This Sunday is the 17th after Pentecost. We hear about humbling oneself again, which is the way it is supposed to be. Last Sunday, Jesus tells us: "When thou art invited to a wedding, sit down in the lowest place!" This week, St. Paul tells us to 'walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called, yes, walk in that vocation with all humility!' He is saying that we must practice these virtues--humility, mildness, and patience. These are the means for gaining the end that is so generously proposed to us. God asks one condition of us--that we maintain harmony among ourselves, that will make one body and one spirit of all, in the bond of peace. 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.' (Ephes. IV. 5. 6.)
St. Cyprian, whose feast day was the other day, writes: "If any one outside Noah's ark could find safety, then also will one outside the Church find salvation." (De unit. eccl. c. 7.) From all this it follows, that there is only one True Church which insures salvation, out of which no one can be saved.
As Fr. Leonard Goffine (1648-1719)says:
But which is this Church? The One, Holy, Roman, Catholic, Apostolic Church, for she alone was founded, by Christ, she alone was watered with the blood of the apostles and of thousands of holy martyrs, she alone has the marks of the true Church of Christ, against which He has promised that the powers of hell shall not prevail. Those who fell away from the Church three hundred years ago do, indeed contend that the Church fell into error and no longer possessed the true, pure gospel of Jesus. Were they right, Jesus might be blamed, for He established this Church, promising to remain with her and guide her through the Holy Ghost until the end of the world. He would, therefore, have broken His word, or He was not powerful enough to keep it. But who dare say this? On the contrary, she has existed for eighteen hundred years, whilst the greatest and most powerful kingdoms have been overthrown, and the firmest thrones crumbled away. If she were not the only true and saving Church, founded by Christ, how could she have existed so long, since Jesus Himself said: "Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." (Matt. XV. 13.) If she were not the Church of Christ, she would have been destroyed long ago, but she still stands today, whilst her enemies' who battled against her have disappeared, and will continue to disappear; for the gates of hell shall not prevail against her, says our Lord. He has kept His promise and will keep it, notwithstanding all the oppositions and calumnies of her implacable enemies.
You see, therefore, dear Christians, that the Catholic Church is the only true, the only saving Church; be not deceived by those who are neither cold nor warm, and who say: "We can be saved in any religion, if we only believe in God and live uprightly," and who wish to rob you of your holy faith, and precipitate you into the sea of doubt, error, and falsehood. Outside of the Catholic Church there is no salvation; hold this firmly, for it is the teaching of Jesus, His apostles, and all the Fathers; for this doctrine the Apostles and a countless host of 'the faithful have shed their blood.' Obey the teaching of this Church, follow her laws, make use of her help and assistance, and often raise your hands and heart to heaven to thank God for the priceless grace of belonging to this one, true Church; forget not to pray for your erring brethren, who are still outside of the Church that the Lord may lead them into her, that His promise may be fulfilled: There will be one fold, and one shepherd.
Our beloved Abbot Gueranger chimes in:
'The strength of this bond is the strength of the Holy Spirit Himself, Who is all holiness and love; for it is that Holy Spirit Who forms these spiritual and divine ties; He it is who, with the countless multitude of the baptized, does the work which the soul does in the human body--that is, gives it life, and unites all the members into oneness of person. It is by the Holy Ghost that young and old, poor and rich, men and women, distinct as all these are in other respects, are made one, fused, so to say, in the fire which eternally burns in the blessed Trinity. But, in order that the flame of infinite love may thus draw into its embrace our regenerated humanity, we must get rid of selfish rivalries, and grudges, and dissensions, which, so long as they exist among us, prove us to be carnal, and therefore unfit for the divine flame to touch, or for the union which that flame produces. The most hateful of all the obstacles which divine love has to encounter upon earth is the jealousy of satan (I will NOT capitalize this name just so my spell checker doesn't try to correct me), who endeavors, by an impious usurpation, to rob God of the possession of our souls--souls, that is, which were created by and for Him alone.'
Our 'Collect' for this Sunday says it all:
'Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that thy people may avoid all the contagions of the devil; and, with a pure mind, follow Thee, Who alone art God.'
In the Gospel from St. Matthew, we hear about the Commandments. The Two Great Commandments, as they are called, are to love God, then love our neighbor. These two actually encompass the entire Ten Commandments. The first takes care of the first three Commandments, while the second one takes in all the others. Jesus was taking questions from the Pharisees, who are only doing it to try to trip Him up. He confounds them. He pretty much tells them that this second Commandment, like the first, this one concerning charity of loving our neighbor, which is the one these Jews were convicted of. They were convicted of neither loving their neighbor, nor God Himself, for the first Commandment cannot be observed if the second, which flows from and completes it, be broken. These hypocrites couldn't see that the God who created them was standing right in front of them. They claimed to obey God, but as Jesus told them, they 'knew Him not!' Ouch! That must have hurt. But, it only made them more obstinate in their thoughts.
The Abbot continues: '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.' 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 living in is the divine Word, either as being, or, according to another expression, 'that He may be', in others and in ourselves.
Anyway, on these two Great Commandments depends the whole law and the prophets. The fullness of the law, which is the rule of human conduct, is in charity, of which Christ is the end; just as the object of the revealed Scriptures is not other than the God-Man, Who embodies in His own adorable unity, for us His followers, all moral teaching, and all dogma. If we reject Dogma, we risk losing our soul forever. Get busy and learn it! Christ is our Faith and our Love. St. Augustine states again: "He is the end of all our resolutions; for all our efforts tend but to this--to perfect ourselves in Him; having reached Him, seek NO farther, for He is your End." He says that when we have reached this point: "Let us cling to One, let us enjoy One, let us all be one in Him. 'haereamus Uni, fruamur Uno, permaneamus Unum.'"
Let us ask from our Lord forgiveness of our past sins, and preservation from future ones.
Let us also pray for the holy souls of the city of the Middle East region. There used to be some cities in which Christians could live without harassment in an arabic country. They are mostly Melkite and Orthodox Christians, and some speak the Aramaic language that Our Lord used, and have recently been attacked, and taken over, by, of course, radical barbarians of that 'peaceful religion'. These brothers and sisters of ours are being martyred while we speak, even innocent kids, and yet, NOT one single word from our 'beloved' media. Let us pray for these souls as Our Lord wishes, as well for those doing the crime.
Keep in mind that NO prophet in the history of the world claimed to be equal to God or to be God except Jesus Christ! And, He proved it by miracles and by His words. He is the One foretold by all of the prophets of old, right up to John the Baptist. The Baptist even pointed Him to the crowd! It's just that many refused to believe Him or His words. They claim to know God and His teachings, by their pride allowed them to NOT believe as they should. And, sad to say, this continues today. Pray a lot for these to believe correctly before their death, when they will meet the God Who will judge them and is responsible for their existence, and they will find out it was Jesus all along.
We love God only because He is in Himself the highest Good, and most worthy of all love. In this manner we should endeavor to love Him; not through self-interest not through hope of reward, not through fear of punishment, but only because He, as the greatest Good, contains all goodness and, therefore, deserves to be loved only on account of Himself. Such love had St. Francis Xavier, which he very beautifully expressed in the following canticle, composed by himself:
O God, I give my love to Thee,
Not for the heaven Thou'st made for me,
Nor yet because who love not Thee
Will burn in hell eternally.
In dying throes on Calvary,
My Jesus, Thou didst think of me,
Didst bear the lance, the nails, the tree,
Rude scoffs, contempt and infamy,
And pangs untold, all lovingly, -
The scourge, the sweat the agony,
And death itself, and all for me,
A sinner and Thy enemy.
Why, therefore, should not I love Thee,
O Jesus, dead for love of me?
Not that I may in heaven be,
Not that from hell I may be free;
Not urged by dread of endless pain,
Not lured by prize of endless gain,
But as Thou, Lord, didst first love me,
So do I love and will love Thee.
To Thee, my King, I give my heart,
For this alone that God Thou art.
I found the following, written by Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger, 1877. This is just part of his sermon:
Our Lord asked Peter whether he loved Him, and the prince of the Apostles earnestly answered: "Yes. Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee!"
My brethren, if Christ today were to appear visibly in our midst, and address the same question to us, we would doubtless reply with Peter: "Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee!" But are we fully justified in this answer? Peter added to His reply the words: "Lord, Thou knowest all things!" Could we say, "Lord, Thou who knowest all things, canst look into my heart and read what is written there!" Alas! I fear not. We may say to God, I love Thee, yet our daily lives reveal a different tale, and prove the answer false. St. John warns us of the danger of self-deception in this regard, when he says: "Let us love not in word, nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth." Let us then, my brethren, look into our hearts for a few moments, and see whether our love will bear the test.
The first characteristic of true love is that its presence in the heart must be felt. Behold the little infant! It twines its arms round its mother's neck, and kisses her with fond endearment, and thus, without ever having heard the word love, its little heart feels it in the tenderest manner. Therefore, if asked whether you love Jesus truly, question your heart as to what sentiments are excited therein when you think or speak of your Saviour. Can you, like St. Augustine or St. Bernard, find no joy in aught that contains not the sweet name of Jesus? St. Bernard, after the mere utterance of that holy name, often tasted a sweetness like honey on his lips. If you are thus affected spiritually, your love has stood the first test.
Yet not to be deceived by a mere sensible affection, let me present to your consideration the second sign of true love for God, and this is horror of sin! for naturally one shrinks from offending a person beloved. "Do you love me?" says a wife to her erring husband. "If I did not," is the reply, "would I have chosen you of all others as my wife?" Yet the midnight hour finds her lonely and sad awaiting his return from some noisy revel, where he tarries, heedless of the anguish he causes his suffering wife. All the world endorses her doubts of the sincerity of his professions.
The third sign of true love consists in not only not offending, but also in doing all that we can to please the one we love. Thus a husband needs not to give his wife verbal assurances of his devotion if he anticipates her wishes, and tries to fulfill them whenever he can do so; for love reads in the eye the wish of the heart, and hastens to comply with it.
Is your love for Christ sincere? Examine the ardor of your efforts to imitate your divine model in the practice of those virtues which belong to your state of life. What testimony can your daily life produce that you earnestly strive to become holy according to the wish of your Saviour? Do you really try to follow in His footsteps? If so, you truly love Him; but if, on the contrary, you are content merely to avoid mortal sin, if you comply with your religious duties merely through habit or human respect, then, my brethren, you love not in deed nor in truth, but in word only.
The fourth sign of true love is generosity. A Christian who does not assist another, or who only does so in some urgent necessity, does not display any great love. True love of Jesus must be magnanimous and self-sacrificing, ever ready, therefore, to co-operate with Him in His mission to the human race, which is the rescue and sanctification of souls. What says conscience on this point, my friends? Do you not only assist your neighbor in his temporal wants, for the sake of Him Who assures us that whatever we do for the least of His creatures is as if done to Himself; but do you also labor according to your opportunities to draw souls to Christ, to promote their sanctification, to help them on the way of salvation? Perhaps you are not only wanting in this holy zeal, but, more deplorable far, your own life is not free from scandal. If so, you may indeed derive a certain satisfaction from the recitation of some beautiful prayer, while, with tears of sensibility, you declare your love for God, but no real love is there.
The fifth sign is a love of trials and sufferings. The Christian in whose life the cross has borne no part, whose days are passed in ease and luxury, has not the assurance that he is a real lover of Christ. Let the dark clouds of adversity envelop his soul in gloom, and if he come forth from the trial resigned to the will of Him Who first walked in the royal way of the cross, then may he call himself a true lover of the Crucified One.
A husband and wife can scarcely tell the depth and fervor of their love while life is bright and pleasant. If, when clouds obscure their path, and trouble over shadows their life, their affection remains as pure and ardent as before, then they may know that it is genuine and true. So, if we love suffering, if we know how to carry the cross, it is a sign that we love Him Who died upon that cross.
Finally, one who loves never wearies of being with the object of that love. Examine yourselves, my dear friends! How is it with your devotion to Jesus, hidden under the mystic sacramental vail? How often do you visit Him in his lowly tabernacle? How often do you receive Him in the most sweet Sacrament of love? If you can say with truth, "I live only for Jesus, for my Saviour Who has declared that He has a burning desire to be honored by men in this adorable sacrament," then you are blessed indeed. But if your hearts manifest no attraction to abide with Christ, to be united with Him in the Holy Communion, then I must declare to you that your love for Him is neither fervent nor sincere! Amen!
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