I Give You a New Commandment - Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter

 

Jesus says in our Gospel today: “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”

 

The first half of Jesus’ teaching is already found in the third book of the Old Testament.  Leviticus 19:18 already says “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the Golden Rule, found in lots of different religious traditions.

 So what makes Jesus’ command new?  It is new because Jesus has come and illustrated exactly what love is.  So Jesus adds to the end of the Golden Rule this 2^nd piece of His teaching: “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”

In the Old Testament, God asked us to love our neighbor as ourself.  But Jesus, by becoming a human being and laying down His life for us, shows us that love actually involves a willingness to in some ways love our neighbor more than ourself…no longer putting our neighbors needs on the same level as our needs as Leviticus asks, but Jesus now calls us to actually put our neighbors needs ABOVE our needs.  To put our own desires last!  And that is why Jesus says “I give you a new commandment.”

 

Let us put our needs last, let us cooperate with the Grace God is pouring out on us to Love our neighbors, and to actually put our neighbors needs over our own needs, wants and desires.

Abortion and Sorcery - homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter

In the Criterion, the newspaper for the Archdiocese, there is an awesome story this week about our new St. Vincent De Paul food pantry.  There was also a great write up about it in the Brazil Times.  There was also a story this week in the Brazil Times about a new store in downtown Brazil opening up that traffics in the demonic, crystals, raiki, tarot cards etc…all that Saint Paul and Moses and the Catholic Church describe as gateways to the demonic.

 

And this weekend as well national abortion groups are calling for protests in Catholic Churches around the USA.

 

All of this goes to show, academically, that there are really only 2 sides and no middle ground for people who just want to sit on the sidelines.  It, at the end of the day, comes down to the Catholic Church doing battle with literal demons who have possessed human persons.

 

There is no sideline from which you can watch this battle unfold.  You have to make a choice about which side you will fight on.

 

God, all the way back in the book of Exodus, tells Moses there are two reasons that God is going to allow the Israelites to take over the Promised Land

1) Because the current inhabitants literally sacrificed their children to false gods

2) and they practiced witchcraft and sorcery

 

Abortion and sorcery comprise the priesthood and the sacrifice of the anti-church. 

Let me also be clear, no matter how far away from the Church you have fallen, and no matter what you have done in your past, whether it is abortions, murder, witchcraft, apostasy, and on and on…no matter what sins are in your past, Christ welcomes you back with one confession.  Peter betrayed our Lord 3 times, after swearing an oath just a couple of hours prior that he would never do that , but Saint Peter had the sense to repent. 

 

One of the ways you can tell the Catholic Church from the anti-church, the anti Church will always talk about care for the poor ONLY in big terms, while the Catholic Church talks about working with the poor individually – treating and reminding the poor of their dignity, which is what the St. Vincent DePaul Society is all about.  The Catholic Church also supports programs that care for the poor on a larger scale in some instances, but always also encourages, and frankly demands, that all Catholics encounter the poor individually as well.

 

The villain in one of the greatest novels of all time says “I love humanity…it is individual people I can’t stand.”  Some of our global planners talk that way.  They love humanity…and I would encourage every Catholic and every person of Good Will to run as far and as fast as possible from anyone who offers a plan to save humanity which does not involve Jesus Christ and His Bride the Catholic Church.

 

Christ, the Good Shepherd, chose to live in poverty and is calling us to follow Him back to the poor.  Let us heed the calling of the Good Shepherd.

What Heaven is Like - Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, 2022

 

We hear in our second reading from the book of Revelation today “I heard every creature in heaven and everything in the universe, cry out:  “To the one who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor, glory and might, forever and ever.”  and the elders fell down and worshiped.”

 

This excerpt from the book of Revelation describes what is in store for us in Heaven.  Heaven is infinite bliss every moment for all eternity.  

 

When I was young, I used to think that there was down time in Heaven, maybe go for a jog or relax around the pool.

 

But I now know, through the teachings of the Catholic Church, including through the Sacred Scriptures, that Heaven is infinite bliss, every moment for all eternity.

Infinite bliss

Every moment

For all eternity

 

At this and every Mass, Heaven and Earth literally overlap

Saint Paul says that we see now as through a dark piece of glass, but one day, when we get to Heaven,  we will see fully.  Saint Paul means that we can only see shadows most of the time, if that, but rest assured that this Mass today is the opening up of Heaven to all of us, we have an actual Lamb of God on an actual altar and all of us are here singing praise to the Lamb of God, and the angels are really here with us singing praise to the lamb of God.  It is what is happening, even if we do not see all of it happening with our physical eyes, we believe and see it through the eyes of Faith.

 

I want to be in Heaven someday, and I hope you do too.  Infinite bliss, every moment for all eternity.  Lord help me and all here present today to live our lives in such a way that, when we die or when you return, we may pass straight in to the eternal bliss of Heaven.  Amen!