You will NOT be forgiven if you commit this sin!

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.
When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities,
do not worry about how or what your defense will be
or about what you are to say. 
For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say."

Imagine this.  A little boy is cautioned by his mother to never ever touch the stove because it is hot and it can hurt you. The boy immediately attains an interest in the stove and wants to know what his mother was speaking about.  One day, Mom puts on a pot of water to boil noodles.  She turns on the heat and then the telephone rings.  She leaves the kitchen to answer the phone.  The little boy is left there alone.  The mother takes quite a bit of time on the phone and soon the boy can hear that the pot is making sounds and it looks like some sort of smoke is coming from the top of it.  Soon the pot is raddling and seemingly calling his name.  He moves a chair in front of the stove, he just has to see this wonder. Up he goes and as he gets eye level with the pot, he accidentally hits the handle and some of the boiling liquid splashes him and he screams!  His mother, in the other room, drops the phone and runs into the kitchen to find her son's skin on his left arm to be a bright red.  She picks the boy up and tends to his injury and later the boy is given a time out for his disobedience.  

We run into a similar problem in our own lives when we disobey the Lord. He does not want us to burn ourselves so he has given us Jesus who has told us what to do.  When Jesus went back to heaven, the Holy Spirit took His place and each one of us receives guidance our whole life long from the Spirit who showers us with graces to help us be responsible children to our Father.  He never ever gives up.   Throughout your life, the Spirit is caring for you and guiding you on the right path.  Happy is the one who heeds the words of the Spirit and does what is right.  If your life is one of sin on the other hand and by your willful sinning you ignore the Spirit in your life, at your particular judgment your attitude will assure you of an eternity away from God. 

Listen for the Spirit in your life.  His voice is always there unless you make the choice to tune it out. Your choice will have far-reaching consequences that are eternal in nature.  
Renew yourself every day by frequent prayer and a daily examination of conscience.  This will assure you that the voice that is the Holy Spirit will always be heard and you will not commit the one unpardonable sin. 

Please remember to pray for the poor souls in Purgatory.

We Are Almost Out of This Vital Commodity

Brothers and sisters:
If you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law.                
Now the works of the flesh are obvious:
immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry,
sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy,
outbursts of fury acts of selfishness,
dissensions, factions, occasions of envy,
drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.
I warn you, as I warned you before,
that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Against such, there is no law.
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh
with its passions and desires.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit. 




There is a lot of discord in this world.  We are seeing all of the things Paul states are works of the flesh. There are great amounts of immorality, impurity, idolatry in the world.  These things can be as close as your home computer.  Sorcery is on the rise under the title Wicca and every town has at least one new age store and at least one place a person can go to have his or her future foretold.   A day does not go by where we do not hear of acts caused by anger and selfishness.  It would appear to me that the world is running out of Spirit. 

It is an amazing age we live in.  Knowledge is at our fingertips. Today the content of all of the libraries of the world are available through our smartphones.   The knowledge that a typical sixth grader has in his or her mind today would astound Michaelangelo, Galileo, Newton and other great thinkers of the age.  Transport someone with just average intelligence and education back to the twelveth century and they would be considered geniuses!  

Yes, our age has a lot of wonderful things which give us wonderful opportunities to make the world a better place for us and those that will come after us.  But, we, when taken as a whole, are lacking in the love and charity to use the marvels of the age for the good of others.  We keep things for ourselves.  We have made ourselves slaves to the things of this world.  We must break free and cling to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to work in and through us using all of the modern things at our beck and call to better the world and ready it for the great accounting when Jesus returns.  If we do not do this, we will hear words from the savior that we do not want to hear.  But, if we sacrifice our lives for the good of others by taking less and giving more we will be doing the work of the Spirit and bringing others tot he Kingdom of God.  The reward we will receive from Jesus will make all of the inconvenience and hard work we do worth it.  Embrace the Spirit, let Him guide you, be docile to His promptings and your life will be one of great peace. 

Please remember the poor souls in Purgatory in your prayers today.  

Smoke and Mirrors Do Not Fool God

After Jesus had spoken,
a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home.
He entered and reclined at table to eat.
The Pharisee was amazed to see
that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal.
The Lord said to him, "Oh you Pharisees!
Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish,
inside you are filled with plunder and evil.
You fools!
Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside?
But as to what is within, give alms,
and behold, everything will be clean for you."


Not everything is as it appears in our lives.  To others, we may give the appearance of being calm and serene and yet on the inside, we are nervous and fearful.  We can also give the illusion of being holy and centered on God and things of the Kingdom of God while the truth is we are very much engaged in the stuff of earth and we covet what others have and we work ourselves to death to get more and more things. God is not fooled by our attempts to appear holy.  He knows what is inside of our hearts and how closely it matches what we show to others.  Today I am going to spend some time during my quiet time to see how I measure up and to see where I need to improve so that my inside matches my outside.  Think about it.  I think it is a good way to spend some time. 

Don't forget your relatives and friends that may be in Purgatory.  Pray for them by name and pray also for the person who has been there the longest and has no one to pray for them. 

Overexposure Taints The Church Hierarchy

Brothers and sisters:
Indeed the word of God is living and effective,
sharper than any two-edged sword,
penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow,   
and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.
No creature is concealed from him,
but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him
to whom we must render an account.

As a person in the pew, and a loyal Catholic, I have to confess that I am hurt and outraged by the way our Church has been governed.  It appears to me that there is a lack of justice and fair-play among those that wear the red hats.  I have written in the past as an amateur apologist for the Church, the hierarchy, and the papacy.  I remain loyal to the magisterium but have to say that I am losing confidence in the current crop of leaders and this includes a growing lack of confidence in Pope Francis. Mind you, I still believe in papal infallibility when he teaches from the Chair of Peter, but his problem is that he never seems to want to take charge and it is especially evident in this current situation. 

Cardinal McCarrick resigned in from the College of Cardinals and his resignation was accepted and the 88-year-old was removed from the college and instructed to retire to a life of prayer and penance because of his depraved abuse of minors and adult seminarians that happened over the years. Pope Francis also removed the pervert from all public ministry and he will eventually undergo a regular canonical trial.  McCarrick, as far as I know, is the first cardinal in the college of cardinals to resign because of sexual misbehavior.  McCarrick was removed from public ministry on June 20th, 2018 when a panel found him guilty of abusing a teenage altar boy 47 years ago as a priest in New York.  He claims to be innocent of this charge in spite of the fact that the church panel found the charge credible so it appears there is no remorse in his heart for this crime. 

The target for McCarrick's perversion was not really children or adolescent boys, although as stated above he did abuse one young boy early in his career.  He went for young men, seminarians to be exact and he invited his potential victims to his summer home along with other seminarians.  When they arrived it would be discovered that there was one bed less than the number of people who were at the house.  McCarrick would invite the object of his desire to share a bed with him. This would lead to unwanted touching by the Cardinal of a sexual nature. 

McCarrick was smart.  He groomed the one he lusted after by telling him that he was amazed at how intelligent he thought the man was and how he, McCarrick, would help him by sending him to Rome to be educated in the schools that the elite went to and thus securing the victim's career in the church.  This was heady stuff for a young seminarian who would be impressed that such a great man would take such a lively interest in him. The church knew for decades of the abuse that was McCarrick's stock in trade and they ignored it.  If all they did was to ignore it, that would have been bad enough.  But over the years he rose in rank among the cardinals even taking a prominent role in the church's zero-tolerance policy against abuse of children.  What an irony! 

Around 1986, McCarrick was appointed Archbishop of Newark, a city with a million Catholics.  This was an important post and it showed Pope John Paul II (Now Saint John Paul II) had confidence in the man. The promotion did not diminish McCarrick's sexual appetite.  McCarrick groomed and took a young seminarian to a small apartment he kept and after having the seminarian change into a sailor suit and shorts embraced the young man ardently and taking him to bed wrapped his legs between the seminarian's legs.  This same seminarian also stated that he was present as McCarrick was having sex with a young priest at a fishing camp and invited the man "to be next."   He was known to the seminarians he craved as, "Uncle Ted."

To shorten this a bit, let us say that in spite of all of the known perversion, this man rose quickly and steadily in the ranks of the Church.  Victims started complaining and the Church started paying.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars went to victims and still, the prelate was permitted to engage in ministry, still had the ear of the pope and was allowed to ply his trade in the sexual world while others looked the other way.  

Our Church is in crisis. If a priest is accused of a sexual sin the process of removal is swift and sure once the allegation is deemed credible. I do not complain about this for the victims are entitled to swift justice.  In the case of a deacon or priest, the wheels turn swiftly and they normally find themselves outside and looking in very quickly.  If you are a bishop or cardinal, the wheels seem to lose their round shape and take on a square shape for they hardly move at all.  The Church was aware of McCarrick's for over thirty years and yet no one in charge did anything to stop the tarnished star from rising.

The pope has ordered an investigation of all of the documents.  This makes for a good sound bite but there should be an official investigation and those that are guilty of malfeasance should bear the consequences of their actions. 

As a member of a couple of ministries at my home church, every year I have to fill out paperwork and have a background check to make sure that I am safe to be around children and the elderly and anyone else considered vulnerable to abuse.  This background check is an invasion of my privacy that I do not complain about because my ministries are important to me.  I just would pray that the care the Church takes in protecting the vulnerable from me would have been taken to protect children and seminarians from the likes of McCarrick with the same enthusiasm. 

Please pray that the Holy Father starts acting like Peter and that this scandal can be laid to rest with the culprits removed from power wherever they are found, no matter how high in the food chain and that the victims receive justice for what they have suffered.  Come on Pope Francis we need you to step up and fill the shoes of Peter and to lead as Peter would have led.  Do not delay any further, we are in agony here in the pews and cannot understand your inaction. 

On Death and Dying and Life and Rising

For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus.   

have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person,

there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, 

I was at a wake yesterday.  The man who passed away was in his early thirties and had a beautiful wife and a bright three-year-old son. The man died of cancer.  You have to ask why such a thing can happen.  Why did God allow this man to die so young in life leaving behind these two dependents?  I cannot answer this question all I can do is to trust in God. His infinite knowledge of us knows that we can handle whatever life brings us.  He will be there to comfort and sustain us.  The tears shed will be numbered and not one of them will be wasted.  I think of the mother and the little boy and the empty place at the dinner table, the one person parent-teacher conferences, the loneliness that will fill her heart now that the funeral is over and all of the support she had over the days between death and burial will lessen as people resume their lives.  God will continue to be present in their lives and when needed, he will come and dry their tears and lift their spirits.  

My reflection has little to do with the reading for today.  But I remember how devasted I was when I faced the death of my mother and later my father.  When my mother passed away I went into depression for about six months.  Nothing interested me.  I am a great reader, but in this period I kept reading the same book over and over again so I would not have to think. One day, while passing a Catholic Church, Jesus in the Eucharist reached out to me beyond those brick walls and He stood me up and reminded me that in order to be a Christian, I had to forgive the doctor that killed my mother.  It's a long story, but it was the uncaring attitude of my mother's doctor-employer that caused cancer to go untreated until it had gone beyond the point it was treatable. I hated this miserable curr of a doctor. It was this hatred that was causing my depression.  Jesus reached out to me and I was convicted of my error.  I immediately forgave this practitioner of the healing arts and from that moment, the depression left my soul and I was able to pick up my life and move on. 

I do not really know this family or this new widow.  They are related to a dear woman who is in the choir with us. I pray that the widow is grounded in her faith and that she is able to heal the pain she now feels and for the pain that will not go away, I hope she will turn to Jesus and lay the burden down and accept His healing graces and power. 

When a good person dies in his or her youth, we are dismayed and cannot see the reason for the event.  The hardest thing to do when you are in mourning is to rise from the ashes and to continue your walk through life.  But we do it and we do it with God's help.  After all, His only son suffered the pains of death and through it, He brought us everlasting life.  

May the souls of the faithfully departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.  Amen. 

It's All About Choice

Jesus entered a village 
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. 
Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,
"Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? 
Tell her to help me." 
The Lord said to her in reply,
"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. 
There is need of only one thing. 
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her."

It's all about choice, isn't it?  There are those that would have you believe that a child in the womb is nothing but some extra tissue of which the woman has complete say as to its fate.  They can choose to bring a new life into the world or they can choose to eliminate it.   I won't even argue about when life begins although my personal belief is that it begins when sperm meets egg.  The woman chooses to abort the baby because of some personal reason.  Perhaps she is too involved with her career to be bothered by the carrying of a baby. Perhaps the father was date gone bad that she would rather forget.  The choice is hers and she makes it and a child, built in the image of God is no more. The woman chose convenience over life.  She has favored death over life. It's her choice.

It's all about choice, isn't it?  

Trouble In Vatican City

And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them,
but the disciples rebuked them.
When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them,
"Let the children come to me;
do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to
such as these. 
Amen, I say to you,
whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child
will not enter it."
Then he embraced them and blessed them,
placing his hands on them.

No matter where you turn, the abuse scandal seems to be raising its ugly head. There are two things that we have to ask as the ugliness obscures vision as if it were a fog or mist that could penetrate the smallest opening and cause its ugliness to spread beyond the artificial borders that those in power built up to contain it.  What could our bishops and cardinals have been thinking about?   The devil can use anything we have covered up to further his goal of pulling people from the Church.  It is his fondest wish to give the Bride of Christ a black eye.

Secondly, how far does the miasma go?  Some say that there is a cadre of gay cardinals pushing their agenda but that, of course, has little, if anything, to do with the abuse of children, adolescents, and adults.  There are also factions that are pushing their agenda to marginalize the Eucharist by allowing those disqualified due to their mode of life to receive it.  Some even want to open the Blessed Sacrament to non-Catholics that just happen to be married to a Catholic.  Where did these novel and dangerous ideas come from? 

The Holy Father is supposed to take the rudder of the Church and keep her on the orthodox course but he appears to be remaining silent and inactive as if he is paralyzed or does not know what to do. Francis needs to excise the cancerous growth that dares to protect those that would violate their vows by sexually abusing the members of the flock.  Yet, he does nothing, he does not seem to want to address the issue.  He has said he wants the McCarrick issue to be fully investigated.  Well, this sounds good, but I am afraid that it is just too little and too late.  Will there be an investigation that is worthy of the name?  Who will do the sleuthing?  Will names be named and will Francis do what is needed to cleanse the Church?  We will have to wait and see.

The person in the pew is angry with the Holy Father, the Cardinals, and Bishops for how they have allowed this situation to develop.  The pope needs to clean house.  Those that caused this scandal to extend itself must be removed from office and depending on the degree of guilt perhaps they should be removed from the priesthood as well.  We cannot tolerate further abuse of the laity or seminarians or anyone by clergy.  We also cannot condone or excuse the covering up of the crime by those who are entrusted to be our leaders. 

Pope Francis, you must step into the shoes of Peter and take command now.  Please do not wait because your flock is fearful of the wolves that surround them. 

Remember the Poor Souls in Purgatory this week in all of your prayers.