Quite an Eye Full

"But blessed are your eyes, because they see, 

and your ears, because they hear. 

Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people

longed to see what you see but did not see it,

and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

I never thought about this before.  Sharing the earth with me are seven and a half billion people.  That is certainly a lot of people. Of that number, I can count myself as one of the fortunate ones because I have heard and have accepted the wild tale of God coming to earth, taking on our mortal bodies, working a sun up to sundown job which He learned from his foster father.  Then, after thirty years of coming to know what being a human was like he began to teach about the Kingdom of God, which angered the people in power who could not see the forest for the trees, and they hung this God come to earth on a tree and left Him there to experience the pain of death, which, like any other human, He did. Then He did something that no one could conceive of, He rose from the dead.  I am one of the blessed because I have heard and I believe these truths.

I am really happy that I am one of the chosen ones. But then again, everyone on earth is a chosen one, it is just that they have to first hear the Good News and then they have to believe the Good News. In this modern age, there are so many opportunities for the pagan (Come on now, that's what they are, I don't mean it as an insult.) can hear about Jesus and the wonderful work He did so many years ago that has changed the ultimate fate of believers.  He opened the Gate of Heaven and has readied the feast. It is just too bad that the vast majority of people on this world do not look at life through the lens of eternity.  They fix their eyes on what is and not what can be.  They rise daily, work for eight or more hours, eat, then sleep and then do it again and again and again buying this and that with their money and not storing anything away for eternity. 

So, my eyes are blessed and one of the things I have to do is to help my brothers and sisters to see, to look at the long picture, to store up things for eternity.  This is the New Evangelization, funny, it's just how the old evangelization worked too. 

THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY NEED YOUR HELP.  PLEASE, TAKE A MOMENT NOW AND PRAY FOR THEM.  THEY CANNOT HELP THEMSELVES, THEY DEPEND ON US.  WON'T YOU HELP TODAY?

Top Secret. No Longer

Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,

nor secret that will not be known.

What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;

what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.

Did you read the story about Harvard University?  It seems that this grand old college is about to do something rather unique.  It is about to close their doors to all fraternities and sororities and make Greek life on their campus a thing of the past. This draconian decree is not aimed at all of the groups but rather at the secret societies that the college community is famous for.  These single sex groups instill in the members, a sense of entitlement and it is said that most of the incidents of non-consensual sex, a polite term for rape, comes from male members of the secret clubs. The notion that banning the organizations will change how these self-entitled men handle themselves around women is quaintly naive. The fact is that you would have to go back in time and teach the young hooligans how life should be lived and this is not possible.

The darkness conceals a lot of things but all will be brought to light on the Day of Judgment. We will be surprised on that day when we see some people we assumed were destined for hell be welcomed by Jesus into the Kingdom.  Surprised indeed we will be when we see some who gave all the outward appearances of being saints only to be sent away in eternal disgrace. The Christian should be not afraid to allow the secret thoughts in his/her heart to be revealed to the world.  Our inside self should be a mirror of our outside self and our behavior should be a transparent map to the whole person that we are.    

For us Christians, it is not enough for us to have knowledge of salvation, we are called to shout from the housetops the Good News that Jesus brought into the world.  The Church is NOT a Secret Society.  Like it or not, the Church IS God's Kingdom on Earth.  It has a king, Jesus and the King appointed a Prime Minister, the Pope to take care of the Kindom's earthly business while the King is away.  Protestants, whether they realize it or not, depend on the authority of the Catholic Church for their teachings. For example, it was the Church that defined the Trinity because nowhere in the Bible is the Trinity defined, it is only alluded to. All of the things that the Catholics and Protestants hold in common come from the teaching authority of the Church.  It was the Church that gave the Bible to people and it is the Church that has the authority to determine what is meant by the holy infallible words in that great library of books. Bishop Baron says in an infallible book without an authoritative interpreter is a useless book. The Protestant notion that every man can interpret scripture for himself is absolute nonsense, otherwise, why would we have over thirty-thousand Christian denominations in the United States alone, each with a slightly different interpretation on this or that point of scripture?  The Holy Spirit is said to guide individual readers.  Why does the Spirit guide one person one way and another person a different way when interpreting scripture?  Jesus built His Church as a kingdom on the Rock of St. Peter and gave the Church and by Church I mean not an invisible mystical group somewhere in the ether, but rather flesh and bone human beings, the Pope and the magisterium of the Church the ability to discriminate what is true in scripture from what is false under the protection of the Holy Spirit. 

We Christians must take what we have learned and share it by shouting out to others what was whispered to us in the dark. We are responsible for helping to get the message out and we should do so without delay for the time of God's mercy for those in this world is finite because if we do not accept His mercy we will have to accept his judgment. 

PLEASE REMEMBER THE HOLY SOULS IN PURGATORY IN YOUR PRAYERS TODAY, THEY DEPEND ON US TO HELP THEM AND THEY WILL NOT FORGET THOSE THAT PRAY FOR THEM

You Are The Light of The World

When I was young, my best friend and his family went camping in the wilds of southern Illinois at a place called "Lincoln Trails State Park."  Now, if you are going to rough it for a week, this is the place to do it in.  Each space had an electric hook up, there were honest to goodness flush toilets and immaculately clean showers.  Couple this with a beautiful fishing lake and you had a little bit of paradise on earth if you are into camping that is.  We had a good time that week.

What I remember the most is the night I walked down to the dock.  I am a city boy and when I looked up into the sky and had my first look at the Milky Way, I just knew that God had something to do with this.  The sky was black velvet and there were a billion stars in view.  I looked at that and realized just how small and insignificant I truly was. I knew from science class that the light of some of those stars had taken thousands of years to reach my eyes.  There was a great majesty in the sky above me and it took my breath away.  God is the great builder of things and of souls.  If the Milky Way is so impressive, what must the soul of a saint be like? 

We are called in the Gospel for today to be reflections of Our Father's love. We are called to shine like stars and even brighter than that!  Our brightness, fueled by our love of God, will attract others to Our Father because of the beauty our souls receives as grace from Him.  

A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  During the day the sun points out its location and at night the lights of its streets and byways show exactly where it is.  The Catholic Church, through each of us, must be that city on the hill. If we treat others with the love that God is treating us, then people will be irresistibly drawn to God and that built in desire to be one with God, which they have buried deeply in their soul, will blaze forth and they too will add to the light of the City of God.