Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Today those disciples of St. John the Baptist and of the Pharisees,
who were jealous of Jesus, came in order to try to disrupt the Lord
and what he was doing in the formation of his disciples.
And so we see very clearly that it is really the Pharisees and the scribes who are behind this,
for they foment in the people and then they go and ask a question which our Lord answers very succinctly.
For our Lord did not come in order that a mere, a blindness conformity to the Lord is how we are saved,
but he teaches very clearly in today's gospel that our salvation is something
that comes to us by no merit upon our own.
And that's why he brings in this passage on the bridegroom and the wedding feast.
For on Calvary he will be betrothed to the church,
and from his side will flow the blood and water that purchased for us all the mysteries of our salvation,
most especially the sacraments.
And so entrance into the bridal chamber is not something that we merit on our own,
but our baptism is a free gift given to us, purchased by the sacraments,
and the sacrifice of Christ.
And so our Lord is not trying to diminish what the Pharisees and the scribes were doing in their observance of the law.
He was simply pointing out that they did it in order to draw attention to themselves.
Their fasts were something that they constantly talked about,
and indeed their confrontation with Christ this day proves it,
for they publicly tried to admonish the Lord by pointing out how they are better than him
because of the way they observed their fast.
But our Lord is pointing out that they are better than him because of the way they observed their fast.
But our Lord is pointing out that they are better than him because of the way they observed their fast.
Our Lord is pointing out that they are better than him because of the way they observed their fast.
that will be poured into the soul of the believer,
and so they will expand to greater heights than the chosen people of old.
For he points out very clearly in the analogy of the unshrunken cloth and the old cloth
that the new law far surpasses the old law
and that the age of grace far surpasses the age of observance to the law.
And so we learn of that mystery that our Lord desires obedience and not sacrifice,
not sacrifice in the sense that it is often misunderstood
and often used in the life of members of the church,
but most especially it is what is behind what was the Protestant revolution against the church,
that by the multiplication of our works, by the multiplication of our fast,
in a sense we produce our own grace, but that is not how grace is determined.
Grace is determined by the Lord,
and we only have to free ourselves to be at his disposal
to be filled with the fullness of his grace insofar as he,
to the height of holiness that he wishes to take us,
but we always must be like good soldiers in waiting,
waiting for the Lord by serving him and doing all that we can for him,
and if the Lord wishes to call us to greater things, to greater endeavors,
then he will call us, and when he calls us,
we can step forth in confidence and carry out the work,
but most especially we must carry out the menial works, the menial tasks,
that we are called upon to do each and every day of our lives,
most especially to struggle through our faults and failings,
always when we fall, to realize that we have access to God's forgiveness and God's mercy,
and especially in those little falls that each and every one of us
and all souls fall into many times during the course of the day.
Our Lord is not so much concerned with our little faults,
and indeed St. Alphonsus de Liguori points out that he often keeps them in,
in order that we have constant opportunities to humble ourselves,
for the more we realize that even the slightest progress,
even the slightest overcoming of the most minor of faults is the work of grace
and not the product of human effort,
it is then that we are constantly humbled because we constantly turn to the Lord
for the graces necessary to do even the smallest things,
and indeed we all know that in all our efforts, in all our works,
there is always grace.
There always seems to be something that comes into it that taints it.
The natural delight we may take in it, even though it is not in and of itself a sin,
yet it is still imperfect, and so those imperfections we must constantly struggle with
and always, as it were, having ourselves in the disposition that we want to overcome them
and that we are always turning to the Lord to receive the graces that he wishes to pour forth,
upon us, but most especially those graces he wishes to pour forth upon us
through the sacramental life of the Church,
that is the meaning of the wedding and the wedding guest,
for our Lord truly weds himself to the Church,
and he does so by that extreme sacrifice that the bridegroom would undergo for the sake of the bride,
and so our Lord has taken upon himself the bulk of the suffering that is necessary for our salvation.
Amen.
It is up to us to unite the little suffering we are asked to contribute
in regards to that mystery that St. Paul points out to us,
that he makes up what was lacking in the suffering of Christ in his own flesh,
and then we begin to understand the great dignity we have in being members of the mystical body,
in being born in the time of the new dispensation,
which far surpasses the old, both in the way of grace and in the efforts that the lovers,
of Christ, will carry out on his behalf.
And so, let us strive, especially in our day and age,
to seek to strive to do all things well in reparation for the sins of the modern world,
and most especially in reparation for that sin which ultimately rejects the kingship of Christ
and the queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
and hence necessarily brings despair and misery upon the human family and upon our culture.
So let us always strive.
Let us always strive to honor Christ the King and Mary, his mother, our Queen,
always turning to them for our needs, but most especially,
let us constantly commend the leaders of the world and the citizens of the world
to the good King and to the good Queen, who alone bring about our salvation
and who alone all human souls can find their happiness in.
Let us always have, at least on our hearts, if Prudence tells us we cannot declare it publicly,
but let us always have.
Let us always have, at least on our hearts, Christ the King, Mary, his Queen Mother,
but let us always remember that we cannot, when we are called upon to publicly witness
to our belief in Christ the King and Mary the Queen,
we cannot hide behind a false prudence by which we justify our not witnessing to that belief.
And so, let us strive always and everywhere in all that we do to witness to the love of the good King
and the love of the good Queen and their care.
For the human family and for human society and their desire to see all souls saved
and hence all souls incorporated into the new dispensation that is the new wines,
the new wines that are bursting in full with the grace of God
in order to show the world the love that they have for the Savior,
for all that the Bridegroom has done for us,
and most especially in gratitude for that ultimate sacrifice
by which all that we have,
all that we have,
all that we have,
we desire was purchased for us by the sacrifice of Christ, our good King.
© transcript Emily Beynon