XXII SUNDAY – A – 31.08. 2008
Jeremiah 20: 7-9; Psalm 63; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16: 21-27
Last week we heard in our Gospel reading about Peter's spontaneous profession of faith "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." This was followed by Christ's great mandate to Peter and his successors, "You are Cepha, and upon this rock I will build my Church."
And yet here we are with the immediately following text where Jesus calls Peter a stumbling block and says, "Get behind me Satan"! It is hard to credit that these two things should be in the same Gospel, let alone in the same chapter. Did you notice what happened in today’s Gospel? Why such a change in Jesus reactions?
Matthew has deliberately chosen to put these incidents together to teach us something really deep.
„Get behind me, Satan! You are stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things”.
In the original Greek text Jesus uses even the stronger words: “Go away Satan, You scandalize me and others, because you take the things not in the God’s manner but you try to please the people”.
Why is Jesus so harsh with Peter today? Because Peter starts to think in worldly terms, to please the people, to gain popularity and crowds. When Christ says he has to go to Jerusalem, to suffer, and be killed, Peter went into shock. Peter still thought Jesus would make Israel the powerful kingdom, just like when David was king. This means: thinking in the worldly manner. But there is something more, Peter tries to erase, to eliminate the cross from the Gospel, from the history of salvation? He tries to “take it easy”, to soften, and to moderate the strong teaching of Jesus. He is afraid that this teaching about the cross and suffering will be absolutely not attractive, nobody will buy it. “God forbid it., Lord. This must never happen to you!!” Take it easy Jesus, don’t be so serious, so tragic and catastrophic, you will scary the people, nobody will follow you!
What -many of our contemporary Catholics and even priests- try to do nowadays? Don’t they try to erase the cross from the Gospel? Don’t they try to please rather humans than to follow God’s way? Deep commercialization touched even the Gospel. If something is not nice and contains even a smallest suggestion of pain and suffering, people will not buy it! We have to take care and not bother or scary our parishioners. Everything in the church must be nice and easy, every homily must be smooth and kind, otherwise people will feel upset. I have to feel good in the church otherwise I quit. Is it not the worldly style of thinking, is it not the “scandalon ei eimon”?
The problem plagues us to this day. How often we think in worldly ways, how easily we ignore the ways of God. We do not like to suffer. We don’t even like to hear about the commandments. But, here's the point. Sticking with God, we have to take up our crosses. Jesus said to Peter, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." “Who loves me will keep my commandments.” We do not like the cross, we do not like even to mention the idea of commandment. It’s offending my feeling of freedom, it’s humiliating and mortifying me. Pain and difficulties and hard times come into our lives, and we ask, Why me? God din not create us for suffering but for joy and happiness.
Peter did not mean to offend Jesus, and he certainly did not want to do anything to obstruct Jesus' plan of salvation; it is simply that he didn't understand it, in all its fullness. Peter was simply saying the kind of thing any other “good pastor” would say in the circumstances; he can't really believe that Jesus would need to suffer and die. Because he loves Jesus he does not want him to die and so comes out with his statement of disbelief. But also Peter tries to avoid the unpopularity of the Jesus’ teaching. He is afraid that speaking about suffering, crosses and dead will certainly not gain for Jesus new disciples. This is what sometimes we can hear from the “good pastors” nowadays: “father don’t scary the people stressing to much the commandments, talking about the cross and suffering, otherwise the church will become empty.”
The underlying assumption of Peter is that suffering is bad and it is something that we should be protected from, and this is an assumption that we all share in our everyday lives. Christ, though, tells us something different; he tells us and shows us in his own life that suffering is redemptive. He tells us that suffering is essential to his work of salvation. Even more, the suffering is essential and necessary to our life and our salvation.
One of the greatest problems in the world is that people do not seem to understand this anymore. And indeed one of the most common arguments against the existence of God put forward by ordinary people today is that God allows the innocent to suffer. What they fail to take into account is that:
- the source and origin of suffering is not God but wrongly used human freedom, and
- the suffering has a meaning. They fail to understand that it is often only through suffering and struggle that a greater good can come about.
Now this is not to say that suffering and pain are good in themselves or we would feel obliged to flagellate ourselves few times a day! No this would be a distortion of God's intention. But we do know that in suffering there is something deeply mysterious, valuable and redemptive.
In time Peter was to come to understand the meaning of the Cross. We know that when faced with his own crucifixion at the hands of the Romans he asked to be crucified upside down because he did not feel worthy to imitate Christ.
We don’t need to be afraid of the cross in the church, we don’t need to change and accommodate the message of Christ to make it easy and acceptable by the “Hallmark culture” of nice and pleasant life.
Matthew puts these two things together as a warning to us, the members of the Church, the people to whom this Gospel is primarily addressed. It is a warning that we should not take the first part of the text in any sort of triumphal way. We should not become so confident that we are members of the true Church of Christ that we start to believe that this means we can do no wrong.
We find this to be very reassuring. Jesus did not choose the perfect man on which to build his Church. No, he chose a man like us; someone with all the same sorts of faults and contradictions that we recognise within ourselves and yet someone who is essentially good and straightforward.
Even when we get to the moment of Peter's greatest betrayal, when he denies Christ three times, we find that it is not something blatantly bad that he is doing. Actually he is trying to be near Jesus, to find out what is going to happen to him and, one is tempted to think, try to help Jesus if he can.
What happens is that his cover is blown, he is recognised and it is the panic that this induces that causes Peter to deny that he even knows Jesus.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - (August 24, 2008)
Isaiah 22:19-23 Romans 11:33-36 Matthew 16:13-20
Three Unavoidable Questions
Today's readings confront us with three questions:
- of God's existence,
- the divinity of Jesus and
- the divine authority of the Church.
There are three questions that no thinking person can avoid.
Everything depends on how one answers them. The three unavoidable questions are:
1) Does God exist?
2) Is Jesus God?
3) Did Jesus found the Church?
Today's Scripture readings address these questions. Regarding God's existence, St. Paul exclaims: "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his way!"
St. Paul knows that God is far beyond human reason. Still, in that same letter to the Romans, he explains that it is reasonable to believe in God. In fact, argues Paul, what is unreasonable is to deny God's existence: those who deny his existence have clouded their own thinking process. You can read Paul's argument for yourself. (You will find it in the first chapter of Romans.) What I want to underscore is that the gift of faith - while it transcends reason - does not ultimately go against reason. Faith completes reason, gives a new power to human understanding.
Now, if a person recognizes that God exists, then the second question follows: Is Jesus God? Today Jesus asks the disciples who people say that he is. There are a lot of opinions. Some say that Jesus is a sage, a kind of guru who leads his followers to a new level of consciousness. Others say he is a good man, maybe the best of men, but still only a human being. Others say he was a great moral teacher like Socrates or Confucius.
But Jesus will have none of that. He looks each disciple in the eye and asks: "But, you, who do you say, that I am?" You have to answer that question for yourself, directly to Jesus. No one can force you. What you say to Jesus depends on your own heart. I can, however, tell you my answer: Jesus is God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being with the Father. In a few minutes I will invite you to make that profession of faith with me.
Before doing that, I would like to consider the third question: Did Jesus found the Church? In some way this is the most difficult question, because it demands so much. It is one thing to believe in God and in Jesus, but something else to believe in the divine authority of the Church. People can keep God and Jesus at arm's length - or at least try. It is not so easy with the Church. For better or worse, the Church has had a significant role in human history - and a considerable presence in the modern world.
I say "for better or worse" because the Church is composed of human beings with negative (as well as positive) tendencies. We readily admit the weakness and fallibility not only of little people like you and me, but also the top leaders in the Church. But the question is not whether the Church is composed on sinful human beings. Rather, we have to ask what Jesus meant he when told Simon Peter that he was the rock upon which he would build his Church.
Peter the Rock
There now follows a passage which will be the foundation for the authority given to the disciples and to Peter in particular in the post-Resurrection community. In response to Peter's declaration of faith, Jesus now says, "You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church." In the English translation, the play on words here is lost. In the Greek, 'Peter' is Petros ()' and 'rock' is petra () while, in the Aramaic language which Jesus and his disciples normally spoke, both words would be represented by kepa. Hence, Peter is called Cephas in some New Testament letters. cf. for example, Galatians 2:11.
Peter is the rock, the foundation of the community which will carry the name and the authority of Jesus to the whole world. On him, together with his Apostolic companions as the faithful communicators of Jesus' life and message, will be built the Church, the ekklesia , the assembly of God's people. (In all of the four gospels, this word ekklesia appears only twice, here and in Matthew 18:17, "And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church [ekklesia]...").
And what happened to the keys that Jesus gave to Peter? Are they buried in his tomb under St. Peter's Basilica in Rome? I don't think so. We have an early list of popes. It says that - after Peter - a man named Linus received the keys with their power to open and close, loose and bind. After him, Cletus, then Clement and so on. Today Pope Benedict XVI holds those keys. It is not just an earthly power, but a divine authority. Jesus said, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.
Now, I know that there are many congregations more attractive and more dynamic than Catholic parishes. And I may as well admit it - the most attractive would be a new congregation composed of me and those think like me. It would be called the "church of Phil Bloom." Its doctrines would be the Bible verses that I - and those who agree with me - like the best.
The "church of me and mine" is tempting (sort of) but that is clearly not what Jesus had in mind. He did not say to look for a community where you feel most comfortable. He founded a Church with divine authority - the power of the keys. The keys do not lock us in. What they do is unlock our hearts. They open us to people who may not - at first - attract us. And, above all, the keys open vistas that the "church of Phil Bloom" could never imagine.
Today we consider a text that is crucial to the Church’s understanding of itself. The words of Jesus addressed to Peter, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church.
I suppose this is one of the most famous puns in the whole of history, Peter meaning rock. But that aside, the claims that the Church has made based on those few words are very great indeed. And they have provoked a good deal of criticism and have been an obstacle to many.
The claims are these: that Jesus gives authority to Peter and his successors to lead the Church, that the Holy Spirit will keep the successors of Peter free from error in matters concerning faith and morals, and that being in communion with the successors of Peter (i.e. the Popes) is essential to being a member of the one true Church of God.
We must remember the context in which these words of Jesus arise; Peter has just made an extraordinary confession of faith in response to Jesus’ question “Who do you say that I am?” Peter’s reply, as we all know so well, is, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus then declares that this extra-ordinary statement of faith was directly inspired by God the Father.
So clearly Peter is important, indeed vital, to the work that Jesus was to accomplish. It is clear also that leadership for the Church, for the followers of Jesus after he returned to his Father, was needed and it was the intention of Jesus that Peter should fulfil this role.
A special kind of leadership
The leadership of Peter and his successors is not one of coercion and political power but of example and service. As long as faith, hope, and love are strong in the community, it will survive and flourish. It is not just a matter of unquestioning obedience to the decrees of an institution, issued from some far-off headquarters.
Today we see in the pope the successor of Peter. He shares the same charism or gift of leadership, a leadership of service. Traditionally the popes have called themselves Servus servorum Dei, the 'servant of the servants of God'. The pope is not a dictator with absolute powers, as he is sometimes depicted. He is limited by the faith of the whole Church. He is not the originator of that faith; he does not decide what we should believe. Rather, he communicates to the Church at large what it already believes. He is the focal point of unity of that one faith, the unity in the Spirit. The pope is the servant of that one community united in one faith.
Point of unity
In a Church where there are now so many conflicting theologies and spiritualities, there has never been a greater need for a focal point not of uniformity but of Christian unity. "There is one body and one Spirit... there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, there is one God and Father of all, who is Lord of all, works through all and is in all..." (Ephesians 4:4-6) This is something which many of our Anglican and Lutheran brothers and sisters have become strongly aware of. It is something whose importance is so well realised by our Catholic brothers and sisters in China, scattered and cut off from each other as they are.
The pope is our point of reference, whom we must always take into account, as we search for new understandings of what it means to be a disciple of Christ in a constantly changing world. He is the shepherd that keeps us in fellowship with Christians everywhere but who must not stifle the creativity of the Spirit in living out the Gospel in such a huge variety of contexts. For we are simultaneously one Church and many churches. For us here in our own church, our concern will be to remain in close union with fellow-disciples everywhere while at the same time living a Christian life in a way that most effectively will bring the spirit of the Kingdom among us in these challenging times.
Who contests the authority of Peter contests also the authority of Jesus Christ. Who contests the authority of Christ contests also the authority of God. I cannot claim that I believe Jesus Christ and at the same time refuse the authority of Peter and his successors.
If Jesus tells Peter:
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Who am I to deny His authority?
Isaiah 22:19-23 Romans 11:33-36 Matthew 16:13-20
Three Unavoidable Questions
Today's readings confront us with three questions:
- of God's existence,
- the divinity of Jesus and
- the divine authority of the Church.
There are three questions that no thinking person can avoid.
Everything depends on how one answers them. The three unavoidable questions are:
1) Does God exist?
2) Is Jesus God?
3) Did Jesus found the Church?
Today's Scripture readings address these questions. Regarding God's existence, St. Paul exclaims: "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his way!"
St. Paul knows that God is far beyond human reason. Still, in that same letter to the Romans, he explains that it is reasonable to believe in God. In fact, argues Paul, what is unreasonable is to deny God's existence: those who deny his existence have clouded their own thinking process. You can read Paul's argument for yourself. (You will find it in the first chapter of Romans.) What I want to underscore is that the gift of faith - while it transcends reason - does not ultimately go against reason. Faith completes reason, gives a new power to human understanding.
Now, if a person recognizes that God exists, then the second question follows: Is Jesus God? Today Jesus asks the disciples who people say that he is. There are a lot of opinions. Some say that Jesus is a sage, a kind of guru who leads his followers to a new level of consciousness. Others say he is a good man, maybe the best of men, but still only a human being. Others say he was a great moral teacher like Socrates or Confucius.
But Jesus will have none of that. He looks each disciple in the eye and asks: "But, you, who do you say, that I am?" You have to answer that question for yourself, directly to Jesus. No one can force you. What you say to Jesus depends on your own heart. I can, however, tell you my answer: Jesus is God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being with the Father. In a few minutes I will invite you to make that profession of faith with me.
Before doing that, I would like to consider the third question: Did Jesus found the Church? In some way this is the most difficult question, because it demands so much. It is one thing to believe in God and in Jesus, but something else to believe in the divine authority of the Church. People can keep God and Jesus at arm's length - or at least try. It is not so easy with the Church. For better or worse, the Church has had a significant role in human history - and a considerable presence in the modern world.
I say "for better or worse" because the Church is composed of human beings with negative (as well as positive) tendencies. We readily admit the weakness and fallibility not only of little people like you and me, but also the top leaders in the Church. But the question is not whether the Church is composed on sinful human beings. Rather, we have to ask what Jesus meant he when told Simon Peter that he was the rock upon which he would build his Church.
Peter the Rock
There now follows a passage which will be the foundation for the authority given to the disciples and to Peter in particular in the post-Resurrection community. In response to Peter's declaration of faith, Jesus now says, "You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church." In the English translation, the play on words here is lost. In the Greek, 'Peter' is Petros ()' and 'rock' is petra () while, in the Aramaic language which Jesus and his disciples normally spoke, both words would be represented by kepa. Hence, Peter is called Cephas in some New Testament letters. cf. for example, Galatians 2:11.
Peter is the rock, the foundation of the community which will carry the name and the authority of Jesus to the whole world. On him, together with his Apostolic companions as the faithful communicators of Jesus' life and message, will be built the Church, the ekklesia , the assembly of God's people. (In all of the four gospels, this word ekklesia appears only twice, here and in Matthew 18:17, "And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church [ekklesia]...").
And what happened to the keys that Jesus gave to Peter? Are they buried in his tomb under St. Peter's Basilica in Rome? I don't think so. We have an early list of popes. It says that - after Peter - a man named Linus received the keys with their power to open and close, loose and bind. After him, Cletus, then Clement and so on. Today Pope Benedict XVI holds those keys. It is not just an earthly power, but a divine authority. Jesus said, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.
Now, I know that there are many congregations more attractive and more dynamic than Catholic parishes. And I may as well admit it - the most attractive would be a new congregation composed of me and those think like me. It would be called the "church of Phil Bloom." Its doctrines would be the Bible verses that I - and those who agree with me - like the best.
The "church of me and mine" is tempting (sort of) but that is clearly not what Jesus had in mind. He did not say to look for a community where you feel most comfortable. He founded a Church with divine authority - the power of the keys. The keys do not lock us in. What they do is unlock our hearts. They open us to people who may not - at first - attract us. And, above all, the keys open vistas that the "church of Phil Bloom" could never imagine.
Today we consider a text that is crucial to the Church’s understanding of itself. The words of Jesus addressed to Peter, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church.
I suppose this is one of the most famous puns in the whole of history, Peter meaning rock. But that aside, the claims that the Church has made based on those few words are very great indeed. And they have provoked a good deal of criticism and have been an obstacle to many.
The claims are these: that Jesus gives authority to Peter and his successors to lead the Church, that the Holy Spirit will keep the successors of Peter free from error in matters concerning faith and morals, and that being in communion with the successors of Peter (i.e. the Popes) is essential to being a member of the one true Church of God.
We must remember the context in which these words of Jesus arise; Peter has just made an extraordinary confession of faith in response to Jesus’ question “Who do you say that I am?” Peter’s reply, as we all know so well, is, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus then declares that this extra-ordinary statement of faith was directly inspired by God the Father.
So clearly Peter is important, indeed vital, to the work that Jesus was to accomplish. It is clear also that leadership for the Church, for the followers of Jesus after he returned to his Father, was needed and it was the intention of Jesus that Peter should fulfil this role.
A special kind of leadership
The leadership of Peter and his successors is not one of coercion and political power but of example and service. As long as faith, hope, and love are strong in the community, it will survive and flourish. It is not just a matter of unquestioning obedience to the decrees of an institution, issued from some far-off headquarters.
Today we see in the pope the successor of Peter. He shares the same charism or gift of leadership, a leadership of service. Traditionally the popes have called themselves Servus servorum Dei, the 'servant of the servants of God'. The pope is not a dictator with absolute powers, as he is sometimes depicted. He is limited by the faith of the whole Church. He is not the originator of that faith; he does not decide what we should believe. Rather, he communicates to the Church at large what it already believes. He is the focal point of unity of that one faith, the unity in the Spirit. The pope is the servant of that one community united in one faith.
Point of unity
In a Church where there are now so many conflicting theologies and spiritualities, there has never been a greater need for a focal point not of uniformity but of Christian unity. "There is one body and one Spirit... there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, there is one God and Father of all, who is Lord of all, works through all and is in all..." (Ephesians 4:4-6) This is something which many of our Anglican and Lutheran brothers and sisters have become strongly aware of. It is something whose importance is so well realised by our Catholic brothers and sisters in China, scattered and cut off from each other as they are.
The pope is our point of reference, whom we must always take into account, as we search for new understandings of what it means to be a disciple of Christ in a constantly changing world. He is the shepherd that keeps us in fellowship with Christians everywhere but who must not stifle the creativity of the Spirit in living out the Gospel in such a huge variety of contexts. For we are simultaneously one Church and many churches. For us here in our own church, our concern will be to remain in close union with fellow-disciples everywhere while at the same time living a Christian life in a way that most effectively will bring the spirit of the Kingdom among us in these challenging times.
Who contests the authority of Peter contests also the authority of Jesus Christ. Who contests the authority of Christ contests also the authority of God. I cannot claim that I believe Jesus Christ and at the same time refuse the authority of Peter and his successors.
If Jesus tells Peter:
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Who am I to deny His authority?
Saturday, August 16, 2008
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A
The meeting of Jesus and the pagan Canaanite woman was providen¬tial. It led to a miracle and to her and to our deeper understanding of faith.
That woman believed that Jesus was the Messiah even though she knew very little about the Jewish prophets who were sent by God to prepare the way for the Messiah. She grew in her faith from the "scraps" that fell from the Old Testament table.
The Catholic Church often finds great faith particularly amongst those outside her visible membership. Through His church the Lord has prepared a table full of spiritual gifts for his children.
What a pity though that some of those children receive only some of those gifts! Fortunately, they may still achieve salvation with what they have received from the Lord, namely, the Scriptures and and often Baptism which brings them grace, virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Just think, how much better off these children of the protestant reformation would be if they were able to receive their full inheritance!
Often protestants once exposed to the truth will accept it fully and join the Catholic Church.
One would think that those exposed to the fullness of truth have the greatest chance for salvation but sadly, receiving the full inheritance of the truth is not a guarantee of salvation either - for receiving and accepting the Truth are two different things.
It has been pointed out that one of the biggest phenomenon of today’s Christian world is that many of our separated brethren still attend the Catholic Church.
Many still minister in it even though they do not believe in all the truths of the faith.
Others still consider themselves Catholic while rejecting Catholic teaching, all the while taking part in many of the Sacraments but often with a different point of view then those who are orthodox and in full communion with Rome.
During the protestant reformation it was common for those who dissented from Church teaching to leave the Catholic Church and start another church of their own. Martin Luther led the way.
But nowadays it is very common for those who openly dissent from church teaching to stay with the church to try to change it from within, for they have received the fullness of truth but for various reasons reject all or part of it and often teach others to do the same.
So then we see that evangelization has as its goal not only to plant the seeds of faith among the unbaptized but also to win back those Christians souls separated from the church both within and without.
The Church has the mission “to build up the body of Christ till we become one in faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, and from that perfect man who is Christ come to full stature” as St. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians.
Revealed truth can never change. Any "reformation" within or without that seeks to do this becomes heretical. The Catholic Church, however, constantly works hard to better explain the revealed truths and to offer to her children a deeper under¬standing of them.
"Is there to be no development of religion in the Church of Christ? Certainly ... But it must truly be development of the faith, not alteration of the faith" (Liturgy of the Hours IV, p.363).
Sadly, in today’s Catholic world we live in a church which continues to be divided by dissent. We have many “protestant” Catholics amongst us.
Dissent is that situation whereby some people accept some of the truths taught by the Catholic Church but are selective in denying other truths. Often for personal reasons or pride they dissent from certain teachings of the church and then often misuse conscience as their excuse.
One of the highest ranking Americans in the Vatican has written an eye-opening and deeply personal retrospective on the world shaking events which took place in the Catholic Church 40 years ago with the signing of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life). The non-celebration of which was observed in July this year.
Cardinal James Stafford says that the deadliest thing to hit the Church in the last 40 years was not the encyclical itself which re-stated again and reaffirmed the Church’s continued and historical stand against contraception – but rather the dissent that came as a result of the Church’s affirmation.
Cardinal Stafford says that (I quote) “The summer of 1968 is a record of God’s hottest hour. The memories are not forgotten, they are painful…. They inhabit the whirlwind where God’s wrath dwells. In 1968 something terrible happened in the Church.
Within the ministerial priesthood ruptures developed everywhere among friends which have never healed. And the wounds continue to affect the whole church. The dissent, together with the leaders manipulation of the anger they fomented became a supreme test,. It changed fundamental relationships within the church.”
The Cardinal explains that dissenting theologians, led by Charles Curran and other dissident clergy, attempted to bully their fellow priests into signing on to documents of formal dissent represented by the Washington Statement of dissent.”
Quote “The violence of the initial disobedience was only a prelude to further and more pervasive violence”, He writes.
“Contempt for the truth, whether aggressive or passive, has become common in Church life.
Dissenting theologians, priests, sisters and laypeople have continued their coercive techniques. From the very beginning the press has used them to further its own serpentine agenda”. Unquote.
Unfortunately, Father Richard Rohr, Father Richard McBrien, Father Timothy Radcliffe and other priests as well as religious sisters continue to openly foster dissent in the church. It is unfortunate because the fact that they are priests, religious sisters and well educated men and women increases their credibility amongst the faithful and because of this many have fallen into error with them.
In 1968, just before issuing the document, Pope Paul the VI called for episcopal unity on Humanae Vitae because it truly presented the teaching against contraception which stems from the law of God, and not from the Church.
The Pope was therefore deeply dissapointed when the Catholic Bishops of Canada even after the Pope’s appeal to them issued a devastating letter to Canadian Politicians which encouraged and permitted them to support the legalization of contraception in Canada. And in that way the floodgates of the Culture of Death were opened in Canada.
Pope Paul the VI prophetically foresaw that dissent against Humanae Vitae would open the door to pre-marital sex, an increase in divorce, co-habiting couples, abortion, same-sex marriage. All of it came true.
In the upcoming edition of Catholic Insight magazine, Canada’s greatest defender of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, 92 year old Msgr Vincent Foy called the letter by the CCCB “an incredible betrayal of Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of contraception.”
And then this was followed up by what Msgr Foy calls the “Winnipeg disaster of Friday Sept 27, 1968” when the Catholic Bishops of Canada published a Statement on Humanae Vitae embracing the error of allowing married couples to break God’s law by the subterfuge of subjective conscience. Thereby thousands of Canadians fell and continue to fall into error.
This formal statement on Humanae Vitae called the “Winnipeg Statement” has never been retracted and still stands today.
“For 40 years rebellion has been widespread in Canada, says Msgr Foy.
For 40 years we have experienced the deadly fruit of turning away from Christ in the most critical area of life and marital love.
Pope John Paul II called dissent from Humanae Vitae the “Great Lie”.
This lie remains in Canada like a festering, cancerous wound”.
Canadian Catholics have a right to ask their bishops to revoke that statement……In concrete terms it is not our defiance of the episcopacy but love of the episcopacy which leads Catholics to ask our bishops to restore orthodoxy” Unquote.
Jesus foresaw such problems.
Jesus warned his followers to be on guard against false prophets and wolves in sheep's clothing. He advised patience in the struggle with his parable of the Good Seed and Weeds.
The good seed and weeds refer not only to individuals but also to correct doctrine and errors.
Someone has said, "To know history is to be Catholic." This is so true because history proves that Jesus has always fulfilled his promises.
Jesus promised, "And know that I am with you always, until the end of the world" (Matt. 28:20). This promise was made to His Church.
Jesus also promised St. Peter, I for my part declare to you, you are `Rock,' and on this rock I will build my church, and the jaws of death shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).
Almost prophetically Psalm 95 says in part “Today, listen to the voice of the Lord; do not grow stubborn as your fathers did in the wilderness, when at Meriba and Massah they challenged and provoked me, although they had seen all of my works.
40 Years I endured that generation. I said “They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know my ways” So I swore in my anger, “They shall not enter into my rest”.
You know somebody said to me that it must be quite depressing for you and for those who listen to you to continually hear this message about the bad news – the disobedience and dissension in the the church – is there no hope? Is there no good news?
Yes, there is good news and that good news is Jesus Christ. In spite of our sin – and we are all sinners – He came so that we might have life – and that to the full – eternal life for those who believe in Him. We have to remember that He created us for Heaven not to condemn us to Hell. We need to accept the truth. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Accept the good news – turn away from sin – turn to Him – for He is our hope.
Despite over 40 years of struggle against the dissent, 92 year old Msgr Foy still sees hope. “Yet there is hope on this 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, “writes Msgr Foy “God’s grace, always sufficient, will be mercifully given and generously if there are faithful bishops, priests, religious and laity prayerful and ready to make the sacrifices required.”
The best defense has always been good religious instruction of the faithful and prayer.
After 40 years, as the dissenters of our church grow older and pass away one by one we can be certain that their heresies, their works and their errors like chaff will eventually pass away with them. But the words of Christ will not pass away.
So in spite of scandals, errors, claims and counterclaims, it is always possible for us to discover which is the Church that Jesus founded and where are those in it who are teaching the truth. Who in our Church may we believe? Who is teaching the truth - for there are many wolves in sheep’s clothing. The answer is:
"Where Peter is, there is Christ's Church!" and the gates of Hell have not and will not prevail against it. Whoever stands with the Vicar of Christ stands in the truth.
In chapter 16 of his letter to the Romans, St. Paul warns us with these words: “I urge you brothers, to watch out for those who create dissensions and obstacles, in opposition to the teaching you have learned; avoid them. For such people do not serve your Lord Christ but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the innocent.
In Chapter 15 he prays for unity in the church. “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Following the exhortation of St. Paul let us therefore join Msgr Foy and pray for a united church, one in truth, one in Christ, one in obedience and one in unity under the visible Head of His Church on Earth, the Vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI and we pray also for the Archbishop of our Edmonton Archdiocese, His Grace, ArchBishop Richard Smith as he seeks to maintain unity and truth in our Archdiocese. They both seek to lead us all to Christ by continuing to always and everywhere proclaim the Good News – The Good News of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the world. Our Creator who came to earth so that we might all join Him in Heaven. That is His plan and that is Good News Indeed!
Deacon Bernard Ouellette
The meeting of Jesus and the pagan Canaanite woman was providen¬tial. It led to a miracle and to her and to our deeper understanding of faith.
That woman believed that Jesus was the Messiah even though she knew very little about the Jewish prophets who were sent by God to prepare the way for the Messiah. She grew in her faith from the "scraps" that fell from the Old Testament table.
The Catholic Church often finds great faith particularly amongst those outside her visible membership. Through His church the Lord has prepared a table full of spiritual gifts for his children.
What a pity though that some of those children receive only some of those gifts! Fortunately, they may still achieve salvation with what they have received from the Lord, namely, the Scriptures and and often Baptism which brings them grace, virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Just think, how much better off these children of the protestant reformation would be if they were able to receive their full inheritance!
Often protestants once exposed to the truth will accept it fully and join the Catholic Church.
One would think that those exposed to the fullness of truth have the greatest chance for salvation but sadly, receiving the full inheritance of the truth is not a guarantee of salvation either - for receiving and accepting the Truth are two different things.
It has been pointed out that one of the biggest phenomenon of today’s Christian world is that many of our separated brethren still attend the Catholic Church.
Many still minister in it even though they do not believe in all the truths of the faith.
Others still consider themselves Catholic while rejecting Catholic teaching, all the while taking part in many of the Sacraments but often with a different point of view then those who are orthodox and in full communion with Rome.
During the protestant reformation it was common for those who dissented from Church teaching to leave the Catholic Church and start another church of their own. Martin Luther led the way.
But nowadays it is very common for those who openly dissent from church teaching to stay with the church to try to change it from within, for they have received the fullness of truth but for various reasons reject all or part of it and often teach others to do the same.
So then we see that evangelization has as its goal not only to plant the seeds of faith among the unbaptized but also to win back those Christians souls separated from the church both within and without.
The Church has the mission “to build up the body of Christ till we become one in faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, and from that perfect man who is Christ come to full stature” as St. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians.
Revealed truth can never change. Any "reformation" within or without that seeks to do this becomes heretical. The Catholic Church, however, constantly works hard to better explain the revealed truths and to offer to her children a deeper under¬standing of them.
"Is there to be no development of religion in the Church of Christ? Certainly ... But it must truly be development of the faith, not alteration of the faith" (Liturgy of the Hours IV, p.363).
Sadly, in today’s Catholic world we live in a church which continues to be divided by dissent. We have many “protestant” Catholics amongst us.
Dissent is that situation whereby some people accept some of the truths taught by the Catholic Church but are selective in denying other truths. Often for personal reasons or pride they dissent from certain teachings of the church and then often misuse conscience as their excuse.
One of the highest ranking Americans in the Vatican has written an eye-opening and deeply personal retrospective on the world shaking events which took place in the Catholic Church 40 years ago with the signing of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life). The non-celebration of which was observed in July this year.
Cardinal James Stafford says that the deadliest thing to hit the Church in the last 40 years was not the encyclical itself which re-stated again and reaffirmed the Church’s continued and historical stand against contraception – but rather the dissent that came as a result of the Church’s affirmation.
Cardinal Stafford says that (I quote) “The summer of 1968 is a record of God’s hottest hour. The memories are not forgotten, they are painful…. They inhabit the whirlwind where God’s wrath dwells. In 1968 something terrible happened in the Church.
Within the ministerial priesthood ruptures developed everywhere among friends which have never healed. And the wounds continue to affect the whole church. The dissent, together with the leaders manipulation of the anger they fomented became a supreme test,. It changed fundamental relationships within the church.”
The Cardinal explains that dissenting theologians, led by Charles Curran and other dissident clergy, attempted to bully their fellow priests into signing on to documents of formal dissent represented by the Washington Statement of dissent.”
Quote “The violence of the initial disobedience was only a prelude to further and more pervasive violence”, He writes.
“Contempt for the truth, whether aggressive or passive, has become common in Church life.
Dissenting theologians, priests, sisters and laypeople have continued their coercive techniques. From the very beginning the press has used them to further its own serpentine agenda”. Unquote.
Unfortunately, Father Richard Rohr, Father Richard McBrien, Father Timothy Radcliffe and other priests as well as religious sisters continue to openly foster dissent in the church. It is unfortunate because the fact that they are priests, religious sisters and well educated men and women increases their credibility amongst the faithful and because of this many have fallen into error with them.
In 1968, just before issuing the document, Pope Paul the VI called for episcopal unity on Humanae Vitae because it truly presented the teaching against contraception which stems from the law of God, and not from the Church.
The Pope was therefore deeply dissapointed when the Catholic Bishops of Canada even after the Pope’s appeal to them issued a devastating letter to Canadian Politicians which encouraged and permitted them to support the legalization of contraception in Canada. And in that way the floodgates of the Culture of Death were opened in Canada.
Pope Paul the VI prophetically foresaw that dissent against Humanae Vitae would open the door to pre-marital sex, an increase in divorce, co-habiting couples, abortion, same-sex marriage. All of it came true.
In the upcoming edition of Catholic Insight magazine, Canada’s greatest defender of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, 92 year old Msgr Vincent Foy called the letter by the CCCB “an incredible betrayal of Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of contraception.”
And then this was followed up by what Msgr Foy calls the “Winnipeg disaster of Friday Sept 27, 1968” when the Catholic Bishops of Canada published a Statement on Humanae Vitae embracing the error of allowing married couples to break God’s law by the subterfuge of subjective conscience. Thereby thousands of Canadians fell and continue to fall into error.
This formal statement on Humanae Vitae called the “Winnipeg Statement” has never been retracted and still stands today.
“For 40 years rebellion has been widespread in Canada, says Msgr Foy.
For 40 years we have experienced the deadly fruit of turning away from Christ in the most critical area of life and marital love.
Pope John Paul II called dissent from Humanae Vitae the “Great Lie”.
This lie remains in Canada like a festering, cancerous wound”.
Canadian Catholics have a right to ask their bishops to revoke that statement……In concrete terms it is not our defiance of the episcopacy but love of the episcopacy which leads Catholics to ask our bishops to restore orthodoxy” Unquote.
Jesus foresaw such problems.
Jesus warned his followers to be on guard against false prophets and wolves in sheep's clothing. He advised patience in the struggle with his parable of the Good Seed and Weeds.
The good seed and weeds refer not only to individuals but also to correct doctrine and errors.
Someone has said, "To know history is to be Catholic." This is so true because history proves that Jesus has always fulfilled his promises.
Jesus promised, "And know that I am with you always, until the end of the world" (Matt. 28:20). This promise was made to His Church.
Jesus also promised St. Peter, I for my part declare to you, you are `Rock,' and on this rock I will build my church, and the jaws of death shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).
Almost prophetically Psalm 95 says in part “Today, listen to the voice of the Lord; do not grow stubborn as your fathers did in the wilderness, when at Meriba and Massah they challenged and provoked me, although they had seen all of my works.
40 Years I endured that generation. I said “They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know my ways” So I swore in my anger, “They shall not enter into my rest”.
You know somebody said to me that it must be quite depressing for you and for those who listen to you to continually hear this message about the bad news – the disobedience and dissension in the the church – is there no hope? Is there no good news?
Yes, there is good news and that good news is Jesus Christ. In spite of our sin – and we are all sinners – He came so that we might have life – and that to the full – eternal life for those who believe in Him. We have to remember that He created us for Heaven not to condemn us to Hell. We need to accept the truth. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Accept the good news – turn away from sin – turn to Him – for He is our hope.
Despite over 40 years of struggle against the dissent, 92 year old Msgr Foy still sees hope. “Yet there is hope on this 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, “writes Msgr Foy “God’s grace, always sufficient, will be mercifully given and generously if there are faithful bishops, priests, religious and laity prayerful and ready to make the sacrifices required.”
The best defense has always been good religious instruction of the faithful and prayer.
After 40 years, as the dissenters of our church grow older and pass away one by one we can be certain that their heresies, their works and their errors like chaff will eventually pass away with them. But the words of Christ will not pass away.
So in spite of scandals, errors, claims and counterclaims, it is always possible for us to discover which is the Church that Jesus founded and where are those in it who are teaching the truth. Who in our Church may we believe? Who is teaching the truth - for there are many wolves in sheep’s clothing. The answer is:
"Where Peter is, there is Christ's Church!" and the gates of Hell have not and will not prevail against it. Whoever stands with the Vicar of Christ stands in the truth.
In chapter 16 of his letter to the Romans, St. Paul warns us with these words: “I urge you brothers, to watch out for those who create dissensions and obstacles, in opposition to the teaching you have learned; avoid them. For such people do not serve your Lord Christ but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the innocent.
In Chapter 15 he prays for unity in the church. “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Following the exhortation of St. Paul let us therefore join Msgr Foy and pray for a united church, one in truth, one in Christ, one in obedience and one in unity under the visible Head of His Church on Earth, the Vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI and we pray also for the Archbishop of our Edmonton Archdiocese, His Grace, ArchBishop Richard Smith as he seeks to maintain unity and truth in our Archdiocese. They both seek to lead us all to Christ by continuing to always and everywhere proclaim the Good News – The Good News of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the world. Our Creator who came to earth so that we might all join Him in Heaven. That is His plan and that is Good News Indeed!
Deacon Bernard Ouellette
Sunday, August 10, 2008
NINETEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
1 Kings 19:9.11-13 Romans 9:1-5 Matthew 14:22-33
WE HAVE TODAY in the Gospel a continuation of last week's story about the feeding of thousands of people by Jesus in the desert. Immediately after the event, we are told that Jesus "made" the disciples get into the boat and go to the opposite shore while he himself sent the crowds away. Was there reluctance on their part to go? Certainly there is the implication that the disciples were not too willing to leave the scene. They were enjoying the reflected glory of being part of Jesus' 'miracle' and the enthusiasm of the crowds for Jesus, 'their' Jesus. They were basking in the reputation of being partners with Jesus. Yet, it won't be very long before they will be hiding, even denying under oath, ever having had connection with him.
What type of power?
Jesus himself, after having dismissed the crowds, "went up into the hills by himself to pray". In John's version of this story he tells us that the people, after being fed by Jesus, actually wanted to make him their king. They, like the disciples, have totally missed the meaning of what has happened.
Here indeed was a real source of temptation. Jesus could easily have convinced himself that here was a golden opportunity to get control of the crowds and 'save' them. They were so ready to follow him -- it seemed. The world was at his feet. Is there not an echo here of one of the temptations in the desert after his baptism? "The devil took him to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them: and he said to him, 'All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me'."
Instead, Jesus flees to the shelter of the mountains not to have a panorama of the world's kingdoms but to pray to his Father and renew his purity of heart and his commitment to the Father's way. His power will be exerted through love and service and not through domination, control and popular appeal. Jesus' work is not to be seen in terms of crowd-pleasing miracles or supernatural powers. It is primarily for him -- as it is for us -- in the quality of his relationships: with God, with people and with himself. Jesus' mission -- and ours -- gets its significance in a life of service, sharing and community building, in the 'Kingdom-ising' of our environment. It does not consist in having power over others, in becoming an idol of the crowds.
Having a hard time
The story now switches back to the disciples. They are far out on the lake by now, battling with a heavy sea and fighting a strong headwind. It is quite clear that here we are seeing a parable of the Church itself, represented by the disciples in their fragile boat surrounded by hostile winds and waves. It was the common experience of the Church during its first centuries and, in many parts of the world today, continues to be the case. It was a situation to create, then as now, much fear and anxiety.
Then, all of a sudden, they see Jesus approaching them walking on the lake. Far from feeling reassured, they become even more terrified. "It is a ghost!" It is a measure of their superstitious natures and, as such, a measure of the long way they have to go in exorcising such superstitions and replacing them with a genuine faith in God. One still meets a great deal of such irrational fears in people, including Christians, today. For instance, how many of us here would be comfortable walking alone through a large empty cemetery on a dark, moonless night?
No need to fear
Then out of wind and wave and terror comes a comforting voice. "Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid." The disciples need courage whose source is their confidence and trust in the protection of their Lord. Through the words "It is I" (literally, 'I am' Greek, ego eimi), Jesus identifies himself with the saving power of God himself. They are the words spoken to Moses from the burning bush. As such, there is no need for fear or anxiety in spite of the apparently threatening dangers around them.
Characteristically, Peter is the first to respond. He is the impulsive one but he is also the group's leader. "If it is really you, Lord, tell me to come to you across the water." "Come," says Jesus, inviting him to leave the shelter of his boat and go to where the wind and waves are. Peter starts to make his way to the Lord, who is in the wind and the waves, but his fear is too much and he begins to sink. "Lord, save me!" is the cry, a cry echoed by Christians all down the ages who have felt that the world was ready to crush them.
There is something for us to reflect here: Jesus is not in the boat; he is in that hostile environment into which we often fear to enter and instead huddle in the security of our church. I think it is significant that Jesus is also found outside the boat in the middle of the stormy sea, the world. And we have to go out there to meet him in spite of the dangers and possible setbacks. Too often we Christians spend much, if not all, of our time in the shelter of the boat, taking care of ourselves and neglecting those in the stormy sea who need to hear the words of life. "Man of little trust, why did you doubt?" How often has Jesus had to say those words to each one of us?
Peace
Jesus and Peter now step into the boat and the wind drops. There is peace and calm. In Mark's version of this story, the disciples are simply amazed at the sudden change but do not draw the obvious conclusion. In Matthew's version, however, they understand and believe. They even anticipate Peter's later confession (in chap. 16), "Truly, you are the Son of God". The conclusion, then, is that Jesus can also be found in the boat but only when we also are ready to leave the shelter of the boat to find him in the "world", that place which is at least indifferent and at worst very hostile to the Christian vision.
Our own situation
All in all, today's Gospel reflects problems in the early Church, problems which are not unknown to us today. From the inside there were always problems of unity, conflicting opinions, theologies and spiritualities. From the outside, there were persecutions and misunderstandings from both the Jews and the secular powers. Paul, in the Second Reading, reflects what must have been something very painful to many Jews who had become followers of Christ, namely, the division and hostility of their fellow-Jews who had not converted. Even today, this relationship still causes pain.
Matthew also here features the special role of Peter, something he constantly stresses. Peter is the leader and so he is the one who steps out of the boat to go and meet Jesus in the midst of the storm. This surely is an image of the Church's apostolic mission to reach out to find and make Christ present in the world, however hostile it may be. It is not the role of the Church to stay cowering in the shelter of their boat. One remembers the disciples after the death of Jesus hiding behind the locked doors. Pentecost soon changed all that and literally blew them out on a mission that would bring them and their successors to the remotest parts of the earth.
Of course, there are dangers in the world. And the Church, like Peter, is weak and vulnerable. But the Lord is there wherever we go and he will not allow his Church to sink beneath the waves. It has looked very often as if it might happen but each time the Christian community has risen from the ashes stronger than before. One has only to think of the experiences of Christians in China over the past four centuries and especially in the last 40 years or so.
Jesus our peace
One important lesson of today's readings is that, in our turbulent world (and much of the turbulence is in our own hearts), Jesus is the source of peace. Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper (John 14:27), "Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world does. Do not be worried and upset; do not be afraid." These words were spoken just before Jesus was to be arrested, tried and executed by his enemies. The "world" cannot provide peace in such a situation but Jesus can and does. It is for us to learn how to find the Jesus who gives peace in the ups and downs, in the storms of our own lives.
It is put beautifully in today's First Reading where Elijah is told to "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord". And the Lord himself passes by. But he was not in the mountain-shaking and rock-shattering wind. He was not in the earthquake. He was not in the fire. He was, however, in the sound of a gentle breeze and Elijah knew that he was in the presence of the Lord. Jesus touches our cheeks with his gentle breezes every day but we are too concerned about the buffeting winds, the earthquakes and the fires in our lives that attract both our attention and our fears.
Call to be....
Today's readings, then, are saying two things to us:
a. There is never any need for fear and anxiety, for Jesus is always close to us and, no matter what may be happening in and around us, his peace is there for us to share. (As the Buddhist saying has it: "Why worry? If I worry, I die. If I don't worry, I die. Why worry?")
b. On the one hand, we have to reject the ambitions and dreams of the world and separate ourselves from them (as when Jesus went into the mountains to pray) but, at the same time, that world which both attracts and threatens is the arena where we are to live out our mission to build the Kingdom of God. We are called to be "not of the world", a counter-witness to its ways, but to be "in the world", as taste-giving salt and growth-giving leaven. To lead people to that moment when they can fall to the ground before Jesus present and active in their lives and say with full recognition, "Truly, you are the Son of God".
To the ancient people, the seas represented chaos. Fishermen and sailors, then, as well as now, know all too well the sudden turmoil caused by rough waters. The sea hits us in the front, the back, the left and the right. There is no escaping it when we are in the middle of it. That is chaos.
But God conquered the seas. And Jesus walked on the water. He continues to walk on water. He walks on the chaos of our lives.
That is what the Gospel reading is telling us today. No matter what the chaos is in the world and in our lives, Jesus walks on it. He conquers the chaos.
Jesus conquers the chaos that is caused by things that our beyond our control. Life itself is chaotic. Just when all is seems to be calm, a loved one suddenly dies. All of us have experienced this. We did not cause the chaos, but we do suffer from it.
Jesus conquers the chaos, even that chaos which we ourselves cause in our lives. Many of us have made bad choices. Many of us have sinned. Many of us suffer the results of our sins or the sins of others. For example a person finally recognizes that he has gotten into a relationship which is destroying his family and destroying himself. He returns to his family, but the damage has been done. He and his family suffer the results of his sins.
It makes no difference whether we caused the chaos or whether we suffer from the chaos caused by others. Jesus still walks on the water. He conquers the chaos. Then, do you know what he does? He calls us to walk out onto the chaos and walk towards him. “Come Peter.” Peter walked on the water. At least for a bit.
That’s what Jesus does for us all. He walks on the chaos of our lives, and then calls us to come and join him. He gives us the strength to walk on water.
And what if we fail? What if we blink, and sink like Peter did? “Don’t be afraid,” the Lord says. He is there to reach down and lift us out of the water, out of the chaos, just as he lifted Peter out of the water, out of the chaos of his life.
The Lord knows that we are not saints, not yet anyway. He knows that we are weak. He accepted Peter, that loud lout, that well meaning coward, and turned him into the Rock of the Church. He takes us as we are and walks with us on the water. He only asks us to have the courage to put our faith in Him. He gives us the strength to join Him in conquering the chaos.
Where is the chaos in your lives, in my life? Is it sickness or death? Is it chemical dependence? Is it some other addiction? Is it turmoil in your marriage or your family? Where have the seas raised up to chaotic dimensions? Wherever that chaos is, please remember, that there is nothing, no chaos that is too great for Jesus to conquer. And there is nothing too devastating for us to conquer with Him.
He walked on the waters, and He calls us to walk with Him.
1 Kings 19:9.11-13 Romans 9:1-5 Matthew 14:22-33
WE HAVE TODAY in the Gospel a continuation of last week's story about the feeding of thousands of people by Jesus in the desert. Immediately after the event, we are told that Jesus "made" the disciples get into the boat and go to the opposite shore while he himself sent the crowds away. Was there reluctance on their part to go? Certainly there is the implication that the disciples were not too willing to leave the scene. They were enjoying the reflected glory of being part of Jesus' 'miracle' and the enthusiasm of the crowds for Jesus, 'their' Jesus. They were basking in the reputation of being partners with Jesus. Yet, it won't be very long before they will be hiding, even denying under oath, ever having had connection with him.
What type of power?
Jesus himself, after having dismissed the crowds, "went up into the hills by himself to pray". In John's version of this story he tells us that the people, after being fed by Jesus, actually wanted to make him their king. They, like the disciples, have totally missed the meaning of what has happened.
Here indeed was a real source of temptation. Jesus could easily have convinced himself that here was a golden opportunity to get control of the crowds and 'save' them. They were so ready to follow him -- it seemed. The world was at his feet. Is there not an echo here of one of the temptations in the desert after his baptism? "The devil took him to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them: and he said to him, 'All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me'."
Instead, Jesus flees to the shelter of the mountains not to have a panorama of the world's kingdoms but to pray to his Father and renew his purity of heart and his commitment to the Father's way. His power will be exerted through love and service and not through domination, control and popular appeal. Jesus' work is not to be seen in terms of crowd-pleasing miracles or supernatural powers. It is primarily for him -- as it is for us -- in the quality of his relationships: with God, with people and with himself. Jesus' mission -- and ours -- gets its significance in a life of service, sharing and community building, in the 'Kingdom-ising' of our environment. It does not consist in having power over others, in becoming an idol of the crowds.
Having a hard time
The story now switches back to the disciples. They are far out on the lake by now, battling with a heavy sea and fighting a strong headwind. It is quite clear that here we are seeing a parable of the Church itself, represented by the disciples in their fragile boat surrounded by hostile winds and waves. It was the common experience of the Church during its first centuries and, in many parts of the world today, continues to be the case. It was a situation to create, then as now, much fear and anxiety.
Then, all of a sudden, they see Jesus approaching them walking on the lake. Far from feeling reassured, they become even more terrified. "It is a ghost!" It is a measure of their superstitious natures and, as such, a measure of the long way they have to go in exorcising such superstitions and replacing them with a genuine faith in God. One still meets a great deal of such irrational fears in people, including Christians, today. For instance, how many of us here would be comfortable walking alone through a large empty cemetery on a dark, moonless night?
No need to fear
Then out of wind and wave and terror comes a comforting voice. "Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid." The disciples need courage whose source is their confidence and trust in the protection of their Lord. Through the words "It is I" (literally, 'I am' Greek, ego eimi), Jesus identifies himself with the saving power of God himself. They are the words spoken to Moses from the burning bush. As such, there is no need for fear or anxiety in spite of the apparently threatening dangers around them.
Characteristically, Peter is the first to respond. He is the impulsive one but he is also the group's leader. "If it is really you, Lord, tell me to come to you across the water." "Come," says Jesus, inviting him to leave the shelter of his boat and go to where the wind and waves are. Peter starts to make his way to the Lord, who is in the wind and the waves, but his fear is too much and he begins to sink. "Lord, save me!" is the cry, a cry echoed by Christians all down the ages who have felt that the world was ready to crush them.
There is something for us to reflect here: Jesus is not in the boat; he is in that hostile environment into which we often fear to enter and instead huddle in the security of our church. I think it is significant that Jesus is also found outside the boat in the middle of the stormy sea, the world. And we have to go out there to meet him in spite of the dangers and possible setbacks. Too often we Christians spend much, if not all, of our time in the shelter of the boat, taking care of ourselves and neglecting those in the stormy sea who need to hear the words of life. "Man of little trust, why did you doubt?" How often has Jesus had to say those words to each one of us?
Peace
Jesus and Peter now step into the boat and the wind drops. There is peace and calm. In Mark's version of this story, the disciples are simply amazed at the sudden change but do not draw the obvious conclusion. In Matthew's version, however, they understand and believe. They even anticipate Peter's later confession (in chap. 16), "Truly, you are the Son of God". The conclusion, then, is that Jesus can also be found in the boat but only when we also are ready to leave the shelter of the boat to find him in the "world", that place which is at least indifferent and at worst very hostile to the Christian vision.
Our own situation
All in all, today's Gospel reflects problems in the early Church, problems which are not unknown to us today. From the inside there were always problems of unity, conflicting opinions, theologies and spiritualities. From the outside, there were persecutions and misunderstandings from both the Jews and the secular powers. Paul, in the Second Reading, reflects what must have been something very painful to many Jews who had become followers of Christ, namely, the division and hostility of their fellow-Jews who had not converted. Even today, this relationship still causes pain.
Matthew also here features the special role of Peter, something he constantly stresses. Peter is the leader and so he is the one who steps out of the boat to go and meet Jesus in the midst of the storm. This surely is an image of the Church's apostolic mission to reach out to find and make Christ present in the world, however hostile it may be. It is not the role of the Church to stay cowering in the shelter of their boat. One remembers the disciples after the death of Jesus hiding behind the locked doors. Pentecost soon changed all that and literally blew them out on a mission that would bring them and their successors to the remotest parts of the earth.
Of course, there are dangers in the world. And the Church, like Peter, is weak and vulnerable. But the Lord is there wherever we go and he will not allow his Church to sink beneath the waves. It has looked very often as if it might happen but each time the Christian community has risen from the ashes stronger than before. One has only to think of the experiences of Christians in China over the past four centuries and especially in the last 40 years or so.
Jesus our peace
One important lesson of today's readings is that, in our turbulent world (and much of the turbulence is in our own hearts), Jesus is the source of peace. Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper (John 14:27), "Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world does. Do not be worried and upset; do not be afraid." These words were spoken just before Jesus was to be arrested, tried and executed by his enemies. The "world" cannot provide peace in such a situation but Jesus can and does. It is for us to learn how to find the Jesus who gives peace in the ups and downs, in the storms of our own lives.
It is put beautifully in today's First Reading where Elijah is told to "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord". And the Lord himself passes by. But he was not in the mountain-shaking and rock-shattering wind. He was not in the earthquake. He was not in the fire. He was, however, in the sound of a gentle breeze and Elijah knew that he was in the presence of the Lord. Jesus touches our cheeks with his gentle breezes every day but we are too concerned about the buffeting winds, the earthquakes and the fires in our lives that attract both our attention and our fears.
Call to be....
Today's readings, then, are saying two things to us:
a. There is never any need for fear and anxiety, for Jesus is always close to us and, no matter what may be happening in and around us, his peace is there for us to share. (As the Buddhist saying has it: "Why worry? If I worry, I die. If I don't worry, I die. Why worry?")
b. On the one hand, we have to reject the ambitions and dreams of the world and separate ourselves from them (as when Jesus went into the mountains to pray) but, at the same time, that world which both attracts and threatens is the arena where we are to live out our mission to build the Kingdom of God. We are called to be "not of the world", a counter-witness to its ways, but to be "in the world", as taste-giving salt and growth-giving leaven. To lead people to that moment when they can fall to the ground before Jesus present and active in their lives and say with full recognition, "Truly, you are the Son of God".
To the ancient people, the seas represented chaos. Fishermen and sailors, then, as well as now, know all too well the sudden turmoil caused by rough waters. The sea hits us in the front, the back, the left and the right. There is no escaping it when we are in the middle of it. That is chaos.
But God conquered the seas. And Jesus walked on the water. He continues to walk on water. He walks on the chaos of our lives.
That is what the Gospel reading is telling us today. No matter what the chaos is in the world and in our lives, Jesus walks on it. He conquers the chaos.
Jesus conquers the chaos that is caused by things that our beyond our control. Life itself is chaotic. Just when all is seems to be calm, a loved one suddenly dies. All of us have experienced this. We did not cause the chaos, but we do suffer from it.
Jesus conquers the chaos, even that chaos which we ourselves cause in our lives. Many of us have made bad choices. Many of us have sinned. Many of us suffer the results of our sins or the sins of others. For example a person finally recognizes that he has gotten into a relationship which is destroying his family and destroying himself. He returns to his family, but the damage has been done. He and his family suffer the results of his sins.
It makes no difference whether we caused the chaos or whether we suffer from the chaos caused by others. Jesus still walks on the water. He conquers the chaos. Then, do you know what he does? He calls us to walk out onto the chaos and walk towards him. “Come Peter.” Peter walked on the water. At least for a bit.
That’s what Jesus does for us all. He walks on the chaos of our lives, and then calls us to come and join him. He gives us the strength to walk on water.
And what if we fail? What if we blink, and sink like Peter did? “Don’t be afraid,” the Lord says. He is there to reach down and lift us out of the water, out of the chaos, just as he lifted Peter out of the water, out of the chaos of his life.
The Lord knows that we are not saints, not yet anyway. He knows that we are weak. He accepted Peter, that loud lout, that well meaning coward, and turned him into the Rock of the Church. He takes us as we are and walks with us on the water. He only asks us to have the courage to put our faith in Him. He gives us the strength to join Him in conquering the chaos.
Where is the chaos in your lives, in my life? Is it sickness or death? Is it chemical dependence? Is it some other addiction? Is it turmoil in your marriage or your family? Where have the seas raised up to chaotic dimensions? Wherever that chaos is, please remember, that there is nothing, no chaos that is too great for Jesus to conquer. And there is nothing too devastating for us to conquer with Him.
He walked on the waters, and He calls us to walk with Him.
Monday, August 04, 2008
18 Sunday in Ordinary Time - A
Give them some food yourselves.
When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said,
“This is a deserted place and it is already late;
dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages
and buy food for themselves.”
Jesus said to them, “There is no need for them to go away;
give them some food yourselves.”
But they said to him,
“Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.”
Then he said, “Bring them here to me, ”
It’s obvious that today’s Gospel is presenting us the miracle of the multiplication of food as an announcement, a foretelling of this what is happening on the altar during every Eucharistic celebration. But I think that this event is bringing to our minds also some social justice issues. We cannot avoid this problem, because Jesus is telling openly: “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.”
According to the report PNUD “Reconsidérer la Richesse” prepared by Patrick Viveret in 1998
• We need 6 billion dollars yearly to assure the education for all children in the world who are not yet in school
• At the same time in the USA, people spend annually 8 billion dollars on perfumes
• Nearly 1 billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
• The world needs 13 billion dollars annually to feed all who are hungry
• At the same time in the USA, 25 billion dollars is spent each year on pet food
So, wealthy Christians in the USA are spending almost twice as much on pet food as is needed to feed the hungry of the whole world.
• Each day some 30 thousand children under the age of 5 are dying due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.” That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years of age, each year.
• Each day in France with a population of 63 million, 60 thousand tons of food goes to the garbage
The 3 richest people (and two of them are Christians) in the world have more total wealth than the total GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the world’s 48 poorest countries.
GDP = 46 billion 890 million dollars almost 50 billions dollars
Global Priority $U.S. (Billions)
Basic education for all 6 billion
Water and sanitation for all 9 billion
Reproductive health care for all women 12 billion
Basic health and nutrition 13 billion
Total 40 billion
Military spending in the world 780 billion
only in USA 550 billion
We are fortunate. We have much more than what we need to be content. 20% of the population in the developed nations consume 86% of the world’s goods.
Let’s try not to feed this endless cycle of consumerism and immorality in which this “modern and advanced” society forgets and ignores the other two thirds of our brothers and sisters.
“The biggest scandal of the contemporary world and especially of the Christianity is that while in one corner of this world thousands of people is starving every day, at the same time in the other corner of the same world thousands of people is dying because of the health problems caused by obesity.”
Give them some food yourselves.
When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said,
“This is a deserted place and it is already late;
dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages
and buy food for themselves.”
Jesus said to them, “There is no need for them to go away;
give them some food yourselves.”
But they said to him,
“Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.”
Then he said, “Bring them here to me, ”
It’s obvious that today’s Gospel is presenting us the miracle of the multiplication of food as an announcement, a foretelling of this what is happening on the altar during every Eucharistic celebration. But I think that this event is bringing to our minds also some social justice issues. We cannot avoid this problem, because Jesus is telling openly: “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.”
According to the report PNUD “Reconsidérer la Richesse” prepared by Patrick Viveret in 1998
• We need 6 billion dollars yearly to assure the education for all children in the world who are not yet in school
• At the same time in the USA, people spend annually 8 billion dollars on perfumes
• Nearly 1 billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
• The world needs 13 billion dollars annually to feed all who are hungry
• At the same time in the USA, 25 billion dollars is spent each year on pet food
So, wealthy Christians in the USA are spending almost twice as much on pet food as is needed to feed the hungry of the whole world.
• Each day some 30 thousand children under the age of 5 are dying due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.” That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years of age, each year.
• Each day in France with a population of 63 million, 60 thousand tons of food goes to the garbage
The 3 richest people (and two of them are Christians) in the world have more total wealth than the total GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the world’s 48 poorest countries.
GDP = 46 billion 890 million dollars almost 50 billions dollars
Global Priority $U.S. (Billions)
Basic education for all 6 billion
Water and sanitation for all 9 billion
Reproductive health care for all women 12 billion
Basic health and nutrition 13 billion
Total 40 billion
Military spending in the world 780 billion
only in USA 550 billion
We are fortunate. We have much more than what we need to be content. 20% of the population in the developed nations consume 86% of the world’s goods.
Let’s try not to feed this endless cycle of consumerism and immorality in which this “modern and advanced” society forgets and ignores the other two thirds of our brothers and sisters.
“The biggest scandal of the contemporary world and especially of the Christianity is that while in one corner of this world thousands of people is starving every day, at the same time in the other corner of the same world thousands of people is dying because of the health problems caused by obesity.”
Monday, July 21, 2008
16th Sunday in Ordinary Time A
We are reminded by today's Gospel that we are all sinners. Everyone of us. It would be presumptuous of us to sit in judgement and condemn others. Instead, we can best persuade others to follow Christ by living the Gospel in our own lives.
In using three parables of the weeds of the field, Jesus tells us that the actions of the Son of Man, Jesus, are opposed by the evil one, the devil.
Humanity is divided into two groups: the children of the kingdom and the children of the evil one.
The focus is on the great judgment that will come at the end of time. Just as the weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age.
The Son of Man will send His angels who will collect out of His Kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of the Father.
The fact that God permitted (and permits) sin and its consequences does not suggest in any way that God was the author of evil, or that God could not do anything about it, or that it took God by surprise and spoiled God’s plan. God saw (or, bet¬ter, "sees") the whole of history in the very act of creation.
Now that history includes original sin, but it also includes our salva¬tion, for even when we disobeyed God and lost His friendship, He did not abandon us.
First, He sent His Son to redeem us and reopen heaven to us. Then He and His Son sent Their Spirit, Who "helps us in our weakness" and "intercedes" for us “ according to the will of God," as we hear in the Second Reading.
Why did God allow the origi¬nal sin? The answer is that He had given Adam and Eve free will, which was necessary for them to freely relate to Him in love, but of course, because of this free will, this always included the possibility of their rejecting Him.
Why did God allow the con¬sequences of their rejection? Pre¬sumably He could have simply erased the original sin, but then He would have had to do the same for the next sin, and the next, forever. That would mean taking away our free will, for if He corrected every wrong choice, we would end up having no real choice at all.
As any gardener knows, weeding can be the greatest threat of all to the life of the young seedling. At first, the problem is one of proper identification. What is a weed and what isn’t?
So, the weeds must be left until the seedling can be clearly recognised. Even then, removing the weeds may pose an even greater threat. Weeding might damage the seedling's root system. Pulling out the weed brings the seedling away with it.
And, In the case of human beings it is an even more hazardous option. 'Weeding-out' has no history of success but that doesn't seem to have stopped us humans from weeding out those that we judge to be undesirable.
Fifty years after Hitler's final solution, the horrendous weeding out of six million Jews in concentration camps, the Bosnian Serbs were attempting the same brutal policy of 'ethnic cleansing'. And we continue to have many other examples of man’s inhumanity to man.
Race, religion, colour, sex, politics are still being used to identify and eliminate society's weeds.
And now our tremendous advances in technology had provided humankind with new and more sinister instruments for weeding out.
The unborn child, who is the seed of life, is brutally eliminated in the hundreds of thousands yearly by the sinister act of abortion. While at the other end of life, mercy killing or euthanasia is proposed as the final solution for the new Jews, that is the old, the maimed, the incurables and the burdensome. Right through life, we humans continue to weed remorselessly.
The weak and unwanted are eliminated, the handicapped are institutionalised, the delinquent are penalized, the deviant are ostracized and the poor are patronised.
And this weeding out is not just confined to a faceless government acting in our name.
We all try our hand at it. As we sit in judgment on our fellow human beings we like to think our judicious weeding-out has prevented many great personal calamities. We are very sharp at spotting the undesirables, the troublemakers, the misfits.
One shudders to think of the people who might have been weeded out if men had gotten their way and God himself had not chosen to intervene.
Most probably a great majority of the saints in our calendar would have been weeded out by our remorseless purging and we would also probably have condemned them all to hell.
If it was up to us, Peter, for example, after his triple denial in the crucifixion crisis should have been weeded out for failing the leadership test.
And don’t you think it strange that Christ never weeded out Judas?
The lesson of the parable of the weeds is so simple and but yet so widely ignored. To the question 'Do you want us to go and weed it out?' the answer is a categorical 'No'.
This week the President of the Canadian Association of the Knights of Columbus wrote a short, respectful but demanding letter to the Governor General of Canada. In it, Natale Gallo respectfully demanded that the Order of Canada given to Henry Morgentaler be immediately rescinded.
This letter is dated July 16th over two weeks since Canada Day. The date is important because it serves to emphasize that this matter is far from over.
You see, one of the strategies of the culture of death is to expect a lot of initial opposition from the silent majority – but if history is a teacher – they know that this opposition will quickly die down.
It seems that the vast majority of people will sort of salve their consciences by signing petitions and sending letters and the like but will soon want to return to the peace and quiet of their daily lives and will tire of the debate. Especially if the topic is unpleasant.
The matter will then quietly fade and the Order of Canada fiasco will stand as a testimony and another victory for the culture of death. And you will see the popular media helpthe issue to die a quiet death.
But the defenders of life are not about to let this happen and so Mr. Gallo’s letter is very timely.
Not only that but Mr. Gallo has sent a letter to all the Knights of Columbus Councils asking that all 230,000 members renew their efforts and to write letters all over again to their member of parliament, to the Prime Minister and to the Governor General. Unfortunately some of the Knights of Columbus members appear to be on the opposite side of the fence.
So, it will be a tough battle to get the job done. Only by consistent pressure, consistent prayers and fasting will the victory be won.
As a final word, I want to tell you about two ladies who spoke to me about this Morgentaler issue.
One was angry when she told me and I quote “how dare they say that they are giving Morgentaler his award because of what he has done for women. What he has done for women is given the vast majority of us a legacy of pain and hurt that will not pass by human intervention. Only God can heal this hurt.
Morgentaler has not helped women as much as they lead us to believe. It is men in fact who stand most to gain by his actions. Who do you think pays the emotional and physical price for this act. Not men. An act which was initiated by a man and woman many time leaves the women alone to pay the price but we never hear about that in the popular media.” Unquote
And another lady who wasn’t as angry but she was very determined not to let the matter die. This lady showed me her 75 letters, all handwritten because she was told this would be most effective because apparently all handwritten correspondence is usually read personally by the recipient as opposed to a secretary who intercepts all emails and typewritten correspondence.
All of her letters were just two or three sentences long. All respectfully demanding that the Order of Canada be rescinded from Morgentaler. All of them sent postage free.
She intends to send one letter a week to the Prime Minister, her member of parliament and the Governor General. She said she will contine to send a letter a week for six months to each of them. She had her letters are all written and ready to go and she showed me the box they were kept in.
Why so many letters? Well her plan is to always keep this issue before the faces of the politicians until victory is won for the right to life for the unborn. She follows up the mailing of her letters with a rosary praying for their success.
The mailing of her letters also keeps the issue fresh in her own mind. She does not want to forget the thousands of babies who are terminated even as she is praying for the perpetrators.
While we may not want to be writing a letter a week to our politicians, I think we have to admire her devotion to the cause of life. They certainly will tire of her persistence, won’t they? She prays with the determination of St. Monica who prayed for years for her playboy son, Augustine, who after fathering an illegitimate child, finally ended up contvertin to the faith, became ordained a priest, and ended up as a Bishop and great doctor of the Church and a Saint.
So you see our job is not to sit in final judgement on our brothers and sisters but rather to pray for their conversion. By following Christ’s example we must show them the way by living the Gospel ourselves.
That is why the church teaches us that we must hate the sin but love the sinner.
That is why we can and must hate abortion and euthanasia and work hard to eliminate it as an evil but we must also love the abortionists and pray for their conversion. We must remember That they are also God’s children and He loves them dearly..
This has always been the church’s teaching even though we her members have not always been faithful in followng her teaching. He would willingly have died on the cross just for Morgentaler alone as He did willingly for each one of us.
Only God has eyes sufficiently discerning and fingers sufficiently gentle for the job of judging and weeding. Weeding ¬out is God's prerogative. Life would be so much better for every¬body, if only we would leave the judging to him. Our job is to pray for our brothers and sisters.
After all, we are our brothers keepers, aren’t we. Dear brothers and sisters – keep up the pressure. Don’t let this issue die a silent death. Be faithful to the end.
Deacon Bernie Ouellette
We are reminded by today's Gospel that we are all sinners. Everyone of us. It would be presumptuous of us to sit in judgement and condemn others. Instead, we can best persuade others to follow Christ by living the Gospel in our own lives.
In using three parables of the weeds of the field, Jesus tells us that the actions of the Son of Man, Jesus, are opposed by the evil one, the devil.
Humanity is divided into two groups: the children of the kingdom and the children of the evil one.
The focus is on the great judgment that will come at the end of time. Just as the weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age.
The Son of Man will send His angels who will collect out of His Kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of the Father.
The fact that God permitted (and permits) sin and its consequences does not suggest in any way that God was the author of evil, or that God could not do anything about it, or that it took God by surprise and spoiled God’s plan. God saw (or, bet¬ter, "sees") the whole of history in the very act of creation.
Now that history includes original sin, but it also includes our salva¬tion, for even when we disobeyed God and lost His friendship, He did not abandon us.
First, He sent His Son to redeem us and reopen heaven to us. Then He and His Son sent Their Spirit, Who "helps us in our weakness" and "intercedes" for us “ according to the will of God," as we hear in the Second Reading.
Why did God allow the origi¬nal sin? The answer is that He had given Adam and Eve free will, which was necessary for them to freely relate to Him in love, but of course, because of this free will, this always included the possibility of their rejecting Him.
Why did God allow the con¬sequences of their rejection? Pre¬sumably He could have simply erased the original sin, but then He would have had to do the same for the next sin, and the next, forever. That would mean taking away our free will, for if He corrected every wrong choice, we would end up having no real choice at all.
As any gardener knows, weeding can be the greatest threat of all to the life of the young seedling. At first, the problem is one of proper identification. What is a weed and what isn’t?
So, the weeds must be left until the seedling can be clearly recognised. Even then, removing the weeds may pose an even greater threat. Weeding might damage the seedling's root system. Pulling out the weed brings the seedling away with it.
And, In the case of human beings it is an even more hazardous option. 'Weeding-out' has no history of success but that doesn't seem to have stopped us humans from weeding out those that we judge to be undesirable.
Fifty years after Hitler's final solution, the horrendous weeding out of six million Jews in concentration camps, the Bosnian Serbs were attempting the same brutal policy of 'ethnic cleansing'. And we continue to have many other examples of man’s inhumanity to man.
Race, religion, colour, sex, politics are still being used to identify and eliminate society's weeds.
And now our tremendous advances in technology had provided humankind with new and more sinister instruments for weeding out.
The unborn child, who is the seed of life, is brutally eliminated in the hundreds of thousands yearly by the sinister act of abortion. While at the other end of life, mercy killing or euthanasia is proposed as the final solution for the new Jews, that is the old, the maimed, the incurables and the burdensome. Right through life, we humans continue to weed remorselessly.
The weak and unwanted are eliminated, the handicapped are institutionalised, the delinquent are penalized, the deviant are ostracized and the poor are patronised.
And this weeding out is not just confined to a faceless government acting in our name.
We all try our hand at it. As we sit in judgment on our fellow human beings we like to think our judicious weeding-out has prevented many great personal calamities. We are very sharp at spotting the undesirables, the troublemakers, the misfits.
One shudders to think of the people who might have been weeded out if men had gotten their way and God himself had not chosen to intervene.
Most probably a great majority of the saints in our calendar would have been weeded out by our remorseless purging and we would also probably have condemned them all to hell.
If it was up to us, Peter, for example, after his triple denial in the crucifixion crisis should have been weeded out for failing the leadership test.
And don’t you think it strange that Christ never weeded out Judas?
The lesson of the parable of the weeds is so simple and but yet so widely ignored. To the question 'Do you want us to go and weed it out?' the answer is a categorical 'No'.
This week the President of the Canadian Association of the Knights of Columbus wrote a short, respectful but demanding letter to the Governor General of Canada. In it, Natale Gallo respectfully demanded that the Order of Canada given to Henry Morgentaler be immediately rescinded.
This letter is dated July 16th over two weeks since Canada Day. The date is important because it serves to emphasize that this matter is far from over.
You see, one of the strategies of the culture of death is to expect a lot of initial opposition from the silent majority – but if history is a teacher – they know that this opposition will quickly die down.
It seems that the vast majority of people will sort of salve their consciences by signing petitions and sending letters and the like but will soon want to return to the peace and quiet of their daily lives and will tire of the debate. Especially if the topic is unpleasant.
The matter will then quietly fade and the Order of Canada fiasco will stand as a testimony and another victory for the culture of death. And you will see the popular media helpthe issue to die a quiet death.
But the defenders of life are not about to let this happen and so Mr. Gallo’s letter is very timely.
Not only that but Mr. Gallo has sent a letter to all the Knights of Columbus Councils asking that all 230,000 members renew their efforts and to write letters all over again to their member of parliament, to the Prime Minister and to the Governor General. Unfortunately some of the Knights of Columbus members appear to be on the opposite side of the fence.
So, it will be a tough battle to get the job done. Only by consistent pressure, consistent prayers and fasting will the victory be won.
As a final word, I want to tell you about two ladies who spoke to me about this Morgentaler issue.
One was angry when she told me and I quote “how dare they say that they are giving Morgentaler his award because of what he has done for women. What he has done for women is given the vast majority of us a legacy of pain and hurt that will not pass by human intervention. Only God can heal this hurt.
Morgentaler has not helped women as much as they lead us to believe. It is men in fact who stand most to gain by his actions. Who do you think pays the emotional and physical price for this act. Not men. An act which was initiated by a man and woman many time leaves the women alone to pay the price but we never hear about that in the popular media.” Unquote
And another lady who wasn’t as angry but she was very determined not to let the matter die. This lady showed me her 75 letters, all handwritten because she was told this would be most effective because apparently all handwritten correspondence is usually read personally by the recipient as opposed to a secretary who intercepts all emails and typewritten correspondence.
All of her letters were just two or three sentences long. All respectfully demanding that the Order of Canada be rescinded from Morgentaler. All of them sent postage free.
She intends to send one letter a week to the Prime Minister, her member of parliament and the Governor General. She said she will contine to send a letter a week for six months to each of them. She had her letters are all written and ready to go and she showed me the box they were kept in.
Why so many letters? Well her plan is to always keep this issue before the faces of the politicians until victory is won for the right to life for the unborn. She follows up the mailing of her letters with a rosary praying for their success.
The mailing of her letters also keeps the issue fresh in her own mind. She does not want to forget the thousands of babies who are terminated even as she is praying for the perpetrators.
While we may not want to be writing a letter a week to our politicians, I think we have to admire her devotion to the cause of life. They certainly will tire of her persistence, won’t they? She prays with the determination of St. Monica who prayed for years for her playboy son, Augustine, who after fathering an illegitimate child, finally ended up contvertin to the faith, became ordained a priest, and ended up as a Bishop and great doctor of the Church and a Saint.
So you see our job is not to sit in final judgement on our brothers and sisters but rather to pray for their conversion. By following Christ’s example we must show them the way by living the Gospel ourselves.
That is why the church teaches us that we must hate the sin but love the sinner.
That is why we can and must hate abortion and euthanasia and work hard to eliminate it as an evil but we must also love the abortionists and pray for their conversion. We must remember That they are also God’s children and He loves them dearly..
This has always been the church’s teaching even though we her members have not always been faithful in followng her teaching. He would willingly have died on the cross just for Morgentaler alone as He did willingly for each one of us.
Only God has eyes sufficiently discerning and fingers sufficiently gentle for the job of judging and weeding. Weeding ¬out is God's prerogative. Life would be so much better for every¬body, if only we would leave the judging to him. Our job is to pray for our brothers and sisters.
After all, we are our brothers keepers, aren’t we. Dear brothers and sisters – keep up the pressure. Don’t let this issue die a silent death. Be faithful to the end.
Deacon Bernie Ouellette
Monday, July 14, 2008
July 13th 2008 - Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Isaiah 55, 10-11; Psalm 65; Romans 8, 18-23; Matthew 13, 1-23
1 God's generosity – God is sowing abundantly and not sparingly
The parable has strong links with the First Reading from Isaiah. In both we are told that God shares his abundance with us and his plans will not be frustrated. God's creative and nurturing work is compared with rain and snow falling on the earth and not returning until it has given moisture
2 The reality of God's Word
In the whole of Scripture God's word is not just a spoken word. It is a doing word, a creating, life-giving word. It is like a life-bearing seed. God’s Word finally is Jesus Christ Himself. Are we aware of this?
Everything that Jesus said, everything that Jesus did was God communicating to us through Him. Not just His teaching but his whole life, from the hidden years of Nazareth through his public life to his death and resurrection - in all of this Jesus was, and is for us today, the Word of God.
What is my attitude toward the Word of God? How do I see it, how do I accept it? Do I trust Him or I try to intellectualize and adopt the Word of God to my personal lifestyle?
The gospels are unlike any other literature in the history of the world.
They are unique because in them the Word of God, Jesus Christ Himself, speaks to us and instructs us.
Because He knows each of us intimately, His love for us is the perfect answer to our needs.
But we will not grow in the good and joyful life of Christ if the gospel can find no place in us.
When the scriptures are proclaimed in the liturgy we can be "good soil" for the sowing of God's word if we put aside distractions and recognize that it is the most important moment of the week; the one in which the living God speaks to each of us in a perfect way.
But if we are rocky ground, with little depth, or a patch of thorns, with little or no time or attention, the Word will not take root. After 9-11 the Sunday churches were filled. All Masses, hardly a place to sit down. Within a month, Mass attendance got back to normal. Plenty of seats available. Those who pray when danger threatens, but soon forget God, live in rocky soil.
In the parable, much of that Word fell on barren soil.
Barren soil – the path, the trail, the hard track
• Some seed falls on the path. There is no soil here. There is no prospect of the seed taking root. Ears and eyes are closed and unreceptive to the Word of God.
Many refused to hear or to see (hence so many cases of deafness and blindness in the Gospel). Even Jesus' closest disciples many times did not accept His teaching “it’s very difficult to listen to You. How we can eat your body and drink your blood.” Is it today different when so many reject His real presence in the Eucharist?
The barren soil represents those who knows better, who don’t need the Teacher, who don’t understand and are wiser but in reality blind and deaf. They don’t accept the Word because they don’t need it, their soul is as hard as the stone pawed track.
Rocky ground – immediately receives
no root, endures only for a while
• The seed falls on rocky ground in the field where there is a thin layer of soil. The seed takes root, begins to grow but soon gets burnt up by lack of water and the heat of the sun. It is like those Christians who, after baptism or after a retreat or some spiritual experience (like RCIA), have a great rush of enthusiasm for God but, under the slightest pressure, soon run out of steam and fall away. Probably there was no real hearing, no real understanding and hence no real commitment.
So there is a necessity of deepening, of strengthening, developing, takimg care of the seed of the Word of God.
Among thorns – overwhelmed by
- the cares of the world and
- the lure of wealth
• The seed falls on soil where there are many weeds and thorns. It gets smothered by the competing plants. This we might call the "having your cake and eating it" response. I do want to be a good Christian but I also want to have all the things that the world around me thinks important, even if they are in conflict with the Gospel vision. It won't work. We cannot at the same time totally serve God and be a part of the materialistic, consumerist, "success"-hungry world. Probably a very large number of us, in varying degrees, belong in this category. As a result, the Church's work in building the Kingdom is severely hampered by thorns and choked by the lure of wealth.
This choke the word – how many things in my life choke the Word of God in me?
Good soil
• Finally, some of the seed falls in rich, nutritious soil. This soil is like the "man who hears, understands and accepts the Word of God." "He is the one who yields a harvest" in varying degrees of abundance.
Isaiah 55, 10-11; Psalm 65; Romans 8, 18-23; Matthew 13, 1-23
1 God's generosity – God is sowing abundantly and not sparingly
The parable has strong links with the First Reading from Isaiah. In both we are told that God shares his abundance with us and his plans will not be frustrated. God's creative and nurturing work is compared with rain and snow falling on the earth and not returning until it has given moisture
2 The reality of God's Word
In the whole of Scripture God's word is not just a spoken word. It is a doing word, a creating, life-giving word. It is like a life-bearing seed. God’s Word finally is Jesus Christ Himself. Are we aware of this?
Everything that Jesus said, everything that Jesus did was God communicating to us through Him. Not just His teaching but his whole life, from the hidden years of Nazareth through his public life to his death and resurrection - in all of this Jesus was, and is for us today, the Word of God.
What is my attitude toward the Word of God? How do I see it, how do I accept it? Do I trust Him or I try to intellectualize and adopt the Word of God to my personal lifestyle?
The gospels are unlike any other literature in the history of the world.
They are unique because in them the Word of God, Jesus Christ Himself, speaks to us and instructs us.
Because He knows each of us intimately, His love for us is the perfect answer to our needs.
But we will not grow in the good and joyful life of Christ if the gospel can find no place in us.
When the scriptures are proclaimed in the liturgy we can be "good soil" for the sowing of God's word if we put aside distractions and recognize that it is the most important moment of the week; the one in which the living God speaks to each of us in a perfect way.
But if we are rocky ground, with little depth, or a patch of thorns, with little or no time or attention, the Word will not take root. After 9-11 the Sunday churches were filled. All Masses, hardly a place to sit down. Within a month, Mass attendance got back to normal. Plenty of seats available. Those who pray when danger threatens, but soon forget God, live in rocky soil.
In the parable, much of that Word fell on barren soil.
Barren soil – the path, the trail, the hard track
• Some seed falls on the path. There is no soil here. There is no prospect of the seed taking root. Ears and eyes are closed and unreceptive to the Word of God.
Many refused to hear or to see (hence so many cases of deafness and blindness in the Gospel). Even Jesus' closest disciples many times did not accept His teaching “it’s very difficult to listen to You. How we can eat your body and drink your blood.” Is it today different when so many reject His real presence in the Eucharist?
The barren soil represents those who knows better, who don’t need the Teacher, who don’t understand and are wiser but in reality blind and deaf. They don’t accept the Word because they don’t need it, their soul is as hard as the stone pawed track.
Rocky ground – immediately receives
no root, endures only for a while
• The seed falls on rocky ground in the field where there is a thin layer of soil. The seed takes root, begins to grow but soon gets burnt up by lack of water and the heat of the sun. It is like those Christians who, after baptism or after a retreat or some spiritual experience (like RCIA), have a great rush of enthusiasm for God but, under the slightest pressure, soon run out of steam and fall away. Probably there was no real hearing, no real understanding and hence no real commitment.
So there is a necessity of deepening, of strengthening, developing, takimg care of the seed of the Word of God.
Among thorns – overwhelmed by
- the cares of the world and
- the lure of wealth
• The seed falls on soil where there are many weeds and thorns. It gets smothered by the competing plants. This we might call the "having your cake and eating it" response. I do want to be a good Christian but I also want to have all the things that the world around me thinks important, even if they are in conflict with the Gospel vision. It won't work. We cannot at the same time totally serve God and be a part of the materialistic, consumerist, "success"-hungry world. Probably a very large number of us, in varying degrees, belong in this category. As a result, the Church's work in building the Kingdom is severely hampered by thorns and choked by the lure of wealth.
This choke the word – how many things in my life choke the Word of God in me?
Good soil
• Finally, some of the seed falls in rich, nutritious soil. This soil is like the "man who hears, understands and accepts the Word of God." "He is the one who yields a harvest" in varying degrees of abundance.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
July 06, 2008 – 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
On July 1st, on Canada Day, while most of us enjoyed Canada Day celebrations with our families, Dr.Henry Morgentaler was awarded the honour of the “Order of Canada”. This was done on our behalf by the committee responsible for the Order of Canada. This was done in spite of wholesale opposition to the appointment.
In order to give Morgentaler the award the committee had to circumvent the usual procedure and appeal to the Governor General to sign the recommendation because they could not come to a unanimous decision on this award. This was done stealthily on the long weekend so that most Canadians would not be at home and so the foul deed could be accomplished without much opposition.
Previous opinion polls conducted by the Globe and mail showed that over 92% of Canadians were opposed to such an award being giving to this notorious abortionist who has killed thousands of babies in their mother’s wombs.
So in spite of the fact that the majority of Canadians were opposed to it – the award was made late on Canada Day and done in your name.
Kelly McPharland, the Politics Editor for the National Post writes:
At a press conference following his naming to the Order of Canada. Dr. Henry Morgentaler acknowledged there were those who questioned his suitability for the honour, but quickly dismissed them in a line: “The negative opinions all come from the usual suspects: The Catholic Church, fundamentalists, women opposed to women’s rights.”
I’ve been thinking about that statement for some time, trying to figure out what it is about it that’s so disquieting. Maybe it’s because I’m none of those things. I’m just a middleclass Canadian who thinks it wrong to take life away from innocents who are incapable of speaking or acting for themselves.
Nobody who works at the National Post is likely to be accused of adhering to the cult of victimhood. But, we’re not completely heartless, and is there a greater definition of a victim than a child, still in the womb, wholly dependent on its mother to live and on the legal system to protect it?
In Canada we guarantee neither of those protections. (Canada is the only civilized country in the world without a law for or against abortion).
There is no law whatsoever on abortion and women are assured it is wholly their right to make the decision on life and death, singly and unilaterally, without interference of any kind pertaining to the right of the being that is to die.
No judge in the country has the authority to render so final and absolute a verdict. We’re a society that purports to care deeply about injustice, and goes to great length to assist those treated unjustly both at home and abroad.
Yet cares nothing at all for those who haven’t quite made it to the delivery room. It’s like introducing the world’s most lenient refugee and immigration program, but only for people able to physically reach our shores: if they get machine-gunned a mile offshore, it’s not our problem.
Recently Audrey and I visited friends of ours for supper and while we were there the evening news came on. The newscaster was talking about a horse that had broken its leg at a race track and had to be put down. The lady of the house immediately voiced her objection to having the TV on so that we had to listen to such “distressing news” Her husband immediately shut the TV off.
I thought isn’t that typical of what we have become as Canadians. If we shut it off – it didn’t happen.
If I don’t hear about it – it’s not my problem. It won’t happen, It didn’t happen or it’s not happening. Well I have news for you – it is happening. Over 96,000 times last year. Over 96,000 screaming little Canadian babies were terminated – killed in your name and with your money. Just like the people of Hitler’s Germany we Canadians have fallen asleep.
The WCR tells us that at a cost to the taxpayer of over $300 million the government of Alberta wants to immunize all of our nine year old girls with Gardasil a vaccine which purportedly guards against them contracting the human papilloma virus. And we are going to let it happen.
This virus is only spread through sexual contact. As parents and grandparents fall asleep at the wheel we are hurtling down the highway of destruction at breakneck speed.
And we will soon wake up to another fait accomplis – euthanasia. Where the elderly and the unwanted are denied treatment and allowed to die. And don’t you think for a minute that it will be long in coming either – if it isn’t already here. If you have anyone elderly in the hospital or nursing home then you better listen to this.
BIRMINGHAM, UK, July 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "Ellen Westwood was due to die in February but her family is Catholic and for them, life is sacred." So begins the television coverage by the BBC of a battle by a Birmingham family to prevent the NHS (National Health Service) from dehydrating their mother to death.
According to the BBC's report, doctors decided on a Friday in February that Mrs. Westwood was "due to die" by the following Monday, but the family, with the intervention of their priest, fought the order to remove the woman's hydration.
Mrs. Ellen Westwood, 88, was in Birmingham's Selly Oak Hospital for two months after she had been admitted into Birmingham's Royal Orthopaedic Hospital for routine shoulder surgery. The woman ended up being treated for dementia and C.difficile, which Westwood's daughter alleges she contracted at the Orthopaedic Hospital after the surgery. The bacterial infection soon spread to her cheeks, face and throat, making it difficult for her to swallow.
Doctors at Selly Oak Hospital then told the family that all food, fluids and hydration were to be stopped and that Mrs. Westwood would be given morphine "because she is dying".
Ellen's daughter, Kathleen Westwood, told the BBC that the decision had been taken because it was "a capacity ruling" and that under current UK law, the family's wishes do not enter into the equation.
"If you deem somebody to have lost capacity, then the doctors can act in the best interests," she said.
The family had an interview with doctors on a Friday afternoon, in which they were told that Mrs. Westwood was going to die.
"In [the doctors'] view the best interests was for my mother to die - and clearly by Monday she would have been dead," Kathleen told BBC.
The family, however, brought the woman food and water. Hospital officials responded by threatening to report the family to social services for feeding Mrs. Westwood.
"We said we don't want this to happen and they said 'it's happening, sorry'. I had to fight very, very hard to get it stopped."
Eventually the family obtained a second opinion and Mrs. Westwood was able to go home, where she is recovering well and is celebrating her 89th birthday today.
Under the UK's Mental Capacity Act, passed in 2005, patients deemed to be incapable of making decisions in their own "best interests" can have all fluids withheld until they die. The family can do little to stop this process once doctors have made their decision.
While active euthanasia officially remains illegal in Britain, some are saying that the NHS standard procedure of issuing elderly and vulnerable patients with an "end of life plan" that includes dehydration, is simply euthanasia under a different name.
And it is becoming common. A packed meeting this week in Stafford heard the stories of families who had been forced to bring in priests and lawyers to stop similar orders from killing their loved ones, even though the patients sometimes are not terminally ill.
As Canadians and especially as Catholic Christians we cannot let this stuff sneak into our country. We were sleeping at the wheel on abortion and on same sex marriage.
We cannot let this continue. We must all get involved in the debate. You must make your opinions count by contacting your elected representatives.
If we fail to act then we are just as guilty as those who are doing the actual abortions and killings. Because they are using your tax dollars and your permission to do it.
If we sit back and do nothing then the next life they snuff out for the sake of money may very well be someone we love. Think about your children and grandchildren – or your potential children and grandchildren – do you really want the government to decide whether they live or die. Because if continue to sit back and say nothing – like they did in Hitler’s Germany – we can expect the same results because history does repeat itself.
Jesus warns us that we are our brother’s keeper. We can sin when we do something wrong but can also sin by doing nothing to prevent the sin about us especially when all it takes is a letter, and email or a phone call to let your opinion count.
The Son God came to earth to heal us of original sin. He did this not in some great and spectacular display of power but rather in the quiet force of truth and love. Meekness and humility like those of Christ are not easy for us. But Jesus stood up for what was right and was willing to lay down his life so that we might live – can we not do the same so that the innocent might live?
I close now with this statement released by Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto.
Canada's highest honour has been debased. Henry Morgentaler has been awarded the Order of Canada. We are all diminished.
A community's worth is measured by the way it treats the most vulnerable, and no one is more vulnerable than in the first nine months of life's journey. No person may presume to judge the soul of Henry Morgentaler, but it cannot be denied that the effect of his life's work has been a deadly assault upon the most helpless amongst us.
Canada glories in the names of Banting and Best, and the other medical heroes who selflessly brought healing where there was disease and suffering. Now it honours with the Order of Canada a medical man who has brought not healing, but the destruction of the defenseless and immeasurable grief. This award must not stand.
I earnestly appeal to all who are tempted to resort to an abortionist, or are pressured to do so by those around them. I urge you to contact organizations such as Birthright, and others who will support you and love you and your precious child. Contact your parish. We are here for you. I pledge to you the support of the Catholic Church. Look to our archdiocesan website at http://www.archtoronto.org for information concerning places where you may find loving help.
For those who have had an abortion, and bear within your heart the fearful grief, I urge you to contact us, to find love and support in your anguish, and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to find the gift of inner peace.
I ask the faithful of the Archdiocese of Toronto, and all people of good will, to protest this act of dishonour. Write, phone, or e-mail the Governor General, the Prime Minister, and your Member of Parliament. Ask that this action be revoked.
This coming Sunday will be a day of special prayer in the Archdiocese of Toronto, for an end to the evil of abortion. I have asked that the following prayer be inserted in the Prayer of the Faithful in all the churches of the archdiocese:
"That the scourge of abortion be lifted from our land, that those who promote it may be brought to a change of heart, that all who are tempted to abortion may be lovingly helped to protect the precious gift of life, and that all who have experienced an abortion may be comforted with the healing gift of love." Amen.
It’s not like Canadians to sit back and be overrun by a small minority who have used government agencies to put forth their agendas and a great cost to the majority. They have gotten away with and they continue to get away with it because the popular media squashes anyone who dare oppose this minority and the vast majority of us say absolutely nothing. They know this and so that is why the vocal minority get what they want. We say nothing and let it happen.
Let’s make up our minds right now to do something about it. Don’t let this week go by without making your opinion count. If we don’t do it – nobody else will do it for us. Join with Archbishop Collins - Contact your representatives and ask them to do what they must to rescind the Order of Canada award to Morgentaler as a start to taking back our Canada.
Jesus says ”Come to me, all who are weary and find life burdensome and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.
Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light.”
Amen.
Deacon Bernie Ouellette
On July 1st, on Canada Day, while most of us enjoyed Canada Day celebrations with our families, Dr.Henry Morgentaler was awarded the honour of the “Order of Canada”. This was done on our behalf by the committee responsible for the Order of Canada. This was done in spite of wholesale opposition to the appointment.
In order to give Morgentaler the award the committee had to circumvent the usual procedure and appeal to the Governor General to sign the recommendation because they could not come to a unanimous decision on this award. This was done stealthily on the long weekend so that most Canadians would not be at home and so the foul deed could be accomplished without much opposition.
Previous opinion polls conducted by the Globe and mail showed that over 92% of Canadians were opposed to such an award being giving to this notorious abortionist who has killed thousands of babies in their mother’s wombs.
So in spite of the fact that the majority of Canadians were opposed to it – the award was made late on Canada Day and done in your name.
Kelly McPharland, the Politics Editor for the National Post writes:
At a press conference following his naming to the Order of Canada. Dr. Henry Morgentaler acknowledged there were those who questioned his suitability for the honour, but quickly dismissed them in a line: “The negative opinions all come from the usual suspects: The Catholic Church, fundamentalists, women opposed to women’s rights.”
I’ve been thinking about that statement for some time, trying to figure out what it is about it that’s so disquieting. Maybe it’s because I’m none of those things. I’m just a middleclass Canadian who thinks it wrong to take life away from innocents who are incapable of speaking or acting for themselves.
Nobody who works at the National Post is likely to be accused of adhering to the cult of victimhood. But, we’re not completely heartless, and is there a greater definition of a victim than a child, still in the womb, wholly dependent on its mother to live and on the legal system to protect it?
In Canada we guarantee neither of those protections. (Canada is the only civilized country in the world without a law for or against abortion).
There is no law whatsoever on abortion and women are assured it is wholly their right to make the decision on life and death, singly and unilaterally, without interference of any kind pertaining to the right of the being that is to die.
No judge in the country has the authority to render so final and absolute a verdict. We’re a society that purports to care deeply about injustice, and goes to great length to assist those treated unjustly both at home and abroad.
Yet cares nothing at all for those who haven’t quite made it to the delivery room. It’s like introducing the world’s most lenient refugee and immigration program, but only for people able to physically reach our shores: if they get machine-gunned a mile offshore, it’s not our problem.
Recently Audrey and I visited friends of ours for supper and while we were there the evening news came on. The newscaster was talking about a horse that had broken its leg at a race track and had to be put down. The lady of the house immediately voiced her objection to having the TV on so that we had to listen to such “distressing news” Her husband immediately shut the TV off.
I thought isn’t that typical of what we have become as Canadians. If we shut it off – it didn’t happen.
If I don’t hear about it – it’s not my problem. It won’t happen, It didn’t happen or it’s not happening. Well I have news for you – it is happening. Over 96,000 times last year. Over 96,000 screaming little Canadian babies were terminated – killed in your name and with your money. Just like the people of Hitler’s Germany we Canadians have fallen asleep.
The WCR tells us that at a cost to the taxpayer of over $300 million the government of Alberta wants to immunize all of our nine year old girls with Gardasil a vaccine which purportedly guards against them contracting the human papilloma virus. And we are going to let it happen.
This virus is only spread through sexual contact. As parents and grandparents fall asleep at the wheel we are hurtling down the highway of destruction at breakneck speed.
And we will soon wake up to another fait accomplis – euthanasia. Where the elderly and the unwanted are denied treatment and allowed to die. And don’t you think for a minute that it will be long in coming either – if it isn’t already here. If you have anyone elderly in the hospital or nursing home then you better listen to this.
BIRMINGHAM, UK, July 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "Ellen Westwood was due to die in February but her family is Catholic and for them, life is sacred." So begins the television coverage by the BBC of a battle by a Birmingham family to prevent the NHS (National Health Service) from dehydrating their mother to death.
According to the BBC's report, doctors decided on a Friday in February that Mrs. Westwood was "due to die" by the following Monday, but the family, with the intervention of their priest, fought the order to remove the woman's hydration.
Mrs. Ellen Westwood, 88, was in Birmingham's Selly Oak Hospital for two months after she had been admitted into Birmingham's Royal Orthopaedic Hospital for routine shoulder surgery. The woman ended up being treated for dementia and C.difficile, which Westwood's daughter alleges she contracted at the Orthopaedic Hospital after the surgery. The bacterial infection soon spread to her cheeks, face and throat, making it difficult for her to swallow.
Doctors at Selly Oak Hospital then told the family that all food, fluids and hydration were to be stopped and that Mrs. Westwood would be given morphine "because she is dying".
Ellen's daughter, Kathleen Westwood, told the BBC that the decision had been taken because it was "a capacity ruling" and that under current UK law, the family's wishes do not enter into the equation.
"If you deem somebody to have lost capacity, then the doctors can act in the best interests," she said.
The family had an interview with doctors on a Friday afternoon, in which they were told that Mrs. Westwood was going to die.
"In [the doctors'] view the best interests was for my mother to die - and clearly by Monday she would have been dead," Kathleen told BBC.
The family, however, brought the woman food and water. Hospital officials responded by threatening to report the family to social services for feeding Mrs. Westwood.
"We said we don't want this to happen and they said 'it's happening, sorry'. I had to fight very, very hard to get it stopped."
Eventually the family obtained a second opinion and Mrs. Westwood was able to go home, where she is recovering well and is celebrating her 89th birthday today.
Under the UK's Mental Capacity Act, passed in 2005, patients deemed to be incapable of making decisions in their own "best interests" can have all fluids withheld until they die. The family can do little to stop this process once doctors have made their decision.
While active euthanasia officially remains illegal in Britain, some are saying that the NHS standard procedure of issuing elderly and vulnerable patients with an "end of life plan" that includes dehydration, is simply euthanasia under a different name.
And it is becoming common. A packed meeting this week in Stafford heard the stories of families who had been forced to bring in priests and lawyers to stop similar orders from killing their loved ones, even though the patients sometimes are not terminally ill.
As Canadians and especially as Catholic Christians we cannot let this stuff sneak into our country. We were sleeping at the wheel on abortion and on same sex marriage.
We cannot let this continue. We must all get involved in the debate. You must make your opinions count by contacting your elected representatives.
If we fail to act then we are just as guilty as those who are doing the actual abortions and killings. Because they are using your tax dollars and your permission to do it.
If we sit back and do nothing then the next life they snuff out for the sake of money may very well be someone we love. Think about your children and grandchildren – or your potential children and grandchildren – do you really want the government to decide whether they live or die. Because if continue to sit back and say nothing – like they did in Hitler’s Germany – we can expect the same results because history does repeat itself.
Jesus warns us that we are our brother’s keeper. We can sin when we do something wrong but can also sin by doing nothing to prevent the sin about us especially when all it takes is a letter, and email or a phone call to let your opinion count.
The Son God came to earth to heal us of original sin. He did this not in some great and spectacular display of power but rather in the quiet force of truth and love. Meekness and humility like those of Christ are not easy for us. But Jesus stood up for what was right and was willing to lay down his life so that we might live – can we not do the same so that the innocent might live?
I close now with this statement released by Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto.
Canada's highest honour has been debased. Henry Morgentaler has been awarded the Order of Canada. We are all diminished.
A community's worth is measured by the way it treats the most vulnerable, and no one is more vulnerable than in the first nine months of life's journey. No person may presume to judge the soul of Henry Morgentaler, but it cannot be denied that the effect of his life's work has been a deadly assault upon the most helpless amongst us.
Canada glories in the names of Banting and Best, and the other medical heroes who selflessly brought healing where there was disease and suffering. Now it honours with the Order of Canada a medical man who has brought not healing, but the destruction of the defenseless and immeasurable grief. This award must not stand.
I earnestly appeal to all who are tempted to resort to an abortionist, or are pressured to do so by those around them. I urge you to contact organizations such as Birthright, and others who will support you and love you and your precious child. Contact your parish. We are here for you. I pledge to you the support of the Catholic Church. Look to our archdiocesan website at http://www.archtoronto.org for information concerning places where you may find loving help.
For those who have had an abortion, and bear within your heart the fearful grief, I urge you to contact us, to find love and support in your anguish, and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to find the gift of inner peace.
I ask the faithful of the Archdiocese of Toronto, and all people of good will, to protest this act of dishonour. Write, phone, or e-mail the Governor General, the Prime Minister, and your Member of Parliament. Ask that this action be revoked.
This coming Sunday will be a day of special prayer in the Archdiocese of Toronto, for an end to the evil of abortion. I have asked that the following prayer be inserted in the Prayer of the Faithful in all the churches of the archdiocese:
"That the scourge of abortion be lifted from our land, that those who promote it may be brought to a change of heart, that all who are tempted to abortion may be lovingly helped to protect the precious gift of life, and that all who have experienced an abortion may be comforted with the healing gift of love." Amen.
It’s not like Canadians to sit back and be overrun by a small minority who have used government agencies to put forth their agendas and a great cost to the majority. They have gotten away with and they continue to get away with it because the popular media squashes anyone who dare oppose this minority and the vast majority of us say absolutely nothing. They know this and so that is why the vocal minority get what they want. We say nothing and let it happen.
Let’s make up our minds right now to do something about it. Don’t let this week go by without making your opinion count. If we don’t do it – nobody else will do it for us. Join with Archbishop Collins - Contact your representatives and ask them to do what they must to rescind the Order of Canada award to Morgentaler as a start to taking back our Canada.
Jesus says ”Come to me, all who are weary and find life burdensome and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.
Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light.”
Amen.
Deacon Bernie Ouellette
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Letter to the Clergy and Faithful on The Year of St. Paul
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The year 2008 marks the 2000th anniversary of the birth of St. Paul. To honour and celebrate the life, mission, and letters of this great Apostle, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has declared June 2008-June 2009 to be the Year of Saint Paul. Throughout this year, the Church is called to share with the Apostle Paul in the call to conversion; to live and pray in Christ; to study and live the inspired Word of God; to rekindle a love for the Eucharist and the Church; and to respond to the universal call to holiness and mission.
The Opening of the Pauline Year in the Archdiocese of Edmonton
A solemn liturgy to mark the beginning of the Pauline Year will be held at St. Joseph’s Basilica on Sunday, June 29th, at 5 p.m. On this day, as the Church throughout the world celebrates the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, we in this Archdiocese shall gather in our Cathedral church or in our parishes to celebrate the Eucharist and entrust this year of jubilee to God, whose love has been forcefully proclaimed by the Apostle Paul.
Practical Means of Participation in the Year of Saint Paul
Many activities are already planned or underway in this Archdiocese. For example, I have recently announced the beginning this fall of our plan for the new evangelization. Indeed, St. Paul’s eloquent testimony to the beauty of life in Christ will greatly enhance our new evangelization process, which aims to help all of us discover that there is “nothing more beautiful” than our life of faith. As well, the Archdiocese is continuing to discern and implement various pastoral goals for this local Church. How, then, to honour this privileged moment in the history of the Church in such a way that it is not perceived as a burdensome “addition” to events already occurring? The way to do so is to infuse what is already in place or planned with the teachings of St. Paul. For individuals, I strongly encourage the nourishment of your daily life of faith through a new reading of the letters of St. Paul. Paul himself was intimately acquainted with the Sacred Scriptures of Israel, and through the study of his letters, we perceive the immense significance of God’s Son, the Christ, entering into human history and offering his life for ours in the fullness of time (Gal 2:20; 4:4). I suggest spending time with Paul and his letters in the presence of our Lord through a monthly Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament. This time would afford us with an opportunity to grow in appreciation, knowledge and love of Scripture, which itself witnesses to Christ (Rom 1:2). Reflections on these pastoral letters can be undertaken on a personal basis, as well as through joining parish Bible studies wherever available.
As regards our parishes and institutions, I ask that current programs and initiatives incorporate Paul’s teachings. This can be as simple as beginning a meeting with a reflection from one of Paul’s letters. Likewise, programs addressed to such needs as sacramental preparation, family life and marriage matters, or issues of social justice may probe Paul’s letters more deeply.
Our priests have already been assisted to lead the faithful at Mass to a deeper understanding of passages from the letters of St. Paul. The person and the theology of the Apostle were the focus of their recent study days at Jasper, led by a Scripture scholar who specializes in this area, Dr. Margaret MacDonald of Saint Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.
Scripture Fest 2008, Scripture Fest Follow-up and the Year of St. Paul
I am also pleased to announce that this year’s Scripture Fest, along with the monthly Scripture Fest follow-up sessions, are dedicated to exploring the letters of St. Paul. Since Dr. MacDonald’s presentations to the priests were so well received, we have invited her to return to lead Scripture Fest this fall. As a yearly two-day event, Scripture Fest allows us the opportunity to reflect on the timeless riches of the Bible and hear recent scholarly insights. The monthly follow-up sessions this year will allow for a closer and sustained tour of Paul’s missionary journeys and letters.
Prayer for the Pauline Year
Finally, I suggest that we pray often, throughout this year of jubilee, the following prayer adapted from the one composed by St. Paul himself while in prison (Eph 3:14-21). It is a powerful expression of the hope that is ours through faith in Christ.
I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant us in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith; that we, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Richard W. Smith
Archbishop of Edmonton
Solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul
Edmonton, June 29, 2008
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The year 2008 marks the 2000th anniversary of the birth of St. Paul. To honour and celebrate the life, mission, and letters of this great Apostle, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has declared June 2008-June 2009 to be the Year of Saint Paul. Throughout this year, the Church is called to share with the Apostle Paul in the call to conversion; to live and pray in Christ; to study and live the inspired Word of God; to rekindle a love for the Eucharist and the Church; and to respond to the universal call to holiness and mission.
The Opening of the Pauline Year in the Archdiocese of Edmonton
A solemn liturgy to mark the beginning of the Pauline Year will be held at St. Joseph’s Basilica on Sunday, June 29th, at 5 p.m. On this day, as the Church throughout the world celebrates the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, we in this Archdiocese shall gather in our Cathedral church or in our parishes to celebrate the Eucharist and entrust this year of jubilee to God, whose love has been forcefully proclaimed by the Apostle Paul.
Practical Means of Participation in the Year of Saint Paul
Many activities are already planned or underway in this Archdiocese. For example, I have recently announced the beginning this fall of our plan for the new evangelization. Indeed, St. Paul’s eloquent testimony to the beauty of life in Christ will greatly enhance our new evangelization process, which aims to help all of us discover that there is “nothing more beautiful” than our life of faith. As well, the Archdiocese is continuing to discern and implement various pastoral goals for this local Church. How, then, to honour this privileged moment in the history of the Church in such a way that it is not perceived as a burdensome “addition” to events already occurring? The way to do so is to infuse what is already in place or planned with the teachings of St. Paul. For individuals, I strongly encourage the nourishment of your daily life of faith through a new reading of the letters of St. Paul. Paul himself was intimately acquainted with the Sacred Scriptures of Israel, and through the study of his letters, we perceive the immense significance of God’s Son, the Christ, entering into human history and offering his life for ours in the fullness of time (Gal 2:20; 4:4). I suggest spending time with Paul and his letters in the presence of our Lord through a monthly Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament. This time would afford us with an opportunity to grow in appreciation, knowledge and love of Scripture, which itself witnesses to Christ (Rom 1:2). Reflections on these pastoral letters can be undertaken on a personal basis, as well as through joining parish Bible studies wherever available.
As regards our parishes and institutions, I ask that current programs and initiatives incorporate Paul’s teachings. This can be as simple as beginning a meeting with a reflection from one of Paul’s letters. Likewise, programs addressed to such needs as sacramental preparation, family life and marriage matters, or issues of social justice may probe Paul’s letters more deeply.
Our priests have already been assisted to lead the faithful at Mass to a deeper understanding of passages from the letters of St. Paul. The person and the theology of the Apostle were the focus of their recent study days at Jasper, led by a Scripture scholar who specializes in this area, Dr. Margaret MacDonald of Saint Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.
Scripture Fest 2008, Scripture Fest Follow-up and the Year of St. Paul
I am also pleased to announce that this year’s Scripture Fest, along with the monthly Scripture Fest follow-up sessions, are dedicated to exploring the letters of St. Paul. Since Dr. MacDonald’s presentations to the priests were so well received, we have invited her to return to lead Scripture Fest this fall. As a yearly two-day event, Scripture Fest allows us the opportunity to reflect on the timeless riches of the Bible and hear recent scholarly insights. The monthly follow-up sessions this year will allow for a closer and sustained tour of Paul’s missionary journeys and letters.
Prayer for the Pauline Year
Finally, I suggest that we pray often, throughout this year of jubilee, the following prayer adapted from the one composed by St. Paul himself while in prison (Eph 3:14-21). It is a powerful expression of the hope that is ours through faith in Christ.
I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant us in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith; that we, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Richard W. Smith
Archbishop of Edmonton
Solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul
Edmonton, June 29, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
TWELFTH Sunday, A – 21/22 June 2008
Jeremiah 20, 10-13; Psalm 69; Romans 5, 12-15; Matthew 10:26-33
"Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in haven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father."
What a wonderful promise! Jesus gives his instructions to the Twelve and gives them, and us through them, this wonderful promise that is at the very heart of the Christian faith. That really is all we have to do, just declare ourselves to be openly in favour of Christ and his Gospel of love.
It doesn't seem much, does it? And yet if we look at it in another way it is everything. We declare ourselves openly for Christ and of course we then have to start living accordingly. If we do not, but go back to our old ways of life we are giving counter-witness and will have disowned him; this will mean that he will disown us, as he says in the second part of his saying.
The plain truth is that if countless numbers of people down the generations had not openly declared themselves for Christ and suffered the consequences of doing so, and quite often this meant torture and death; then we would not be here today. There would be no Church building; there would be no community of Christians. The Church of today is built on the foundations of those who openly declared themselves for Christ in the past.
A famous man of the world was asked if he was a Christian. His answer was,
"Yes, but not very offensively." He meant that he did not allow his Christianity to interfere with the company he kept or the life of pleasure.
It is a bit like the Spaniard who when asked by a priest if he was a Catholic was quite indignant and said: “Of course I am”. The priest then asked him if he went to Sunday Mass on a regular basis. The Spaniard said, "Father, you know, I'm a Catholic, and not a fanatic."
There are three principal ways we can deny Christ.
We can deny him
- by our words,
- by our silence and
- by our actions.
Each of us has had moments like Peter when the cock crows; moments when we are deeply shamed by our open denial of Christ. We are put on the spot and we openly deny him. “I don’t know Jesus. I am a modern man and not a religious fanatic to manifest my faith in this way.” This is denial by words.
There are other times when we deny him by silence, by our failure to speak up. We see we are out-numbered or we are afraid we will be ridiculed and so we say nothing, but that means that a grave injustice is done, the name of Christ is mocked or an opportunity to witness Him missed.
We also deny him by our actions by living the sort of life that is unworthy of a Christian; by basing our life on lies; by manipulating others; by cruelty; by a life of ease; by pressing down the poor, by neglecting our religious life and religious activities.
Maybe you have all heard of the famous book “Tom Brown's Schooldays”. Tom Brown was very popular at his Public School; he lived with about a dozen other boys in one of the school's dormitories. He was very influential and was the undisputed leader of his gang of friends. One day a new boy came to the school. When it came to bedtime the new boy innocently knelt down by his bed to say his prayers.
Some of the other boys began to snigger, a few others began to laugh and joke, one even threw a shoe at the kneeling boy. That night Tom didn't go to sleep straight away. He lay awake thinking about what had happened to the new boy. He also began to think about his mother and the prayers she had taught him to say each night before going to bed, prayers he had not said since he came to school.
The next night several of the boys were looking forward to having fun with the new boy. But that night something totally unexpected happened. When the new boy knelt down to say his prayers, Tom knelt down also. The whole atmosphere of the dormitory changed.
Jesus tells us that He will declare Himself for those who declare themselves for Him. One of the reasons Jesus made this statement is because bearing witness to Him or not bearing witness to Him can have a profound effect on those around us.
Perhaps the most important area in which this happens is in the home. The deciding factor for Tom Brown was the influence of his mother's example. Because he was so impressed with her faith he in turn gave witness to others and influenced them profoundly. And how it is in our houses? Do we give a witness?
It has been said that every Christian occupies some kind of pulpit and preaches some kind of sermon every day. This is never more true than of parents in the home. Bishop Halder Camara from Brazil used to repeat: “You are the only Gospel some people will ever read.” Shouldn’t be this a motto for us all”.
In the course of the last twenty-six years since I was ordained I have talked to thousands of young people. Whenever I’ve had the opportunity I’ve asked them about prayer.
I have been very impressed with the answers and even more so by the depth of their prayer-lives. Mostly they pray because they were taught to do so as young children. But I have been equally saddened by the fact the most of them have told me that prayer is practically a taboo subject in the home.
It is easy and it is truly wonderful to talk to young children about prayer. It is more difficult, but much more rewarding, to talk to teenagers and young adults about prayer.
What many Catholics are lacking is the vocabulary to deal with these things and I think that this is one of the reasons why we shy away from talking about anything to do with religion.
An important thing is to get people talking about their faith and to feel comfortable doing so. How many people would like to share their faith with others? How many are simply embarrassed by such a proposal? Somebody in the past told us that my faith is my private and personal almost intimate and secret matter. And we believe it, and we are ashamed to share our faith.
One of the most important things that ought to be discussed by the members of every family in which there are teenagers is how to make that transition from childhood forms of prayer to ones that are more suitable for adult life.
The most helpful thing for our young people would be to hear how their own parents struggled with this transition. They want to know what prayer is, and how you do it, and how it can give meaning and purpose to their lives.
This is something that really needs to be talked about, this is a duty that no true Christian should neglect, this is precisely the sort of thing that Jesus is referring to when he tells us that we ought to declare ourselves for him in the presence of others.
And what about the moral and ethical problems we are facing in our daily life? Do we dare to talk about this with our kids and teenagers? Do we give the witness to Christ and his teaching, do we acknowledge Him before our own families? Or we rather deny Him in our words, in our action or silence, and in what we have failed to do - also?
Jeremiah 20, 10-13; Psalm 69; Romans 5, 12-15; Matthew 10:26-33
"Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in haven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father."
What a wonderful promise! Jesus gives his instructions to the Twelve and gives them, and us through them, this wonderful promise that is at the very heart of the Christian faith. That really is all we have to do, just declare ourselves to be openly in favour of Christ and his Gospel of love.
It doesn't seem much, does it? And yet if we look at it in another way it is everything. We declare ourselves openly for Christ and of course we then have to start living accordingly. If we do not, but go back to our old ways of life we are giving counter-witness and will have disowned him; this will mean that he will disown us, as he says in the second part of his saying.
The plain truth is that if countless numbers of people down the generations had not openly declared themselves for Christ and suffered the consequences of doing so, and quite often this meant torture and death; then we would not be here today. There would be no Church building; there would be no community of Christians. The Church of today is built on the foundations of those who openly declared themselves for Christ in the past.
A famous man of the world was asked if he was a Christian. His answer was,
"Yes, but not very offensively." He meant that he did not allow his Christianity to interfere with the company he kept or the life of pleasure.
It is a bit like the Spaniard who when asked by a priest if he was a Catholic was quite indignant and said: “Of course I am”. The priest then asked him if he went to Sunday Mass on a regular basis. The Spaniard said, "Father, you know, I'm a Catholic, and not a fanatic."
There are three principal ways we can deny Christ.
We can deny him
- by our words,
- by our silence and
- by our actions.
Each of us has had moments like Peter when the cock crows; moments when we are deeply shamed by our open denial of Christ. We are put on the spot and we openly deny him. “I don’t know Jesus. I am a modern man and not a religious fanatic to manifest my faith in this way.” This is denial by words.
There are other times when we deny him by silence, by our failure to speak up. We see we are out-numbered or we are afraid we will be ridiculed and so we say nothing, but that means that a grave injustice is done, the name of Christ is mocked or an opportunity to witness Him missed.
We also deny him by our actions by living the sort of life that is unworthy of a Christian; by basing our life on lies; by manipulating others; by cruelty; by a life of ease; by pressing down the poor, by neglecting our religious life and religious activities.
Maybe you have all heard of the famous book “Tom Brown's Schooldays”. Tom Brown was very popular at his Public School; he lived with about a dozen other boys in one of the school's dormitories. He was very influential and was the undisputed leader of his gang of friends. One day a new boy came to the school. When it came to bedtime the new boy innocently knelt down by his bed to say his prayers.
Some of the other boys began to snigger, a few others began to laugh and joke, one even threw a shoe at the kneeling boy. That night Tom didn't go to sleep straight away. He lay awake thinking about what had happened to the new boy. He also began to think about his mother and the prayers she had taught him to say each night before going to bed, prayers he had not said since he came to school.
The next night several of the boys were looking forward to having fun with the new boy. But that night something totally unexpected happened. When the new boy knelt down to say his prayers, Tom knelt down also. The whole atmosphere of the dormitory changed.
Jesus tells us that He will declare Himself for those who declare themselves for Him. One of the reasons Jesus made this statement is because bearing witness to Him or not bearing witness to Him can have a profound effect on those around us.
Perhaps the most important area in which this happens is in the home. The deciding factor for Tom Brown was the influence of his mother's example. Because he was so impressed with her faith he in turn gave witness to others and influenced them profoundly. And how it is in our houses? Do we give a witness?
It has been said that every Christian occupies some kind of pulpit and preaches some kind of sermon every day. This is never more true than of parents in the home. Bishop Halder Camara from Brazil used to repeat: “You are the only Gospel some people will ever read.” Shouldn’t be this a motto for us all”.
In the course of the last twenty-six years since I was ordained I have talked to thousands of young people. Whenever I’ve had the opportunity I’ve asked them about prayer.
I have been very impressed with the answers and even more so by the depth of their prayer-lives. Mostly they pray because they were taught to do so as young children. But I have been equally saddened by the fact the most of them have told me that prayer is practically a taboo subject in the home.
It is easy and it is truly wonderful to talk to young children about prayer. It is more difficult, but much more rewarding, to talk to teenagers and young adults about prayer.
What many Catholics are lacking is the vocabulary to deal with these things and I think that this is one of the reasons why we shy away from talking about anything to do with religion.
An important thing is to get people talking about their faith and to feel comfortable doing so. How many people would like to share their faith with others? How many are simply embarrassed by such a proposal? Somebody in the past told us that my faith is my private and personal almost intimate and secret matter. And we believe it, and we are ashamed to share our faith.
One of the most important things that ought to be discussed by the members of every family in which there are teenagers is how to make that transition from childhood forms of prayer to ones that are more suitable for adult life.
The most helpful thing for our young people would be to hear how their own parents struggled with this transition. They want to know what prayer is, and how you do it, and how it can give meaning and purpose to their lives.
This is something that really needs to be talked about, this is a duty that no true Christian should neglect, this is precisely the sort of thing that Jesus is referring to when he tells us that we ought to declare ourselves for him in the presence of others.
And what about the moral and ethical problems we are facing in our daily life? Do we dare to talk about this with our kids and teenagers? Do we give the witness to Christ and his teaching, do we acknowledge Him before our own families? Or we rather deny Him in our words, in our action or silence, and in what we have failed to do - also?
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