THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH Her Doctrine and Morals Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost 2 September 2012

The Sunday Sermon

Dear Friends,

Jesus does not condemn riches or food or even working in today’s gospel, but rather, He condemns undue solicitude for these things. We are elsewhere admonished to work to provide for ourselves and others. We must work and provide for ourselves as long as God has given us the means and the ability to do so. What we must avoid is becoming the servants or slaves to these things. The rich man often becomes a slave to his riches, guarding and protecting them with great care; and consequently having no care or solicitude for his soul. The luxurious, the glutton, and the vain do likewise seek to serve rather than rule over the gifts of God. When God created man He placed him over the rest of His creation to rule it. It is a gross inversion of right order when men willingly enslave themselves to the creature rather than to God the Creator.

We cannot pretend to serve both God and mammon (riches, pleasures, etc.) as Our Lord makes clear in the gospel for today. Our focus can only be in one direction either toward God or toward mammon. Man is the glory of all of God’s creation; he is above it all. We may even place men who were created a little less than the angels above the angels as God chose to become man and unite Himself with us rather than with angels. Creation then was made to serve us. In seeking creatures with great eagerness and solicitude we put them in the place of God and become guilty of idolatry. The same can be said when we seek the even lesser creations of men such as fiduciary currency. If it is a great sin and crime to esteem God’s creation before God, then it must be a much worse crime to pursue man’s “creation” more than God Himself.

The beauty of the carefree trust of the birds of the air and the beautiful adornment of the flowers of the field bear a very slight resemblance to the true beauty of a soul that loves God and trusts in His divine providence.

While we must not worry about food and clothing, shelter, etc. nor become slaves to these things; we must nonetheless prudently provide ourselves with these necessities. The temptation is to become lazy under the guise of great faith and trust in God. It is easy to forget the admonition of St. Paul: Those who will not work, neither should they eat (2 Thes 3:10). We must do all that we can using the gifts and talents God has placed at our disposal, ever careful not to waste or squander them; and at the same time always remaining humble in the knowledge that these are gifts entrusted to us that may be taken away at any time. There is no permanence or security in them. These gifts are given to draw us closer to the Creator not to become an obstacle to our love for Him.

Job shows us in both his richness and his poverty what our attitude should be towards the things of this earth and God the giver of these things: “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job used his riches to glorify God and he used his poverty to glorify God. Never did his wealth or poverty become an obstacle to his love of God.

Perfection is unattainable in this life because it is reserved for us only in Heaven. Riches only pretend to hold perfect happiness and more often than not bring bitter and utter misery with them. Food promises pleasure and satisfaction, but when pursued without reserve only brings ill-health and all manner of digestive discomfort. Beauty when pursued above all else brings the most profound suffering and ultimate ugliness in its train. How many torture their bodies seeking an ideal that the world holds out as beauty, only to find it unattainable or worse yet to find the ideal has now changed to its opposite?

The fashions of this world are constantly changing with the insatiable fickleness of men’s desires. Yet, how many foolishly strive with their entire being to conform themselves to the prevailing fashion at the expense of their souls? And in spite of all these endeavors these poor misguided people often ruin their health and bodies destroying any natural beauty God may have given them and are uglier than ever. True beauty is not to be found in bodily shapes and colors, but rather in virtue of soul.

We must therefore work to provide for ourselves with what God has given us, but always with and for the love of God, never allowing anything to so consume our efforts or attention as to draw us away from this love. Let us ever be ready to sacrifice the lesser (creation) for the greater (the Creator)!

“Now Jesus Christ, God and Man, enters into us and enacts a mystery similar to the one wrought in Mary’s womb….the Eucharist passes into our bodies and, uniting with us, prolongs, extends the Incarnation to each of us separately.

In becoming incarnate in the Virgin Mary, the Word had in view this incarnation in each one of us, this Communion with the individual soul; it was one of the ends for which He came into the world.

Communion is the perfect development, the full unfoldment of the Incarnation, as it is likewise the completion of the sublime sacrifice of Calvary, renewed each morning in the Mass…without Communion the Sacrifice would be incomplete. Thus the Body of Jesus Christ is united with our body, His Soul with our soul, and His Divinity hovers over both.”

St. Peter Julian Eymard Holy Communion

“At the true age of one month, a human being is four and a half millimeters long. Its tiny heart has already been beating for a week, its arms, legs, head, brain are already recognizable. At two months old, from head to the tip of its bottom, the human embryo is about three centimeters long. It could fit curled up inside a walnut shell. Inside a clenched fist, it would be invisible, and the clenched fist would crush it accidentally without even noticing.

But open your hand, the embryo is almost complete, hands, feet, head, organs, brain, everything is in its place and from now on will merely grow. Look more closely , you can already read the life lines in its palms and predict its good fortunes. Look closer still, with an ordinary microscope, and you can see its fingerprints. Everything is already there and it would be possible to issue its identity card.”

“The incredible Tom Thumb, the man no bigger than my thumb, actually exists ; not the one in the fairy tale, but the one which every one of us once was.”

Quote from:  Dr. Jerome LeJeune (the great pro-life scientist who discovered the cause of Down Syndrome)

“If a man were forced to sit all day long at table, he would get a disgust of the viands [meals] before him. If one were made to sleep day and night for a whole week in the softest and most comfortable bed, how long would the time seem... Now look down into the abyss of hell, and there thou wilt see thousands and thousands of these unhappy creatures in the lake of fire and torment. Many of them have already spent twenty, a hundred, a thousand, even five thousand years in this dreadful state of suffering. But what is before them? Not five thousand years more, not a hundred thousand years more… they must endure it forever and ever.” (Fr. Martin von Cochem, The Four Last Things, pp. 168-169)

 

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.

St. Augustine - Feast day August 28

The Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Also known as The Franciscan Crown Rosary)
The Franciscan Crown Rosary, properly known as "The Franciscan Crown of Our Lady's Joys" dates back to approximately the year 1422. According to tradition, as related by the famous Franciscan historian Father Luke Wadding, a very pious young man who had been admitted to the Franciscan Order in that year was saddened and had decided to return to the world and quit the cloister. Before his entry into the Order, it was his custom to adorn a statue of the Blessed Virgin with a wreath of fresh and beautiful flowers. Now, he was unable to continue his act of piety and devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

Our Lady appeared to him and prevented him from taking such a step as he had planned. "Do not be sad and cast down, my son," she said, "because you are no longer permitted to place wreaths of flowers on my statue. I shall teach you to change this pious practice into one that will be far more pleasing to me and more meritorious to your soul. In place of the flowers that soon wither and cannot always be found, you can weave for me a crown from the flowers of your prayers that will always remain fresh and can always be had." When Our Lady had disappeared, the overjoyed Novice at once began to recite the prayers in honor of her Seven Joys, as she had directed. While he was deeply engrossed in this devotion, the Novice Master happened to pass by and saw an angel weaving a marvelous wreath of roses. After every tenth rose, he inserted a golden lily. When the wreath was finished, the angel placed it on the head of the praying Novice. The Novice Master demanded the Novice tell him the meaning of this vision. The joyful Novice complied. The good priest was so impressed that he immediately made it known to his brethren. Thus, the practice of reciting the Franciscan Crown of Our Lady's Joys soon spread as a favorite devotion of the Friars.

The Joys of Mary remembered in the devotion are these:

• The Annunciation of the Angel to Mary
  
• The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth
  
• The Nativity of Our Lord
  
• The Adoration of the Magi
  
• The Finding of Jesus in the Temple
  
• The Resurrection of Our Lord and His Appearance to the Blessed Mother
  
• and  The Assumption & Coronation of Our Lady, Mary, in Heaven as Queen

“Now Jesus Christ, God and Man, enters into us and enacts a mystery similar to the one wrought in Mary’s womb…the Eucharist passes into our bodies and, uniting with us, prolongs, extends the Incarnation to each of us separately.

In becoming incarnate in the Virgin Mary, the Word had in view this incarnation in each one of us, this Communion with the individual soul; it was one of the ends for which He came into the world.

Communion is the perfect development, the full unfoldment of the Incarnation, as it is likewise the completion of the sublime sacrifice of Calvary, renewed each morning in the Mass…without Communion the Sacrifice would be incomplete. Thus the Body of Jesus Christ is united with our body, His Soul with our soul, and His Divinity hovers over both.”

St. Peter Julian Eymard Holy Communion