Today at Holy Mass we hear from the gospel of St John…..In the text Jesus lays it all out there….Black and White…No ambiguity…..And as you can expect people do not like what they hear……They begin to complain and grumble and some leave….."This saying is hard; who can accept it?”……In response Jesus does not backdown…Instead he doubles down and asks his 12 friends…."Does this shock you?”…."Do you also want to leave?" …St Peter's response to Christ is how we should respond when we are challenged and are resistant to change….."Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God”….When you get right down to it and if we are honest with ourself we will come to the inevitable conclusion that no matter who we are…We die…”The party ends”…Jesus offers us the one chance we got…”To get off the Island”…He provides “the boat" - The Catholic Church, which is there for us to be nourished by and through the Sacraments…..St Peter gets it!…He recognizes the challenges but he also recognizes the reality behind the challenges….”There is only one way off the Island”
”I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live”
No matter how intelligent a person can be, people have a way of rationalizing away the the truth…Somehow people think reality does not apply to them….And sadly when we deny reality, there are consequences…..Through our free will we get to make a choice but we can not choose the consequences…Bottom line - Jesus was not selling anything!…Nor does the Catholic Church…..The door is ALWAYS open to EVERYONE...... However…..We do not enter heaven on "our own terms"…..The Truth does not change and we have no authority to change it….."This saying is hard; who can accept it?”……..Jesus because he loves us gave us the tools to “get the job done”…We are all flawed and that is why Jesus founded a Church, which gives us the Sacraments, which enable us to not only accept the teachings of God but live them out….Without grace, we are finished and to try to live the Christian life without the Sacraments in my estimations is a fools errand….We are only so strong and only so faithful…Eventually, reality catches up to us
When a Catholic finds himself or herself in a situation where they are not in the state of grace and when that person has full knowledge of their situation, they should refrain from receiving the Eucharist and take the time to pray. That does not mean you do not go to Mass, but simply abstain from receiving and pray…This is not my opinion by the way but a perennial and unchangeable Church teaching…Don’t let anyone fool you and most important don’t fool yourself…During this time away from the Blessed Sacrament, I assure you if you pray with sincerity of heart, the Lord himself will guide you back to a state of grace……A good father NEVER turns his back on his child and God will always show you the way back to him….Many times its simply up to us to “see” the path forward clearly…Daily prayer especially time spent in front of the Blessed Sacrament in adoration and fidelity to Our Lady will clear ANY obstacle in our way…If we take the time and allow God to work in our life.
"If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost."
Getting back to our gospel today from Mass….Jesus was not selling anything….Nor should we as Catholics…As the old saying goes…”It is what it is”….”I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live”…St Peter figured it out and his response needs to be ours….Its time to face facts…..”It is what it is”…..”You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God”
”Choose life”
No comments:
Post a Comment