Category Archives: Podcasts

Between the first reading from the book of Job and the Gospel reading from St. Mark, God is shown to us as an all-powerful being. Job is reminded that God alone has the power to control the seas, setting their limits and controlling their waves. Likewise, St. Mark shows Our Lord commanding the stormy seas to be calmed. It would be easy to see God as the deep voice thundering from the Heavens, striking people down with lightning, much like Zeus, the king of the gods in the Greek mythology.

As we see in the second reading, this is not the relationship that our God wants to have with us. St. Paul reminds us that God is a father who loves us so deeply that He protects us from even the power of our own sins. The Father’s love is so strong that He was willing to give His Son, who He loved above all things in Heaven and on Earth, to die for us that we might love Him in return. This is the total self-giving love that God the Father has for us.

Of course, today we are celebrating Fathers’ Day, that day we set aside each year to remember and honor our earthly fathers. It’s good that we do set aside a day for fatherhood, as I think it’s important that we take time to celebrate our fathers. For many of us, this is a day to thank them for the love and commitment which they’ve shown to us throughout our lives.

Celebrating Fathers’ Day is especially important in a culture in which fatherhood is increasingly seen as unnecessary. More and more children are being born out-of-wedlock, and fewer and fewer couples are entering into the marriage covenant, with the children being left with the mother when the relationship breaks apart. I recently heard a statistic that 85% of youths in prison came from single-parent families without a father in their lives. In some places, especially low-income, inner-city neighborhoods, children are seen as the woman’s problem and the father is completely out of their lives.

This is not the example that we are given by our Heavenly Father of what fatherhood should look like. God our Father gives to us a complete and total love, a love that truly desires the best for us, even if we do not understand or agree with what that might look like. In the same way, earthly fathers are challenged to put their families over their own desires and wants. Fathers are called to teach their children, to show them right from wrong, and to give them an example of how to live their lives and treat others with respect. They are challenged to give of themselves so completely that they are even willing to give up their lives to protect and care for their children. This is the total, self-giving love which fathers are called to have for their children, a love which we celebrate today on Fathers’ Day.

This year, we have a second fatherhood which we are asked to remember. On Friday, the feast of the Sacred Heart, Pope Benedict proclaimed the Year for Priests, a year of prayer for priests and celebration of the ministerial priesthood. Like Fathers’ Day for our earthly, physical fathers, we are called during this special year to remember those priests who have truly shown the spiritual fatherhood that is the nature of the priesthood.

While most priests are not fathers by birth, all priests are called to be spiritual fathers, who give the same self-giving love to the people they have been called to serve. The focus of any priest should not be on his needs and desires, but on what is best for the parishioners that he’s called to both serve and lead. Sometimes that service and leadership might lead to making decisions that aren’t popular, but priests are still called to make those decisions on behalf of the parishioners.

Priests are also called to teach and preach the saving love of God and show the example of loving God and loving our neighbors. We’re called to join in celebrating joyful occasions, and to be a source of comfort in times of sorrow. In short, we are called to be fathers. It’s not a coincidence that the spiritual fatherhood and the earthly fatherhood have similar job descriptions. Both draw from the example of God our Father in Heaven.

As we celebrate both Fathers’ Day and the Year for Priests, may we remember and pray for our fathers, both earthly and spiritual, and may those called to be fathers show to their families the self-giving love which God the Father has for all of us.

Edit: fixed grammatical “oops”.

Today we’re celebrating the feast that commemorates the greatest of all mysteries within Christianity, the Most Holy Trinity. This feast always brings up the question “How do you explain the Holy Trinity?” Most of us could probably come up with the traditional formulation “The Trinity is One God, Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” if asked. OK, so we understand that, but what does that really mean? How do you explain what the formula really means?

This is a question that has plagued some of the greatest philosophers and theologians throughout the history of Christianity. Some of the greatest minds have dwelt long and hard on this issue. St. Thomas Aquinas dedicated a large chunk of the Summa Theologica, his master work, on the questions that surround the Trinity. Many people are familiar with St. Patrick’s use of the three-leaf clover to demonstrate the relationship between the Trinity. An image called the Shield of the Trinity explains the relationship within the Trinity by use of a triangle.

While these images and reflections on the Trinity are attempts to help us to better grasp this great mystery, we still have to come to the realization that we are no closer to understanding the Trinity than we were when Jesus commanded His disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” (Mt 28:19) The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that “the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself.” (CCC 234) If we get the Holy Trinity wrong, we get the whole of Christian belief wrong.

Throughout the history of the Church many people, theologians, philosophers, bishops, and priests, have spread false or confusing theories on the Holy Trinity, which caused division and even violence within the Church. Many heresies in the first centuries of the Church were caused by faulty understanding of the Trinity, and more than a few of the early councils of the Church were called to correct these poor theologies. Because of these heresies, the Church has declared specific formulas to express our belief in the Trinity. We proclaim these formulas as we recite the Nicene Creed at every Sunday Mass, but the Church is also aware that these formulations are likely just scratching the surface of what the Trinity truly is. As Christians, we need to trust in the Church’s teachings on the Trinity, as we should trust and follow all that the Magisterium presents as authoritative, even if we don’t understand those teachings completely.

Due to our inability to truly understand what the Trinity really means, any variation on the Church’s teaching on the Trinity usually results in a complete denial of the relationships within the Trinity. Over the past three to four decades, it became fashionable among priests to stop using the names Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the Three Persons of the Trinity. Instead, these priests would use the terms Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, which describe what each person of the Trinity does for us. In place of a description of the relationship between the three persons, the new titles tell us the jobs that they do for us here on Earth.

Some priests even went so far as to use these terms in the Baptismal Rite, going against Our Lord’s command that we heard in today’s Gospel reading. Because these priests refused to baptize as Jesus commanded, they never actually performed the Sacrament of Baptism, but just made an unbaptized baby wet. It also caused a lot of heartache and anger when people were notified that the baptism needed to be performed once again, sometimes after many years. By not following the teachings of the Church, these priests caused great scandal among the faithful members of the Church.

Although we do not totally understand the Holy Trinity, One God in Three Persons, we are called to accept this mystery with deep faith in the revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ as passed down through the Magisterium of the Church. May we have the faith to believe what we do not truly understand.

I always try to imagine the reaction of the Apostles as Our Lord ascended into Heaven. Were they standing there with their mouths open in amazement, which is why they were staring into the sky even after He disappeared? As they stood there, they were left with a promise that Our Lord, who reigns in the Kingdom of Heaven and opened the way to Heaven for us, will return again to judge us worthy to enter into that kingdom.

At the time of Jesus’ life on Earth, the Jewish people were awaiting a Messiah, a king who would save Israel from the oppressing nations. They thought that this would be an earthly king who would rise up and banish conquering nations from the land of Israel and reunite the tribes. Before Jesus, there were many who claimed to be this Messiah, and some even managed to build a small army before being crushed by the Roman military.

We now know who this Messiah was: Our Lord Jesus Christ, who was not merely an earthly king that established an earthly kingdom for the Israelite people, but a divine king who established a divine kingdom for all peoples of every nation. As we see in the first reading, the Apostles didn’t have the benefit of the hindsight that we now enjoy when they asked if Our Lord would restore the kingdom of Israel. They were still thinking that the Messiah would establish an earthly kingdom, even after seeing Him tortured, crucified, buried, and then being with Him after He rose again.

They did figure it out eventually, as we see from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. He tells us that God “[raised Christ] from the dead and [seated] Him at His right hand in the Heavens”. (Eph. 1:20) Jesus was given the position of authority within the Heavenly kingdom, and was also placed as “head over all things to the church, which is His body”(Eph. 1:22-23), thus establishing the divine kingdom, the Church, over which Our Lord reigns from Heaven. As we recite every week in the Nicene Creed, “he ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Ascension is described as “the definitive entrance of Jesus’ humanity into God’s heavenly domain”. (CCC #665) That complicated sentence simply means that Jesus, who is fully human as well as fully divine, entered into heaven and opened the gates of Heaven to all humanity. Just as a king who was victorious in defending his kingdom might lead his troops in a triumphant parade back into the capital city, Our Lord leads the way into Heaven, showing us that it is possible for humanity to enter into Heaven.

While Jesus led the way to Heaven as the triumphant king, we have the promise of the angels in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles that He will “return again in the same way”. (Acts 1:11) One of the most important tasks of a king was to be the final judge of any legal matter in the kingdom. The king set the laws and also enforced and ruled on them. Our Lord, as head of the Kingdom of Heaven, “will come again to judge the living and the dead”, as we also say in the Nicene Creed. At the end of time, which could be a week from now or could be 1000 years from now, Our Lord will return to Earth and we will experience the final judgment. In this judgment, we will be judged whether or not we are to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and join Our Lord in the joys that come in the presence of God, our Heavenly Father.

Of course, we know that this is not an arbitrary judgment, but rather is a determination whether or not we followed His commandments. Our Lord even tells us before He ascends what we need to do in order to be judged worthy of the Kingdom: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:16) Note that merely being baptized isn’t enough, nor is believing in Him without receiving the Sacrament of Baptism. Likewise, this must be an active faith, one that moves us to proclaim the Gospel and to reach out to those in need.

Our Lord Jesus Christ has ascended into Heaven, and now reigns at the right hand with God, our Heavenly Father. When Our Lord returns again for the final judgment, may He find us worthy and lead us triumphantly into the Heavenly Kingdom.

We live in a culture where the word “love” is thrown around very casually, but no one ever thinks about what the word means. When we watch TV shows or movies, the characters are often talking about “being in love” with another character, but is this the same type of love that Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel? Is there something more to the love that he wants us to have for the Father, and the Father has for us?

In the Gospel reading, Jesus says, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in His love.” (Jn 15:10) For many guys, myself included for some time, we hear the word “love” and get uncomfortable. After all, love is a mushy emotion that real men don’t express publicly, at least that’s what the world tells us.

The popular view of love is that it’s merely an emotion, an attraction between two people who are interested in each other. There’s nothing rational about love, it’s something we can’t control. You just fall into it, and as the high divorce rate in the United States shows, you fall out of it. You can’t even control who you fall in love with, thus the debates over same-sex marriage. If two men or two women are “in love”, meaning have this chemical and emotional attraction for each other, they should be able to get married and live together as spouses. At least that’s what the popular culture is telling us.

This is not the meaning of love that Jesus is inviting us to enter into. As English speakers, we have the distinct disadvantage of a terribly imprecise language. Unlike many other languages, many English words can have lots of different meanings, and the word “love” is no exception to this rule. By commanding us to love our neighbors, Our Lord is asking us to have a true and active “concern for the well-being of others.” (Dictionary.com) This concern is not an emotion, like the feelings we might get when we hear about a death in a friend’s family. Instead, the concern that we are asked to show to our neighbor is a conscious choice to give of ourselves totally for the well-being of all we meet. The love that Our Lord commands of us is a conscious choice whether or not to have concern for the well-being of our brothers and sisters in the world.

While it might seem like enough to merely be concerned about those in need and maybe do something about it, Our Lord gives us the ultimate example of how this love should look. He challenges us, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn 15:13) This is the ultimate challenge, and the ultimate expression of true concern for well-being.

This total self-giving is the love that God shows for us. St. John tells us in the second reading, “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.” (1 Jn 4:9) God is so concerned for our well-being that He was willing to send His own Son to us and allowed Him to die on the Cross to atone for our sins. This is what it truly means to love one another, to wish the well-being of others over ourselves.

This love for our neighbor is not something that we should limit to just those we like, or those who we might agree with. We are called to love all without partiality, as St. Peter describes the love of God in the first reading. This doesn’t mean that we will agree with everyone, nor does it mean that we’ll particularly like everyone, but we are still called to have this love, this concern for their well-being, for all.

Without St. Peter’s new understanding of God’s love that occurred at Cornelius’ house, it’s possible that we would not be Christians today. At first, the early Christians believed that Jesus came only as the savior of the Jewish people. Through God’s outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Cornelius and his companions, the Church quickly realized that Our Lord came to save all people and nations. Thus we can now receive the graces of salvation, regardless of ancestry.

God has shown us how to love through the death and resurrection of His Son. We need to take that example and pass on that love, that concern for others’ well-being, to the whole world.

Whenever we hear of Our Lord or the Blessed Virgin Mary speaking to someone, it’s never those who are in high position. It’s never the brilliant theologian who can teach on any subject under the sun. Nor is it the bishop who is held in high regard because of his position within the Church. No, those who have received the grace of legitimate private revelation from Our Lord are without exception those who are very humble.

The feast we’re celebrating today came from one such revelation. During the 1930’s, Our Lord revealed to Sr. Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun, what we have come to know as the Divine Mercy. St. Faustina, canonized in the year 2000, came from a very humble background, and had received very little education. For this reason, she didn’t hold a lofty position within her convent, but spent her time as cook and gardener. It was to this humble religious sister that Our Lord chose to express the depth of His Divine Mercy.

Out of these revelations have come two devotions which I think many Catholics are familiar with. First is the image of Divine Mercy, a painting of Jesus with one hand touching His heart and the other raised in a blessing. From His heart are two rays, one red and the other white. In her diary, St. Faustina writes that Jesus explained that “the pale ray stands for the water which makes souls righteous.” These waters are the waters of baptism, by which all of us have entered into the merciful embrace of the Church. Our Lord continues to explain that “The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls.” We receive this Blood when we receive the Eucharist. By this explanation, Our Lord shows us that we receive His Divine Mercy through our baptism and reception of the Blessed Sacrament in the Eucharist. (thedivinemercy.org)

The other devotion that many are familiar with, especially since many parishes have regular opportunities for communal recitation of this prayer, is the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Through this Chaplet, we extend the offering of the Eucharist, the offering of Our Lord’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, in intercession for the whole world. It’s a very simple devotion, prayed using a Rosary, but has great power. Our Lord promised that those who “recite it will receive great mercy at the hour of death.” Likewise, Our Lord promised that he will intercede on the behalf of someone who is dying if we pray the Chaplet in their presence. This is a devotion which all Catholics should be encouraged to pray on a regular basis. It is especially encouraged to be prayed at 3:00 PM, the “Hour of Great Mercy” during which Our Lord died on the Cross. (thedivinemercy.org)

This promise of Divine Mercy by Our Lord is not just mercy for us at the hour of our deaths, but is also an admonition to extend that mercy to others through the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. As Jesus tells the disciples in today’s Gospel passage, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” (Jn 20:21) Our Lord was sent to earth to bring the mercy of God to His people, and He now sends us to do the same. The Catechism of the Catholic Church lists the Corporal Works of Mercy as “feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead.” Likewise, the Spiritual Works of Mercy are instructing, advising, consoling, comforting […] forgiving, and bearing wrongs patiently.” Of course, prayer for the living and the dead is a vital Spiritual Work of Mercy. (CCC 2447) Through these works of mercy, we share with our neighbors the mercy which Our Lord has given to us. Our Lord sums this up by giving us three ways of practicing mercy to our neighbor: by deed, by word, and by prayer.

Lest we think we can get away without these works of mercy, He warns us that if we do not share His mercy, we will not receive that mercy on the day of judgment. This is a very stern warning by Our Lord, and one that we need to pay close attention. To repeat Our Lord’s words, “If a soul does not exercise mercy somehow or other, it will not obtain My mercy on the day of judgment.” (thedivinemercy.org)

On this feast of Divine Mercy, may we allow His mercy to come upon us and allow us to be sent as He sent His disciples.

When discussing literature or a movie, people frequently use the term “climax”, a point in the story in which the greatest amount of tension and struggle occurs. It’s also considered the high point in the story, and the rest of the story either builds up to the climax or concludes it. It can be said that Good Friday is beginning of the climax of the Scriptures, as the Old Testament and Our Lord’s ministry build up to this point in His life, and the remainder of the New Testament shows us the consequences of His death and resurrection.

The prophet Isaiah reminds us that Jesus came to take all the sins of humanity upon Himself and to suffer and die for those sins. All the pain and anguish that Our Lord undertook throughout his Passion and Death were to make atonement for sin. It’s popularly thought that Our Lord saw those sins as he prayed in the Garden before being betrayed, which is why He asked for the cup to pass. If that’s the case, it’s all the more amazing that He was willing to follow the Father’s will to His death.

Yet, He did embrace the Father’s will and allowed Himself to be Crucified. At Morning Prayer this morning, one of the Intercessions states, “on the Cross you embraced all time with your outstretched arms.” He bore the guilt of all the sins of humanity, and was made perfect through His suffering on the Cross. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that “when He was made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.” (Heb. 5:9) With all our sins upon Him, His death was the final act which reopened the gates of Heaven to all humanity. Salvation is now open to each of us; we only have to obey Our Lord’s commands.

When we read the Scriptures as Christians, it’s easy to see striking parallels between the events described in the Old Testament and what we believe to have been revealed by Jesus in the establishment of the New Covenant. In fact, we believe that the Old Covenant was a preparation for the coming of Our Lord and points to Him, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that there is a direct parallel between the Passover in Egypt and the Eucharist which Jesus established before His death on the Cross.

For the Jewish people, the celebration of the Passover is the high point of the year, so much so that, as we see in the first reading, the month in which the Passover occurs is the first month in the traditional Jewish calendar. For those who are Jewish, Passover is not merely a time for celebrating something that happened thousands of years ago, but is renewed year after year. Through the blood of the sacrificed lamb smeared on the doorposts, the Israelite people were spared from the slavery of Egypt and the death which was brought down upon the Egyptian firstborn. To this day, the Passover represents the unique relationship that the Jewish people have with God in being the people He chose as His own.

As Christians, we also have a Passover celebration, but instead of partaking in a sacrificed lamb once a year, we partake in the Sacrifice of the Lamb of God through our celebration of the Eucharist. Every time the Sacrifice of the Mass is offered, we are not merely remembering Our Lord’s death on the Cross, but are once again a part of that Sacrifice, united with all those in the past, present, and future who participate in this Sacrifice. By the Blood of Our Lord, we are spared from the slavery to sin and death that all humanity suffers under, and unite ourselves to the New Passover by receiving the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord in the form of bread and wine.

Just as the Passover from Egypt marked the Israelites as God’s Chosen People, our participation in the Eucharist also makes us part of the Chosen People of God. As members of God’s Chosen People, we follow Our Lord’s commandments, but also are called to follow His example. Before sacrificing Himself on the Cross, Jesus humbled Himself to serve His disciples by the most menial of tasks: washing their feet. We may not be comfortable with foot washing today, but it would have been worse in Jesus’ time. Most people wore very basic sandals and walked along dusty roads which had also been used by animals. Foot washing would have been essential upon arriving at a destination, but was reserved for lower servants, if the household had any.

By Our Lord washing the feet of the disciples, he showed that he was not only their master, but also came to serve. He challenged them to serve others as He served them; He also challenges us to do the same. Washing others’ feet may not have as much importance today, but it shows us that we need to be aware of opportunities to humbly enter into service of others, especially those we may consider less than ourselves. Our participation in the Eucharist should lead us to emulate Our Lord without concern for ourselves, and bring us to a greater concern for those who are less fortunate than we are.

When Our Lord entered into Jerusalem in the Gospel reading that we heard at the beginning of Mass, He was greeted by a great crowd that rejoiced and sang hymns of praise. Where were those people at the end of the week when Our Lord hung on the Cross? Many members of the crowd that were praising him at the beginning of the week may have been jeering and insulting him as He was treading through the streets of Jerusalem carrying His cross. They may have been a part of the crowd that had been riled up by the Jewish authorities to call for His death.

Why the change over only a week? They were looking for an Earthly king, a king who would lead the Jewish people out from the oppression of the Roman Empire. They were looking for a king who would establish a new kingdom of David, fighting the wars that needed to be fought and would lead the people into the glorious new Kingdom of Israel. They were looking for a great king who would become the next King David, conquering the enemies and uniting the people.

Was that the mission of Our Lord, to become an earthly king? No, it wasn’t. Our Lord did not come to Earth to find earthly honors and glory. He had all the honors and glory that he could ever want in heaven, and he willingly gave that up. He humbled himself and came to earth, becoming a human being just like any of us. St. Paul says it so eloquently in the second reading: “[He] did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming human likeness and found human in appearance.” (Phil. 2:6-7) In other words, He became one of us.

He lived a simple life here on earth. He preached, He taught, He led, He healed, He challenged, and in the end He died for our sins. He died in the most humiliating and painful way that the Roman Empire used: Crucifixion. Our Lord not only humbled himself to become human, but humbled himself again to be hoisted up on that Cross, to be treated like a common criminal. He was “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:8)

He died as a common criminal, but that’s also where Our Lord got his greatest honor. St. Paul tells us that “God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name.” (Phil. 2:9) When he was lifted up on the Cross and died there, his name became glorified to all the nations. To this day, Our Lord is known and praised throughout the world for the fact that he did die for our sins and that he is the Son of God. If he had been just an earthly king, his name would probably be just another footnote in the history books, just like the Caesars who ruled at the time that Our Lord lived.

Our Lord’s name is praised to the heavens because He humbled Himself and did the father’s will, even to His death. All of us are called to follow His example and be humbled to the father’s will. We are not called to seek earthly honors or submit ourselves to whatever the world tells us is the popular or relevant view. Instead, we are to find the Truth, as proclaimed by Our Lord Jesus Christ, and follow it. Sometimes the culture might agree, sometimes not. Either way, as Christians we are called to follow the Gospel proclaimed by Our Lord without compromise and without apology. May this celebration of Our Lord’s Passion give us the graces to follow His Gospel throughout our lives.

In the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews that we just heard, we are presented with one of the great ironies of Christianity. The letter states that “when [Our Lord] was made perfect, He because the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.” (Heb. 5:9) So when did Our Lord become perfect? He became perfect when He gave up His life on the Cross. He was glorified when He hung on the Cross, the most painful and humiliating form of punishment the Roman Empire ever used. He became perfect when he glorified the Father’s name through His sacrifice.

This is the great irony of Christianity. Those who are greatest in the Church are not those with the most money, the wealthiest in the Church. It’s not those with the most power in the Church. It’s not even those with the most authority in the Church. The greatest people in the Church, the ones we hold up as the examples to be followed, are the Saints, those men and women who humbled themselves and were willing to give of themselves for Christ. Those who are given as the highest examples for us to emulate, the martyrs, were willing to give up their lives for their faith in Christ. People who would use the Church as a vehicle for gaining power and authority are often quickly forgotten, brushed away as another unpleasant aspect in the Church’s history.

This reversal of importance within the Church causes no end of confusion to those who are firmly entrenched in the world. They can’t understand how Catholics can celebrate someone like Mother Teresa, who was very poor and humble. Someone might say, “Why is she so important? All she did was take care of a bunch of poor people. She didn’t do anything that mattered.” They can’t understand how we can respect and want to emulate someone like her, while refusing to listen to celebrities and politicians who have the power and prestige that the media grants them.

Those who are entrenched in the world can’t see why we would shun wealth, power, and authority to live a humble life. They can’t see that when we cling to this life to the exclusion of anything and anyone else, we lose in the long run. In fact, Our Lord tells us in our Gospel passage today who will have eternal life. “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” (Jn 12:25)

As Christians, we are not to use this life it’s own sake. We are not to hang on to our life in this world merely to get the most out of it, but we are to live the most out of this life for Christ’s sake, for the sake of the Kingdom. We are to live for ourselves to grow closer to Him and to bring others with us through our living out the Gospel.

Jesus tells us that “whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.” (Jn 12:26) As Christians, we are called to follow Our Lord’s example. Our Lord went around preaching the Gospel, lifting up those who were lowly, those who sick; who were poor and downtrodden; who were looked down upon by the culture. He lifted them up, and brought them to the Kingdom.

That’s what we’re called to do as Christians. We’re all called to follow that example, to humble ourselves and give of ourselves for the service of the Kingdom, to help spread the Good News of Christ throughout the world and to bring others to know and love Him. This Good News was given to us by Our Lord, and is why He died on the Cross. He tells us, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” (Jn 12:32)

Jesus suffered and died so that we might gain eternal life. May we live that message, and bring others into His Kingdom.

Throughout the history of the Old Testament, the Israelite nation kept falling into a regular pattern caused by sin. First, they fall into sin and ignore the warnings of the prophets sent by God to turn away from those sins. In the case we heard this morning, the people of Judah were falling away from the worship of God the Father and were instead turning towards the false gods of those tribes that surrounded them, including offering sacrifices to those false gods within the temple in Jerusalem. God regularly sent prophets to warn the people against worship of false gods, but the prophets were mocked or ignored, and the people continued their false worship.

Because the people were continuing their worship of false gods, punishment, the second stage of the cycle of sin, comes upon them. Judah is conquered by the Babylonians, who take many Jews into captivity and disperse them throughout the Babylonian Empire. Now, God’s promised people are no longer within the Promised Land, but are forced to live within a foreign nation.

Finally, after many years, this exile from the Promised Land leads the Jews to repent of their sins, the third stage in this cycle. They express sorrow for their sins and God forgives them, allowing them to return to the Promised Land once again and rebuild the temple which was destroyed by the Babylonians. They’re back in right relationship with God until the next cycle of sin starts up again.

While God permitted this cycle of sin to work within the people of Israel, it wasn’t His plan for His people. Instead, He wants all of humanity to be in union with Him throughout all eternity, and doesn’t want sin to get between us and Him, so He sent His Son to die for our sins. Sin leads to condemnation, but Our Lord’s death on the Cross put an end to the condemnation and opened the gates of Heaven to us. Just as the Israelites were healed from the poisonous bite of snakes by looking at the bronze serpent that Moses raised up in the desert, Our Lord’s death on the Cross heals us from the poisonous bite of sin in our lives. He broke the cycle that sin holds on our lives, and now we can receive the eternal life that has been promised to us.

St. Paul makes it clear that we do not receive this salvation because we’re “good people”, because we are sinful people in need of redemption. Salvation is not something that we can work towards as if it was a promotion or pay raise that we might receive at a job for working hard. Instead, St. Paul tells us “by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God”. (Eph. 2:8) In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, faith is defined as, “[belief] in God and [belief in] all that He has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because He is truth itself.” (CCC 1814) This faith is a gift from God, and we need to be open to that gift.

The Catechism continues by reminding us that faith apart from the other theological virtues, hope and charity, “does not fully unite the believer to Christ.” (CCC 1815) The salvation that God offers to us, the eternal life that we hope for, is not something that we’re entitled to, not something that is automatic. In order to receive this salvation, we must allow our faith in God to be an active faith and to allow it to show through in our lives. When we allow our faith to be united with the virtue of hope, desiring the kingdom of heaven and eternal life for happiness (CCC 1817), and the virtue of charity, loving God above all things for his sake and loving our neighbor as ourselves (CCC 1822), we will be united with Christ and be open to the gift of salvation.

We need to be careful, as St. Paul also reminds us that this salvation “is not from works, so no one may boast.” (Eph. 2:9) A common mistake made by both Catholics and non-Catholics alike is assuming that the Church teaches “working your way to Heaven.” This is not a part of Church teaching, and never has been. Instead, as I said earlier, the faith we have must be an active faith, that is a faith which shows itself through the good works that we perform, but those works must lead from our faith in God. We cannot do work to achieve salvation, as salvation comes through faith, but our faith must lead us to do good for others.

As we journey through life, we need to allow the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity to work in and through us. May we live these virtues and be drawn into the salvation Our Lord promises us.