This Is What Being A Christian Is All About

Yesterday's readings defined for us what Church is. Today's readings define how we are to treat one another as members of this Church.  In the first reading for this Sunday, we are told to treat everyone with kindness, not to abuse immigrants, not to take advantage of widows and orphans and not to take advantage of others with the example of usury being given as one thing not to do.  God also tells us that if we abuse widows and orphans that His wrath will rise up and make our relatives widows and orphans.  In the Gospel reading, Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is.  He rightfully quotes the first commandment, we are commanded to love God and he quotes the second commandment, we are to love our neighbor not just a little bit, but as we love ourselves.  Jesus tells us that in these two commandments is the whole of the law of God. The eight remaining commandments tell us exactly how we are to execute the requirements that God has given us. 

It is not easy to perfectly follow the ten commandments.  The old testament Hebrews were always finding themselves at odds with one or another of the commands.  Their solution was to flesh out the commandments of God with more and more rules to follow.  They would split hairs and split them again. They had rules for everything.  For example, they had the rule that no one could walk further than two-thousand cubits on the Sabbath. That meant that you could walk about two-thirds of a mile.  The intent of this rule was two-fold.  First, it kept the Sabbath as a day of rest and secondly, it kept you close to the temple or synagogue so that you could spend your time wisely.  Even today in Israel the modern Jews can be very scrupulous when it comes to rest on the Sabbath.  Elevators stop on every floor of a high rise so they do not have to push a button for that is considered work.  Some families hire non-Jewish help for the Sabbath so that lights can be turned on or off for the act of making a spark would be considered work. 

Now that is how we humans are.  We have a tendency to take things that are simple and turn them into things that can be incredibly complex. That is okay, I guess, because some of the rules and regulations we have to follow, both religious and non-religious have to be fleshed out some so that what is expected at minimum is known to all.  But, if the truth is to be known, if we work on the first two commandments, if we truly set out sights on observing them as perfectly as we can, then the whole of the law of God will be observed because if we are doing all to love God and love our neighbor, we will not be doing the other things that the commandments forbid. Perhaps the law can be made even simpler as elsewhere in scripture it is written that we should do unto others what we would have them do unto us.   That is what being a follower of Jesus is all about.  What Jesus wants from us is to show the same love to others as He has shown to us.  He went to the cross as a victim, taking our place and paying our penalty.  We are to imitate Him and carry our cross and bear the burdens of others as best as we can. What we cannot carry on our own, He will help us carry.  

Soldier For Christ - Sir Thomas More

As I mentioned yesterday, I had the pleasure of singing at our parish's Confirmation service for the eighth graders (and some first year high school students. My gosh they look so young and so very innocent. They also looked very proud to come forward and to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit from Bishop George Rassas,the Vicar of our deanery. He closely questioned the young people, giving them the answers in the questions themselves as part of his homily. The gist of his homily can be summarized as follows; "Will you dare to be different,will you dare to use the gifts that God has given you to make difference? 

Sir Thomas More was a close confidant of King Henry VIII. He took his Catholic faith very seriously and considered the teachings of Martin Luther heresy. King Henry if you will recall wanted to be rid of his first wife who had not bore him a son in favor of a second wife who he thought might be able to bring a male child that he could pass the crown to one day. Unfortunately the king could not do this because divorce was not recognized. Being the king he decided that he deserved an exception to the rule and petitioned the pope to annul his first marriage so he would be free to marry the lovely Anne Boleyn. The Pope speaking for the Church refused to grant King Henry permission to divorce his first wife and to then take a new wife. The Church thus was pointing to the narrow road to holiness as she always will.  To this day Henry staunchly defended the Catholic faith in England against the heresies of the so called reformers. He reviewed the situation and decided that he would become the head of the church in England and so he caused another division in the Church that Christ headed and declared himself to be the last word in the English church. He therefore granted himself a divorce and married Ann Boleyn in the hopes that he will be able to sire a male heir through her. In Henry VIII we have an example of a person who in the end cast off the Church in favor of convenience. One girl (later Queen Elizabeth I) and three miscarriages later, Henry decided to get rid of Anne and she was tried in a kangaroo court and found guilty of high treason and was beheaded, allowing the king to continue the search for a male heir. 

Now all of this hubbub caused the political situation in England to change against the Church. Monasteries and churches that had been there for hundreds of years were forfeited to the crown and the monks, priests, and nuns were turned out of these places and forced to swear allegiance to Henry as the new leader of the Church. Failure to do so could and was considered the crime of high treason. The Mass as celebrated by the Catholic Church was declared illegal and those caught practicing it were subject to the penalty for treason which was the charming practice of being drawn and quartered. That is being hung by the neck until almost dead, being cut down and having your intestines "drawn" from your body and burned in front of you and finally to be tied to four horses by legs and arms and to be pulled asunder. In spite of this the Church went underground and the Mass was practiced for those who wanted to remain faithful to the Catholic Church. There were many martyrs made in England during those dark days. 

Thomas Moore saw the actions of Henry for what they were, the actions of a heretic. He made no secret that he remained faithful to the Catholic Church and he refused to sign the Oath of Allegiance to the Act of Succession. Thomas did send a private letter stating that Parliament had the right to declare Ann Boleyn the legitimate queen of England as a function of the state. 

His failure to sign the oath caused him to be arrested and committed to the Tower of London. He was tried by a committee that included Ann Boleyn's father, brother and uncle, for high treason.  He was found guilty (no surprise here) and sentenced to be drawn and quartered. Henry VIII in a tender act of mercy to his friend commuted the sentence from the barbaric draw and quartering to simple beheading.  On the day of his death Thomas said; "I die the kings good servant but God's first." When the ax fell the blood of the saint drenched the English soil in testimony against the unjust King Henry VIII and in testimony in favor of a faithful servant of God and His Holy Roman Catholic Church. 

This story of martyrdom is repeated time and time again in diverse times and places where Catholics and other Christians are killed for their beliefs. The sword of ISIS glistens red with the blood of faithful Christians. I wish that they were the only threats against Christians today.  Alas they are not.  

We may believe that today in America the chance of our becoming martyrs for the faith are slim. Sadly, we are often subjected to dry martyrdom. We do not forfeit our lives for the cause but we can be shunted to the margins of society because our beliefs are out of step with those of society.  In these last disastrous eight years of Obama's presidency we have seen the Christian Church and especially the Catholic Church attacked like no other time in history of the United States. 

We are forced to endure abortion, the intentional murder of defenseless babies, touted as "woman's health." What is so insidious about this is that our enemies including the radical Muslims are procreating at an greater rate then Christians of all ilks are. In America in the years ahead they will be able to achieve political power and sharia law may be imposed on all Americans. Look at China and the issue they have today because of the murder of girl children and their one baby policy. A race of people with just males making up the fabric of society is eventually going to age out of contention for being a world power.

Legislation, Obamacare, and the HHS mandate to be specific, is forcing Christians to support the providing of contraceptives to all that want them through our health insurance system even though this goes against our deeply held beliefs and is making people like the Little Sisters of the Poor criminals subject to fines.  Something is wrong here.  

We are supposed to recognize gay marriage in direct contradiction of God's law. President Obama celebrated the Supreme Court's decision by illuminating the outside of the White House, symbolic seat of our government with the colors of the "rainbow" which the sodomites have co-opted as the symbol of their unholy community.  

In retrospect I think that the crimes of Henry VII were mild compared to the offenses we routinely commit against God on a daily basis. Henry VII caught himself up in the trappings of this world and allowed pride and avarice to control his life.  Yet, Henry although he was disappointed that his wife only bore him a female child, he did not kill the child. In China, a girl child is likely to suffer death on the day of her birth. 

I do not envy the confirmads of 2016 because the beliefs of the common man will be directly against the beliefs taught by the Church that Christ founded. I have not however lost all hope because I know that the victory is already won and that Christ will put all of His enemies under His feet. Where sin abounds the grace of God also abounds and I believe that our youth will be up to the task of defending the faith because the Holy Spirit will be at work at them. Jesus promised that His Church will be built on rock and that the gates of hell will never prevail against it.  What Jesus has said will come to pass.          

Marriage

This week my wife and celebrated our Twenty-Third wedding anniversary.  We drove to southwestern Michigan to my father's house in a blizzard. The journey which normally took three hours took over six hours. The next day dawned clear, the sky was so very blue and the sun so very bright. We drove from my father's house to a the county seat, Paw Paw Michigan.  There Mary and I exchanged vows in front of a judge.  We were civilly married. Our marriage was blessed two years later when Mary's annulment came through and we reaffirmed our vows in front of God and His Church.  From day one I have taken my marriage vows very seriously as I not only promised them to my bride Mary, but also to God.  I believe God brought Mary and I together, it was His plan and I am bound to fully cooperate with it.  

Our marriage is a marriage between one man and one woman. This is how marriage has always been from the very start. Go back to the story of Adam and Eve. Adam did not find a partner from among any of the creatures of the earth. God therefore created a special being for him, a woman.  All through Bible history most of the people God chooses for special tasks are men that have but one wife. God considers the bond of marriage a sacred thing, not just an ordinary relationship but relationship where man and woman can cooperate together and bring new life into the world.  This is the reason why a man leaves his family and clings to his wife, to join God in the creation of new life.

Gay marriage is something that does not exist.  Our Supreme Court may say it does, our president may paint the gay rainbow in light on the White House, but that does not make gay marriage any more legitimate. Marriage is about the creation of life. Two men or two women engaged in a sexual act cannot consummate the act to join with God in creating a new human being.  You can scream all you want to about "equality under the law" but the spiritual nature of marriage and the marriage act itself makes such equality something that is impossible to achieve in the Congress or in the courts. 

But why is the Catholic Church so homophobic?  Homosexual action organizations trot out the homophobic label when they detect any disagreement with their positions. It therefore removes a persons right to disagree with their position by in effect saying that those that disagree with them are in some way irrational.   The Catholic Church do not see homosexual men or women as sinful people. The Church, however, does see the sexual acts between people of the same sex to be contrary to God's natural law.  The Church can never approve of these acts as they are not able to produce life.  On the other hand those who are afflicted with same sex attraction are welcome to be Catholics practicing and living their live in a chaste and celibate way.  Does this seem unfair?  Hardly, the Church calls all her children to be chaste and celibate and to make use of the physical act of love in the way God gave it to us, to be used to pro-create between one man and one woman.

The Church also sees a redefinition of marriage to include same sex unions to be a danger to society. Same sex marriages lack the solemnity of genuine marriages. Same sex marriages are based solely on the feeling one person for another. It does not have the same depth as a genuine marriage because no matter what the two men or women can never use their procreative powers in the way that God intended.  The feelings of love one has at the start of a relationship change through the years.  With man and woman love becomes less of a feeling and more of a way of life.  A homosexual union will go through the same sort of change, the original feelings of love will give way and the relationship will no longer meet the emotional needs of the partners and they will split and go their separate ways. 

Well, maybe two men cannot mate and procreate but they can certainly adopt can't they?  Unfortunately this is true. The children pay the price for having two mommies or two daddies. A child needs both male and female influences for them to grow up emotionally.  This balanced nurturing is required for healthy growth. 

Finally, the proponents of gay marriage are trying to change society to recognize homosexuality as a normal way of life.  They are trying to achieve acceptance of the straight community for no other reason but to silence the nagging doubt in the back of their conscience that something is wrong in their life.  Legal pronouncements will do nothing to assuage their conscience, it will remain standing in the way of a complete joyful life because they are looking for something that does not exist nor has it ever existed. 

Am I homophobic?  No, I am not.  I am a realist, I am a Catholic, and the reading and research I have done tells me that everything we do in life that goes against God's natural law leads to sadness, sin, death, and eternal loss of one's place with God.  I also because of my beliefs have to stand up and point out that homosexual actions are wrong, are against God's law and will lead to pain.  I have to stand up for what is right no matter what rabid gays thing and say.  I am a gentle person, I love life, I love people but I also must stand tall and speak my beliefs.  I have this right and duty.    

Your Big Chance - Convert The Catholic to Your Denomination - All apologists welcome!

Okay, here is your big chance - I am inviting Protestants the world over to make their case why this Cradle Catholic should forsake the Church and join your denomination.   Here are the rules: 
Rule One - there are no rules.  

I do ask you to be kind and professional.  Please refrain from using profanity of any sort. Profanity will be cause for your ejection from the game.  If you use a Bible verse, please be good enough to give me chapter and verse.  I will give thoughtful, prayerful, consideration to what you tell me and my responses will be made in the same way. 

My Protestant brothers and sisters, this is your big chance to win a Catholic soul for your denomination - let the games begin. 

Storm Clouds Gather - A Modern Christian Writes a Psalm of Lament

STORM CLOUDS GATHERING

Today is the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time and the Church presents us with readings that tell us of storm clouds gathering in the life of Christ.  The first reading form Wisdom  tells us that there are those that will be plotting against God's Holy One to the point where they will put Him to death in a shameful way.  The second reading is from James and reminds us that discord and disharmony come from our propensity to covet what we cannot have and from our unbridled passions. In the Gospel, Jesus reminds us that He will suffer and die and after three days rise again,  Here is my "Psalm" of lament to My God. 

Hear us oh Lord for our fears are many. 

We are simple human beings my Jesus,

How can we be unmoved and unconcerned as we watch 

Daily the violent deaths that are inflicted on God's children,

By Isis And the Army of Satan 
And the followers of the False Prophet?

They sow death and destruction .

The people and land cry out. 

Their malevolent eyes and hands spoil the land. 

They kill, rape, maim, and martyr Your holy ones. 

They cannibalize their own followers as well.  

These followers of Satan take joy in murder. 

Day and night they water the soil with blood of the innocent.

Young and old, men and women, girls and boys and babies at the breast fall to their swords.

We look on in horror and ask; "What can we do?" 

The answer comes on the wind, 

The answer is audible to all of your servants, 

You call us to trust in you Lord..

Lord, fill my heart with trust in You.  

For You know the day of your triumph. 

On that day all things in the cosmos, in Heaven, on the Earth and under the earth will call You Lord. 

Let me trust again Lord in the Rainbow. 

Let my heart be lightened by the Star of Bethlehem.  

Let me trust that you will move your mighty arm when the time is right and bring all things under your subjection. 

Lord, let me work for the establishment of your Kingdom on earth. Let me be a brother to my brothers and to my sisters as well 
For we have but one Father.  
Let my example be one of patience and joy 
For I will wait in prayerful hope for your victory to be manifest. 
Let me last just one minute longer than your enemies 
Lord, for in that minute your strength and love will be forever written in the sky. 

Lord, I trust in You to be my Hiding Place, my Rock and my fortress. 

I hand to my enemies my body.
With my body my Jesus, with that they can do as they will 

But my soul, my soul, my soul Oh Jesus, that I give to you! 

I am your possession, 

I am your slave, 

I accept Your will for me and thank you for your great mercy.

All praise and glory and honor be to the Name of Jesus, a name of the Son of God our Father   

Amen

Once Saved - Always Saved - A Lie Exposed ! ! !

Jesus is our Shepherd, our leader, our protector.  He is not like a simple hireling, no, he laid down his life for us.  He went through the agony of death on the Cross and He redeemed us, curing the sins of our late great ancestors Adam and Eve. 

What does Jesus expect from us?  To hear some people talk he expects not much from us.  Some say that by simply saying the "sinners prayer" that we merit heaven.  These same people say that the Bible is the source of all knowledge we have about God and heaven.  Yet, they cannot tell me where it says in the Bible to pray the sinner's prayer.  The notion of once saved always saved does not make sense in the natural world nor does it in the Kingdom of God.  What if I am "saved" when I say the sinner's prayer on day one.  I live the next ten years of my life blamelessly, promoting the Kingdom, leading dozens of others in praying the sinner's prayer - saving them all - alleluia !  Then after ten years of faithful service and psalm singing I take up a new career and become a bank robber, killing indiscriminately if someone resists and I then embrace another religion such as Islam. Are you telling me that if I died with these sins on my soul I would go to heaven because "once saved, always saved" is the rule?  Sorry, that defies logic and worse than that it defies what is revealed to us in the Bible.  Recall the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 25 beginning at verse 31. "

"When the Son of man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels, then he will take his seat on his throne of glory.  All nations will be assembled before him and he will separate people one from another as the shepherd separates the sheep from goats.  He will place the sheep on His right hand and the goats on the the left.  Then the King will say to those on his right hand. "Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take as your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. 

For when I was hungry you gave me food, thirsty you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome.  Lacking clothes you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison you cam to see me.

The upright will say to him in reply Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?  When did we see you as a stranger and make you welcome, lacking clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to see you?

And the king will answer "In truth I tell you in so far as you did this for one of the least of these brothers of mind, you did it to me. 

Then he will say to those on his left hand "Go away from me, with your curse upon you to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 

For when I was hungry you gave me no food, thirsty you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you never made me welcome.  Lacking clothes you did not clothe me, sick and or, in prison you never came to see me.

Then it will be their turn to ask, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty a stranger or lacking clothes, sick or in prison and did not come to your help?"

Then he will answer "In truth I tell you in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these you neglected to do it to me." 

And they will go away to eternal punishment and the upright to eternal life. "

So it is evident from this one story told by Jesus that simply saying the sinner's prayer is not enough to guarantee ones space in heaven.  What Jesus wants from us is more, much more.  He gave His all on the Cross, teaching us that God's love has no limits.  He lived his life not for Himself, but for our sake. He withheld nothing.  He calls us to imitate Him and to help our brothers and sisters.  

Do we have to do the heroic things? Heavens no!  In Mark Jesus tells us, "If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, then in truth I tell you he will most certainly not lose his reward."  A cup of water is a small thing but it is a great mercy to a thirsty man.  Look for the things you can do for someone else in the course of your day to day life.  Every mercy you extend you extend to Jesus. 

Please think very carefully about the "once saved, always saved" lie that the "reformers" came up with.  It has sent many to places where they did not think that they would end up. By the way we live our whole life will determine our choice of our eternal home. In order to be placed among the sheep when Jesus returns we must put our faith into action.  Believing is certainly a good first step. Studying the Bible and learning about salvation is also commendable.  We must guard against knowing more about God than loving God.  We must have knowledge of God but we must demonstrate our love by choosing to do the right for His glory and to do so expecting no reward. 

Remember, I will answer any question about the Catholic Church, her beliefs or Christianity in general.  I will not respond to hate mail.  May God bless you and light your path today.  Amen

The Beatitudes

I found this video on You Tube and for many of us the message that is delivered in this video will seem too simplistic. Quite honestly, it is too simple for theologians, Bible scholars, clergy, and any other person who spends time in apologetics.  I myself have written a paper on the Beatitudes and I have to confess that this video puts all my learned thought to shame.

I bid you dear reader to watch, no scratch that, take in this video. The truth it exposes will send shivers up your spine and perhaps give you some food for thought.

Leave a comment if you like. .  God bless!