Sunday 26B, "...whoever is not against us is for us": the Church reaches out to evangelize in Christ for the common good

There are some who are against the Church, Christ's Body on Earth, and thus have set themselves against Christ.  Christ has taught that we are members of His Body the Church.  When others attack our rights as to keep His commandments, to love Him and others, they attack God.

Our bishops have in increasing numbers spoken out to teach that all of those government officials who support the HHS mandate are "against" us and therefore to vote for them is to vote against Christ and His Church.  Many of our bishops are doing all that they can to make clear our duty to vote with a moral compass and to realize how we are or are not cooperating with a moral evil in these times of clear choice between good and evil.

There are always many men and women of good will about whom Christ speaks in the Gospel, those many who, though they do not have the fullest relationship with Christ in His Church, yet believe in some aspects of Scripture and Tradition and therefore may be willing to join with the Church in pursuing the common good.

"By common good is to be understood 'the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.' The common good concerns the life of all. It calls for prudence from each, and even more from those who exercise the office of authority." (CCC 1906)

We have seen tragically that increasing numbers of our elected officials are acting counter to the common good by attacking our freedom of religion because such religious freedom is a "fundamental and inalienable right of the human person" given by God and not to be taken away by man.

"First, the common good presupposes respect for the person as such. In the name of the common good, public authorities are bound to respect the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person. Society should permit each of its members to fulfill his vocation. In particular, the common good resides in the conditions for the exercise of the natural freedoms indispensable for the development of the human vocation, such as "the right to act according to a sound norm of conscience and to safeguard . . . privacy, and rightful freedom also in matters of religion." (CCC 1907)

Currently our society is set on a course which will increasingly prevent the fulfillment of the vocation of believers.  Catholics, because we possess the fulness of the Christian Faith as handed down in Scripture and Tradition, are the first and most deeply to be affected. There are already many others of Christian Faith, believers in non-Christian religions and many non-believers who understand what is at stake in our struggle for religious freedom and have joined us in the fight.

A Pew Research poll recently revealed disturbing facts about Catholicsas reported by Dr. Jeff Mirus in CatholicCulture.org.

"Now, the American bishops have clearly identified the HHS mandate as a gross abrogation of religious liberty, and they have made it clear this violation is a key Catholic concern in the current campaign, the kind of concern that would prompt anybody with profound Catholic sympathies to vote against the Democrats. And yet only 51 percent of regular Catholic churchgoers state that they are willing to do so. This failure of churchgoing Catholics to defend their own religious freedom and the rights of the Church is the most significant revelation in the Pew poll."

If many Catholics have already given up their religion, it is a very small step to also giving up their religious freedom.  One of the answers to this crisis is the strengthening of Catholic identity for all believers beginning with the way we celebrate Sunday Mass.  Our rich and long tradition teaches us how to do that.

Saint Vincent de Paul: "Naked I came forth from my mother's womb"

... and naked shall I go back again.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
blessed be the name of the LORD!"

-- Jb 1:6-22

The works of mercy are charitable actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his spiritual and bodily necessities. Instructing, advising, consoling, comforting are spiritual works of mercy, as are forgiving and bearing wrongs patiently. The corporal works of mercy consist especially in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead. Among all these, giving alms to the poor is one of the chief witnesses to fraternal charity: it is also a work of justice pleasing to God:

He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none and he who has food must do likewise. But give for alms those things which are within; and behold, everything is clean for you. If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?

-- CCC 2447

Wednesday, Week 25: Every word of God is tested"

... he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
Add nothing to his words,
lest he reprove you, and you will be exposed as a deceiver.

-- Prv 30:5-9

"Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith."

-- CCC 86

Sunday 25B: "Who is the greatest of them all?" The one who serves the rest.

Arguments arising from envy and rivalries often occur among those who share the closest of relationships.  This happens perhaps most often within the family.  A son or a daughter will sometimes seek affirmation that he or she is the favorite child, preferred above all the others by the parents.

Despite the best efforts of the parents to avoid "playing favorites" among their children, every once in a while a word of affection or approval, an action which confers some sort of favor on their part for one of the children will be interpreted to mean the answer to the mystery has finally been solved and one child among the others will cling doggedly to the notion that they are the favorite despite any and all evidence to the contrary.  Why does this happen?  For us human beings love is the highest value, therefore being loved more than all others is the greatest prize of all.

" 'What were you arguing about on the way?'  But they remained silent.  They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest."

Envy, the consuming desire to have something that belongs to another, to be someone else or somewhere else rejects the will and providence of God and tears human relationships apart.

"The tenth commandment requires that envy be banished from the human heart. When the prophet Nathan wanted to spur King David to repentance, he told him the story about the poor man who had only one ewe lamb that he treated like his own daughter and the rich man who, despite the great number of his flocks, envied the poor man and ended by stealing his lamb. Envy can lead to the worst crimes. 'Through the devil's envy death entered the world':

'We fight one another, and envy arms us against one another. . . . If everyone strives to unsettle the Body of Christ, where shall we end up? We are engaged in making Christ's Body a corpse. . . . We declare ourselves members of one and the same organism, yet we devour one another like beasts.'(CCC 2538)

In today's Gospel the Apostles descend among themselves into envious bickering about who is the greatest among them.  They have begun to discover that Jesus is great, that He is the Messiah, perhaps they have even begun to believe correctly that He is God.  What more "natural" inclination could there be among those who share the intimate friendship of a great man, possibly the greatest of all men, than to compete among themselves as to who among them is closest to Him, can claim to be greater than the others, himself next in greatness to the Great One?

Christianity is hard and sometimes painful.  For our divine Founder our Faith was the hardest and the most painful, for in order to save us in His Church He had first to die on a Cross.  So the Lord takes the opportunity, upon discovering the occurrence of rivalries and dissensions among His closest followers the Apostles, to prepare them for the scandal of the Cross, the stumbling block that has prevented many down the centuries, following upon the time of Apostles, to fall away from the Faith and to no longer follow Christ.  The Apostles, the twelve foundation stones of His Church, needed to be strengthened in order to lead the others.  Christ teaches that, for they who follow Him most closely, more so than for others is necessary a servanthood like His own on the Cross.  In order to demonstrate this He depends upon the example of a child.

"Taking a child, he placed it in the their midst,
and putting his arms around it, he said to them,
'Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me,
receives not me but the One who sent me.' "

You see, it turns out that to be great like God, to be close to Him and enjoy His love, we must be like Him.  And the more deeply we share in His servanthood on the Cross the more deeply and satisfyingly will we share His love, be as it were His "favorites".  This love of God overcomes temptations to envy from which arise the rivalries and dissensions which rend the fabric of families and the human family.

To be servants like the greatest Servant, Jesus our Lord, we must serve others by seeing in them children of God just like ourselves.  We must serve others by welcoming them and loving in the highest way by helping them to also meet, know and love Jesus Christ as have we.  We do this in imitation of Jesus our Lord who rendered the greatest service in the history of the world: through His perfect Suffering Servanthood on the Cross He has made of us all true children of His heavenly Father.

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.

Ss Andrew Kim Taegon, priest and martyr, and Paul Chong Hasang and companions, martyrs: "Envy not the lawless man"

... and choose none of his ways.

-- Proverbs 3: 27-34

Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even to death. The martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity. He bears witness to the truth of the faith and of Christian doctrine. He endures death through an act of fortitude. "Let me become the food of the beasts, through whom it will be given me to reach God.

-- CCC 2473

Wednesday, Week 24: "Love never fails."

If I give away everything I own,
and if I hand my body over so that I may boast
but do not have love, I gain nothing.

-- 1 Cor 12:31-13:13

By embracing in his human heart the Father's love for men, Jesus "loved them to the end", for "greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." In suffering and death his humanity became the free and perfect instrument of his divine love which desires the salvation of men. Indeed, out of love for his Father and for men, whom the Father wants to save, Jesus freely accepted his Passion and death: "No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord." Hence the sovereign freedom of God's Son as he went out to his death.

-- CCC 609

Tuesday, Week 24: "Now you are Christ's Body, and individually parts of it."

a body is one

-- 1 Cor 12:12-14, 27-31a

"Christ bestowed unity on his Church from the beginning. This unity, we believe, subsists in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose, and we hope that it will continue to increase until the end of time." Christ always gives his Church the gift of unity, but the Church must always pray and work to maintain, reinforce, and perfect the unity that Christ wills for her. This is why Jesus himself prayed at the hour of his Passion, and does not cease praying to his Father, for the unity of his disciples: "That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us, . . . so that the world may know that you have sent me." The desire to recover the unity of all Christians is a gift of Christ and a call of the Holy Spirit.

-- CCC 820