CHRIST THE KING!

Our Liturgical Year begins and ends with Christ, the Eternal King. He humble Himself to become a human like us, went through His horrible Passion for us, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven where He is crowned King of everything. Let us spread His message to all we know, so that we can be with for all eternity.

JESUS CHRIST, KING, NOW AND FOREVER!

Know the TRUTH about the Government Health Care Bill H.R.3200 - Key Points

Everyone needs to see this. If this makes you think that the health care plan is good, then you are just another useful idiot. Wake up, America!

19th Sunday after Pentecost

Today we hear, once again, about the wedding feast, and what happens when our garments are not clean enough to enter. We heard this same at the beginning of the liturgical year, and now, toward the end, we hear it again. If our souls are not clean, we do not enter the eternal kingdom yet, and must be cleansed. St. Gregory, great saint and great Pope, tells us what these passages mean.


'The kingdom of heaven is the assembly of the just; for, the Lord says by a prophet: "Heaven is My throne"; and Solomon says: "The soul of the just man is the throne of wisdom"; and Paul calls Christ the Wisdom of God. If, therefore, heaven be the throne of God, we must evidently conclude that, as Wisdom is God, and the soul of the just man is the throne of Wisdom, this soul is a heaven... The kingdom of heaven, then, is the assembly of the just...If this kingdom is said to be like to a King, who made a marriage for his Son, your charity at once understands who is this King, who is the Father of a Son, King like Himself. It is He, of whom the psalmist says: "Give to the King Thy judgment, O God, and to the King's Son Thy justice!" God the Father made the marriage of God His Son, when He wished that He, who had been God before all ages, should become Man towards the end of ages. But we must not, on that account, suppose that there are two persons in Jesus Christ, our God and our Saviour...It is, perhaps, clearer and safer to say, that the King made a marriage for His Son, in that, by the mystery of the Incarnation, He united the Church to Him. The womb of the Virgin-Mother was the nuptial chamber of that Bridegroom, of whom the psalmist says: and He, as a Bridegroom, cometh out of His bride chamber!'



Lord, help us understand these mysteries so that we can be invited into the wedding feast.

18th Sunday after Pentecost

Today we heard from the 'God with us' Gospel, Matthew. It tells us about the man in sin, whose friends prayed for him and brought him to Jesus to be freed from the chains of sin. Jesus obliges. The Church continues to this day to forgive us our many sins, and will until the end of time, no matter what non-Catholics say. Jesus said it, I believe it, that settles it!

The priest who does our Latin Mass is from Sicily, and was a small child when the war was beginning to rage there. He tells us about losing a close relative, and decides to enter the priesthood. We are so glad he did. Him, along with other Italian priests, run the Saint Louis Center in Chelsea, Michigan. They house and take care of children, some of whom have grown, because their parents would not take of them any more.

They are the Servants of Charity. They were founded by Blessed Louis Guanella, who is to be canonized later this month. He was told and blessed by Pope Pius X, to start this charity to help those who can't help themselves anymore. I believe our priests had met him in his later years. Also, our main priest, Fr. Joseph Rinaldo, was told in the late 60's by another Saint, Padre Pio, to come to the U.S., because his life would be in danger if he remained in Italy. I think he was speaking unfavorably about the Mafia.

Anyway, these holy priests from Italy do our Mass most Sundays, and would probably appreciate it if people would support them in their charity. There is a large Italian community down in that area, and they do a lot! I guarantee it would be a very worthwhile donation. Maybe we could ask Fr. Guanella to help up make up our minds.

17th Sunday after Pentecost

Love God; loves others! The two great Commandments. They take in the whole of the Ten Commandments. The first three being towards God, with the other seven towards others. When I was a fledgling in the Faith, an older friend told me that being lukewarm is 'not so hot'. I've always remembered this, and hopefully will keep on remembering it.

Now, I, as usual, will let the good Abbot instruct us as to being charitable to others.

'Let us Christians, out of contempt for satan, who stirred up the expiring Synagogue thus to lay snares for the Son of God, turn these efforts of hatred into an instruction which will warm up our love. The Jews, by rejecting Christ Jesus, sinned against both of the commandments which constitute charity, and embody the whole law; and we, on the contrary, by loving that same Jesus, fulfill the whole law.

Jesus is the brightness of eternal glory, one, by nature, with the Father and the Holy Ghost; He is the God whom the first commandment bids us love, and it is in Him also that the second has its truest and adequate application. For not only is He as truly Man as He is truly God, but He is the Man par excellence, the perfect Man, on whose type, and for whom, all other men were formed; He is the model and the brother of all of them; He is at the same time the leader who governs them as their King, and offers them to God as their High Priest; He is the Head who communicates to all the members of the human family beauty, and life, and movement, and light; He is the Redeemer of the human family since it has fallen, and on that account He is twice over the source of all right, and the ultimate and highest motive, even when not the direct object, of every love that deserves to be called love here below. Nothing counts with God, excepting so far as it has reference to Jesus. As St. Augustine says, God loves men only inasmuch as they either are, or may one day become, members of His Son; it is His Son that He loves in them; thus He loves, with one same love though not equally, His Word, and the Flesh of His Word, and the members of His Incarnate Word. Now, charity is love--love such as it is in God, communicated to us creatures by the Holy Ghost. Therefore, what we should love, by charity, both in ourselves, and in others, is the divine Word, either as being, or, according to another expression of the same St. Augustine, 'that He may be,' in others and in ourselves.

Let us take care, also, as a consequence of this same truth, not to exclude any human being from our love, excepting the damned, who are absolutely and eternally cut off from the body of the Man-God. Who can boast that he has the charity of Christ if he do not embrace His unity? The questing is St. Augustine again. Who can love Christ, without loving, with Him, the Church, which is His body? without loving all His members? What we do--be it to the least, or be it to the worthiest, be it of evil, or of good--it is to Him we do it, for He tells us so. Then, let us love our neighbor as ourselves, because of Christ, who is in each of us, and who gives to us all union and increase in charity.'

After all this, I'm going to make a comment. We hear all of the time about faith, hope, and love. In Corinthians, it is faith, hope, and charity. Now, I think love and charity are related, but I don't think they are the same thing at all. We can love our neighbor because God tells us to. However, I don't think it is true love unless we give of ourselves to them because of charity, whether it be doing something for them without expecting something in return, or just being there for them in times of need. We try to be good examples for them, hopefully helping them come to the true Faith before they die.

Lord, have mercy on us

16th Sunday after Pentecost

Today is the 16th Sunday after Pentecost. It makes me think about the song of the 80's by Mac Davis: 'O Lord, it's hard to be humble'. He sings about being perfect in every way, among other things.

Well, he sure didn't have today's Gospel in mind when he wrote it. I know it was supposed to be funny, and it was, but so many people these days seem to be a legend in their own mind. This will be their downfall in the end.

St. Ambrose has the sermon this week, and it seems fitting even in our own time. He addresses himself to the Christian who has become a veteran in the spiritual combat, and tells him that concupiscence has snares without end, even for him! He may trip any day; he has gone too far, perhaps very far, on the road to the kingdom of God, bur, even so, he may go wrong, and be forever shut out from the marriage feast(of the King of Heaven), together with heretics, pagans, and Jews. Let him be one the watch, then, or he may become tainted with those sins, from which, hereto, thanks to God's grace, he has kept clear. Let him take heed, or he may become like the man mentioned in today's Gospel (from Luke), who had the dropsy; and dropsy, says our saintly preacher of Milan, is a morbid exuberance of humours, which stupefy the soul, and induce a total extinction of spiritual ardour. And yet, even if he were to have such a fall as that, let him not forget that the heavenly physician is ever ready to cure him. The saint, in this short homily, condenses the whole of St. Luke's 14th chapter, of which we have been reading but a portion; and he shows, a little farther on, that attachment to the goods of this life is opposed to the ardour which should carry us on the wings of the spirit, towards the heaven where lives and reigns our loved One.