Curing On The Sabbath

There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 

Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate
a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
"Do you want to be well?"
The sick man answered him,
"Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;
while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me."
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk."
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

Now that day was a Sabbath.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured,
"It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat." 
He answered them, "The man who made me well told me,
'Take up your mat and walk.'"
They asked him,
"Who is the man who told you, 'Take it up and walk'?"
The man who was healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had slipped away since there was a crowd there.
After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
"Look, you are well; do not sin any more,
so that nothing worse may happen to you."
The man went and told the Jews
that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus
because he did this on a Sabbath.
JN 5:1-16

T

he pool that the invalid was sitting by had the reputation of being a place of healing.  When the water was stirred up, supposedly by an angel, the first one into the water was cured of whatever was wrong with him.  For a man that was paralyzed, the chances of being the first to get into the water were very slim.  But this was a place of hope and the man had a sincere belief that he could be cured someday.  On this day, the Sabbath, he was once again at the pool.  I have to wonder what the social life was like amongst the frequenters of the place.  Did they speak to each other while they were waiting for the angel to stir up the healing waters?  Were they like the old men that gather at McDonalds Restaurants all over the place and discuss the news of the day, the things that happened in their lives?  Or, did they just sit there each one intently watching the pool for the first sign of turbulence?  I like to think that they had a small community formed there where they could sympathize with each other while they waited.

So, to this rag-tag group of sick people, Jesus approached.  It is worthy to note that Jesus took the initiative here and asked the man if he wanted to be cured.  Read carefully and you will see that the man does not actually answer the question of Jesus.  He says that he has no one to put him in the water when it is stirred up by the angel.  I think that if the man knew who he was speaking to that he would have simply said that he wanted to be made whole.  So it appears that he did not know of Jesus or at least he did not know that it was Jesus who was speaking to him.  Jesus tells the man to pick up his mat and to go home.  The man, his health restored, does exactly as he was told.  He picks up his mat and walks away.  We do not hear him offer any words of thanks.  His journey home brought him into contact with some of the temple officials who immediately chastised him for walking home carrying his mat. It was after all the Sabbath and carrying the mat was considered work and that was not allowed in accordance with the laws of Yahweh.  He tells them that the man who cured him, a further violation of the Sabbath law of rest, told him to pick up his mat and go on home.  They pressed him for the name of the miracle maker but, as we suspected, the cured man had no idea who Jesus was.  The temple crew, realizing that this man would be of no use to them probably told him to put his mat down and obey the Law.  The man then caught sight of Jesus.  He went and told the officials that it was Jesus who had done this work to him.  How they could be so blind as to completely discount the healing that they had seen take place almost in front of their eyes is amazing. The officials became enraged at the violation of the Sabbath and they were blinded to the work of healing and compassion that Jesus had wrought.

I think that it is important that we realize two things about the man who was cured.  First of all, he never said, “Thank you” for the gift he was given and secondly, his telling who cured him was not because he was tattling on Jesus, he was rather proclaiming that this is the person that cured him.

In our lives, we should be alert to those times when we have been the recipient of a minor miracle.  They happen every day. The fact that you wake up in the morning is a minor miracle and we should start the day with a note of gratefulness even if arthritis makes it hard to get out of bed! To follow a law in blind obedience will certainly keep you out of trouble, but to learn the reason for the law and to keep it in the spirit it was written is a far better way of doing things.  Finally, we must always keep our eyes focused on Jesus.  To move our eyes elsewhere could mean that we could lose him in the crowd. This crowd is made up of the things of this world and we could be blinded by the things that glitter,  One of the most beautiful rocks is “fools gold”  It shines brightly as the sunlight hits it but it is bogus, not real, not lasting, and certainly not valuable.  Keeping our eyes on Jesus will help us to stay focused on what is important in life. 

A Word From Our Sponsor...on Purgatory

III. THE FINAL PURIFICATION, OR PURGATORY

1030 All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death, they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

1031 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.⁶⁰⁶ The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:⁶⁰⁷

As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence, we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.⁶⁰⁸

1032 This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: "Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin."⁶⁰⁹ From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God.⁶¹⁰ The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead:

Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.⁶¹¹

The above is an Excerpt From the Catechism of the Catholic Church. 

Faith Before All

At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee.
For Jesus himself testified
that a prophet has no honor in his native place.
When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him,
since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast;
for they themselves had gone to the feast.

Then he returned to Cana in Galilee,
where he had made the water wine.
Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum.
When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea,
he went to him and asked him to come down
and heal his son, who was near death.
Jesus said to him,
“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
The royal official said to him,
“Sir, come down before my child dies.”
Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.”
The man believed what Jesus said to him and left.
While the man was on his way back,
his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live.
He asked them when he began to recover.
They told him,
“The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.”
The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him,
“Your son will live,”
and he and his whole household came to believe.
Now this was the second sign Jesus did
when he came to Galilee from Judea.

F

aith is the first step.  If we do not have faith, nothing else matters.   Without faith we walk along the path of life without help, wandering aimlessly and without any hope of arriving at a worthwhile destination. Faith is believing what you cannot detect with your senses.  In our story today, the man came to Jesus asking for a cure for his servant.   Jesus tells the man that his servant has been cured.  I think at first the man had assumed that Jesus would need to come and see the patient, to determine what the problem was so that He could apply the right fix from his bag of tricks.  But he believed Jesus when he was told that his servant was cured and he went back home.  When he got close to home, he was informed that his servant had gotten better and he found out that it was at the exact time that Jesus said he was cured.

What about us?  Does our faith require an immediate response from Jesus in order for it to remain?  Are we able to pray and believe that we were heard and that our request has been responded to even when it does not appear to our feeble minds that it has?  Our faith depends not on the results we can see but rather on the knowledge that our Lord will do what is best for us in spite of what we ask for. Our faith is in Jesus, not in what we have asked for.  Our faith does not depend on time either.  What we see as the silence of God is the sound of his will working in our life providing the best for his son or daughter.  Faith in Jesus and His ultimate victory is the source of joy and strength in our lives.  We know that no matter what happens in our life that our Lord knows about it and His victory will swallow up any defeats that come to us. 

Faith, in the long run, is the knowledge that God is Love and that His love conquers all.   But we are also taught to keep asking, to be persistent in our prayers, does that diminish the faith we are demonstrating?  Should we not ask only once and then turn and walk away?  Because prayer is the act of communicating with God, we should never be afraid to ask over and over again for what we believe we need.  It could very well be that on one of these occasions we will receive inspiration that what we were asking for is exactly what we do not need and God in His love for us points out, through the circumstances of our life, that He has a better plan and has already begun to execute it.

Faith can move mountains for you even if you live on the plains! 

Sunday Edition #2 Hating The Catholic Church

Sunday Edition                    #2

Opinion and Points for Discussion for the Catholic That Thinks!   This Week:

Anti-Catholic Bias

Is Alive and Well

A

sk any Christian in America if it is easy to follow their faith in America in the twenty-first century and no matter which denomination the person belongs to you will probably hear that being a Christian is difficult.  They will agree that our society is turning away from Christian morality and are turning to left-leaning, liberal, secular morality where God has no place.  The same people will express a longing for that “old time religion” where people knew what was right and what was wrong.  In those long gone old-time religion days, the Christian world was united in many things including the sacredness of life, the absolute sinfulness of abortion, the validity of the ten commandments as rules of law, the fact that in marriage, what God joined together man could not cut asunder.  Then, one by one each denomination was invaded by a new generation of members, those who we now call “baby boomers.”  These children of my generation, the kids of the veterans of World War Two and Korea were brought up differently and they had other ideas regarding the notion of freedom.  In the Protestant world old pastors saw their flocks shrink as the young ones went to preachers that preached not the true Gospel, but rather a watered down version of it.  Little by little the Protestant world changed.  Here and there divorce was accepted.  In another denomination, an abortion was deemed okay “under certain circumstances.”  Day by day the face of the Protestant churches changed, becoming at once more liberal and at the same time less focused on the message of the Gospel.  These same people who long for the old-time religion will also tell you their opinion of the Roman Catholic Church for those teachings were preserved in pristine condition and passed down from father to son and from mother to daughter.  The Catholic Church is called the “Whore of Babylon” and its leader, the Pope of Rome is called “The Antichrist.”   The core teachings of the so-called “Bible Believing” Christians changed over time to accommodate the members but their prejudices against Catholics did not. In America, the land both I and my parents before me were born in, the land that I love, Catholics can be the target of hate without fear of reprisal.  The Catholic Church is a large soft target that anyone can speak out against without any fear of being brought up short and being lectured on tolerance and diversity.

Anti-Catholic bigotry has a long history.  The first settlers on the continent were Protestants who were glad to be leaving England where Catholic influence was still being felt.  Once they arrived at Plymouth Rock they set up laws and regulations that prohibited the Catholic Church from setting up shop in their colony.  The holy days of the Church were no longer celebrated and December 25th was considered just another work day (unless it fell on Sunday.)  In the colony of Massachuttes, there was a law that exiled Catholic priests.  They were given one warning and if they were caught if they returned to the colony the penalty was death.  Later on, the Know Nothings and KKK did what they could to make the Roman Catholic Church go away, they did not succeed, but they did hold a lot of political power at the start of the twentieth century and the immigration laws of the 1920’s that effectively turned off the fuel for the melting pot was seen as a way to protect America from the invasion of European immigrants, almost all Catholic, that would water down the influence of the Protestants.  At the time, and even up until the 1960’s it was thought that no Catholic could be a good American because he had to follow what the Pope, a leader of a foreign country, said.   It was John F. Kennedy who famously said that he was not the Catholic candidate, he was the Democratic candidate for president.  

But is Anti-Catholic feeling still going strong today? 

-         Under Obamacare, Catholic organizations were mandated to pay for contraception for their employees.

-         In New York, an obscene statue of the Blessed Virgin is displayed in a public art museum.

-         In the media, when a Catholic does something good, religion is not mentioned.  On the other hand, a Catholic’s religion is always mentioned if misbehavior is involved. 

-         Type “Roman Catholic” in any search engine on the internet and I bet that among the first ten websites listed, at least five will be anti-Catholic in nature.

-         Publishers like Jack Chick publish inflammatory, untrue accounts of renegade priests and nuns gone wild and weird little comic book tracts that are so patently bad that some Protestant bookstores won’t stock them.  Yet, the stories, which are like the ones that were made popular by the Ku Klux Klan in the early twentieth century are still available,

-         When Pope Paul VI died in 1978, Bob Jones of Bob Jones University wrote, “Pope Paul VI, archpriest of Satan, a deceiver and an antichrist, has, like Judas, gone to his own place.”

-         Will the day come when a Catholic Priest’s refusal to wed a same-sex couple brings them into legal trouble as a practitioner of hate?

-         Can you imagine Senator Feinstein asking a Muslim if his religion would affect his being a judge?  Luckily Amy Barrett was a Catholic and the question could be asked without fear.

-         The now-ousted Steve Bannon showed that anti-Catholic bias is just below the surface when he said that the Catholics supported the dreamers because they need illegal aliens to fill the churches.

I think you see that there is no lack of anti-Catholic bias out there.  It is quite ironic that the Catholic Church has become the main proponent of the full Gospel.  Unlike our Protestant brothers and sisters, our Church has as a matter of policy not kept up with the times.  Her doctrine remains unchanged.  Her garment is unrent.  Granted, with an ultra-liberal Pope such as Francis, it remains to be seen what condition he will leave the Church in when his reign ends.  His silence on the interpretation of his document on whether a divorced and civilly remarried couple can receive communion, I believe, is carefully crafted to allow dialogue and change without him having to mount the throne of Peter and declare it.  The good part about this is that the next pope will be able to roll it all back and put things back where they belong.  But that, my friends, is a topic for another time.  

Please, leave your comments if you like to and until next week Sunday Edition says, “Have a blessed week.”

3:16

Jesus said to Nicodemus:
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, 
so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, 
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish 
but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, 
but that the world might be saved through him.
Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, 
but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, 
because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
And this is the verdict,
that the light came into the world, 
but people preferred darkness to light,
because their works were evil.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light
and does not come toward the light, 
so that his works might not be exposed.
But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, 
so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.
JN 3:14-21

Y ou see it at professional sports venues all of the time. Those signs that say “John 3:16.”  This, of course, is the famous line from John that says “God so loved the world that He sent His only Son to save the world.”  Those of us who are Christians would know what those numbers mean.  We have the background to know that it is referring to the Bible and specifically to the writings of John.  But, I fear that many are those that see these prophetic signs and have no idea what they mean.  They may even know the words but have no clue why it should matter to them. Jesus shows how God has made the first move to right the wrong we committed in the Garden of Eden.  He begins by sending not just an angel, but His very own Son who will live the life of a first-century man, earning the food that he ate by the sweat of his brow and then in the last three years of His life, He will show us the way to God and heaven and to a life that will never end.  All we have to do is listen to Him and to do what he says. God truly loved the world. PLEASE REMEMBER THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY.  THEY NEED OUR HELP DESPERATELY.  THERE ARE MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF SOULS THAT HAVE NO ONE TO PRAY FOR THE.  FOR EXAMPLE, PROTESTANTS DENY THE EXISTENCE OF PURGATORY AND THUS ONCE A PROTESTANT DIES THERE IS NO ONE TO OFFER PRAYERS FOR THEM.  HELP IS URGENTLY NEEDED.  PLEASE PRAY FOR THEM TODAY.

The Problem of Pride

Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
“Two people went up to the temple area to pray;
one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself,
‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — 
greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week,
and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former;
for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
LK 18:9-14

T

here is no better use of our time than to use it in prayer.  This is something that I have always believed.  But today we can see that our attitude in prayer can make all of the difference.

To begin with we have the Pharisee.  The Pharisees were the power party of the time.  People looked up to them to see how they were to behave.  The Pharisees took their religion to heart and they wore it on their sleeves for all to see.  For many of them, not all, it was all about appearance.  For example, when you were going to give alms, you sent your servants with trumpets to announce the fact.  The people would watch as you humbly dispensed your charity and they would be in awe.  If you were fasting then by gum everyone was going to know just how miserable you were due to the fasting you were undertaking.  Again, the people would see what you were doing and they would be thunderstruck at how holy you were.  In other words, many of the Pharisees were about making a show of their piety.  As we know, this is not how to go about things.  Today our Pharisee is standing right up front and raising his “holy eyes” to God and telling God just how darned good he is and how he follows the law and fasts and does everything right.  Pride was taking the place of prayer.  This prayer was not taking into account the faults that were part of the Pharisee’s soul.  It’s a funny thing, but the holier that you are, the less worthy it is you feel of being called holy.

In the back of the temple, we have the tax collector.  The tax collector was looked down upon by the crowd.  In the pecking order in ancient Israel tax collectors were third from the bottom with only women and lepers being of lower caste. They were seen as traitors to Israel because they worked for the hated Romans, the occupiers of the Promised Land.  Many of the tax collectors were not very honest when they did their job.  They would be assigned a quota for a particular town, for example, and paid a percentage of what they collected.  Many of the tax collectors billed the citizens more than what the Romans wanted.  The Romans did not care, just so they got what was owed to the treasury. So, here in the temple, standing in the back we have this tax collector.  He is painfully aware of his sinful nature and he will not raise his eyes to heaven.  He beats his breast and asks for forgiveness for his many sins.  God heard and acted on the tax collector’s prayer while the Pharisee’s musings went into the heavenly trash bucket.

It is a good thing, to be honest with yourself and to take who you are and what you’ve done into consideration when you pray.  Our prayer should be a reflection of what is in our heart. It should be speaking to God as a friend.  Building yourself up as the Pharisee did is not the best way to pray.  But, unless you consider yourself completely corrupt as out tax collector friend, you can be a bit more upbeat when you speak to God.

Everyone thinks prayer is so mysterious and hard.  What it is, is simply one friend speaking to another.  When you pray, be completely honest.  God can take it.  He knows what it is like to be human, He came down and tried it out for Himself.  If you are happy, share the happiness with your friend,  If you are sad, pour out your heart and God will wipe the tear from your eye.  If you are angry or upset, be not afraid, tell God that you are and tell Him why and he will console you and perhaps suggest a remedy. 

The thing to remember when you pray is that you are not St. John of the Cross, or Francis of Assisi.  You are you and it is the real you that God is interested in.  To pray is to put yourself in the hands of God.  When you pray, the God of the Universe is listening to you personally as if you were his only child.  There is no need for fancy words, just be you and portray yourself as you are. 

PURGATORY – Yes, it is a real place and it is the temporary home for millions of souls.  I wish that it was true that when we die we immediately go to heaven.  Certainly, for some of us that will be true, but not for all.  Please, do not let your love end at the grave.  Pray for the Poor Souls today. 

WIth All Your Heart !

One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him,
"Which is the first of all the commandments?"
Jesus replied, "The first is this:
Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The second is this:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these."
The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher.
You are right in saying,
He is One and there is no other than he.
And to love him with all your heart,
with all your understanding,
with all your strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself
is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding,
he said to him,
"You are not far from the Kingdom of God."
And no one dared to ask him any more questions.

And no one dared to ask him any more questions...

Well, I have to ask, what questions would there be to ask?  This scribe, it appears was one of the good ones, an honest man that had a spiritual way of thinking. If we love God, all else follows.  If we love God, sin becomes harder for us to bear.  If we love God, we will love our neighbor because we will recognize him or her as a brother or sister with whom we share the same Father.  Loving God and living life as if you do love God is what we are supposed to do, 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The grave is not the end. There is life after death and resurrection on the last day!  The Poor Souls in Purgatory need our help, they cannot pray for themselves, they depend on us.  Millions of souls are waiting for our prayers.  Please, don't let your love end at the funeral home or the grave.  Pray for those you love by name just in case they are in Purgatory.  If they are not there, your prayers and sacrifices will help someone else!    

When You Put A Car In Neutral, it does not move.

Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute,
and when the demon had gone out,
the mute man spoke and the crowds were amazed.
Some of them said, "By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons,
he drives out demons."
Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven.
But he knew their thoughts and said to them,
"Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste
and house will fall against house.
And if Satan is divided against himself, 
how will his kingdom stand?
For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I drive out demons.
If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul,
by whom do your own people drive them out?
Therefore they will be your judges.
But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons,
then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.
When a strong man fully armed guards his palace,
his possessions are safe.
But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him,
he takes away the armor on which he relied
and distributes the spoils.
Whoever is not with me is against me,
and whoever does not gather with me scatters."
LK 11:14-23

When it comes to Jesus, not making a choice is making a choice.  The battle lines are drawn.  On the one side, we have Jesus and those that have decided He is who He says He is, the Son of God.  These people make up the Kingdom of God and are called “Christians.”  It does not matter which denomination it is you find yourself in. if you call Jesus Lord and acknowledge that He is the Son of God who came to earth to save us from our sins, well, then you are a Christian.  Let it be known that the full truth of the Treasury of Faith resides in and is guarded by the Catholic Church but those that follow the Protestant tradition have more in common with us than that they have that is different. 

Next, in line, we have the people who say that all religions are good, one is good as the other and they find that Jesus was a good man, a prophet of God, who had some really good ideas but He is nothing more than a prophet.  Buddha too had good ideas and so did Confucius.  When it comes to Jesus, they are wrong.  Jesus was many things but he either is who He says He is or he is a faker and a dangerous liar who got what he deserved when Pilate put Him on the cross.  You cannot lump Jesus in with the rest of the characters that people respect as religious leaders.  Jesus, out of all of them, is the only one that said that He was the Light of the World.  Of all of the things Jesus was, he was never a good, pious, man,  You accept Jesus as the Son of God or you don’t.  Son of God or pious faker, which do you choose?

The last group is by far the largest.  This is the group that is actively against Jesus and what He stands for.  These are the enemies of the Gospel, those that would trample on the Word of God.  This group includes those that follow the occult, the worshippers of the devil, communists, nazis, abortionists and those who advocate for them, and surprisingly, those who live their life without making a decision about Jesus.  By not making a decision for Jesus, they take up a stand against Him.  

The job of those of us who believe is simple.  We need to convert the other two groups and teach them to love the Lord and to walk with Jesus instead of against Hum,  Sometimes we will have to use words to accomplish this task.

You are invited to pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory.