Jesus said to the religious leaders what shepherd who lost one of the ninety nine sheep would not go out in search of the one and leave the ninety nine? How about the woman who had ten coins and lost one? She would sweep and search the house until she found the one coin. When found, the sheep or the coin, neighbors are called to rejoice at the one that was lost but now is found.

We learn something about God that he is a seeker for those who have lost their faith. He rejoices over the one who is lost and asks the faithful to rejoice with Him when a soul has returned. In marriage there are three tensions that affect each other to be lost from their marriage vows.

The first tension in marriage is the craving for unity. The tension is between flesh and spirit. Flesh is a barrier for unity. Marble cannot be united to wood. However the spiritual, brings a bond of unity. There is something about music that enters each of us in different ways and bonds with us. Poetry is often referred to as music of the soul. So matter is the basis of division; spirit the root of unity.

The marital act of intercourse that brings the couple together is devoid of unity without the souls uniting. Women complain about romance before sex. They have it right because romance requires an intimate knowledge of the other person. The focus is on the spirit of each partner rather than an emphasis on the sensual pleasure of the marriage act. Love making without romance is like drinking the wine and then discarding the glass. When romance is found there is true joy in the marriage.

The second tension inherent in marriage is between the person and humanity. Married love is personal, unique and jealous, in the right sense of the word. The marital act implies secrecy, togetherness, and resents intrusion. To make it public is to profane the sacred covenant bond that the sacrament of matrimony promulgated on the day of their wedding vows before a believing community. When Marlyne and I took our marriage vows in 1975 we promised to be chaste except onto each other. We said that our intimate marital relations are holy and not open to public exposure. But our love of humanity and good works for humanity would be re-generated through our marital relationship. In other words we found each other and the grace that marriage affords will give us strength to love children and other people. Sometimes we forget that marriage is a sacrament and that when we find the grace it affords, in calling on the matrimonial grace from the sacrament, we are stronger than being one. He makes her a loved woman and she makes him a loved man.

God said it is not good for man to be alone. God could have created another man, or a group of men or even a group of men and women, to solve man’s loneliness. Instead God created woman for man. The Torah teaches that man is not truly human without woman and likewise the woman is not truly human without man.

Married love is social. The man reaches out to the woman and the woman reaches out to the man and their union begets natural children and social children. The married in holiness give off the aroma of Christ among others they encounter. Their holiness generates other faithful followers of Jesus Christ. “See how they love each other” (John 13:35) The saddest day for a married couple is having failed to bestow holiness and the love of God in their natural children and having put off other people from Christ by their poor example of a marriage devoid of genuine holy matrimonial love.

The third tension is that of the finite and the infinite. No human heart wants love for two more minutes or two more years, but forever. There is nothing timeless as love. In its romantic moments it uses the language of eternity and Divinity and heaven. As we live our lives in the married state we realize that we really cannot completely possess eternity we sought in the initial ecstasy. Some comment that marriage kills love even worse it kills sex. Some plod along without their soul to satisfy the infinite craving with multiple sexual partners, never finding real love and happiness.

The marriage that started a masked ball, in which everyone seemed sweet and fair and romantic, soon reached the crisis when the masks were moved and one saw the characters for what they really were.

Elizabeth Barring Browning wrote:

“Yes” I answered you last night—“No” I say to you today; Colors seen by candle light –Do not look the same by day.

The paradox of love is that the human heart, which wants an eternal and ecstatic love, can also reach a moment when it has too much love and wishes to be loved no longer. Francis Thompson in a poem tells how he picked up a child to hold and held him in his arms, and how the child cried and kicked to get down. On reflecting, he wondered if that is not the way some souls are before God. They are not ready to be loved by Him. Certainly, such moment comes in the human order when there is a tug of war between wanting love and not wanting it. The heart is torn between longing, craving and disgust. What is the answer for a human heart that suffers from this tension?

The answer to this tension is evident. The human heart was made to find— the Sacred Heart of Love, and no one but God can satisfy it. The heart is right in wanting the infinite; the heart is wrong in trying to make its finite companion the substitute for the infinite. The solution of the tension is in finding our true marital work is a pilgrimage to Divine Love. Nothing else will satisfy us. When the married couple can join hands in common prayer both being loved too little and being loved too much can go together when seen in the light of God. When the longing for infinite love is envisaged as a yearning for God, then the finiteness of earthly love is seen as a reminder that “Our hearts were made for Thee, O Lord and they can be satisfied only in Thee.”

The accidentals of our lives—such as a new set of golf clubs, a better than average car, cruises to exotic places, karats on our fingers, fame from admirers and a large financial portfolio are empty shadows of love on our death beds. Our lives are a probationary time and then comes either wisdom to discover and find our true destiny or foolishness to never finding this answer.

The atheist, Nietzsche, died a crazed, emaciated, syphilitic. His last days were spent writing in a cold, sparse room with medicine bottles strewn all over the floor. His Christian mother tried to nurse him back to health and point him back to God, but to no avail, he died a pitiful example of hopelessness and despair. He cursed God and died. His mother, like a shepherd never found the lost sheep and Nitezsche never found his lost coin.

St. Matthew and St. Luke recount slightly different versions of what we now call “the Lord’s prayer” reveals to us that Jesus was not giving us a “formula” of magic words to recite, but showing us the principles that should guide all our prayer.

The prayer of the “Our Father” shows us, as St. Thomas Aquinas taught, not only what we should desire but the order in which we should desire them.

Jesus taught us to pray first for the Father’s glory – for his name to be hallowed, his kingdom come and his will be done – so that we could pray in imitation of Jesus whose ardent love to glorify the Father becomes our own. This is the prayer of adoration.  After we pray for these intentions for God to be glorified, we turn to our own needs, and Jesus teaches us the four most important ones: for daily sustenance, forgiveness, strength in temptation and protection from the evil one.  This is the prayer of petition.

In the Lord’s prayer, the first expression and approach to prayer he gives us is that our first word should be”Abba!,” which doesn’t just mean “father” but “daddy.” So many of Jesus’ recorded prayers begin with this word. “Daddy, I give you thanks that you have hidden these things from the wise and the clever but revealed them to the merest of children.” “Father glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you.” “Father, I thank you for having heard me; I know that you always hear me.” “Father, if it be your will, take this chalice away from me.” “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they’re doing.” “Father, into your …hands I commend my spirit.”

The most important work of the Holy Spirit in our prayer, as St. Augustine taught, is not to put words on our lips (quid ores) but to change who we are as we pray (qualis ores). The Holy Spirit helps us to cry out “Abba, Father!” Jesus in teaching us this first word of prayer is reminding us to pray as beloved sons and daughters. If human parents know how to give good things to their children, Jesus told us, how much more will our heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him. All our prayer should be done with this filial confidence, like a little child who trusts in his father’s goodness.

The second word (in the original Greek) is “our.” Jesus had come to save us by incorporating us into his body the Church and he wants us to pray not just for ourselves and individually, but with and for others.  This is the prayer of intercession.

He has us pray not to “my” Father, but “our” Father, to give “us,” forgive “us,” and deliver “us.” This is the prayer of penitence. He specifically incentivized common prayer when he told us that whenever two or more of us are gathered in his name, he’ll be present in our midst. God is the Father of us all and Jesus wants us to pray together with Him and with each other, to leave individualism behind and love and intercede for our brothers and sisters.  Not being a member of a church body will not suffice.  Religion is not a private matter.

Third, Jesus then has us recall that our Father is in heaven, so that the treasure of our heart will seek to be with Him. Our aspirations in prayer are to seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the Father’s right hand.

Fourth, we turn to the three petitions seeking the Father’s glory. The first is that his name be hallowed—prayer of petition and adoration. Since God is already is “holy, holy, holy,” what does it mean to hallow his name? It means that we’re asking his help so that his name may be glorified by us and in us, so that others in seeing our good deeds of love may glorify his name.

Next, to pray for the coming of the Father’s kingdom is to beg for the grace for ourselves and others to enter into his kingdom, and his kingdom will be wherever he reigns and his will is done. Finally, we beg for the grace to do his will and enter his kingdom just as the saints have done on earth and in heaven.

Fifth, we are to ask for our daily bread and forgiveness.  When we turn to asking for things that concern ourselves, Jesus has us begin by imploring each day our daily bread. The first thing we note is that he doesn’t teach us to pray, “Give us always the food we’ll need,” but he seems to want us to turn to the Father every day with trust, like the Israelites awaiting the manna in the desert.

But the more important thing to recognize is that the word translated as “daily” is, in Greek, epiousious, which literally means “supersubstantial” bread. Several Fathers of the Church noted that this is a request not merely for material bread, for the food that perishes, but rather for the food that endures to eternal life that the Son of Man promised to give us. It points to the Eucharist, the true Manna, which God the Father gives us every day, just like he gave the Israelites their daily manna in the wilderness.

That leads us to an important realization: If we have prayed insistently to the Father to give us each day this supersubstantial bread, and the Father has responded by giving us His Son on the altar, shouldn’t we come to receive Him as often as we possibly can at daily Mass?

We then are taught to ask that our sins be forgiven, but with an interesting condition, “just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.”

Jesus tells us immediately after the words of prayer that unless we forgive others their sins, ours won’t be forgiven. The measure of forgiveness with which we measure will be measured back to us. Making God’s mercy dependent on our own is not a form of divine extortion, but, rather, Jesus wants us to realize that unless we have forgiven others, God’s mercy can’t penetrate our hardened hearts.

Being as compassionate as our Father is compassionate is one of the most important ways for us to hallow his name and prayer for mercy, as Jesus showed us on the Cross, is one of the high points of Christian prayer, because it attunes us to the Father’s merciful heart.

Sixth, in the next petition, we ask God to help us not to yield to temptation, recognizing that our spirit is willing, but our flesh is week. Just as the ancient serpent tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden and Jesus in the desert, so he comes after us, and we ask God for the strength, as we see in Jesus, to choose him each time the devil seeks to tempt us to choose against him. Victory over temptation, Jesus teaches us, happened through prayer.

Seventh, that leads to the last petition, in which we pray not only to be given the grace to resist temptation but to be delivered from the Evil One, whom Jesus called the “father of lies” and a “murderer from the beginning.” Jesus prayed during the Last Supper that the Father would protect us from the Evil One, and we’re echoing that same prayer. It’s a prayer that implies both holiness (deliverance from the devil in this world) and heaven (deliverance from him forever).

We live as we pray and pray as we live. It’s a time for us to meditate profoundly on these seven petitions and how they’re supposed to become our seven deepest desires. It’s an occasion for us to be grateful for how many times God has already answered these petitions because we made them with faith, rather than just babbling the words.  Our minds turned to God truly, is expressing our gratitude and thanksgiving to God for our being.

The Dear Lord saw fit to give us two ears beckoning us to do twice the listening. When we look into the eyes of another no matter how pleasant they may look to us or how ugly– we remember that this human being is made in the image of God.

When God speaks we listen. Empathy however is listening with love exuding from our heart.  We nod our heads towards the person being listened to. We give reassuring eye contact. We confirm with our words and we genuinely love the person. Liking the person is not required.

The more humble we are, the more selfless we are, the more Christ like we are, the better the listener. God became the best listener ever by taking on our human nature. Consider truly what God did when becoming human. Can you imagine coming into the world in the form of a dog and having doglike characteristics and mannerisms but with your own human mind intact?  Instead of hands you have paws and instead of a voice box you can only bark. Imagine you are in the midst of other dogs at a dog park and no one understands you. Consider being supervised by a human.  God did!  He had human parents, creatures he created.  God was limited by time and space in a human body even though knew how to create a universe and whirl worlds around it like marbles in a kid’s game.  That is true humility, selflessness, empathy for us because he took on our human nature as His own. Then He dies for a people that are not apparently that likable much less loveable. Christ shows us the way to our sanctification. Christ emptied himself to be one of us.  Why can we not do likewise? John the Baptist would say the more Christ increases in us the more we must decrease ourselves.

There was a woman who went to her lawyer to divorce. The lawyer asked her if she had grounds. She said, “Yes! Two acres.”  He then said he meant does your husband do something bad to her like beat her or something. She replied, “Yes he gets the newspaper in the morning before me.”  No the lawyer said I meant is there a grudge you are holding for him. She then replied, “No there is no need to hold a parking spot for him since we have a two car garage!  Well never mind the lawyer said, “Tell me why you want to divorce him?”  “Well we just don’t seem to communicate anymore.”  Men and women are divorcing at an alarming rate. The excuse pertains more to incompatibility that can result form infidelity, physical and verbal abuse.  But think for a moment is not infidelity, physical and verbal abuse resultant from increased self-righteousness over a decrease in humility and listening on part of both the woman and the man?  If Christ has increased in both man and woman how can the two Christ’s be incompatible? Would either of the Christ’s be unfaithful or abusive?  Would either of the Christ’s not listen?

When we read the passion, death and resurrection of Christ we do not get the full impact for our own interior listening without the sounds that go with the reading. I find radio listening more invigorating than movies. Radio is the theatre of the mind. The visual from movies and television concocts some preconceived notions of another person at times obstructs the mind from focusing on listening to another person.  Do we not judge by appearances? Do we not at times listen to the person in front of us only to be looking over their shoulder in distraction?  That is why in some confessional booths there are curtains between the confessor and penitent, so that the priest can listen and focus his two ears more intently to the heart sounds of the penitent.

Let us enter the confessional booth of our minds in humility to release our pride and make room to listen to Christ knocking at our hearts as I retrieve the sounds from the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We will enter Christ’s passion death and resurrection but to do so we must decrease ourselves and increase Christ in us.

In the Garden of Gethsemane there was the smack of lips: Judas threw his arms around our Blessed Lord and blistered his lips with the betrayal of a kiss. Oh how our lips blister by the smack of unkind words spoken towards each other in hurtful outbursts or gossip? By omission we blister our lips with our silence to defend Christ or encourage another with the love of Christ.  Jesus said it is not what man puts in his mouth that is foul but what comes out of the mouth that can be foul.

The clanking of coins: Judas took back the 30 pieces of sliver and let them roll over the temple floor saying, “I have betrayed innocence.” Do we betray our quest for God by our love of self at the expense of others’ needs, to give drink to the thirsty, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick and imprisoned, to give shelter to the homeless and to bury the dead all the corporal works of mercy?  We fill our garages to the brim. Jesus said thou fool what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul!

The crowing of a cock: Peter professes at the night of the Last Supper that he would not deny our Blessed Lord.  Our Lord said before the cock crows he will deny him three times. How often do we deny our Blessed Lord, forgetting our morning and evening prayers, seldom confess our sins in the sacrament of penance and infrequent participation at his Communion table and reception of His Precious Body and Blood? How often do we betray our blessed Lord by not using the God given talents he has given us for God and neighbor?  Peter warmed himself by the fire until the Lord’s piercing eyes met his to read the emptiness in Peter’s heart for having denied him three times. Peter wept bitterly. There will be times when the cock crows in our hearts to return back to the Lord. We may have lost our way from time to time but we must never throw away the map.

The swishing of whips: The soldiers shred the flesh of Christ with whips much as any of us who are lustful in their desires for sex, drink, drugs or in ordinate desires for comforts. Are our immortal souls not swished away with desires for finite flesh? We can counter our loneliness, our depressions and the disgust with ourselves by implementing the spiritual works of mercy, instructing the ignorant, correcting falsehoods about Christ, counseling the doubtful, comforting the afflicted, endure injuries and injustice with patience, forgiving the offences of others and praying for the living and the dead.

The splashing of water: Pilate knew that our Blessed Lord was innocent he called for bowl of water and dipped his hands in the water and holding his hands aloft the water dripping like jewels in the morning sunlight. He said, “See, I am innocent of the blood of this man.”  After all are we not all-a good person without any need of Christ the savior in our lives. No need of organized religion. Are we not just free to be capricious about the seriousness of holiness and our immortality? Morals are really relative to the vote of society aren’t they? Thus we wash our hands from commitment to God, self and others.  And oh!  I am really a nice person because I have not harmed anyone.

The thug of the hammer on nails, and the soldiers pressed nails into human flesh.  Do we not drive those nails into the wounds of Christ each time we sin? Do we only come back to Christ when the thug of trouble comes our way like the time after Pearl Harbor or the Twin Towers or the announcement from our doctor that we have terminal cancer or heart failure? It is said that there are neither atheists nor agnostics in foxholes.  When one of the planes came tumbling from the sky during 9/11 it was recorded that the passengers prayed the Lord’s Prayer at the very end.  One thief next to Christ wanted to be taken down to continue his dirty business of thieving while another in all humility recognizing the Christ wanted to be taken.

The squeak of nails being pulled from bound hands and feet to dry wood is the squeak of dry and parched souls without the lubricant of His precious Body and Blood in Holy Communion to nourish.  It is the squeak of presumption that any of us can do anything on our own or with great numbers of others without God. We need no savior. We are not Christian the moral rules do not apply. We are free to do our own free will choices without God. And like “a finite” mouse we squeak in the eyes of “an infinite” God. We are fooled by presumption and our hearts are missing something just as there are holes in the wood of the cross from where nails filled. The cross is not complete without our presence.  “Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee O God!”  (St. Augustine)

Joseph of Arimathea asks for the body of Jesus to be buried. The rolling crunch of the stone that covered the tomb entrance with its closing sealed the precious body and a few days later the door opens with rolling and crunching as the soldiers guarding the tomb are frozen in fright. Like the roll of a mill stone, we are reminded that grapes had to be crushed and bread had to be crunched and milled for our holy food the Eucharist.  Just as we must crush and grind our prideful selves in pious and humble response to God’s call. Joseph of Arimathea called for Jesus’ body and we too are called by God.  Without us God will not and without Him we cannot! (St. Augustine)

The beating of the sacred heart three times.  Peter denied Jesus three times and Jesus beckoned him after his resurrection just as he beckons each of you.  “Do you love me to sacrifice your life for me?”  Like Peter do we respond, “We love Lord as our brother but please help us to avoid your cross.”  And Jesus asks us again, “Will you love me with the kind of love that you would sacrifice your life for me.”  Again as Peter responded don’t we respond that we love Jesus with limits to that love?  And Finally Jesus meets the Peter in us at our level—Okay I will take you where you are that you will love me in a cursory minimally and brotherly kind of way until such time that enough of my grace will fill you to truly become one of my disciples and hang with me on the cross of your salvation!

A woman bought an expensive dress at Nordstrom. She showed her husband the bill and he said, “When you tried it on why didn’t you say get behind me Satan.”  She said she did but he said that it looked so good from the rear as well!  There was a man who was exorcised of the devil. He did not pay his stipend to the priest after he was exorcised, so he got repossessed.

We get so much of our theology from the press and movies.  I thought you would want to hear about the devil from the psychiatric point of view and then from the biblical account.

It is interesting that when we drop things in the church the world begins to pick them up and distort them.  Take for example the rosary. There was a robbery in O’Connors and the only thing that was taken from the store, were rosaries.  Rosaries, I suppose because they are the latest fad of wear being sold in the shopping mall stores.  People are not only placing rosaries around their mirrors in their cars but it is now fashionable to wear them along with your Ed Hardy clothing, tattoos and the like.  Priests and nuns have dropped the traditional cassock and nun dress and girls and boys are now all looking like the fellow in Matrix wearing maxi coats.

When a nun dropped her traditional long habit and head covering veil she asked a priest the other day if he knew she had red hair. He said he did not nor did he know that she had varicose veins. As theologians dropped the demonic, the psychiatrists picked the demonic up.  Dr. Rollo May, of the Rockefeller Institute, had several chapters in his work on the diabolic. What is the diabolic from the purely psychiatric point of view? Dr. Rollo May analyzes the diabolic word and it comes from Greek words Dia and boline.  Dia —-boline is to tear apart, rend asunder.  Anything that breaks pattern and unity that corrupts gestalt produces discord.  That is the diabolic.

Dr. May analyzes three ways on how the diabolic works. First the love of nudity, secondly, violence and aggressiveness and third, split personalities with no inner peace- disjointed minds.  There is a show called Lock Up, if ever you would like to see the diabolic this show has the elements of it. First, love of nudity—a priest psychiatrist tells that at times when he brings the Blessed Sacrament on visits to the psych-ward the surrounding people in the ward strip as he passes a room.  In the gospel, Our Blessed Lord went into the land of the Gerasenes (Mark 5:1-20) and he found a young man possessed by the devil. The gospel mentions three characteristics of this young man.  First he was nude, secondly he was violent and aggressive.  They could not keep him in chains.  Third his mind was split- schizophrenic.  Our Lord asked him, “What is your name?”  He said, “My name is Legion for we are many.”  In those days a Roman legion was six thousand men.  Dr. May had never correlated his work with this young man in the Gospel.

In the biblical perspective whenever you have a manifestation of the spiritual you have a manifestation of the diabolic.  When Moses presented miracles to Pharaoh, Pharaoh’s agents created miracles of their own.  In the early Church when it was growing it was under attack with the blood of martyrs and the philosophy of gnosticism. Gnosticism is a doctrine contrary to Christ being truly God and man at the same time.  The diabolic is the break-up of unity, the break-up of families, the break up with God in His sacraments and participation in His family the Church.  The break-up of the Catholic church with the Orthodox into denominations is a work of the diabolic. Islam is a Catholic heresy.  Mohamed could not accept a God who would sacrifice his life for humans.  Thus the Koran teaches that it was not Christ who died on the cross but someone else imposing Him.

The diabolic works through others. In Matthew 16, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”  Eventually Peter gave the correct answer, “Thou art the Christ the son of the living God!”  Then Jesus announced that he was going up to Jerusalem to die and Peter could not believe his ears and said to our Lord not to do so. Our Blessed Lord rebuked him and said, “Get behind me Satan.” Meaning it is not the will of God to do otherwise than to make the ultimate sacrifice on Calvary.  Peter was willing to have a divine Christ but not a suffering one. Are we not like Peter when we remove Christ from the Crucifix in our art, pictures and jewelry?

The diabolic removes us away from the Holy Eucharist.  When was the first time that Judas betrayed Christ?  After he feeds the people and then goes on to say that is His flesh is real food and His blood is real drink.  In John 6:60 we read:  “Therefore many of his disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it…From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more…Jesus continues to say, Did I not choose you twelve and one of you is a devil. He spoke of Judas Iscariot. I would suggest that Judas was seeking a short cut from the cross.  He did not want a King of men’s hearts but a king of a political kingdom.  Never mind the hard path of the cross to change the moral fiber of society, if only we can change our politics and have more Republicans or Democrats all will be well.

We saw these diabolic short cuts from the cross before. After Jesus’ was Baptized he sojourns into the desert and after some time he is approached by the devil.  The devil encounters Jesus in a weakened human condition from thirst, hunger and physical exhaustion.  The devil tempts Jesus to take three short cuts from the cross. They are the very same temptations we are confronted with every day. These temptations by the devil in the wilderness are the hatred of the cross of Christ. They are short cuts to avoid the cross in our lives.  The first short cut is permissiveness, “Do whatever you feel like doing, you deserve it, it is your right, turn these stones to bread. No need to work for something. Steal it or get someone else to pay your way. The rich can afford to pay my way.  No need to have more children. If contraception does not work for you, you might just as well abort them, it’s your right of free choice. You cannot afford children anyway.  You need the money for your own self-interest and survival. More children is just plain too hard of a cross to bear.   Contribute nothing to society much less your church! And on and on with selfish pride we go. It is a sin against the virtue of trust. We never really trust God who gave us talents to succeed.

The second temptation or short cut from the cross is the sense of awe from being busybodies and gossips. The devil tells us, “You will never win mankind because mankind loves wonders, newness, fads, scandals, unspoken secrets, like a herd of “sheepel” we are enamored with surprise, the startling, the marvelous anything that will make man say, “Ohhhh.” People love things, that takes the lens of their own self-examination of conscience and takes them from the sacrament of penance and focus their attention on others.  Jesus was clear about removing the log from our own eyes before removing the sliver from our brothers and sisters’ eyes.  People will forget a marvel in a week and then repeat looking for another wonder of shock and awe.  The devil said to Jesus, throw yourself from the steeple and the angels will carry you up and will be unhurt.  “Do that and the crowds will follow you!”  But whatever you do you need no cross!”

The final temptation is the temptation for both the Church and our society.  It is is a sin against religion the virtue of justice. Religion is being replaced with the secular and politics. No need to change men’s hearts just change their environment. Thus I am suggesting that we are in the post Christian era. Why bother with God and theology? There is no need for prayer in the classroom, The Ten Commandments, displays of religion on mountain tops, the only thing that matters is politics, shows and plays. At a Catholic university the crucifix is the back drop for the President’s speech and is covered up at his request. Was not Jesus clear that whoever denies him here on earth will be denied in heaven? I am wondering how the officials at the University of Notre Dame will fare out before making a pit stop at the sacrament of penance.  “The world is mine, bow down to me and I will give it to you.” Was Satan for once in his life telling the truth?    We only need to improve the world not the condition of man himself. The focus is on global warming rather than global warming of men’s hearts.

We see this thought process today. We must have gun control and the world will be safer. We must reduce the soda drinks sizes in New York to prevent people from being obese. Notice there is no discussion how we improve the moral fiber of society. Chicago has the strictest gun control in the US and yet Jesse Jackson has called on the President to send in the National Guard to protect the people of Chicago. Why? Are there not less guns in peoples’ hands in Chicago because there is gun control. The devil’s temptation is to improve the social political order and not the moral man.   The knife in a surgeon’s hand is quite different than a knife in a criminal’s hand.

The diabolic fosters a life without the cross of sacrifice and self-discipline. Discipline in schools and self-denial has been watered down. “I’ve got to be me.” “I have special rights and privileges protected by society. Where is my check from the government?”  “There is no need to take personal responsibility for my actions. Society owes me!” We have rights but never duties.  This is a hatred of the cross. The ascetic and disciplinary actions of Christianity have moved to the totalitarianism of the state. Consequently there is destruction of human liberty without the cross.

Let’s now look how our Blessed  Lord and the devil  appears to us before we sin.  Christ appears at first as, “Thou shall not!”  Christ is a restrainer of my freedom to be me. He appears as the Lord on the cross and bars the way. “My flesh was crucified, your flesh too must be crucified! Go not this way.”  Satan says, “Oh don’t be silly, we don’t believe those things anymore. Times have changed. They used to do things like that in the past, commitment in marriage for men and women, following the Ten Commandments.  Are you still a virgin?  You mean you never done a few drugs? Listen, everybody is doing it! You’ve got to live. You have to be yourself. You haven’t committed adultery?  Everybody is doing it now.”  “These views of strict morality were all right a hundred years ago. But this is a new world!”  “We are educated.” On a side note, USA Today reported the other day that proponents of gay marriage are college educated whereas those opposed tend to be high school graduates. Before we sin Christ is not on our side and appears to be the accuser.  The devil is on our side and appears to be our defender. He is on the side of our sex, pride and greed when he takes our part and is one of us.

After we sin the roles are reversed.  The Christ becomes the defender and the devil becomes the accuser.  The devil will say, “Alright you had your way, don’t come to me. You might as well just give up.  Sure you lost your virginity, what difference does it make?  Sure you have stolen, you haven’t been caught, but you will be.”  So the devil fills us with despair as he filled the heart of Judas to kill himself.  Judas could have gone to the Savior and be forgiven.

Our Lord is our defender, come to me all of you who labor, if your sins as are as scarlet they will be made as snow!” True personal freedom does not come for a declaration of independence but a declaration of dependence on Him!

“Whenever there is silence around me By day or by night—I am startled by a cry.  It came down from the cross-The first time I heard it.  I went out and searched and found a man in the throes of crucifixion And I said, “I will take you down”, and I tried to take the nails out of his feet.  But He said, “Let them be for I cannot be taken down Until every man, every woman, and every child Come together to take me down.”  And I said, “But I cannot bear your cry, What can I do?”  And He said, “Go about the world—Tell every one that you meet—That there is a man on the cross and Let us hang together with Him.”

Blessed Columba a Benedictine and spiritual director to priests and nuns said, “The soul can only be united to God in proportion to its likeness to Him.  In order that God may draw it to Himself and elevate it, He must be able in some way to identify Himself with it; that is why, from the beginning, He had created it to His own image and likeness.

“According to the divine plan, man is the link between pure spirituality of the angels and corporeal matter; he is destined to reflect, more perfectly than material creation, the perfections of God.”

What are the perfections of God?  The 10 Commandments which are really the  10 Virtues of God.

Keep Holy the Lord’s Day, God is Humble, You shall not have strange gods before me-God is Loyal, God is Honorable—His word is His bond. Do not take the Lord’s name in vain God is respectful, God is Truth and “ful” Honor your father and mother, let’s try some more of the virtues in contrast to the 10 Commandments—

Only Man can most perfectively reflect the perfections of God than any other creature because of his free will to make the virtues of God be himself into his character so that his character is a walking breathing virtue.  The Psalmist knows the heart of man fallen nature that is why he prays the longest Psalm 119 in order to make the virtues of God or as mentioned before the commandments of God his very nature.  The Psalmist has to crowd out our obstinacy to do our own will in order to do God’s will.

Let us consider the opposite of the virtues of God—Sin and its enormity which can be expiated through the sacrament of Penance.

Blessed Columba says that the Sacrament of Penance or Confession sets our disposition to be open to the grace of God the sacrament affords.  However if we approach the sacrament with a light heart facing the crucifixion of Christ on Golgotha and that we afterwards receiving absolution from the priest make no effort to amend our lives or as we said before reflect the perfections of God then the experience is in effective.  The Sun shines equally on a clean window and a dirty window. The recipient receives the intensity of the sun’s rays depending on the cleanliness of the window.

God sees himself in full light, as worthy, of all love and all submission. None of us can look at the sun directly without causing blindness. Just as Christ told the apostles that for man to be saved is impossible but with God all things are possible.  I can well imagine the suffering saints have gone through in the process of holiness.  Perhaps many of us avoid this path towards holiness through the sacrament of Penance for that very reason, confessing to the priest Christ presence on earth is just too painful.  Burning off pride really hurts! Some even go as far to  make evil to be their good as Nietzsche cited.   Man as holy as a saint responds to submit himself with all his heart with all his mind and with all his soul to God— as the Psalmist states in 119 the longest of the Psalms- repetitively,( paraphrasing)—I look forward to your commandments, I love to do your law…I long for your commandments…..I love to do your will Lord.

In the Lord’s Prayer, it states, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is why to seek in prayer the purpose of God for our lives, and to enjoy personal fellowship with Christ Who delivers us from the things and creatures that stand in the way of that purpose leads to the harmony of the whole person which is one of the prerequisites of spiritual health.

How do you know that you are becoming more holy…more saintly?  The more saintly a person becomes, the more he feels himself a sinner. We Catholics do not make the cross pretty or less attractive because we know the consequence of sin and how hurtful it is to God.  We look at the cross of Christ with his flesh hanging like purple rags, representing all the lusts of the eye and envy we hold in our hearts.   His hands and feet are pinioned on the cross of contradiction like our hands that hurt or maim or steal from another or our feet that run away from the Lord or the police from our misdeeds as Adam and Eve hid from God.  Christ’s lips dry, parched and cracked with blood from the results our foul and vulgar words with one another, and gossip and put downs.  His head crowned with thorns as blood and sweat drip down from his forehead and on to his cheeks from all the evil thoughts and deeds that are conjured up in our minds.  His side pierced through the heart from all the hearts we broke by our unkindness and selfishness toward others in our parental care or neighbor who whom we did not care for who was homeless, hungry, thirsty or imprisoned or naked or in need of a church community and not once did we mention ours to join. The pierced heart is all the unborn that are killed in abortion or the elderly who are euthanized….. Or those murdered in the streets out of wantonness and cruelty and in homes from domestic violence….. Or extermination of peoples because they do not look or act like us.  The Catholic Church unlike other churches does not make the cross of Christ empty without the corpus on the cross.  Sin is a serious dirty business we must realize every day in our lives when we fall into its enslavement.  Sin latches on to our character just as it latched on to Christ on the Cross.

The saint judges himself not by worldly standards nor by his weak neighbors, but by God Himself who is the perfected image of us.  St. Teresa of Avila had written out in her own hand and kept always on her work-table.  You would think that she might have chosen one of those elevated expressions of divine charity which used to spring naturally from her heart.  No, it was a verse of the Psalm; the greatest of sinners might have chosen it: “Lord, enter not into judgment with Thy servant”.  St. Catherine of Siena on her death bed was faithful to her habit as a nun her whole life, repeated constantly these words; “I have sinned, Lord, have pity on me.”

Then once we realize the seriousness of our sins whether venial or mortal—all sin is an offense to God’s perfection– in the Sacrament of Penance we are to make amends or as Blessed Columba states we must have the disposition of compunction towards holiness. Holiness must become habitual in contrast to how sin has become habitual in each of us. When holiness is us then God identifies Himself with us and recognizes us rather than the words we do not want to hear on our judgment day, “Depart from me I know not whom you are.”

The Epiphany story reminds me of an incident I read about, whether it’s true or not I do not know. It seems that a woman was at work when she received word that her daughter was very sick with a fever. She left her work and stopped at the pharmacy to get some medication for her daughter. When returning to her car she found that she had locked her keys inside. She was in such a hurry to get home to her sick daughter, she didn’t know what to do, so she called the baby sitter told her what had happened and that she didn’t know what to do.

The baby sitter said the child was getting worse. She said, “You might find a coat hanger or something and open that door.” The woman looked around and found an rusty coat hanger that had been thrown on the ground possibly by someone in the same situation. Then she looked at the hanger and said, “I don’t know what to do with this.”

In fear and frustration she bowed her had and asked God to send her some help. Within five minutes an old rusty car pulled up, with a dirty, greasy, bearded man who was wearing and old biker skull cap on his head. The woman thought, “This is great, God. This is who you sent to help me?” But she was so desperate she was thankful for any help.

The man got out of the car and offered to help. She said, “my daughter is very sick . . . I stopped to get her some medicine and I locked my keys in my car. I must get home to her. Please, can you use this hanger to unlock my car?”

He said, “SURE.” He walked over to the car, and in less than one minute the car was opened. She hugged the man and through her tears she said, “THANK YOU SO MUCH . . . You are a very nice man.”

The man replied, “Lady, I am not a nice man, see, I just got out of prison today. I was in prison for car theft and have only been out for about an hour.” The woman hugged the man again and through her tears she prayed out loud, “THANK YOU, GOD , FOR SENDING ME A PROFESSIONAL!”

Okay so what does this story have to do with the Epiphany, we celebrate on January 6^th? Namely the world was in great expectation around this time. Astrologers were reading the heavens and three Magi or some say as many as twelve. The three Balthasar is often represented as a king of Arabia, Melchior as a king of Persia, and Gaspar as a king of India. They were Mede Persian priests who were prominent in Eastern courts. They were looking for, a king or babe in a manger. Some say Jesus was as old as two by the time he Magi arrived. Others less informed than the three wise men responded to Christ’s arrival were in antipathy towards the babe by sending mercenaries to kill him or the humble like the Shepherds and Wise men celebrated such an underwhelming worldly event. The proud and arrogant will not find Christ.

Nevertheless the Jews were expecting a real professional to release them from the bondage of the Romans. They received a real professional but not what was expected. What can a babe do when His first home was a cave and an animal’s food dish, the manger.

Think about it, we are not much different today than people of the past. Are we not looking for someone to watch over us? We put our trust in our government leaders, movie stars opinions, and sports figures and home town teams. Perhaps it is our spouse or a boyfriend or girlfriend. But we wonder why we come up short and disappointed when we encounter their frailties, weaknesses and sometime rudeness. In many of the movies I have been seeing lately, prominent actors are acting as who can be the most gross, or what we called in another lifetime, “Vulgar”. Yet I get through the movie to find a kernel of a story about life and entertainment.

This church would be packed if people today were looking for Christ instead of what they are thinking they are looking for. I really don’t blame them though, because we who are Christ’s ambassadors may not be the best representatives. I have said that the only bible others may have read may be us.

Nevertheless take this time and bring God’s Epiphany into another’s life by your kindness, especially to someone you don’t like or someone that you have not forgiven lately. Write that letter, pick up that phone, text someone, apologize, forgive, embrace the unlikeable.  The results from such a kindness keeps Christ’s momentum stirred into parched hearts. They may not ever expect such a kindness in the first place. God is found in places people least expect which is the lesson of the manger scene. Certainly we find how God works!

God Love You!

Fr. Jerry Kwasek

Marlyne bought a bread machine for one Christmas and I remember the aroma of fresh made bread filled our home. Yeast is the key ingredient for bread making. That tiny spoonful of what looks like powder seems like nothing, but without the yeast the flour, water, sugar and milk mixture remains a lump of hot, sticky goop. Yeast a seemingly ineffectual powder works it’s way through the dough like magic. It’s the magic ingredient that transforms the dough into a fluffy white, wonderfully aromatic loaf.

Jesus compared the kingdom of God to the yeast and the dough. The finished loaf looks nothing like the spoonful of powdered yeast, but one comes from the other. Likewise, the religious doctrines and dogmas of the church may sometimes look strange compared to the simple life of Christ as revealed in the bible, but they have grown from the gospel as the yeast transforms the dough through the thought processes of Christians over the past 2000 years. Doctrine saves us time in fine tuning our own understanding and wisdom, so that we do not repeat the mistakes and errors of past times.   Take for example.  Was Jesus Christ a created being?  Did he or did he not pre-exist his appearance in the manger?   Why is such a discussion even remotely relevant to us in today? Because if Jesus is not God then as St. Paul states we are to be most pitied and we are still subject to our own sins and non-forgiveness. The bible does not resolve the issue about the nature and personhood of Jesus.  It took several centuries and meetings of Christians and their bishops to think about what happen in the first century. Here in the 21^st century some would tell you today that Jesus was not God based on their own rational thought processes.  But this discussion was handled hundreds of years ago with a series of discussions and dissertations by saints and doubters.  So why would we want to cast out established doctrine like casting out E= MC squared?  We ought not to take church teachings in doctrines and dogmas too lightly until we investigate the thinking of church people and saints of centuries past, just as we do not take our American Constitution lightly without consulting the original thinking of our American founders.
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin was defined in 1854, but the seed of this doctrine was planted way back in the Garden of Eden. It developed as our understanding of the mystery of the Incarnation—God becomes man– expanded and matured. From God’s birth through a virgin or virgin birth we came to understand Mary’s holiness– perpetual virginity with the annunciation of an angel and from this belief we came to understand the Immaculate Conception.

This is how the faith develops and grows through history, but this is also how the faith grows in our own lives. Spiritual life is gradual, natural and organic. As we grow and mature faith grows and matures within us.

So often we want something dramatic and stupendous to happen in our spiritual lives. We look for a miracle. We want a great answer to prayer. We want that hallelujah moment. We want God to intervene and wave his magic wand and change us instantaneously and without too much effort. This is not the way it works.

Instead, true and lasting spiritual growth takes place gradually–even imperceptibly. The spirit grows in grace as the whole person grows and makes its pilgrimage through life. If this is true, then there are several precepts to remember.

First we must realize that the growth in grace is no more automatic than the growth of the seed into the tree. Remember Jesus’ other parable about seeds. Some of them are taken away by birds. Some fall on stony ground. Some grow among weeds. The yeast doesn’t always take. Sometimes the loaf falls flat and has to be thrown out. We have dry moments in our faith. Sometimes we even despair until God sends us a special grace I term Black Grace and God says to us as he did to St. Paul that, “My grace is sufficient for you…” If we want to grow in grace; if we want the faith to develop in our lives, then we have to co-operate with grace and do everything we can to nurture our spiritual lives. We ask ourselves.   How much time do you spend nurturing our faith through spiritual reading from people that ran the race towards God in centuries past.. saints like St. Theresa of Avila, St. Francis de Sales, St. Augustine St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure and more in contrast… to TV and Movie/Sports watching….if we answer negatively then we have only ourselves to look at the emptiness of our spiritual lives and growth of Christ in our hearts and minds. When we are in the deficit of a negative response to the question it is no wonder that we can be easily dismayed, frustrated and disappointed in family, friends, political results of the elections, our money, our possessions and situations in our lives.  If we do not exercise in the physical world we get flabby and likely become couch potatoes. Likewise as a spiritual couch potato and spectator, we then center around our own environment rather than being a mature Christian by having life center around you. If we choose an active spiritual life I would recommend Thomas Kempis Imitation of Christ or CS Lewis Mere Christianity for starts and then any of the works of St. Francis de Sales. Two other ingredients towards holiness require prayer—regular communication with God and disciplining of the body  like fasting from food or fasting from pride in order to make more room for God in our lives.

Secondly, we must be patient. Very often in the spiritual life God is doing something we can’t see. The seed grows underground to start with. The yeast is hidden in the dough–working away in an unseen way. Likewise, the Spirit is most often at work in our lives when we are not aware of it. God is present in the difficult times completing his work in us. The Holy Spirit often does his most effective work behind the scenes–in that moment of doubt and fear; in that time of grief and loss; in that series of trials that we think will unmake us. That is when God is busily at work making our faith and trust in him stronger than ever. It is what I call, Black Grace. God sends His grace to us which causes us to turn around from the path we are on and to get on the path leading to back to Him.

Finally, we must remember that the finished dough looks nothing like the powdered yeast. The great tree looks nothing like the little mustard seed. Likewise the final product of God’s work within us is something far greater than we can imagine. But this only can happen when we do a wake up call to set our path straight towards God—The wakeup call is Black Grace or Actual Grace. Yeast is an amazing ingredient when added to flour and eggs. The result looks nothing like the yeast ingredient but the result is a glorified entity of scrumptious delight to the eye and taste and brings a smile for all to behold with uplifted hearts and minds!

We can learn from two empires, the Greek and the Roman.  Or we cannot learn.  We then play out our past again.  Those who do not learn from history are subject to repeat it. As the Wisdom book Ecclesiastes tells us. 

Ecclesiastes 1:9  “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Historians tell us why both the Greek and Roman Empires fell.  Yes there were outside invaders that conquered both empires.  But these two nations fought off invaders for centuries.  Why eventually did they succumb to destruction?  Teachers of history tell us these nations deteriorated from within: from social, cultural, and moral decline. 

Historians give us a list of negative cultural symptoms that eroded these nations.

They are:  Increase in lawlessness, Loss of economic discipline, rising bureaucracy, decline in education, weakening of cultural foundations, loss of respect for traditions, increase in materialism, rise in immorality, decay of religious belief, devaluing of human life.

The Greeks, with the influence of Aristotle, Socrates and Plato held a strict code of purity. They held a very early respect for God as a higher governing intelligence.  Sexual promiscuity was a capital offense.  Greek arts and literature, the centerpiece of their society, extolled the virtuous man.  Loyalty to the state and neighbors was among the highest callings.  Self-sacrifice and examination were the norm.  Two ancient maxims were inscribed on the walls of the temple at Delphi, “Know Thyself” and “Nothing in Excess.”

A decline in virtue and morality swept the culture like wildfire. The high respect for Zeus so evident in early history gradually disintegrated into skepticism and pluralism of gods and goddesses that were more anthropomorphic and sensual.  Absolute truth no longer existed.  Thought and principles became relative. Plato, Aristotle and Anaxagoras reflect later on the fact that Greeks once held to a governing intelligence as the beginning of all things, and Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Empedocles, and Democritus assailed the myths and held to a higher religion.  Greek society began to falter and drift.  Materialism, sexual immorality, and self-absorption took over Grecian hearts. The Greek nation turned strongly toward materialism and the men began to forsake their wives in the pursuit of wealth.

In the century that followed Aristophanes, sexual anarchy began to take over.  These were the years when Hermaphroditus and Aphrodite, the goddess of love, began to be primary.  Mixed bath houses, proliferation of courtesans, acceptance of adultery and widespread prostitution followed.  The temple prostitutes were multiplied by the thousands, and divorce became a common thing in ancient Greece. Social responsibility was replaced with individualism.  Men emphasized their privileges and rights for the material and sensual. The women responded by demanding theirs.  Gaining more “freedom,” they became vulnerable and abused.  Children were neglected and abused sexually, leading to efforts to defend the rights of the young. The greed of the upper classes led to a gap in living standards which in turn lead to class wars.  This lead to the breakdown of the home and finally brought anarchy.

When Rome came there was no moral fiber left, no honor, no Greek people of substance to withstand the Roman plunder.

Rome did no better:

The strength of Rome lay in her political structures and her strong families.  Both were governed by the concept of the “High Old Roman Virtue.”  Romans believed strongly in being earnest, tenacious, well disciplined, frugal, and self-sacrificing.  Duty, honesty, and honor all complimented the virtue Cicero described as the foundation of all others—piety.  A pious man submitted himself to things sacred, and believed unflinchingly that it was better to perish than to fail in his sacred duties.

Eventually the nation slowly declined.  Many blamed the Christians for the fall of the Roman Empire.   St. Augustine who lived during the fall of the Western Roman Empire writes in his City of God, that the empire did not fall because it was Christian but because it failed to be Christian.  St. Augustine said that the benefits of Christianity are not restricted to the material.  They are like the blood of Christ which regenerates us unto life everlasting.  The Roman world rejected St. Augustine and equated that civilization is identical with prosperity, and that Christianity fails when it fails to make the world prosperous.

The Roman nation slowly declined as wealth, power, and passion took first place in the Roman heart.  Society became preoccupied with sensuality.  Oppressive taxes, combined with moral decadence involving adultery and sexual promiscuity, destroyed Roman families.  Roman thinker Sallust observed, “Young men were so depraved by luxury and avarice that no father had a son who could either preserve his own patrimony or keep his hands off other men’s. Roman citizens lost interest in piety and dignity and focused on day-to-day survival and instant gratification.  Romans lost respect for human life.  Citizens worshipped the gladiators who fought in stadiums.  Originally punishable by death, abortion became common, even encouraged. Violence was epidemic.  Gang violence exploded. The family became more and more disintegrated, placing greater responsibility on a Roman government that represented more and more fragmented groups.  As families went so went the nation.

Aiding the breakdown of decadent cultures was a philosophy of “change for the sake of change” In his assessment of the risks to any society that tries to live without God for its foundation, former White House assistant Chuck Colson states, “In a society that begins free-floating discussion, certainty evaporates.  After a while, nobody is sure of any thing.  It introduces relativity, so to speak, in human affairs and also eternal affairs. You cannot be sure—there is no such thing as the truth—everything is equivocated—everything is subject to contradiction.

I have heard it said that God is relative and personal to one’s one belief system.

Why is it when we make the statements that 2+2= 4 and the Capital of the US is Washington D.C. this is an undisputable fact?  But when we say that we were made by and for God that the statement is debated.  2+2 and the Capital of the US is the truth.  There can be no doubt.  Our Blessed Lord said he is Truth to Pilate.  And he who hears the truth hears Him.  Well he is either Truth or He is not.  He is either relative or He is absolute he cannot be both!  Without Truth, righteousness and goodness erodes as witnessed in the Greek and Roman Culture.  Without Truth there is no glorifying of God.  

I conclude with French diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville who toured America in the 1830’s.  He stated,  “I sought for the key to the greatness of America in her harbors…; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning.  I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution.  Not until I went in the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.  America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”  

Make no mistake about eternal life we will be judged by the foundation we bet our souls on.  Our goodness requires a purity of heart and that heart will seek out the truthful foundation to live by. As Jesus said we love him by the way we love neighbor.  I think we can find some new meaning to the story of the Three Little Pigs.  One house foundation was built on straw and one on sticks and one from bricks.  We all know the rest of the story.

First Sunday in Advent

Three priests sat discussing the best positions and time for prayer while a cable repairman worked nearby.  “Kneeling in the morning is definitely best,” claimed one.  “No,” another contended.  “I get the best results standing with my hands outstretched to Heaven at dusk.”  “You’re both wrong,”   the third insisted.  “The most effective prayer position is lying prostrate, face down on the floor before going to bed.”  The cable man coud not contain himself any longer.  “Fellas,”  he interrupted, “The best prayin’ I ever did was hangin’ upside down from a telephone pole.”

We have four Sundays to prepare for the arrival of our Blessed Lord, as the billboards now states, “Jesus is the reason for the season” or is it “Save Big This Holiday Season Buy Now.”  “The More You Buy the More You Save?”

The first Sunday is about Death, next Sunday is Judgment, the following Sunday is Heaven and the Last Sunday is Hell–Four themes in Advent before Christmas.

We all have some kind of savings because it is reasonable to predict that we will need money for rainy days, home, college tuition and hopefully for a fulfilling retirement.  Some of us save more than others.

We save our earnings, because it is the responsible thing to do. We buy health insurance because some day we may be injured sick. We may buy life insurance because we may want to protect out assets.  But these are all based on a “Maybe”.  Some maybes like sickness are more prominent than others.  It is possible that we will need convalescent care but then again maybe not.

Now we all know that some time in our lives we are going to die.  And we know that there is literally no one who has died for three days and come back to relate the experience except our Blessed Lord.  So if you put money on a life after death program where would you place your bets.

Two thousand years later, some live as if Christmas or Easter for that matter was just a made up story.  Perhaps the Apostles stole the body and then later contrived up the story. Why would the apostles even bother?  It was dangerous to be a disciple of a false Messiah.  Rome has seen these false Messiahs come and go.  If they stole the body right under the noses of the Roman guards then the guards would have been put to death. Secondly, why did the Apostles leave the wrappings behind?  No something indeed happened and it was an event never witnessed in human history ever. Why would an atheistic communist China celebrate the 2^nd millennium for a dead Jew?

There is an insurance policy we need to take out guaranteed, because none of us are leaving this planet alive.  So I’ll ask,  “What is your death investment strategy?”   How are we preparing for death’s eventuality?

Some of us like the Greek stoics see no meaning to life.  They say we just go about living and suffering and living and then die and then nothing!  Life has no point to it…. Does a mineral have the right to tell us that there is no more intelligent life beyond itself? Does a plant have the same right? Does the animal have the right to tell us that there is no intelligent life beyond it’s animal self? Yet we know we exist and are supposed more intelligent than an animal, plant or mineral. So how can we say there is no intelligent life beyond ourselves? Can an infant say there is no intelligent life beyond the womb for that matter? Yes we are in the womb of life right now on this planet and none of us are getting off of it alive. Where we end up after this material life depends on how we end each of our minutes of life in preparation.

God’s creation gives us clues on how to prepare for our eventuality.  If the mineral is to raise itself to the next life it must be assumed by the plant. If the plant is to raise itself it must be taken in by the animal, if the animal must raise itself it must be assumed by man and if man to be raised he must die to himself, his pride, his arrogance, give up his very life in order to have the promised eternal life of Christ.

The evangelist Luke tells us that there is a point to this life and God has a plan.  People with Christian perspective, death investment strategy, look forward to the end time.  St. Gregory said that those of us who fix our priorities on the World do not look forward to the end times. He says that those who love God are bidden to be glad.   Luke says that those of us who do not love God and make him their priority will not look forward to His coming.

It’s unfortunate that we have our priorities reversed.  It’s as if we would have the prices on goods upside down:   Package of Safety pins—$395.00,  Refrigerators—–19 cents.  A Wal-Mart clerk was trampled to death the other day on a Black Friday. (Sales day after Thanksgiving) The doors of the store were literally pulled off their hinges by the rush of people through the opening.

Christianity is about reversing our priorities from worldly priorities. St. Gregory teaches that Jesus said his words will not pass away but heaven and earth will pass away.  St. Gregory inquires on how odd this statement at face value appears to be.  When we speak, words remain only as long as they are spoken and then they soon pass away until the next set of words.  On this plane of existence we live and think as if there is something permanent about our lives. Jesus contradicts our human logic and prepares us to think the way God thinks. Words are like spirit that can stir a man’s soul to love or hate.  When you think about it when we die the only thing we can take with us is the spirit of the way we have lived, loved, gave, comforted, suffered injustices patiently, and cheered our neighbor on their good and how we embraced our enemy. All we take with us is the content of our developed character, (and one suitcase.) Those so called permanent things like out homes, cars, computers, money, are all left behind when we die.

History is going somewhere.  Luke points out where history is going. Jesus will be the Lord of all in the last days!  Therefore we must remain in a permanent state of expectation. The more pure of heart we are, the more we will look forward to our own personal death. A pure heart prays the Lord’s prayer, “Thy Kingdom Come!”

He tells him to, follow the Commandments and to love his neighbor as himself.  Upon hearing Jesus replies he says that he has done all these things since he was a boy.  Jesus said to him there is one thing you lack—if you want to achieve perfection. Sell all that you have and come follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.  Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Jesus could have just as easily said to the “rich man” as Matthew records and the “young man” as Luke records and just a “man” as Mark records as the best identification of the man who ran up to Jesus, that the man was full of himself thus being rich and that he was immature—being a young man. Youth and maturity do not necessarily go hand in hand. Being a man as Mark records, we too are men who hold on to the material and the non-material.

I am suggesting that the gospel message about the rich young man is not just a message about material possessions but of the things we hold on to, like, pride, revenge, non-forgiveness, hatred and prejudice, satisfaction from put downs and expressive rage and envy.  Jesus’ warning reiterated the wisdom of the Old Testament: Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is perverse in his way –Proverbs 28:6 and Psalm 37:16. I am suggesting that Jesus is looking into our hearts and what we do with our talents and possessions and not in the amount of possessions that we hold. Materially rich people were called to discipleship as was Matthew by his economic standards was rich.  Jesus befriended rich people like Zacchaeus and Lazarus.

Scriptures gives us a paradox: we lose what we keep and we gain what we give away. Jesus goes on further that if we do not loose what we keep then to get into heaven would be like a camel trying to go through the eye of a needle.  Luke uses the surgical term for eye of the surgical needle while Matthew is thinking about a gate way to a city where the camel and rider have to stoop to the camel’s knees in order to enter the city.

We also know from the Book of Revelation that nothing impure or unholy can survive the presence of God.  To be truly holy is to be totally self-surrendered to the love, mercy and dependence on God.  If we cannot surrender ourselves to God and admit our dependence on him then we who are imperfect cannot enter into His presence without purification.

We must not think the purification or purgation after our deaths as a place and or of a time but an experience.  I am suggesting that the judgment of God as is recorded in Hebrews—“It is appointed for man to die once and then the judgment”– can be that purgation and purification.

So our prayers this day of All Souls is to stand with them in their judgment and purification.  “No greater love is this is that a man would sacrifice his life for another.” We stand with them as the Church Militant for the Church of Purgatory.  We can call on the Church Triumphant of the Saints in Heaven to stand with us too with the souls in purgation as well. We save ourselves as we save others.

If we do not come to this realization then judgment and purgation can be all the difficulty, all the scariness, trial and pain that we associate with the term of “Purgatory”.  If there was no experience of purgation or letting go of our material and non-material possessions then if we were to enter heaven with our stuff and others did too, heaven would not be much of an experience of total cooperation, peace, joy and love because someone or another would be holding back as they do now on earth.

There was a woman in Purgatory who begged Peter to release her from the pains and sorrow of purgatory.  Peter said okay, what did you do for another when you were on earth?  And she replied that she gave a beggar a carrot one day.  Peter said, I will lower a carrot down from heaven and you can pull yourself up on the rope that it is attached.  When the rope appeared the woman grabbed onto it and of course the other souls in Purgatory grabbed on to her legs.  She began to kick at them as to release them from her so that she could ascend the rope. She screamed at them to let go of her legs, that she was getting the free pass into heaven and not them. However the weight of souls in Purgatory was too much for her and she then slipped back into the realm of Purgatory for another session of purification and another remembrance of her on All Souls Day.