bring us back to where we belong. God loves us very much, that is the ultimate truth that we can hang on to no matter what comes. 

Lent - Giving It All - St. Damien of Molokai

St. Damien of Molokai

Sacrifice is a large component of what Lent is all about.  Some of us give up something that is dear to our heart for the forty days as a sacrifice to discipline ourselves.  This is a good thing to do.  Some people are called to do more and they give all that there is to give.  Such was the man we now call St. Damien of Molokai.  In previous times leprosy was considered highly contagious and incurable.  Modern science has found that about five percent of the world is predisposed to the disease. Back in the 1800's, however, those afflicted were removed from society and strictly quarantined.  Damien was sent to Hawaii by his order and there he was ordained a priest. The authorities built a leper colony on Molokai and Damien volunteered to work there with the lepers. 

When he arrived on Molokai, he found a colony beset with problems.  There was a lot of alcoholism and lawlessness ruled the land. He immediately began to get things organized and he began to serve his flock of sick men, women, and children.  The authorities thought that they had performed a magnificent work by setting aside the land that the leper colony was on. They felt all warm and fuzzy inside because of their act of charity. They then proceeded to forget the people that were sent there.  Damien fought for his congregation.  He fought for medicines and better food.  His work was not appreciated so much by the authorities and some even spread lurid stories about the young priest.  Damien continued his battle day by day.  He embraced his flock and tenderly cared for them.  One day, he stepped into a pot of boiling water. He felt no pain. It was a sign that he had contracted the dreaded disease.  He continued his work with love and devotion. At mass that day he began his sermon with the words, "We lepers..."   He died on April 15, 1889. 

Damien was a man who gave all he had to give. He is an example to us all of what a Christian should be. He was given work to do and he did his job each day with the attitude that he was serving Christ.  

Not all of us have the privilege of giving up our life for our ministry but we are all called to live a life of ministry.  Our ministry may be raising our family or caring for a sick spouse or being there for someone who is lonely.  Whatever we are called to do, we are called to do it with the same determination of St. Damien the Leper.  We should minister with love and remember no matter what the face of the person we are ministering to looks like, it is the face of Christ. 

Prodigal Son or Prodigal Dad?

If you were to attend Mass this morning, the Gospel reading would be on of the most familiar stories in the whole Bible, the story of the Prodigal Son. The word prodigal has a couple of meanings. The first is the meaning we associate with the story of the Prodigals. We associate the word prodigal with the behavior of the young son who collected all that would be his and went off and wasted it on dissolute living. Thus the first definition for the word can be "wasteful" or even "recklessly wasteful."  Both of these definitions fit perfectly with what the young son did. Let's examine the behavior or the man just a bit deeper. What he did was demand his share of his father's estate. An estate is an estate after one has died so he was stating by his request that he did not care if his father was alive or dead, he wanted what he wanted and he wanted it now. To show how disordered his thinking was, he would be giving up the value of the property from this day until the day his father actually died. His youthful thinking has betrayed him. Also can you imagine how this must have hurt the father? But being a father, he wanted his child to be happy and so he did as he was asked and soon the boy moved out and as a wild youth will often do, he invested the money in an IRA. Well actually he did not invest it, he spent the money on wine, women, and song and all of the things that accompany these things. Soon it was all gone and the friends he thought he had evaporated like a cup of water in the mid day heat of the desert. He was alone and as he passed the places where he was welcomed with open arms he noticed that the bartenders, restaurant owners, and wild women took no notice of him anymore. He had nothing that they wanted anymore. He still had the appetite for good food, choice wine, flashy women but all of these things cost money which he had not. His stomach growled and he inhaled the rich aromas emitting from the places that used to welcome him. There was nothing left to do but to hire himself out to try and earn some money to buy a bit of bread. He did find a job, he was hired to tend to and feed the pigs of a rich man. He sullenly did his work salivating over the food he we giving to the pigs. Here he was a Jew tending pigs and hoping to steal a bit of the slop they were being fed to fill his empty belly. In Jewish life you cannot sink any lower than a swineherd.  He then had an inspiration. He would go home to his father and he would beg to be treated as a servant because he knew his father treat his servants better than the owner of these filthy pigs. So with stomach still growling for want of food he set off to return to his fathers house. 

During the time his son had been away, the father worried about his absent son and day by day watched for his return. Then he saw far off his long lost son and he did not wait he ran to him and hugged him and called his servant and told him that they were going to have a party.  Kill the best calf, let's get this son of mine dressed properly, put rings on his fingers for he was lost and now he is found.  Here we see an example of the second definition of prodigal which is "extremely generous."  The father restored his son's dignity and they were going to celebrate his return. But all was not well. The older boy took exception to throwing his brother a party. He pointed out that the younger had wasted his father's riches on trashy things while he, the older son, remained faithful and worked hard beside his father and made the older man even more wealthy. The father explained to his heir that all that the father owned would belong to the older son but he asked that he join in the celebration because his younger son had returned, he was lost and now is found. 

The story of the prodigal son is played out daily in the world. Each of us sin and turn away from God but he does not turn away from us. No, he stands and watches for us and when he catches a glimpse of us afar off, he runs to us and welcomes us home. God is always waiting for us. If we fully turn away from him and we squander the gifts he has given us He still will be watching for our return. 

Jesus is the King of Mercy. Today we can turn to Him and ask for His forgiveness and His mercy and these things will be ours.  We must use this time of mercy because when He comes again he will come as the Just Judge.  

The Easter Vigil is just one month away. If you haven't thought about praying more then now is the time to do it. If you have alms to give to the poor, now is the time to do it. Take time to refresh yourself by serving others by ministering to their temporal and their spiritual needs.  And please remember the Poor Souls in Purgatory. Pray for them daily if you can remember. Remember there are souls there that have no one to pray for them. Pray for those poor souls as part of your Lenten journey. 

God bless you this day. If you are a prodigal son or daughter, remember that your Father is waiting and watching for you. Take but a single step towards Him and He will run to you and welcome you back into His House.