Christ is King - We are not - Listen to him!

Today at Holy Mass in the first reading we are told something very important……”Obedience is better than sacrifice”……So many people have problems with simple acts of obedience to authority, never mind total obedience to God…There are many reasons for this, which range from childhood wounds to deep seated attachments to sin….But under it all is the human desire to be God - Or at the minimum “play god”….…This was the sin of our first parents Adam and Eve….In our disobedience to God and his Church, we make ourselves out to be God whether we realize it or not….This was a fatal mistake for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and it is the same mistake to made by many to this very day……”I will not serve”…..”I will do it my way”……”No one tells me what to do”….These are not the statements of a person who is walking with the Lord…….St Paul reminds us of the example of Christ himself……”Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him”……We too must learn to become obedient to Christ and his Church…If we too want to be “made perfect”…..There is only one path to heaven and Jesus showed us this path…He even told us…”I am the way”…That should imply to any clear-eyed objective person that because there is one way to heaven, if we want to go to heaven, we must follow that one path……And that path involves the Cross!…Jesus again tells us…..”Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”………..In order to do as Jesus said - We must be obedient….Our world today gives authority to others and even to ourselves where no authority exists…Jesus Christ has authority because he is God…How do we know this? - Point Blank - He rose from the dead….And because Jesus is God, from his own mouth, he gave authority to the one Church he founded - The Catholic Church……This is why we must be obedient to what Jesus tells us in the Gospel and to what the Catholic Church has taught for 2000 years….If we are not - How can we expect to go to heaven?……Again - There is one path to Heaven…Jesus told us so and he has authority - We do not

“The word of God is living and effective, able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart”

The world is not convinced that the Catholic Church has the authority of Christ…People try to separate the Catholic Church from Christ - This is impossible!….Why? - Human beings hear what their itchy ears want to hear……We want to do what we want to do and then we tell ourselves we are in “good standing with Christ” and one day will enter into eternal life…..This is why the Prophet Samuel tells us today at Mass that……“Does the LORD so delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obedience to the command of the LORD? Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission than the fat of rams. For a sin like divination is rebellion, and presumption is the crime of idolatry. Because you have rejected the command of the LORD, he, too, has rejected you as ruler.”……..Allow me to try to illustrate what Samuel was trying to express in this passage…..This is something to came to me through then Holy Spirit at Mass a few years ago……As a father of five children, all under eleven years old, going to Sunday Mass can be difficult….There are times I can not knee when required because of one of my children needing me….When this has happened, particularly during the consecration of the Eucharist at Mass, I have thought long and hard about the importance of participating at Mass properly and also the importance of me as a Father tending to the needs of my children when they cry….…This is the inspiration that came to me during those difficult moments - While its important to knee during the required periods at Mass, its more important for my will to bend - That the kneeing at Mass is “easy” but bending my will at all times to the Lord, that is the difficult part……..”Obedience is better than sacrifice”…….I like to think Jesus understands that as a father, if one of my small children are crying at Mass, I need take take care of them and at that moment, maybe I can’t knee at Mass….However, what is my “excuse” when I don’t bend my will to one of the hard teachings of the Gospel or the Church?……Its very easy to give an “outward appearance” to the world that we are Catholic……Its something all together different to bend our will completely until it breaks to the teachings of the Church and the demands of the Gospel, especially when no one is looking…..I clearly do not have the mind of God but if I were to bet, God is more concerned with the bending of my will then the bending of my knees when my children need me at Mass….God sees the heart in a way that we do not…He also knows our true intentions…..As Catholics, we must be more concerned with obeying God then about appeasing men…..” Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean”…….It is through our obedience that we will grow closer to God and it is also through our obedience that we will enter into eternal life.

“Why do you recite my statutes, and profess my covenant with your mouth, Though you hate discipline and cast my words behind you?”

Today at Mass we are reminded of the importance of the virtue of Obedience….Outside of Jesus Christ himself, no one was more obedient then Our Lady….She was the Mother of God, yet she was perfectly obedient to her husband, who clearly was beneath her as far as him being a sinner and Our Lady being born immaculate…..Yet Our Lady, as the wife of Joseph, subjected herself to her husband and lived under his authority…..Sadly, our world today rejects this kind of radical obedience shown to us by both Mary and Jesus…Our world can not understand it and refuses to be open to this kind of obedience…What the world also “misses” is “the fruit” of radical obedience….God’s ways are not our ways and for those who trust God implicitly, in time, lasting fruit is produced…This only happens when we are obedient….”Who, though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name”……As Catholics living in the world and witnessing our faith in the public square, we can not lead others if we are not able or willing to serve God in obedience ourselves….Before we can lead, our knee must bend!….Only one voice matters and that voice is not mine…..Christ is King - We are not - Listen to him!……………….JMJ