1. Lec # 158- 33rd Sun of OT, Nov 18, 2012- Fr. Bresowar

    My brothers and sisters in Christ…

    The world is a very scary place… good thing it is passing away. Good thing this is just a pilgrim journey to Heaven and not a final destination. Right now, we seem to be on the brink of another war, the economy is on the brink of another recession, morals are all but shot in the family and in society, the golden calf of idol worship is back in many forms, the Church is under attack on the religious liberty front… and God seems to be put on the back burner as man tries to once again, save himself from himself. We know this story, we know the outcome, we’ve seen this play out in history multiple times, and we wonder why people refuse to learn from history. So once again, we find ourselves having to endure great suffering, which is an effect of sin, sin, which is a turning away from God’s perfect plan for us.

    Suffering, although not caused by God, is allowed by God. Some think God allows it to punish us for our sins, I doubt it… St. Augustine states that God is a physician, and that suffering is a medicine for salvation, not a punishment for damnation.  

    Now more than ever maybe, is the time for us to increase our faith which God does by grace, to get ready to suffer, and to remember our final destination is not in this world, that our salvation from this mess that we are in, rest, as it always has, in Jesus Christ, who willingly entered into suffering to show us that this is how God brings about redemption.  

    Christians, those who seek to follow Christ with everything that they are, true Christians, not wishy washy ones, not cafeteria ones, but true Christians, are always looking forward to the second coming of Jesus Christ. Why? Because that is when he will finally accomplish what he started, when God will make manifest the Kingdom forever, and where sin and suffering, the effects of sin, will be stamped out forever. There will be no more sadness, no more war, no more abortion, no more murder, no more separation, no more adultery, no more hurting each other, no more disordered sexuality, no more lust, no more temptations, no more strife. The battle will be won, and we, if we persevere and love Jesus by actually following his commands and being obedient to his Church, by allowing him to be God in our lives instead of us, will enjoy the paradise we were created for. This is not our hope, this is our reality… people who lack faith, often times believe Christians made this story up to help themselves cope with suffering… I can think of better things to do to cope with suffering. Faith, the virtue which we must be open to, but once we receive, allows us to know for certain, that Christ will come again and finish what he started.

    The first Christians, maybe more than any other time, suffered great persecutions, especially under the Roman Empire. We think we have it bad now, we are suffering nothing compared to what they had to endure. Naturally, they were always looking forward to, longing for the Day of the Lord, to persevere in the face of every form of adversity. Over and over again, St. Paul invokes this future time of blessing.  

    Today the Gospel reminds us very clearly that the end of our world will come, and that we should be very watchful for this.

    No one, only the Father, knows when this will happen, but what is certain, is that it will happen.

    We are reminded that in the end, there will be a judgment for everyone, and that Jesus will separate the sheep from the goats. The sheep he will put on his right and the goats on his left. This is an analogy for those of us who accepted and lived as the Gospels tell us, and those of us who rejected the Gospel, the good news, and lived as if we were our own God, and we make the rules, not Him.

    Jesus is very clear that those who accepted and lived the Truth, which he reveals through Scripture and his Church, will share eternal life, and those who did not, will be cast into the eternal fires of Hell with Satan.

    Rather Jesus returns while we are alive, or rather we die first, each of us cannot avoid coming to that judgment day. Each of us will have to give a full account of our life in front of God, and this can be a very scary thought for us.

    This can be very scary, however, if we live our lives like we actually love Jesus Christ and we love our neighbor, then we have nothing to fear about dying and judgment. If we keep his commands, and seek to serve and not to be served, if we take up our Cross and deny ourselves; if we pray every day, and do not take his grace for granted; if we feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, visit this sick and the dying, visit the prisoners, take care of the orphaned and the widow; if we live as honorable husbands and wives, fathers and the mothers, sons and daughters; if we put God before everything else, and if we make sure that we eat his body and drink his blood in the Holy Mass, and we go to confession and repent of our sins over and over, then we have absolutely nothing to fear.

    Because if we do all of those things, then we already live with the Kingdom of Heaven inside each one of us. Eternal Life is Jesus Christ, and when Jesus Christ lives inside of us, and He is the King of our Heart, then eternal life reigns in our heart and we have nothing fear, nor could we, about our judgment, or really all the issues that happening in the world around us. For the world is passing away.

    Jesus says that unless you hate your life in this world, you cannot have eternal life. What does he mean by this, he means, we were created for eternity, that’s where our heart should be. Store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven says the Lord, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

    Unfortunately, many people will end up in Hell because they refused to change their lives, even when God offers them so many chances to change.

    But we must pray every day for each other and for ourselves while we still have time. We must seek to give up control of our lives and let God take control. We must learn about Jesus and His Church, about our faith, and offer up our sufferings united with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. If we can do this, we will not complain anymore about what is going on here with all of our problems, instead we will suffer willingly, and Jesus will use this suffering to bring us to Heaven.


    Posted by


  2. Lec # 493- Wed, 32nd Week of OT- Nov 14, 2012

    My brothers and sisters in Christ,

    I don’t know if you remember at the beginning of the year when I said to you, that for those of you who have faith, then the one amongst you who does not, you’d have a hard time understanding why they think a certain way and behave a certain way, and likewise for those who really don’t have much faith or belief in Jesus, well they wouldn’t really understand the views and lifestyles of the one who do.

    This is my perception of what is happening in our school, and by in large what is happening in our society right now. 

    For someone who has devoted His life to the Truth as revealed by Christ through His Church, as someone who has abandoned that Truth and decided for myself what was best for me and society for a long time in my life, and then come to see how fruitless that view was in his own life and how damaging it is to society,  it can be exceedingly frustrating that there are so many out there who just really don’t know Jesus, or don’t want to know him.

    But I try not to judge people based on where they are on their own spiritual journey.

    I better than many, understand that faith is a journey, and that what I decided I knew in high school, and in college, changed drastically when I decided after a series of experiences to finally open myself up to grace, when I started to look at this life through this lens of eternity, and not the lens of this world alone.

    For when we look at life through our own lens, through our own senses, through our own opinions and perceptions apart from what Christ revealed to us, apart from faith, it can be very difficult to know what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad, and what is true and what is not true.

    I also understand better than most that following Jesus is a personal choice, a difficult choice because it requires a change in perspective and a willingness to let go of this false sense of control and autonomy that we have come to believe we have in this world. As if our opinion of how things should be makes it so. You know where that usually comes to ahead, is when people are dying. I encounter more people when they are dying who all of sudden realize they don’t have any control. The sooner we realize that this isn’t our world, this is God’s world and he in control, he designed it, he makes the rules and that he did not do so for the sake of trying to inconvenience us, but for the sake of True Love, the sooner we will see clearly our whole purpose for existing in the first place.

    Everything and anything that matters is Love. To tell someone that what they are doing is wrong, if it is in fact wrong, is not unloving, but is actually loving.

    That’s why we defend marriage as God designed it, that’s why we defend properly ordered sexuality, that’s why we defend life, even though the world wants to say that religion has no place in the public debate, Truth is Truth and love can’t be silenced, nor should it be.

    It’s tough… it’s tough to go against the tide of modern culture, to choose to not embrace secularism… when so many people, so many celebrities, so many of our influences out there, politicians, feminists, leftist, rightist, extreme liberals, extreme conservatives, even Catholics who are confused as to what it means to be Catholic, are trying to shape our opinions.

    But thanks be to God for Jesus Christ and his holy Catholic Church. For she is the light of the world, and He is guiding us through his Holy Spirit, through his Church, even though his church is made up of broken men and women like you and me.

    Paul tells us to hold on to the Truth, to be consistent in sound doctrine, because it is this doctrine that is going to stand the test of time, as it has for the last 2000 years.

    2000 years later, and the gates of Hell have still not prevailed over her. You’ll see a lot of people out there who hate, despise, or disagree with the Church and think that she needs to get with the modern times, that she is no longer relevant.

    If we could fast forward 100 years from now… those people will be long gone, but the Church will remain.

    Jesus says clearly at the end, he will come and separate the sheep and the goats… an analogy for those who chose to accept Truth and those who chose to reject it. And he will welcome into the Kingdom those who lived his Truth which he offers us, and cast into Hell those who decided to be their own god.

    Which side will you be on? It’s your choice. History is a great asset because we learn from it. We already know what happens.  Cafeteria Catholicism is going to fade into history, as is anything, which is not true. But, and this is big but… Love will always remain.

    If we love him, we will keep commands. He said so himself. If we love him, then he will do good works through us. He will feed the poor, shelter the homeless, feed the hungry; he will do the social justice that needs to be done. He will visit the prisoners through us, he will visit the sick. For where the Christian goes, so goes Christ.  He will do it all for his sake which embraces Truth even when its difficult to accept.  He will complete what he started, and we will simply become his instruments to be transformed into Love, which in the end, is all that matters. 
    Posted by


  3. Lec # 155- 32nd Sun of OT- November 11, 2012- Fr. Bresowar

    "The world itself now bears witness to its approaching end by its fading powers.  […] The peasant is failing and disappearing from the fields, the sailor at sea, the soldier in the camp, uprightness in the forum, justice in the court, concord in friendships, skill in the arts, discipline in morals."
    Someone might think these words were written today in response to a decline in American society witnessed by the attempt to so centralize the government that the freedom of the Church is threatened.  Yet these words were written by St.  Cyprian, an early Church Father, around the year 250.

    I find them to be very interesting and prophetic. The fact of the matter is that the world is always in a moment of crisis, because sin still reigns in the world, ignorance, which is an effect of sin, mainly the sin of pride, is abound. It makes you almost wish for the second coming of Jesus Christ. We know that when our Lord comes, the world will end as we know it, those who persevered in Christ and goodness will come to know the fullness of the Truth, and be transformed, made perfect, the blessed dead will rise from their graves and be reunited with their glorified body and there will be no more suffering and no more confusion. Truth will win the day and Heaven will reign forever! This is our hope! Eternity with God!

    And yet,

    I posed a question for discussion on Facebook asking if it is wrong to pray that Jesus Christ will go ahead and come back, given what implications that has for those of us who are trying to live our life according to the example he gave us?

     It seems that it’s reasonable to pray that Jesus would go ahead and return so that this battle that we are all fighting, the war that is raging for our souls, and the daily strife of trying to avoid sin, will finally be over, and the victory which is already won on the cross will be made manifest forever. It seems reasonable enough… and yet, I think there are so many people that are afraid of this great hope of the second coming of Jesus Christ. There is a lot that is unknown about it, a lot of people would probably, if they were honest about it, tell you they are not ready, and so I would imagine that many people simply do not think about it, and when it comes up in conversation, it would be easy to want to change the subject as it’s not the most comfortable thing to talk about or reflect on.

    For centuries, Christians have been asked, are you prepared for return of Christ?

    In today’s society the question is by and large ignored, by Christians and non-Christians. When Cyprian wrote in the year 250, Christians believed that the world was coming to an end as they knew it. Flash forward to today, it would easy to believe, given the moral decline of society that we live in, that the world is coming to an end as we know it. And yet, St. Cyprian, as should be the case with all good Christians, did not give into despair about this. Yes the world is always coming to an end as we know it, because the world is passing away… nothing is ever the same, but at the same time, where some believe society is evolving pass the need for traditional values and morals, we as Christians place no hope in that lie, we must fight the temptation from Satan to give into despair, especially in the realm of politics.

    This is because Christians realize that history in a sense has already come to an end.  When Christ rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, the whole purpose for the world was realized: God was finally glorified in Jesus Christ.
    Once we realize that the final realization of the world cannot occur on this earth, then — though one must be involved in what happens here, as this is our pilgrim road to heaven — looking at time from eternity is the only thing that makes sense.
    What does that mean? That means that Christians need to see everything in this life through the lens of Heaven, through the lens of eternity.
    There are those who despair and have no hope when things do not go their way in the political order.  This cannot be a Christian attitude.  If it is true that our final homeland is only in heaven, then each society here must be of concern to us — but the Christian cannot put his hope here.  His hope is centered only in God.
    After all, though Christ has redeemed the world, human beings still suffer from the weakness of ignorance, malice and lust that characterized original sin.  People are still sadly motivated by the "desire to dominate," which is the origin of all lust and its final expression.

    My brothers and sisters, All is not lost when political parties or politicians succeed in introducing legally sanctioned injustices into a state. As is the case with gay marriage and abortion, euthanasia, forcing people to violate their conscience to choose between God and the state. Even with this reality before us, all is not lost. We are Easter people, we win! Hallelujah is our song!
    The Christian has many options to demonstrate his final hope and interest in the solution to the problem that faces this particular society and mankind as a whole.  He or she may seek to promote virtue in the context for which he or she is most responsible: the family, at work or in the local community. 
    The corporal works of mercy, which have in some ways been abandoned by some Christians and left to the state or bureaucracies, are a marvelous way to strengthen the life of hope and grace for individuals and society. 

    The point is, like the widow in the Gospel today, the Christian is called in this world to give what he or she can to promote values, which give life. The widow gave everything she had and this was more pleasing to the Lord, this is what we will be judged by.  Life is short here, give everything you are away, cause that is what is going to matter in the end.

    The Church has seemed to be asleep for a long time regarding the dangers to limiting the freedom of Catholics' religious practice.  Fortunately, more and more Catholics are becoming alive to the real possibility of dictation by the state concerning our practice of religious freedom.  This can and should alarm anyone who is serious about allowing his or her religious faith to influence his or her participation in the public square.

    True, in a democracy or a democratic republic, the clergy should not have an active role in the political process as clergy.  But, as citizens, each of us as Catholics must be aware that the kind of behavior that is necessary to preserve democracy is not necessarily the kind of behavior democracies like.
    Freedom cannot be license.  It must respect the inalienable rights of man, which must, for example, include life.
    Just because Christians hope in God does not mean that they are freed from concern and action in the civil order.  Still, in the final analysis, this hope of eternity is the only thing that can serve.  During his life, St. Augustine was not only a bishop; he was also a civil magistrate.  When he was dying, his city of Hippo was being besieged by the Vandals, particularly nasty barbarians who would eventually capture and destroy all he had worked for.  On his deathbed, he insisted that the walls be covered with verses from the Psalms so he could think about God.
    St. Augustine was not daunted by the fact that the world as he knew it was passing, for he had hope in heaven.  This had guided all his actions on earth and now was his final consolation.  As he said of heaven: "There we shall rest and see; see and love; love and praise.  This is what shall be in the end without end"

    Heaven always is, and always must be our motivation as we continue to build the kingdom of God, to proclaim the good news by our lives, and to seek to build virtue in a world which desperately needs Jesus Christ.

    (Much of this homily came from a wonderful article written by Fr. Brian Mulladay titled, “Hope in God”)



    Posted by
About Me
About Me
I am a Catholic Priest in the Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama. This blog is where I post my homilies from time to time. May God bless you always!
Blog Archive
Blog Archive
Traducir
Traducir
Loading
Dynamic Views theme. Powered by Blogger. Report Abuse.