Today's Gospel from St. John is very important in the life of the mystical body,
especially in regards to our understanding that we are members of the church militant.
And so St. John begins by first telling us that it was Peter who wished to go fishing
because the Lord had formally said that he would become a fisher of men.
And so, as vicar of Christ, he would initiate in many times and in many eras
the apostolate of Holy Mother Church, that is, directing the faithful
according to the times and places in which they live, as how to best live out their Catholic faith.
But St. John, before he gets into the threefold affirmation of faith by St. Peter,
first wants to establish in the minds and hearts of all the members of the mystical body
a truth that is so important that if it is forgotten,
then we are left adrift in a violent sea of this world, cast asunder and dashed on the rocks.
For when the Lord commands that the apostles cast their net to the right side,
the net is bursting at the seams.
It has 153 fish and it can barely hold them.
But what is significant is that their net remains integral.
And so the integrity of the net signifies the unity and integrity of the one true church,
which cannot be rent asunder by schisms or heresies or scandals from within,
nor persecutions, violent or otherwise, from without.
And this we must fully understand, because if we do not have that hope and confidence
in the integrity of the church, then we are merely making an act of human faith.
And as soon as we see human beings failing, then we will slowly but surely,
and sometimes very quickly, leave Holy Mother Church in order to pursue those pleasures of the world,
which are not pleasing to the Lord, nor to the whole hierarchy of heaven.
And so our Lord, before his imminent ascension into heaven,
will now appoint St. Peter as his vicar upon earth.
He is made this day the chief pontiff of Holy Mother Church,
so that he may rule and shepherd the faithful.
And that is key for our understanding.
For the Holy Father does not rule as one amongst many,
but he rules in the very place of Jesus Christ.
And so the divine hierarchy is maintained in St. Peter.
There is one shepherd, and all shepherds are shepherds,
insofar as they are united to the one true shepherd.
And that is precisely why heresy and schism cannot rent asunder the mystical body of Christ,
because once people have chosen to follow that path,
they have separated themselves from the one true,
one true church.
And so her integrity is never, never compromised in any way.
And so when our Lord will entrust those keys to the,
those keys of the kingdom to St. Peter,
he does so by gaining from him a threefold manifestation of his faith.
And indeed, he does this in order that we may all come to know
that it is no longer pride nor sensuality that binds Peter to the Lord,
but it is love.
For if it is pride and sensuality, then it is most likely,
on the third request, Peter in some way would have manifested
that which he had manifested before,
rather than the crestfallen attitude he takes this day.
And as St. John Christendom will tell us,
as we will see later, shows us precisely why St. Peter felt this way
on the third request of the Lord for a profession of love from St. Peter.
But first,
he asked him,
lovest thou me?
Because his office as universal pastor demands the greatest love of Christ
and of the faithful.
And so he must have that singular love of Christ above all things.
And then he must love us as his,
must love us as his neighbor for Christ's sake.
And so,
and so our Lord will be asked a second time.
And St. John Christendom tells us of this,
that again,
he dreads the former things,
lest perchance thinking himself to love,
he should be,
he should be connect,
he should be corrected if he did not love,
like as before he was corrected for thinking himself strong,
and therefore he takes refuge in Christ himself.
And so St. Peter no longer boasts about his own gifts,
for he has come to realize that they mean nothing
unless they are directed by Christ.
And indeed that is why he caught the fish for when he followed the directions of the Lord,
the net was full.
And so the Lord will ask St. Peter a third time,
Peter,
lovest thou me?
In order that the triple denial of St. Peter is reversed.
And here he declares for the third time,
the single love that he has for Jesus Christ,
that love that he has for the Lord above all things.
And that is precisely,
why we place our faith, hope, and charity
in the divine hierarchy and the vicar ship of St. Peter,
for it is not the man who guides,
but Christ truly guiding the man.
And so we truly have great confidence,
but we may ask,
why has the Lord done it in such a way?
It seems in the end to be something very simple,
and yet it is very difficult for us to accept.
And that is precisely,
why the Lord has established one man to lead his church,
so that we do not go about seeking novelty,
for we have a tendency under the effects of original sin,
to seek the winds of doctrine here and there,
that which appeals either to our pride or to our sensuality,
for pride has two subspecies,
which we know to be envy and anger.
Lust also has its subspecies,
gluttony and sloth,
and avarice,
and avarice is that buckle that seems to bind the two together,
by which we travel from one to the other.
And so in the threefold profession of faith,
the threefold profession of St. Peter's love,
he is establishing a fact,
that he is no longer guided by pride and sensuality,
and the third time he recognizes
that he will struggle against these two vices,
but that struggle will now be done
under the auspices of Jesus Christ.
And so we can truly follow this man,
whom Christ has established as leader of the church.
And so St. Peter would lead the mystical body of Christ to victory.
It would find its first victory around the year 400,
in which an emperor,
a holy Roman emperor would be established.
It would decline and it would rise again,
and always the theme is the same.
It rises,
under the guidance of St. Peter.
But there is a mystery here,
for it seems at her greatest heights,
she seems to fall always and everywhere.
And it is not the fault of St. Peter,
for St. Peter has established,
from the first pope until the last pope,
always warning us what St. Peter warned us about.
If you study the encyclicals and the writings of the popes,
when they speak as Peter,
you will see that ultimately,
they are merely commenting on those words of the Lord.
Beware of your opponent,
the devil,
for he roams about like a roaring lion,
seeking someone to devour.
But if we study St. Peter's letter,
we study another mystery.
He does not say that the devil is always roaring,
but that he is like a roaring lion,
seeking someone to devour.
And so the devil,
the lion is most quiet when he is about to pounce,
on his prey,
and then he bursts forward
and cries out that blood-curdling roar,
by which the prey is frozen in the spot
and becomes victim to his jaws.
And so,
St. Peter is telling us
that we must always be vigilant
because we are the church militant,
and that must again be understood
by the members of the mystical body.
We are soldiers in a war,
and that war is,
the very survival of the human race,
and the salvation of souls.
And so,
the greatest corruption in the members of the mystical body,
comes in her apparent victory,
because the worst of all dangers,
always comes with victory.
Always and everywhere,
when that sense of triumphalism comes in,
it does not bring a great flourishing
within the mystical body of Christ.
It brings in degradation,
because the sense of militancy
should always be present
in the members of the mystical body,
because as St. Paul will tell us,
we do not battle against the powers
and the principalities of this world,
but of the world unseen,
that is, of the devil and his minions.
And so, we can never relax,
for that is precisely
what St. Peter and his successors have told us.
Be vigilant, St. Peter starts,
for your opponent, the devil, roams about.
And so, the life of a Catholic,
as the Holy Fathers have been teaching us
from the first vicar,
the life of a Catholic is at its core,
always and everywhere, a hard life.
It is a life in which suffering is not only necessary,
but is essential,
or it is not the Catholic life.
The Catholic life is on the wrong path,
if it is not on the difficult path,
and that is a reality.
It is a reality that we must all come to grips with,
because it is our mission and our life
to do for Christ what he has done for us,
and so, we can never relax,
because the Lord never relaxed.
In our complacency, all things come in
that are un-God-like and hence un-Christ-like.
And so, with victory comes relaxation,
lack of diligence,
and the unleashing of pride and sensuality,
that lead men to the wide road
of satanic revolutionary thinking,
and that is what we must understand.
For the mantra of the modern world is peace, peace.
All we are saying is give peace a chance.
But it is an empty peace,
because it is not the peace rooted
on the unity of the Church.
That is very simple.
There is one holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.
There is only one truth,
and there are not many paths to God.
There is only the one path
that he has established by his sacrifice on Calvary.
And so, we have fallen in
to a compromise with this mantra of peace, peace.
Peace at what price?
When have we had peace?
Since the vicar of Christ,
because we are not called to live by that mentality.
We are called to live by the mentality of a soldier.
And so, in the medieval times,
when Christendom was triumphed
over the Mohammedan invaders,
what was the one thing
that differentiated the Christian soldiers
from the Mohammedan soldiers?
Yes, they sinned,
but for the most part, they repented.
It was that sense of chivalry,
not the latter sense,
in which chivalry became the noble pursuit
of the most beautiful damsel in the court.
That is not what chivalry was based on.
Chivalry was based on a sacrifice
that a man made by leaving his wife,
his children, and his nation
without any food or without any clothing
other than that which he had on his back.
And he went off through some of the most God-forsaken areas.
One of the areas that those soldiers had to pass
had nothing growing in it to eat.
They had to scrape for everything,
and they did so out of love,
out of true chivalry,
for they knew that they were defending
the honor of Christ and His Most Holy Mother,
and so they were willing to sacrifice.
And when the victory came,
the relaxation came in,
and then chivalry became
that romantic notion that we see
that has nothing to do with the Christian sense
of what is at stake.
That noble pursuit of defending the nation
that is the kingdom of God
from all adversaries.
We have this mentality
because it was given to us
as the devil slowly weeded in.
With the victory came the complacency.
The castle no longer became the bastion
by which the soldiers took refuge
and then went out to conquer the world.
Now the world would come in.
It first began
through minstrels and court jesters,
always introducing slowly and surely
those perversions that would unleash
that sensuality that would bring down
that Christendom.
And we must understand this
if we are to understand this nature of vigilance.
For the reign of Mary does not come
through the price of compromise.
It comes through always remaining vigilant
as she always remained vigilant.
How can this be since I know not man?
In other words, give me one answer
or depart from me.
For if that was not an angel of God
and if he suggested in any way,
well Mary, sit down, let's discuss this,
she would have kicked him out of that room
in an instant.
For she knew there was only one answer.
And any attempt to fudge or fiddle
or to set up the answer
would have told Our Lady immediately
to dismiss that angel
for it was merely one disguising himself
as an angel of light.
But when Saint Gabriel answered
by the power of the Holy Spirit,
then it was done.
And the Savior was to come in the world,
be it done unto me according to thy word.
And so the king, that is,
the leader of the army,
would come into the world.
And he came, as he said,
not to establish peace on human principles,
because he said regarding that,
I have come to set the world on fire,
to turn mother against child
and child against mother.
That is, in the pursuit of truth.
That is, if our loved ones
do not live according to the principles of Christ,
we love them not
if we tell them
that it's okay.
And we have entered into the enemy's court.
And we have allowed him
to come into the mystical body
to establish that false peace.
When the last war
in which there was a Catholic side
was fought in this world,
it was done at a great price.
And unfortunately,
the Christian forces lost World War I.
But they had that same sense
of true chivalry and true nobility.
For they would not abandon their trenches
even as the water rotted
the lower extremities of their flesh.
And they would lay dying in there
from the gangrene that would come.
But they would not abandon their post.
They would refuse
to leave the trenches.
Because it was a horrible war.
In which buckets of blood were shed
for mere inches of land.
But the Christian forces understood something.
It was not land
that was at stake here.
It was the very way
society would go.
And they lost that war.
And society went.
And revolutionary thinking came.
And revolutionary thinking
is always satanic thinking
because it is not the thinking of Christ.
And so, let us truly understand
that the peace the Lord speaks of
when he says, Peace be with you,
is that peace rooted in vigilance,
rooted in the sense
of what the vicars of Christ
have been trying to tell the mystical body,
especially in our time.
That as Catholics,
we are not pacifists
because,
as Pope Leo XIII said,
we are born for combat.
We are not to live the life of comfort,
but of vigilance,
the life of a soldier on guard.
Always ready
to take on the opponent
when he manifests themselves.
Always ready to expose him in the bush,
just as in his silence
he is about to prey
on the members of the mystical body.
And then the hand of Christ,
reaches out,
and as some of the saints describe,
for those squeamish Catholics,
grabs him by the necks
and rips the jaw off of his head.
That is Christ's attitude towards Satan
and it must be ours.
Because it is time
to truly realize
that we have cooperated
in the destruction
and in the corruption of our children.
By allowing them
to begin that life of pride
or sensuality.
By allowing technology
not to be used prudently
because the Christian must always use his mind
before he uses something.
No.
But to allow them just to use it
because it's there.
And so when mom and dad need help around the home,
they usually have to deal with some child
going like this,
not even hearing their commands.
Not even hearing the word of God.
Because we think
that we can give to children
responsibilities
that even we as adults
wouldn't reach.
Or as
one former disciple of Adolf Hitler said,
beware of Satan
when he walks with his hands on your shoulder,
that is,
as your friend.
Hitler, he said,
used technology
to mesmerize a nation.
Satan mesmerizes,
Christ does not.
Because to mesmerize
is to deceive
and to in some way
try to deprive someone
of their free will.
Christ is always there.
Open.
Offering.
He doesn't hide.
He doesn't mesmerize.
He always beckons
by his love.
And that is what the Vicar of Christ
has been telling us.
Especially in our day,
in our age.
And so,
if we wish to seek
the triumph of the Immaculate Heart,
let us not seek it in compromise,
in false senses of peace.
There is no way,
there is no possibility
of the world
getting along with Christ.
It is not possible
because they are at odds
with each other.
Because the world
has a closed metaphysical vision
in which happiness is to be found
here and here alone.
Christ has a much more noble vision
for the human heart and soul.
A vision that ends
when he feeds us
for all eternity,
on the shores of eternity.
That is precisely why
St. John takes pains to point out,
for the ship was not far
from the shore.
Because in the life
of the mystical body,
we do not live by chronology.
We live with that firm belief
that the bark of Peter
is always right
on the shores of eternity.
And all we have to do
is persevere in that faith
in the time that we have been appointed.
And then like Peter,
we too,
will jump out of the ship
onto the shores
and be fed
with that beatific vision
which alone
can bring the peace
and the happiness
that God created
the human soul for.
And there is no other way.
And that, unfortunately,
for all of us
who are tempted to novelty
and to seek those doctrines
that tickle our ears,
is the fact.
It's the fact
whether we struggle with pride
and envy and anger,
whether we struggle with lust
and gluttony and sloth
and avarice,
we all have the same tendency.
And there is only one answer
because Christ established it that way.
And that is the final justification
for why one man
leads the bark of our Lord.
Because the Lord said so.
Precisely so that we
can have an opportunity
not to pursue sentimentality
but sanctity.
To put faith
in that one man
because Christ entrusted him.
So that we are constantly
sacrificing that tendency to novelty.
Constantly.
Day in and day out.
I cannot find Christ
outside of the bark of Peter
because he is not there to be found.
And I cannot open the doors
of the castle of my soul
to every whim and doctrine
of satanic revolutionary thinking
because Christ will leave.
But that is not to mean
we have a siege mentality.
For we strengthen our soul
by his grace
in order precisely to go out.
To do what he did.
To grab the lion by his throat
and to rip his jaw.
That is,
so he can no longer speak
to our culture
and to our society
with the siren song of his filth.
Because Christ has become all to us.
And that is precisely why
every vicar of Christ
from Saint Peter
to the present Benedict XVI
when speaking as Peter
has ripped the jaws off of Satan
so that he can no longer speak to us
unless we do not listen to Peter.
It is so simple
and that is why it is so profound.
And if we truly approach the mystery
in humility
then we understand
that God has given to the mystical body
all types of persons
and each one
can become as holy
as the greatest saint
after Our Lady and Saint Joseph
who presently
populate heaven.
If they simply allow
the integrity
the unity
of the Catholic faith
to be their all.
Because this day
Saint Peter
is the one
who will be
the one
who will be
the one
who will be
the one
who will be
the one
who will be
the one
who will be
the one
who will be
the one
who will be
the one
who will be
the one
who will be
the one
who shall be
the one
who shall be
the one
who shall be
the one
who is
the Holy Spirit
and the Firstborn
who will be
He understood something.
And that is why when the Pope, particularly when he acts as Peter,
is acting as the mother of God,
because that's what she did, gave Christ, not herself.
And so let us strive through our struggles,
through our faults, and through our failings to understand
we are always to remain vigilant.
We are always to live a hard life.
A life of toil, a life of prayer,
a life of labor, a life of dying for Christ,
always and everywhere.
For as every soldier knows,
the greatest victory is the victory gained
when the odds were impossible.
And so, humanly speaking,
the odds are stacked up against us.
It is impossible.
The Lord himself says we are not straight lines.
But the Lord has also said he can write straight lines with crooked pens.
And that is what we are.
And so if we simply, humbly accept our brokenness,
give ourselves to the Lord as St. Peter gave him this day,
then despite all our struggles, all our faults and failings,
all our bad tendencies,
the Lord will do something marvelous.
What?
With us.
Or it is more properly to say, for us,
because he will be doing things in us.
And so it can be truly said,
it is not us doing the apostolic mission of the church.
It is Christ and his mother, always and everywhere.
And let us understand that.
The next time we pick up the paper
and read of a priest,
fallen from the dignity
to the perversions of the world,
or a child taking its life
because it has no hope,
because it has been told by revolutionary thinking,
it is the product of an ape.
How can you expect children to have hope
when they think their genetic makeup
comes from a brute?
That genetic makeup,
that genetic makeup,
comes from God,
who alone brought them into existence out of nothing.
He didn't need pre-existing matter.
He doesn't need anything.
But he seems to want our love.
Let us give it to him as he has established it,
not as we wish to take it.
We have a society
that St. Augustine believed
to be impossible to take.
It is impossible.
Because he didn't think
even the child deprived of discipline
would go so far
as to desire the death
and cooperate
in the murder of their own parents.
And yet,
it has become commonplace
as sons and daughters
clamor to pull the plug
rather than let the death of their own children
do it.
And that's the reality.
And we must understand as Christians,
we are neither pessimists or optimists.
We are realists.
And a realist recognizes
that what we have now
is the worst condition
in the history of the human race
since the fall of Adam and Eve.
And there is no human hope.
Hope what-so-ever
to change it.
None.
That's just pantheism.
And that is when
the mystical body gets going the strongest
because when there is no human hope,
there is always divine hope
because there is always
the mystical body of Christ
and her shepherd.
For when the spirit of God
has been chosen
with its power to come and teach The Word
then the story of the Color doesn't end there.
through more attitude
and in that thinking
that was established
in the world
before mankind.
She also makes
the spiritual life
steady
and soluble
in any
moment.
We should be
Thank you.