Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Our Lord, in speaking this parable to us, has given us an analogy of the spiritual life.
For the house is our soul, and we are its masters, and so we must always be vigilant.
And today we offer a votive mass in honor of St. Pio of Pietrucina,
who was always vigilant, always severe with himself,
and so he understood very well the need to do penance.
And St. Pio has a great message in our day and age.
For we must all do penance, and indeed he understood full well, as all the saints do,
that the first words spoken by our Lord were,
Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand.
And that word, by its very nature, means,
we must do penance.
And St. Pio would do extraordinary penances in reparation for his sins and for the sins of the world.
And so we must follow the saints and imitate them.
For St. Pio would do extraordinary things, many of them miraculous,
but he would also be very violent with himself and all that he could mortify himself in.
And so he understood the value, but he understood the value because he understood why the Lord came.
The Lord came in order to give us.
He came to give us one thing in this life, that is, a remembrance of him.
He did not come to give us wealth in this world.
He did not come to give us happiness in this world.
He came to give us one thing and one thing only, and that was himself.
And so our Lord can be, in one sense, said to be poor with us,
for he came to give us one thing,
except the only difference is that the one thing he came to give,
his very self, is the richest of all things that the soul may possess.
And so St. Pio, with all the saints, would do great things.
St. Pio understood full well, even though he took extraordinary penances upon his own soul,
he understood well the principle in his spiritual life,
that one pleases God who does his best even in small things.
And so, if we can please our Lord in small things,
then it is more incumbent upon us to please him in large things.
And so, if we have been entrusted with great things,
we must exercise that entrustment with great things.
With great care, great vigilance, and great penance.
And so, in our nation, we have been entrusted with the most extraordinary gift,
that is, the gift to elect our leader.
And yet, how many will go forth blindly, without any prayer, without any penance,
in order to discern truly what the will of God for them is in this most august responsibility,
and just, without even thinking, cast their vote for someone who is contrary to the will of God,
someone who would bring about more slaughter of the innocents in our lives.
And indeed, a recent author has pointed out,
that if we really analyze the situation and the trouble that our nation is in right now,
and indeed, the trouble that seems to be afflicting the whole world in the economic sphere,
that is, the economy as it is truly understood, really has to do with the home.
Indeed, the mother of the home in ancient times was considered,
the economist, because she had rule over the kitchen.
And so, the very word itself has some notion to do with the family.
And so, if you destroy the family, then you destroy the economy.
And a recent author has pointed out in his book,
the primary purpose for the economic crisis in modern society,
the primary reason is the abortion of unborn babies.
It is the primary reason why the whole world now is under this tribulation.
And according to him,
we cannot expect any relief for at least a decade.
And so, it was sin that was behind the present crisis,
because man did not do penance and he did not pray.
And so, let us discern like St. Pio,
who though was a religious and prayed earnestly and did great penance,
was very careful to advise all who came to him in accord with the will of God.
And he would advise in all matters that he could what was God's will in the life of the soul.
And so,
let us strive through prayer and penance as we prepare to exercise that most august responsibility.
Let us strive to do so under prayer and penance so that we truly do the will of God.
And so, that our vote becomes very penitential,
because we do not vote according to our wayward passions,
but we vote according to the truths that we have received from Jesus Christ,
so that when we go,
we go to elect someone who will help re-establish the reign of Christ in our world.
St. Pio, in all the same words,
the saints understood so well that we can have no true society,
no true family,
unless Christ reigns over that society and over that family.
And so, let us strive by all we do to see Christ back again in society,
not just in our nation,
but in all nations,
so that we can truly bring about that peace which the human heart really desires,
that peace which is union with Christ,
and that is what our Lord came in order to give us.
He came to give us himself,
it is we who often choose contrary to what he has come to give us.
And so, we put our hope in our stocks in the things of this world.
We put our hope in our stocks in the economic experts.
There is only one true expert in economics,
and that is Christ, and indeed with him his most holy mother.
And so, let us turn to them so that they may order all things well in our society,
so that mankind can again begin to work out his salvation in fear and trembling.
Our Lord is very clear of the ramifications.
If we fail in big things, then there is no hope for us,
for we are deposited into that place where his love cannot penetrate.
But if we are truly ignorant through no fault of our own,
then our Lord will chastise us a little bit in this life,
and perhaps if we have not devoided ourselves of all our imperfections,
then we will be chastised for a little while in purgatory.
But purgatory and the doctrine of purgatory is one that proves the mercy,
the mercy of God, that when we are not prepared to receive the beatific vision,
he has prepared for us a place of purgation in which we are purified,
so that our soul is enabled to fulfill that capacity it has of attaining the beatific vision.
And so, let us strive by praying to the saints who were most noted for their penitential life,
but most especially they were noted because they understood so well
why it was that Christ came into this world,
and that they were unwilling to lose him at any cost.
And so, they would do everything in accord with the will of God, or at least try.
And if they failed, then they knew that the Lord would chastise them a little bit,
as he says in today's Gospel, not with great severity,
but severity according to the offense and the intention of the one who offended God.
And so, let us strive to see again the social reign of Christ the King over our society,
so that we can truly,
all understand what it really means when we say that we are a community of nations,
that we are a people united.
For we are never a people united, nor are we ever a community of nations,
unless that union is a union in which all souls are in some way striving to find union with Christ in this life,
and union with the Blessed Trinity for all eternity in the life to come.
And so, let us glory and marvel in the saints how they would do such marvelous things for the Lord,
but yet they would be so practical.
Saint Pierre would be found always, as it were, with a copy of Saint Francis de Sales' Love of God,
because he knew the Lord had raised him up in order to guide souls.
And so, he would use that as the principles in which he would guide souls.
So, while he was very penitential and extremely prayerful, he was always compassionate to all souls.
And so, let us strive to imitate his compassion, for if it's true compassion,
it is designed to draw the soul to Christ.
And so, let us always, as the saints understood, always have Christ in our minds,
always have Christ in our hearts, so that when we come across each other,
we may in some way and in some manner communicate him to others,
so that they, receiving him, will begin to work out their salvation in that fair and trembling spoken of by Saint Paul,
which is not a cowering, it is simply the august responsibility that we have,
as human beings, it is simply a recognition that we are creatures and God is our creator.
And so, as his creatures, we are beholden to him for all the good things we have,
and the only thing we can truly be said to be in our own possession is our sins.
And so, let us try to rid ourselves of our sins, so that we are filled with the love of Christ,
so that Christ may come again and truly guide us through this pilgrimage in this life,
so that we truly attain that union with him,
in the life to come.
And so, let us pray.