Lec # 95- 12th Sun of Ordinary Time- June 21, 2015- Fr. Bresowar
Last week I preached about the need to follow divine and natural law, the moral code given us by Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit through the Church over the need to go in the direction of wherever society is leading us. And I spoke about gay marriage, and how its redefinition in government has no barring on its moral rightness or wrongness. God’s law trumps civil law always.
I made mention of a quote by Archbishop Sheen, which states that moral principles do not change with a majority vote. Or, as is the case of our country, with a court decision. Right is right, if no body is right, and wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong. Morality doesn’t come from us, it comes from Truth, and it is objective. God is Truth. Unchanging, and eternal Truth. If not, then humanism becomes the highest principle. And when that happens, truth becomes lost in opinions with society left to become its own God. In that case, whoever wields the most power becomes the maker of truth as he, or she, or they see fit. This was the modern thoughts of a dangerous philosopher and enemy of the faith, Frederick Nietzche. He agued that the Christian God was dead and was no longer relevant.
History has had a lot of powerful leaders who were influenced by this type of thought and have made horrible laws. Laws that all of us agree were an offence against humanity and against nature. Hitler immediately comes to mind. He passed several anti-Jewish laws which systematically led to the extermination of over 6 million Jews.
So it matters when society starts to pass laws that go against the divine and natural law. Is changing the definition of marriage going to lead to the death of 6 million Jews? No, of course not. But allowing abortion has led to the death of over 56 million infants just in our country alone. Going against divine and natural law never works out well for humanity, even if there are many people saying how great it will be in the future. This is why it is important for me as a priest to speak about these things, and it is important for all of you to have these discussions at home and in the workplace. Always side with God of course, something which is easy to do when we pray and have faith.
Abortion, gay marriage, social poverty, extreme capitalism, socialism, global warming, etc, all of these effect society and humanity. We see it every day. It’s important to have this dialogue.
These are big storms brewing in society. And in many cases we are still looking to Jesus to calm the seas. We must trust that he will because he always does.
Those are the big storms of society. Now I’d like to shift attention to the not so big societal storms to the storms of every day life of the parishioners here at Holy Spirit.
I know, because I hear confessions and do spiritual counseling that most of you are not having to deal with extreme capitalism, global warming, or abortion, or gay marriage. Yes those may directly affect some of you, but for the most part, your storms are different.
These storms include addictions, infighting within family, marriage issues, divorce, finance issues,children gone astray, stress at work, loneliness, and the list go goes. These are the problems of every day life that confront most of us to various degrees. Maybe not storms on the same level of the ones mentioned which effect society but nevertheless they affect us individually, and sometimes they feel like big storms. Think of the biggest storm you might be dealing with in the moment? It feels heavy does is not?
The apostles on the boat in today’s gospel were afraid. They were afraid surely of losing control and possibly of losing their lives.
They were weak, they didn’t know what to do.
In many ways this is analogous to our lives. We fear losing control over situations in the storms of our lives. And death is the ultimate fear because it comes and takes everything we think we have control overaway.
So when the storms of our lives are huge, and seem uncontrollable, when the pain is too much to bare, when we are being thrown about our boat as the apostles were, what do we do?
We do what they did! Cry out to Jesus. And eventually, as He always does, He calms the storm and smooth things out.
Jesus does this, we can’t.
Jesus is the same always, He is the way, He is the Truth and He is Life, and He always prevails. He always calms the storms in time. Always.
Abortion, gay marriage, sexual slavery, extreme poverty, environmental issues, just a few for example,these are huge storms, and we debate every day what to do what about them. In your own household, jealously, loneliness, broken families, fighting all the time, finance issues, busy schedules, stress, bad habits, etc, these are storms too, and every day we deal with them as well.
However, the solution to the big storms as well as the solution to the smaller ones is the same, and the problem is not that He hasn’t fixed them yet, but that we do not look to him enough to do so.
He admonishes his disciples to come to Him with their burdens. Seek Him while he can still be found.
And yet how often is He the last person we go to?
I don’t worry in the long run about much, because I already know who has won the day. Christ is the light of the world. Nothing will extinguish this light, and this light will reign forever.
On a personal note, I have my own fears and storms, and I struggle with things like everyone else does. Being assigned to a new parish, for example, is exciting but there is a little bit of a storm going on within, and I could certainly talk about the stress of managing a parish, and the challenges of having to learn a new language, and the loneliness of priesthood at times, and I could let that overwhelm me, but I won’t. Instead, when I feel like I don’t have control, I’ll do what the disciples did and I’ll call out to Jesus. And Jesus will do what he always does, calm my heart, and let me know by faith and his Loving spirit, that everything is already taken care of. There is nothing I could do, or that you could do, that could separate us from the love of Jesus Christ.
God is in control of everything. Nothing we can do can change that. We need not worry, simply cry out to Jesus, and He will bring the calming effects of the Spirit. Maybe not always when we want it, but always when we need it.
Thank you for being such a wonderful parish to me over the last four years. I know you will continue to pray for my priesthood and all the priests. It’s not easy to leave, but the life of the priest is a journey to heaven, and we have to keep moving. More souls for Christ! That’s the whole purpose of priesthood. I will be praying for you too. And I will thank God always for your love and patience for me.
God Bless you!
