"stop bullying"

 ... knowing that both they and you have a Master in heaven and that with him there is no partiality.

-- Eph 6:1-9

Threats to freedom. The exercise of freedom does not imply a right to say or do everything. It is false to maintain that man, "the subject of this freedom," is "an individual who is fully self-sufficient and whose finality is the satisfaction of his own interests in the enjoyment of earthly goods." Moreover, the economic, social, political, and cultural conditions that are needed for a just exercise of freedom are too often disregarded or violated. Such situations of blindness and injustice injure the moral life and involve the strong as well as the weak in the temptation to sin against charity. By deviating from the moral law man violates his own freedom, becomes imprisoned within himself, disrupts neighborly fellowship, and rebels against divine truth.

-- CCC 1740

"Live in love"

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
-- Eph 5:2a, 25-32

Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone." The woman, "flesh of his flesh," his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a "helpmate"; she thus represents God from whom comes our help. "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been "in the beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh."

-- CCC 1605

Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

"Be imitators of God"

live in love

-- 1 Eph 4:32-5:8

In Jesus Christ, the whole of God's truth has been made manifest. "Full of grace and truth," he came as the "light of the world," he is the Truth. "Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness." The disciple of Jesus continues in his word so as to know "the truth [that] will make you free" and that sanctifies. To follow Jesus is to live in "the Spirit of truth," whom the Father sends in his name and who leads "into all the truth." To his disciples Jesus teaches the unconditional love of truth: "Let what you say be simply 'Yes or No.'"

-- CCC 2466 

Monday of the Thirtieth Week of Ordinary Time

"... be like servants ... "

Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant ...

-- Lk 12:35-38

The means of social communication (especially the mass media) can give rise to a certain passivity among users, making them less than vigilant consumers of what is said or shown. Users should practice moderation and discipline in their approach to the mass media. They will want to form enlightened and correct consciences the more easily to resist unwholesome influences.

-- CCC 2496

Tuesday, Week 29

Blessed Joun Paul II, Pope

"Be not afraid."

Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness. They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives.

-- CCC 399

Sunday 29B: "let us hold fast to our confession of faith" through more generous expressions of devotional love

Many families endure the phenomenon of the child or family member who seems to come around only at mealtime, or for laundry or other physical necessities. Some see their children come home unexpectedly after college while facing unavailability of work. This certainly satisfies need for physical sustenance and, although a limited opportunity for interrelationships, is ultimately not enough to satisfy the need for human flourishing.

Why? Because relationships are about love and love is about growth and growth is about not being satisfied with the minimum. Love is about more, not less. In other words, love is generous.

So sooner or later something has to give: eventually persons drift out of relationships because the minimalistic approach is tolerated until it becomes merely an inconvenience to be avoided or the truth is faced and steps are taken to address the dysfunction and matters begin to improve as persons become more generous with their time.

It is true that the Church is a family, the family of God, and the Sacrifice of the Mass is a "meal", though a sacrificial one, and the Mass is the one essential thing: Christ present in Word proclaimed and really, truly and substantially in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

But it is not the only thing.

In the Gospel the Apostles make demands upon Jesus: "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." Their relationship is tending toward the physical, the utilitarian, much like the family member, perhaps a son or daughter, whose actions tend to reduce the relationship with family members to the satisfaction of physical needs only.

Faith is about what God does for us. Faith begins with God's initiative take on our behalf in Jesus Christ who suffered, died and rose again. But it is also about what we do for God: "grace builds on nature". So God redirects our attention to the choices we make, to the way in which our lives are lived in preparation, in readiness for the grace we desire: “Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.”

Thus, if we desire to have Him moving in our lives we must take the first step so that grace can build on nature: we attend Mass weekly in obedience to the Commandments but more so that we may grow in our relationship.

Holy Mass, although the greatest and necessary gift, remains a kind of "minimum" if considered only in isolation, as the "one thing we have to do every week for our Faith".  Yes, it is in conformity with His command but always while at the same time seeking to grow in our capacity to please God in other ways.

More is needed.

Saint Francis de Sales counsels us: ""Every one of us needs half an hour of prayer each day, except when we are busy; then we need an hour."

1.Daily prayer.
2.Scripture reading / study of teachings (CCC)
3. Service of others in order to see and love Christ in them (family, co-workers, the other in distressing disguise)
4. Seeking more than the minimum: personal prayer through visits to the Blessed Sacrament, daily Mass, stations during Lent, special liturgies such as Corpus Christi procession and May devotions.
5.Regular confession, especially in case of mortal sin before receiving the Eucharist.

“… let us hold fast to our confession … ” with Sunday Mass as the source of our spiritual life throughout the week and the summit toward which all our activities tend (Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium)

“So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.”

Wedding Homily 2012

When a child is born the mother and father dream of many things, and one of those is to witness the day their child accepts their vocation with happiness, in the will of God.

Parents of the bride and groom: thank you for saying yes to life. And thank you also for bringing your children up in our holy Catholic, through baptism, education, faithfulness to Sunday Mass and the entirety of Catholic sacramental life. Because of your faithfulness to God’s holy will, we all truly rejoice today that this young man and woman will be united in the sacrament of Holy Matrimony.

And, now to N. and N.: this is your wedding day. Congratulations. Here you are, in the house of God, surrounded by His people: your parents, family and friends. In just a few moments you will go a step beyond anything you have ever known before as you promise yourselves to each other in the sacrament of holy matrimony. It is only fitting that your lives, a sacred gift in God, become now a mutual gift in marriage here in this sacred house of God, Who alone is holy, and in the presence of his holy people.

You have discovered, with God’s help and within your families, that you have been created to love. But you have also learned through trial and error that love cannot be taken or possessed. No, only if love is a free gift is it truly worthy of the name. For that reason you have come today before the Lord on His Cross. Only His free act of self-giving, the only completely selfless gift the world has ever known, is perfect Love.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.” Why is this? God is love, His very essence is Love, for He is the only one who is able to love simply by being who He is, without receiving love from someone else. His love is without beginning or end because He Himself is the Eternal source of love. Jesus is God Incarnate, and therefore His love is given on the Cross in the total gift of His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in His saving death. That is why you are here today, in the Lord’s house: only here can you truly possess the One who is the source of the love you wish to share now and always. Only in and through Christ can you learn to give love and thus truly receive the love you so ardently desire from one another. Learn well this authentic love from the Lord and your married love will never fail and will not merely satisfy but bring abundant joy.

And so, in just a few moments, by the grace of your baptism, you will consent to the truth about love. You will promise one another that you will strive every day of your married life to imitate the Lord, who teaches the truth about love from the Cross. Here, before God and His people, you will promise your lives, all that you have and are, to one another. You will accept from God the privilege of cooperating with Him in His “will that life should go on”, because you will promise that your love will be fundamentally open to new life. The marital act by which you bodily become one flesh will be a true source of love because you will fearlessly give yourselves to each other as Christ gives on the Cross: completely, without holding anything of yourselves back in a way unworthy of authentic love. Your openness to God's will means that you will accept children lovingly from Him and raise them in our holy Faith. You will promise an exclusive love, because you will be one flesh and thus will belong only to one another all the days of your lives.

To promise today, and every day, to love, honor and cherish. Is this not a stupendous promise to make? Does this not sound as if it is impossible? The world often scorns the idea that man and woman can remain as one through good times and bad, in sickness and in health, until death. And it is true: man and woman cannot do such an awesome thing on their own. No, they need the constant help of the divine source of Love Himself.

And this help you will have, for beginning today you will enjoy the particular graces of the sacrament of holy matrimony. By virtue of the grace of your baptism you will exchange your vows of marriage so that you will depend no longer only upon yourselves, with your poor human love, with your weaknesses and, yes, sadly and tragically also with your sins. No, your confidence and hope will be placed totally in God. In the total gift of Christ, in His Cross and Resurrection, you will have the inexhaustible means of daily growing in grace and more deeply in love. Your covenant love will find its source in God’s covenant love through your regular celebration of the Sunday Eucharist at Mass together with His people. The Body and Blood of Christ in communion will be the means of grace by which you will ever more deeply give yourselves to one another. And the Lord’s own forgiveness in confession will be your perfect source of forgiving one another should you ever need this grace, for this too is love.

Above and beyond all of this, you have been called in Christ to eternal salvation. See in your sacramental love the means of daily praying for, working toward and serving each other’s salvation in Christ. Remain close to the Lord through this life of prayer and service of Him and His people. And never forget that true hope always finds its source in the sure and certain knowledge that we have been called to life with God forever in heaven and thus can find here no lasting city, as beautiful as is this world and all that God has made.

N. and N., you begin well today your life of married love. Continue well each day this love in Christ through His Church and in the sacramental life she offers to you and to all of God’s people. Never fail to generously share with all those around you the abundant joy of knowing God’s love that, through you, He may continue to call the world to salvation only in and through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.