How to kill the Word of God .... .

The Word of God in the last Sunday's Gospel is very clear, direct and wonderful ...

Gospel LK 12:49-53

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing! 
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! 
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? 
No, I tell you, but rather division. 
From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

And then came liberals with their philosophy of "nonjudgmentalism", tolerance and smooth "catholicism" and the Word of God was killed :-(. 

False apostles ...

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is not strange if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. 

Their end will correspond to their deeds.

2 Cor 11:13-15

Awkward truth ...

Jesus brought us The Good News and not the nice news.

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time - “C”

In today’s Gospel from St. Luke we see that  Jesus was in a certain place praying and when He had finished one of His disciples said “Lord, teach us to pray. Obviously they were watching Him pray and were impressed because they waited until He had finished before the one disciple asked the question.

He said to all of them “Say this when you pray:”

Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  Amen

That is the modern day version of the “Our Father”.  As we say it today.  The modern version captivates the prayer more or less as Jesus said it according to St.  Matthew - which really is just a longer version of the prayer we heard in today’s gospel from St. Luke. The “Our Father” is the first and greatest of all Christian prayers because not only does it come from God Himself but also it’s short and simple phrases pretty well embraces every relationship between us and our God.  It not only tells us what to pray for, but also tells us how to pray for it. Properly understood, this wonderful prayer of the ”Our Father” contains in it all that we should know to live our lives in Christ.

If we were to live up to everything that it contains, we would be perfectly in tune with the mind of Christ, because there can be no doubt that that is how He Himself prayed and lived. The first part of the “Our Father” deals with God. We acknowledge God's existence and call Him 'Father'’ because that is what Jesus called Him. God is neither male nor female.  However, God is a parent to us, and we are His children. Sometimes He acts like a father, and sometimes He acts like a mother. Then we praise His name. In praising His name we praise Him.

We pray for the coming of His kingdom - a kingdom of truth and life, holiness and grace, justice, love, and peace. We have a part to play in making His kingdom a reality. We pray that His will may be done on earth. 'On earth' means that His will be done in our lives too. God's will may not always be the easiest thing to do, but it is always the best thing.

The second part deals with us and with our needs. We begin by praying for our daily bread. 'Bread' stands for all of our material needs.  All the things that we need for that day because all that we really need in our lives is really just enough for today. We pray for forgiveness for our own sins, and for the grace to be able to forgive those who sin against us. We need to remember that our inability to forgive others makes it impossible for us to receive forgiveness from God. We pray also not to be led into temptation. God does not put temptation in our path but our ordinary daily life does. And then again we ourselves sometimes walk into tempta­tion all on our own.

And so we ask God to help us to cope with the temptations that simply come to us, and also to avoid those temptations we choose of our own free will. Finally, we pray that Our Father will deliver us from all evil, both moral and physical. We can't expect that we would never encounter evil. But what we are asking God for is the grace to be victorious over all evil that comes our way, most especially moral evil. We notice that the whole of the Our Father is spoken in plural terms. We say “Our” instead of “My”. This shows us that we are really one family under God and states our belief that there can be no salvation for us independent of others.

In the last part of the parable Jesus says “Ask and it will be given to you.”

 “Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For the one who asks, always receives.”  “The one who knocks will always have the door opened to him. The one who searches, always finds.” Ah, we say. I have prayed and prayed and asked and I did not receive.  I have searched and searched and I have not found. I have knocked and knocked but the door stayed closed.  In fact I have begged and begged the Father and still I did not get what I wanted. So how can Jesus say “Ask and it will be given you”? Jesus answers this question with another question.

 “What Father among you would hand his son a stone when he asked for bread?  Or hand him a snake instead of a fish? Or hand him a scorpion instead of an egg? How often in our own lives we have refused our own children what they have asked for because as parents we knew that it was not the best thing for them.

How do they react when we do that? Jesus is saying that God always answers prayer.  However, sometimes we do not receive that which we have asked for even though it seems to us perfectly obvious that what we are asking for (it seems to us) to be exactly what we figure we need. But, only God knows the future and it is now that we need to increase our trust in Him. We should not react like a spoiled child in anger because we God does not always answer our prayers in the manner in which we would want Him to. God always answers prayers. We need to submit ourselves to His will when our prayers seem not to have been answered. We need to trust in Him. God knows best.

When it seems that God is not answering our prayers we need to conform our will to the Father’s will for us.  We need to ask for the grace to submit to God’s will for our lives. We need to ask for the Holy Spirit to manifest Himself in our lives. Because Jesus said “If you who are evil,  know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!

When we pray we need to mean what we say.

When we pray we need to mean “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

For the Kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever, Amen.

Deacon Bernie Ouellette

You Don't Say

Faith and humility

We have a huge problem with our faith, because we have a problem with our humility. We are too proud and too selfish to believe humbly that God is God and I am not. Today's Gospel (Mt 9:18-18-26) is exactly showing that these two attitudes faith and humility are interrelated.

Unhappily not in our daily life. 

O, he/she is a good person ...

I acknowledge my transgression, says David. If I admit my fault, then you will pardon it. Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin; our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon. But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others. They seek to criticize, not to correct. Unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others. 

St. Augustine

a good pastor ...

(2 Letter to Timothy 3:1-5)

You may be quite sure that in the last days there will be some difficult times. People will be self-centred and avaricious, boastful, arrogant and rude; disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious; heartless and intractable; they will be slanderers, profligates, savages and enemies of everything that is good; they will be treacherous and reckless and demented by pride, preferring their own pleasure to God. They will keep up the outward appearance of religion but will have rejected the inner power of it. Keep away from people like that.

And the pertinent question is raising up ... "how to be a good pastor in the times like that?"

Sadness of God ...

What is a sin? Sin is a selfish and egoistic statement when I am saying to God: “I don't need you, I am self-sufficient and I know better what is good for me and what is not, and you will not dictate me what I have to do and what I cannot do”. Every time I am going away from God this is causing a deep sadness to God the Father, Who sees that I am going astray and away from Him and Who knows that I cannot live without Him and at the same time, I won't like to live that with Him and for Him. Even more, going away from God doesn't only men ignoring Him and His love, but it is also a way of creating a Hell for myself. And the Hell is exactly the existence far away from God and His Fatherly love among selfish and egoistic creatures like me. How can one exist far away from the Source itself of all existence?

XII Sunday in Ordinary Time - C - June 22/23, 2013

Jesus’ question "Who do the crowds say that I am?" had as much relevancy down the centuries as it did when it was first asked in the northeast corner of Palestine. I will even dare to say that this is the crucial question for all Christians, for all who claim to believe in Christ and to believe Christ. Many have attempted to answer that question. In fact, each Christian of every age must give an answer. And today as in the time of Christ we have as many answers as people trying to answer the question. Today however “Many people consider Jesus irrelevant because he proposes a life of self-discipline”, the life of truth and authentic love. For this reason His teaching and His person are rejected and denied or neglected even by some so called Catholics, who are not able to accept God who is not fitting their simplistic and false images of Loving God, who forgot about justice.

If God doesn’t fit my expectations and my conviction He doesn’t exist.

So, this people try to diminish Christ’s role and reduce Him to the mere human dimensions, refusing His divinity and His divine prerogatives and rights. They are creating an image of a false God (Christ) who is weak, insignificant, unimportant and finally useless. We can see it nowadays where the whole -apparently Christian- societies are living as if Jesus doesn’t exist or –as one of the American theologians said: “we are creating and worshipping an idol of God, conform to our ideas and who finally follow or obey us and our projections. This god is not the God of the Bible is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is not the God of authority and powerful, creative Love. He is a weak idol, who has to obey us and our requests and if not I reject Him.”

Famous German theologian Karl Rahner in his book “Foundations of faith” writes:

“True religion, as a religion of the transcendental God and not the religion of my own subjective imagination cannot be rooted only in my subjectivity or depend only on my individual projection. It has to be a religion of objective and indisputable moral and ethical values rooted ultimately in an objective God, Who is always out of me and finally out of my understanding. If the religion is only an expression and interpretation of my personal understanding and my private acceptation, it is always subjective and week, and finally it is a kind of home-made religion. And what is the value of such a home-made religion? The value of such a home-made religion is the same as the value the home-made currency. Means null, literally zero!!”

To guarantee, to assure this objectivity of God and objectivity of religion, God gave us two complementary elements: Bible and the Church which is: “the pillar and foundation of truth.” (1 Tim 3:15)

How many of our contemporary Christian communities are creating such a home-made religion, or home-made God, because they reject Jesus Christ as a Messiah, they reject the church instituted by Christ?

More important however is Jesus’ second question: "who do you say that I am?"

Matthew Kelly in his book: “Rediscovering Catholicism” writes:

“You can prise Him, disagree with Him, quote Him, disbelieve Him, glorify Him, or criticize Him. The only thing you cannot do is ignore Him.”

I agree with him only partially, because -as we can see in our society- … many, even Christians or Catholics ignore Christ, or prefer not to know Him. Ask please one of your relatives or friends a sincere a serious question: “Who is Jesus Christ for you?” … and in many cases the only answer -you will get- will be an embarrassment or an awkward smile of discomfort. They are Christians, they are Catholics …. But the question is awkward … isn’t it?

And if I ask you the same question, what will be your answer? Not a catechetical or neutral "smooth" answer but your personal, the most private, the most secret and most individual answer: “Who is Jesus Christ for me, here and now?”

I must decide -as someone has suggested- whether I am His disciple or just only His fan.

If I declare myself a disciple of Christ I have to know that the word disciple comes the word discipline … and it means that as a disciple I suppose to follow the discipline of Christ.

As a disciple I have to understand directly the words:

“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself

and take up his cross daily and follow me.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

We must decide eventually WHO IS JESUS CHRIST FOR ME. If my answer is the same as St. Peter's, I have to do something with it and not just pretend that I know Jesus and that I am His disciple.

And this has to be absolutely clear. Otherwise I am creating an idol who has nothing to do with and objective and Almighty God, I am creating my home-made religion and the value of this home-made religion is the same as the value of the home-made currency.