What is most striking in today's Gospel is that the Pharisees and the scribes truly show
themselves to be hard of heart, for it is said at the end of the Gospel reading that
they realized the Lord was addressing them in the parable, and yet they went away and
then they sought to plot to find another way to arrest him and to put him to death.
And so we have a great lesson to learn in today's Gospel, for the Lord came and he spoke
to the chief priests, the Pharisees and the scribes in parables such as this one, not
in order to condemn them, but in order to bring them to their senses, for they, like
most men, had fallen into error.
They began to interpret things according to their own mind and their own heart, and so
they would seek happiness in this life, not the happiness that was held out to them from
the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve, that a Savior would come who would deliver
us from our sins and ultimately take us to that union for which we were all created,
that union with the blessed Trinity forever in heaven.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
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Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
And they would replace the happiness that can be found on this earth with the eternal
happiness for which the human soul was created.
And it is an important lesson for us to learn in our day.
For there have been many great nations in the history of mankind, many great nations
who have done good things, and yet their primary disposition was not to worship the one true
God, but ultimately was to worship themselves.
And so they have to keep criticizing each other.
Because if you don't stop worshiping the one true God, you're going to be much more
teacherable.
And so they have to keep optimizing their own knowledge and their own values, and so that
For a time they lauded it over others, that is, they received their reward in this life,
and then those nations would disappear.
History is pot-mocked with the corpses of great nations, Babylon, Egypt, Rome, Greece,
and one day will it be also the United States of America.
For if our primary disposition as a people is not to give God the glory and to return all things to him,
then we will be rewarded in this life.
And indeed, often sometimes God allows as the reward for a society to become affluent,
but ultimately affluence is one of the worst punishments that God can send to a nation.
For after a time in which it basks in its affluence, then it is destroyed by its vices,
and so too our nation is being destroyed by its vices.
And we have much to learn.
For St. Justin Martyrs,
would not, as it were, compromise the faith in face of the Roman persecutions.
He would rather die praising God than swinging incense to the government that had become depraved
and was asking him to renounce the very faith for which he knew he had received life.
And so we learn in our day and age, for it is interesting to note that during the Roman persecutions,
the primary crime with which the Christians were convicted,
was atheism.
That is, they did not believe in God or in the divine right of the state.
That the state somehow was the end of all humanity.
And yet, it is not the case.
For all leaders are given leadership over a nation for a time,
in order that they may lead them to their eternal destiny.
For all society is constructed according to the divine dispositions to lead mankind to society.
So strictly speaking, there is no such thing as,
an autonomous secular order.
That is, there is no such thing, strictly speaking,
as separation of church and state.
It is an error, an error that creeps into all societies.
And ultimately, what does it mean?
It means that this society has decided to separate itself from the God from whom it receives its life.
And so, let us learn from today's parable.
Let us learn that Christ came in order to give us life.
He came in order to lift us up,
from the depravity of our sin,
by which we often turn to the worship of the true God,
and begin to worship false gods,
who hold out false promises of an affluent society,
of a society that does not have any wants in earthly needs.
And that is contrary to the very doctrine of our faith,
most especially that doctrine known as original sin.
For it is not possible to forge a paradise in this earth,
because we are so corrupted,
by our inclination to evil and, indeed, the evil we do, which is called sin.
And so, let us turn to Him who has come to reign over us through the love of His sacred heart,
in order to establish that love in the world,
so that society can in some way reflect the beatitude that all souls are called into heaven.
For when society reflects that, man does not turn his mind and his heart from the true God,
but rather, he focuses on his eternal destiny,
and so, he understands that in this life, he must always have want.
It is true that when a society is fully Christian,
there is no, as it were, abject, what is called abject poverty,
or, as it was commonly referred to, as many of the saints, misery,
but there is always want,
but that want is usually in the toys that the world produces,
in order to assuage our guilty conscience,
that we are not giving to God the worship,
that He deserves from His creatures,
but rather, we are giving worship to other creatures,
and ultimately, to ourselves.
For to not worship the one true God,
is ultimately to declare that one wishes to be guided by His own lights,
and that was the error of the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders,
and all those who would follow Him.
And so, let us follow that light who came into the world,
and let us not be amongst those who Saint John tells us of,
that the light came into the world,
and the darkness grasped it not.
That is, man became too attached to their sin,
to even recognize that Jesus Christ did not come to destroy,
but that He came to build up.
That is, He came to give life,
life in the supernatural order,
so that we may receive that life that we were called to receive from all eternity.
That is, to behold our good God together in heaven,
by way of the beatific vision,
and so, in this life,
we must never put our stock for hope in the things that this world provides,
but we must always and everywhere reflect
that we were not created to find that happiness in this world.
We were created for a much greater happiness
than all the fleeting pleasures of this world,
even those that are not sinfully exercised by mankind.
But yet, they are nonetheless fleeting pleasures.
They are only foretaste,
when they are done in accord,
to the will of God,
of the beatitude that the soul will receive at the end of his life.
And so, let us strive always like the saints,
like Saint Justin Martyr,
to put the rights of God before the rights of man.
For a man's right is no true right,
if it is contrary to the rights of God,
and hence, the will of God.
But let us always put God's rights first.
Let us always defend the rights of the good Lord,
not because God,
strictly speaking,
needs us to defend him,
but that in a mystery of our faith,
he has established his kingdom,
the Holy Roman Catholic Church,
in such a way that the members of that mystical body
are to defend their Lord and Savior,
and ultimately,
they are to defend him by the quest for holiness.
They are to seek the holiness that Christ came to give,
and not the false holiness that the world holds out,
that is, the establishment of somehow,
of a paradise on earth,
a utopia in this life.
We cannot find it in this life,
for it is not here to be found.
Has not our Lord ascended into heaven,
and did not the Blessed Virgin Mary,
was she not also assumed into heaven?
And so, if subjects are to be happy,
they can only be happy
when they are at the feet of their good king
and their good queen for all eternity.
And our good king is not found in this life,
not found in the thrones,
of any nation.
Our good queen is not found in the thrones of any nation,
for they have gone to the kingdom
that Christ came to establish for all eternity,
that kingdom which alone,
the human soul can find its happiness.
And so, let us strive for that kingdom,
knowing that we, in order to attain it,
we must sacrifice in this life.
But the more we sacrifice in this life,
the more we will receive in the life to come,
and the more we will praise our good God,
for all eternity.
And so, let us strive for that kingdom,
knowing that we, in order to attain it,
we must sacrifice in this life,
for all eternity.