Lec # 132- 24th Sun of OT- 17 Sept 2017- Fr. Bresowar

My brothers and sister,

No one that I know enjoys being hurt by another person. And yet so often we are hurt in some way, by words and by actions.

My parents had five children, and as any parent knows who has multiple children, there is a lot competition for attention. My brother and my sisters and I would often fight with each other and say horrible things to each other. We didn’t really mean it, we just wanted the attention, and we wanted to feel good about ourselves. So when we had a negative feeling, we would often times try to make each other feel negative. Then we would fight over something small, say something mean to each other or hit each other, begin to cry, and then run and tell on each other to our parents.

We usually would run to our mom because my dad would put us to work if we came to him complaining. But my mother had a different solution. Both solutions were good. She never really overreacted to our fighting, however, so long as it wasn’t very serious which it rarely was, she would tell to hug each other, and tell each other that we love each other.

This wasn’t satisfying when we were trying to get our sibling in trouble, and yet I heard many times in my life, the command to tell my brother or sisters that I loved them after we were fighting.

We did love each other, we just didn’t always get along and my mom was trying to teach us to forgive each other quickly.

As adults, all of us often times continue our childlike tendencies to hurt each other and we still have our feelings hurt.

All of us have our own pride, and sometimes that pride is wounded. And yet other times we hurt each other in a much more serious way.

And while it may not always be appropriate to give each other hugs and tell each other we love each other, it is always appropriate to seek forgiveness.

If someone asks for forgiveness, our Lord Jesus tells us that we must forgive and forgive and forgive more, as He has forgiven us over and over and over.

That doesn’t mean that we continue to submit ourselves to violence or danger, but rather, that we do not hang on to hatred in our hearts.

God wants to free us from the traps and tortures of anger and a lack forgiveness.  He wants us to learn how to forgive quickly so that we may live the beatitude, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.”

We disagree with each other often times, but that doesn’t mean that we need to hang on to grudges or wait for people to agree with us, we must forgive and forgive quickly, even if we don’t get the desired outcome we hoped for, just like my mother tried to teach us as children. Forgiveness, like love, is unconditional.

It has helped me as an adult because I don’t like being angry with anyone. I don’t like holding onto grudges. If I have offended someone I seek to make it right as soon as I can, or if someone has offended me, I try to forgive them even if they don’t recognize they have offended me.

Why? I do this because of the lessons my parents taught me at a young age, and because of the grace God has given me so many times in the sacrament of confession.

If we want to learn how to forgive quickly, then we should go to confession frequently. The more we recognize how much and often God has forgiven us, the easier it is to forgive others. In confession we learn humility, we recognize we are broken, and we receive forgiveness, so that when others offend us, we are quick to forgive them.

Lastly, if we struggle forgiving some past offense, even if it was a very serious offense, or we struggle with forgiving even now, then we need to ask God to help us. God wants to help us be free from anger and hurt. He wants to heal us. He wants to help us with our tempers, and help us learn to let things go faster. Prayer, humility, confession, love of neighbor, charity, all of these are very affective in helping us forgive. God’s grace can do what seems impossible for us.

May God Bless you always and may we all be quick to forgive each other as God has and continues to forgive us.

This Tuesday is July 4th, and our country will celebrate its 241^st birthday. In the year 1776, the founding fathers of this country signed the declaration of Independence in the city of Philadelphia on the fourth of July. On that day, the United States of America was born. Originally, the United States was made up of 13 colonies. These colonies were settled by the British in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Before that, the United States was not a country, but rather it was land that was occupied by pagan-indigenous of different tribes, who would later become known as Native-Americans in a single ethnicity.

The country that we celebrate on the Fourth of July was founded principally by individuals who descended from the country of England. Why did they come? In the 16^th century, England broke away from the Catholic Church and created a new Church called the Church of England. Everyone in England had to belong to that new church or they were persecuted and often killed.

Not wanting to be killed or persecuted, a group of puritan separatists, individuals who had broken away from the Church of England, set sail on the famous ship called the May Flower in the year 1620.

They landed in what is now the state of Massachusetts, after a very harsh journey, in a place they called Plymouth. There, they established the first settlement of Europeans, and they governed themselves under a document called the Mayflower Compact; women were not allowed to participate in government at that time. The puritans practiced a very strict form of Protestantism, that was even more anti-Catholic than the Church of England. In fact, they left England to escape persecution from the King, only to reform the version of the Church in England to be more pure and free from the influence of Catholicism which they thought had too much influence on the Church of England.

Sadly, this led them to a very strict interpretation of the bible which pushed them father away from the Christianity practiced and passed down from the Apostles. There is a very small number of puritans that remain today. Their influence is seen more in fundamentalist versions of Christianity and is still important in understanding our history.

Eventually, more and more people came from England for many reasons, but chief among them was to be able to practice religion in ways that were different than what was allowed in England.

By the time the founders signed the declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies were made up mostly of Protestants individuals who did not want the government to tell them what Church they could or could not belong to.

In fact, the citizens of the colonies were tired of England altogether, especially the practice of taxing them without allowing them to have any representation in the British Parliament. So, they set up a new form of government, a Democratic Republic, which would be based upon certain principles, mainly that all men and women were created equal under God, endowed with certain God-given rights, principally the right to pursue happiness without the over-burdening practices of a federal government. This government was meant to be by the people, and for the people, at the service of a free country. The founders of the United States wanted to make sure that religious practice was protected and allowed to grow without the threat of persecution.

That was their intent. There was a great war between the colonists and England, but in the end, the idea of America won and the constitution of the United States was put into practice. Of course, that document has been tested in many ways in our history, and still is today.

As time passed, more individuals came into this country from various parts of the world. Although there were a small number of Catholics from England in the time of the settlements, the biggest influence of Catholicism in the United States didn’t happen until large numbers of immigrants came from Spain, and France, and later Italy and Ireland, and other parts of Europe during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  

Spain had great influence on colonizing the indigenous of Mexico, the Caribbean Islands, California as well as Florida, while the French had a great influence on Mobile and New Orleans and surrounding areas. This is why those areas have large numbers of Catholics, because immigrants and missionaries from those countries brought the Catholic faith to those lands. The Catholics that came into New York and spread throughout New England and across the Midwest were largely from Ireland and Italy, France and Germany, Russia, Poland, and Austria.

While it was not always peaceful, and certainly the history of this country has had some ugly moments to say the least, especially during the time of slavery, the idea of America has always been that people could come here seeking freedom and a better way of life. As time has passed, women, African-Americans, Native-Americans, immigrants from all over have seen their rights grow, and that has been a good thing, and needs to continue. We must respect each other, and allow growth, while still maintaining a proper understanding of morality and human dignity created under and defined by God. We must if we are to remain a civil society and keep the ideal of America.

We are a great mixture of different cultures, nationalities and religions, and what makes us great, when we are at our best, is our acceptance of each other’s ethnicities, cultures and religions.

Together, we form an American Culture, and every generation of immigrants that has come here, from England to Africa, South America, Middle America, and beyond, has brought with it practices which make up an American Culture as one. We are not Mexican, or Japanese, we are not Irish, we are not British or Spanish, we are Americans. At the same time, we come from those heritages and we should not reject where we come from or throw it all away. Those heritages, native and foreign, are what make this country great.  At our best, we welcome all to share in the American dream, and be free to practice their faith as they see fit, so long as it respects the laws of the land and the abilities of individuals to be able to do so. At our best, we are all one as Americans.

However, the United States of America is not the perfect ideal. It has flaws of course. Only Heaven is the perfect ideal, because Heaven is what endures forever, the Kingdom of God. But to live in peace and to prosper, we must be free to do so. America has given us that chance to be free when she keeps to her principles. We must reflect in an imperfect way, the perfection of Heaven, where all are one in Christ Jesus, who is freedoms perfect reality, who loves everyone regardless of where they come from or what language they speak.

God Bless each of you, and may God Bless our country and may we always defend her even despite our differences, and may we pray for the United States and especially for those who we elect to govern us under the constitution, that we may all be free to grow in virtue no matter where we come from, in the pursuit of happiness, in love of God and our neighbor, and may this country continue to be a beacon of light and charity for the world. Amen.

Lec # 94 – 12^th Sunday of OT – June 25, 2017- Fr. Bresowar

My brothers and sisters, it is very good to be here with you to celebrate the Holy Mass. Jesus Christ is Lord, He is God and King, He is our salvation and our only Hope. He is the prince of peace, the Lord of Lords. He is the mighty one, the victor over death, He has conquered sin and the devil. By his sacrifice on the cross, we are healed. By His grace, we are saved. There is no other name in Heaven and on Earth by which we are saved. Every knee will bend at his name.

The time is coming soon, where every man and woman will give an account for their lives. In the Gospel, our Lord tells us that those who acknowledge Him before others, he will acknowledge us before His father on our judgment day. And he warns that those who deny him, he will also deny before Our Father. That day is going to be terrible for some, and glorious for others.  

He then tells us, as he does throughout the Gospel, to not be afraid of the rulers of the world. The world is passing away, we are here one day, and gone the next. He does not want us to fear the ones that can hurt us here, but only the one who can kill the soul and the body forever in Gahanna, which is another word for Hell. This is the devil or Satan.

My brothers and sisters, why does Jesus tell us to fear the devil? This is a question we should think about.

Many people do not fear Hell or the devil, they mistakenly think that they can continue to live in sin, being disobedient to our God, and that so long as they believe in God, they have nothing to worry about. This is a grave mistake.

Jesus never said that all we have to do is believe and we can continue to live in sin. He never said that at all.  He told us to not be afraid of earthly persecutions and struggles, but he never told us to be comfortable or complacent in our faith. Our world, our culture, our country is what Jesus is calling us to leave out of. He says no man can love his live in this world and in the next at the same time, he will either love his life here and hate it in the next, or he will hate his live here and love it in the next.

And the ruler of the world is Satan. Satan has dominion for now over the world, and those who try to save their lives here are following the devil, and we can see evidence of this everywhere. The devil hates God, and everything God creates. So he sets out to convince men to be their own gods, and to distort the Truth. He wants that which is beautiful to be distorted and ugly. He wants to destroy marriage, sex, the priesthood, family, life, nature, you, me, everything. He distorts sex through pornography and lust, trying to get us to commit mortal sin through fornication or self-abuse. He seeks to kill the most innocent and pure through abortion, murder and rape. He destroys marriages through infidelity and contraception, anger and jealousy. He corrupts the youth through bad music, drugs, alcohol, pornography and fornication. He wants us to worship pleasure in the flesh, yet he, the devil, fears those who walk in the light of Christ, those who go to confession regularly and receive the Eucharist. He fears those who are living in the sacraments of marriage in the Church as God wants us to live it, and priesthood of Jesus Christ. He fears those who reject the false allurements of the world. He fears them, because they have Jesus Christ living in them. He fears the blessed mother Mary the most, and so when we pray the rosary, he really fears us if we are living in grace, because he is afraid of her. She crushes his head with her humility.

The devil is a loser. He is not going to win. He is a murderer and a liar. A fallen angel, He has already lost. And yet he still wages war against us every day by tempting us to reject God and to choose sin.

We must reject Satan, we must reject sin. I hate sin, and yet it is so easy to fall into sin. When we do sin, we must repent immediately.

When we repent, and do penance, we have no reason to fear. Christ has given us His victory through the cross for those who repent and believe.

Many people know they are living in sin and do nothing to change it. Others sin, but they repent of it and try not to sin anymore. Why? Because by God’s grace, they see how damaging it is, how horribly it hurts us. They love what God loves. God loves us so much that he doesn’t want us to hurt ourselves through sin.  

Those who repent and change their lives have great reason to rejoice, as the angels rejoice in Heaven, because although death came into the world through the sin of man, Life has been restored through the obedience of Christ.

The sacraments are where the real power is. Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Marriage, Priesthood, the anointing of the sick, confession. Living in the grace of the sacraments gives us what we need to be holy married couples, to be holy priests, to be holy Christians, to evangelize the truth, to be witnesses of Christ before others.

Without the grace in the sacraments, even if we pray and ask God to fix everything here, even if we try to live good lives, even if we do everything we think we are supposed to do, we will be denied, because only grace is what saves us, only grace is what answers our prayers.

Jesus says we must acknowledge him before others, and we do this when we confess our sins regularly, and we eat his body and drink his blood, and when we are obedient to God’s law, when we live in the sacraments which he reveals in Sacred Scripture and gives us through his Holy Church.

If we do this, then we really have nothing to fear. It is difficult, it requires discipline. Our Lord says that many people choose Hell, the road is wide that leads to damnation, over Heaven, because of they don’t want to be obedient. They fall into the easy traps of the devil who tells us, like he told Adam and Eve, that we don’t have to do it God’s way.

Let us not be one of them. Let us choose Heaven and do whatever is necessary to live in the grace of God. It is our choice, no one is going to make us repent and believe and be obedient to the Catholic Church, which is the exact same as obedience to Jesus, because Christ and the Church are one. He has given all authority in Heaven to His Church. He has bound Himself to His bride, His Church. 

Despair has no place in our lives, the time for excuses is way past us, now is the time to repent, pray for each other, acknowledge Jesus to our families and friends and even strangers, and walk by faith and hope and love, until the day which will come very soon, when we will stand before God and give an account of our lives.

God Bless you, please pray for me; I really need your prayers, and I will pray for you.

Today we gaze upon the humility of God. Our relationship had been shattered when we sinned against him, so God fixes it by sending his only Son to die.

What an incredible humility.

Someone mentioned to me recently that it would be like one of us dying on behalf of the billions of ants that wonder around on the ground.

I said it is much greater than that. God is so much bigger than us that when He came here it was such a condescension that we really cannot understand it.

It would be like us becoming a small micro-organism which one cannot even see with the human eye. But even that doesn’t compare. So great was the humility of Him taking on our flesh.

But not only did he do that, he then allowed himself to be brutally tortured by us.  

Christianity is the only religion in the world which proclaims that God died for love of us.

All other religions have a god or gods which would never take the guilt of our sins on his shoulders, but our God, the one true God, loves us so much that he allowed himself to be crucified for our indifference, our pride, our selfishness, our vanities, our lusts, our greed.

So that we might understand the price of our rejection of God, he submitted himself to a brutal crucifixion. He became the sacrificial lamb and we must eat this lamb and drink of this chalice too. Our suffering is His suffering, and His suffering is ours.

This is a love which we can only begin to understand here and will perfectly understand when we are in His presence in His Kingdom.

Look at the humility of God. Look at our savior hung and nailed to a cross for our salvation. If he didn’t do this, then we would have no hope of redemption. But He did this, he made the cross our only hope.

We kiss it because it is by the cross we are saved.

Let us also remember that Mary suffered too. She held Jesus as a baby, she fled to Egypt with Joseph, she felt frightened when she thought she had lost him in the temple, she raised him, laughed with him in his joys, cried with him when he was hurt, she marveled at the miracles he performed and the saving words he spoke, and she felt his rejection when no one seemed to care.

When his friends abandoned Him in his hour of need, she stayed with him by his side, walking with him as they beat him, spit on him, mocked and insulted him, and as they nailed him to the cross. She was there when he said, “It is finished,” and she died with him right there as she held her bloodied son in her arms.

We tell Jesus we are sorry for what we have done to him, but we need to tell Mary we are sorry too. For because of our sins, our mother had to watch her only son be killed, and it was our fault.

And yet, she knew that what he was doing he did for love of us, a perfect act of love, the greatest love we will ever know.

Jesus help us to not be indifferent anymore. Take away our shame from the grace that comes from the cross and teach us to be humble as you are humble. We are sorry for what we have done, and we apologize to your mother too.

We offer our hearts to you for it is all we have to give. Take us and do with us as you will.  

Jesus asks his disciples, “Do you understand what I have done for you?”

He wasn’t just speaking about washing their feet. It was much more than that. He has overcome sin and open the gates of Heaven.

Like them, we don’t completely understand, which is why we need a reminder. A reminder to help us remember to be thankful. Our Lord knows that we need this so what does he do?

He takes bread and transforms it into his body, and he takes wine and transform it into his blood. And he commands us do this as a reminder! As often as you offer this Holy Mass, you make present my sacrifice which takes away your sins.

This meal is called the Eucharist. The word Eucharist means “Thanksgiving.”

When we join together for mass, we are participating in a meal of thanksgiving which lasts forever. Heaven is an eternal thanksgiving. But not only that, we are eating the fruit of his sacrifice.

When we eat his body, and drink his blood, we are one with Him, body, blood, soul and divinity. We become what we eat. We become what we drink. We enter into His sacrifice with Him, and this is acceptable to His Father. Only this is acceptable, nothing we can do can save us except participate in this sacrifice. By His wounds, we are healed. It is by this that we are saved. We become what we eat and drink.  

Saint Paul states that it is No longer I, but Christ who lives in me. So the Father no longer sees us when we eat and drink the Eucharist, He sees His son Jesus living in us.

If we do this with the proper attitude and not just as an insignificant obligation amongst others, how can we be anything but thankful?

My brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is here with us in this Eucharist. He is present in the bread and wine which becomes His body and blood. He has done this for us so that we might be with Him. Let us be thankful, and put aside our worldly problems for love is here tonight. Love has taken our sins upon Himself, and has left us a memorial which will last forever. Love has destroyed death and sin. Love is here. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the greatest mystery of love we possess. Thank you Jesus for everything, but most of all, for your body and your blood, poured out for each of us and given so that we might have the food that gives us eternal life.

My brothers and sisters, at this sacred Mass we are celebrating the special feast of the Presentation of the Lord.

Forty days after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary, with Jesus, presented themselves at the temple as was the custom under the Jewish Law. This was done because Mary was considered uncleaned for forty days after Jesus’ birth. This is a ritual impurity and does not mean that she was with sin, or that something was wrong with her. In the Jewish Law, because of the blood that is part of the birthing process, women are considered ritually impure for forty days after the birth of a male son, and 70 days after a female child. The law doesn’t say why it is longer for females, but some have speculated because females were considered more holy in that they were able to bare life. I’m not exactly sure. While we believe that the conception and birth of Jesus was miraculous, as he was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and the virginity of the Blessed Mother was not broken during the birthing process, still, Mary and Joseph were obedient Jews who followed the law. Therefore, they went to the temple so that Mary could bathe in the pool and thus be ritually cleansed.

This would have been the custom for all Jewish women who gave birth in the times when Jesus lived.

Also the law prescribed that an animal sacrifice was made in the form of two turtle doves or two pigeons for those with little money, as an act of consecrating the child to the Lord.

This explains why Joseph and Mary were at the temple forty days after the birth of Jesus. This would be normal and perhaps not written about in the bible if not for what happened while they were there.

In the early Church this feast day was called the “encounter.” It marked the official end of the Christmas season all the way up until 1969 when the Church changed the liturgical calendar. Now, the end of Christmas season is the Epiphany of the Lord where Christ is revealed as the light of the world, and the Magi present the gifts to Jesus. However, the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple is an epiphany as well. Jesus is proclaimed by the righteous man Simeon to be the light of the nations, the salvation of the world, Hence the blessing and procession of candles on this day. In the Middle Ages this feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or 'Candlemas,' was of great importance.

Mary also received a prophecy that a sword would pierce her heart revealing to her and to all of us that Mary shares in a unique way in the glory and the passion of her son. She will live with him, follow him, share in his passion, and then in His glory in Heaven in a way which no human ever has or ever will.

Both Simeon and Anna were holy and righteous people, accustomed to fasting and prayer. They spent much time praying in the temple of the Lord and were persons of great wisdom. Thus they were properly disposed to be able to recognize the Messiah, the savior of the world as he entered the temple as a baby.

When we fast and pray frequently, we too are more disposed to recognize the miraculous things God does around us all the time. We too are more ready to trust him and to believe the good news, and we too are ready to follow the light in the midst of darkness.

Jesus is God become flesh. The temple he entered is His temple. He is the one the Jews worshiped since the beginning although they did not recognize Him. He is the one who God has sent, His only Son, to save the world from sin and to be a light in the darkness. His body then becomes the new temple as he fulfills the old testament. Christ is our light, let us follow him, take up our cross, share in his passion, and then receive our reward in Heaven.

Lec # 67- 3^rd Sun of OT- Jan 22, 2017- Fr. Bresowar

My brothers and sisters, this week I will be traveling with three teenagers from our parish as well as youth from all over the diocese and all over the country to Washington DC to witness to the truth that all life is sacred, from the moment we are conceived in the wombs of our mothers to the moment that we have a natural death.

We will witness to the truth that God is the author of life and that we are his beloved children. That all of us must do what is necessary to respect God’s creation and especially his most sacred creatures, you and I. No other creature is made in the image and likeness of God.

Sadly, today is the forty-fourth anniversary of the supreme court decision of Roe verses Wade, a landmark decision which legalized abortion in our country. Since that time, more that 56 million lives have been lost because of abortion. This is a genocide of death which society has come to accept but which we as Christians understand to be a great offense against God and against nature.

We must continue to pray fervently that abortion will come to an end and that society will return to a culture which values human life and the dignity of each person and God’s creation.

Abortion is evil and is inspired by Satan, the prince of darkness; there is no other way to say it.

That said, I’ve never met any woman who has had an abortion, or any woman that is contemplating having an abortion that is happy about that decision.

Normally, abortion is a decision that is made when a woman has either put herself, or been put into a situation in which she feels she has no other choice.

Too often, because of poverty, abuse, lack of support, the decline of morality, the decline of family values, rape, pornography, lack of education, and many other reasons, some women feel that abortion is the only option for them.

While it is easy to say that abortion is murder, the killing of an innocent child in the womb, and that it needs to end, I feel that if we do not address those problems as individuals, as families and as a society, which lead to abortion, then it does us no good to simply make abortion illegal.

As a society we must address poverty, because the most abortions occur in impoverished neighborhoods. We must also seek to better educate our young people, especially those whom come from poor neighborhoods. We need to get rid of pornography and any accepted moral behaviors which treat women as sexual objects of gratification. We must also seek to end the trafficking of human people, especially in the sex industry. We need to promote the family, the husband and the wife, and the children as the unit most basic and essential to a healthy society. We need to promote traditional values like waiting to enter into sexual relations until we are married in committed relationships, and staying committed to marriage even during the most difficult times. We can talk about all the ways the Government should do these things and more, but the reality is that we can never wait for the Government to solve the problems of society, of family, and of the individual.

The government can help, but if we want to change the culture which leads to abortion, divorce, division and to death, then it has to start at our homes. As individuals, as fathers and mothers and sons and daughters, we have to make the decisions for ourselves to change our lives.

When my grandparents were teenagers, it was considered very bad to have physical relations with someone outside of marriage, now it is has become normal. Contraception was considered to be immoral, now it is celebrated. Pornography was very difficult to obtain, now it is as easy as having a cellphone or a computer with the internet. Divorce was much less frequent; now more than fifty percent of marriages fail. The number of children who are born outside of marriage is huge, especially in lower income, lower education areas.

If we want to change all of these statistics, then we need to really begin living our Christian identity and not just treating it as a good idea.

Parents must promote Christian values at home. They need to be involved in the education of their children, and they need to sacrifice for each other.

We grew up in a culture which rejected traditional family values and religion, and so now it is easy to live with someone and not be married. We must change that. We cannot continue to live outside of marriage or the values of marriage for which we are committed, for this is part of the culture which rejects God and leads to the culture of death.

To change the culture to the culture of life we have to make difficult decisions at home, and we must pray frequently. Our Lady of the Rosary, our Lady of Fatima stated 100 years ago that she wants all faithful Catholics to pray the rosary every day, and to make sacrifices for the many offenses committed against her heart and the heart of her son.

To pray the rosary as a family frequently is a powerful weapon against the godless culture. To lay this solid foundation and regular practice, while it requires sacrifice, benefits our children as they become adults and enables us to pass down the faith generation to generation.

Children of today do not understand like our grandparents did the value of discipline and prayer. The government is not going to teach us these things and they won’t learn it in school or from their friends; these values have to come from parents at home.

May God Bless you and may we entrust ourselves our Lady of Fatima, our Lady of the Rosary as we seek to change the culture at home. May we have the grace and courage to make the difficult decisions that must be made to live a life of true faith and understand by doing these things we are best fighting to change the culture which leads to abortion.