May it be Jesus and Mary.
In our spiritual life, it's a little beautiful book, and we're given a little bit of a chapter
of it in the Office of Readings today, which I wanted to share with you, because it can
easily be tied into the Gospel of today, and very many other things as well, but we won't
have time for all the points that can be talked about.
From the imitation of Christ, and I might comment as we go through this, as I usually
do when I'm doing homilies this way, our Lord is speaking, as it were, from our Lord, says,
My son, says the Lord, listen to my words, the most delightful of all words.
Surpassing all the knowledge of the philosophers and wise men of this world.
My words are spirit and life, and cannot be comprehended by human senses alone.
They are not to be interpreted according to the vain pleasures of the listener.
They must be listened to in silence, and received with all humility and great affection.
Take time as we ponder on the sacred scriptures.
This is one good reason I promote myself.
You know, if we don't have time, say, to read.
You know, scriptures every day, which is something that's good to do, but I merely
understand sometimes some people aren't able to spend 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes just reading
the Bible, taking some time to read on it.
It's even good to spend some time being industrious, trying to get a hold of good Bible commentaries.
You've got to make sure they're good ones, because there are bad Bible commentaries out
there.
So, you know, but to get a good commentary that can help us understand it, or we can
even be adventurous with them and go from, say, the...
The Bible and the Catechism, because many of the verses are commented on, if you want
to put it that way, in the Catechism, so we can see how the Catechism of the Catholic
Church makes use of the passages in Scripture, and that can lead you into all kinds of meditations
when you start taking the sacred text into the Catechism.
You can end up running it all over the place and flipping if you know how to use those
numbers on the side and everything that are found in the Catechism.
So we go on.
So anyway, a little bit of time reflecting on it.
And if you can't read the Scriptures every day, at the very bare minimum, just spend
some time reading the Missal, so that when we come to Mass, we at least understand, spend
some of our own time reading over the daily readings.
This is God's Word for us today, and it may have a practical application in today, for
today.
It's as we're our Heavenly Father giving us His Word today.
And we know that our Lord does remind us that it's not by bread alone that we're to live,
but also by every word.
Which proceeds from the mouth of God.
And so this is why we need to hear God's Word and reflect upon it.
And he goes on.
He says,
And I say,
This is when we find the cross a burden.
We realize that the Lord is supporting and sustaining us, even though we may carry a
cross, and it may be particularly heavy at times.
In our life, in fact, even almost we might say, as some people will do at one point or
another, we'll say, I can't bear this.
This is too much.
And yet we have to believe what God has said.
It's not too much.
He doesn't give us more than we can carry, but we do have to pray to carry the cross
He gives us sometimes.
It's a good practice to do it all the time.
Not to think, well, I can shoulder this one by myself.
I don't need God's help for this one.
Well, maybe you're not really carrying it as well as you could have, because you're
a little bit proud in the way you carry it.
You're lacking one of the essential ingredients.
You know, as we talked about yesterday, in carrying the cross, we have to be humble.
We can't just expect to be able to do it myself.
I do need to do my part, but I also need to turn to the Lord and ask for His help, ask
for His light, ask for His wisdom.
At any rate, the Lord goes on and says,
The Lord says,
I have instructed my prophets from the beginning, even to the present time.
I have not stopped speaking to all men, but many are deaf.
And I have not stopped speaking to all men, but many are deaf.
I am obstinate in response.
I like St. John of Vienna.
His people used to chime in and say,
Why is it when you're preaching, you yell at us, but when you're praying to God, we
can barely hear what you're saying, because you talk so soft?
He said,
Well, I talk soft when I'm praying to God, because God's not deaf.
He hears what I say.
But you do seem to be deaf, and you don't hear very well.
At any rate, parents often say that about their children, so we understand when God
talks to His children.
All of us here present, and probably many others besides, sometimes we are those children
who are deaf, and what the Lord has to say may be falling upon deaf ears.
We're not responding to what He's saying, and we're accountable for this, and He's going
to go on to this.
He says,
Many hear the world more easily than they hear God.
They follow the desires of the flesh more readily than the pleasure of God.
The world promises rewards that are temporal and insufferable.
And these are pursued with great longing.
I promise rewards that are eternal and unsurpassable.
Yet the hearts of mortals respond sluggishly.
Who serves and obeys me in all matters with as much care as the world and its princes
are served?
Blush, then, you lazy, complaining servants.
Pause deliberately for effect.
For men are better prepared.
They are better prepared for the works of death than you are for the works of life.
They take more joy in vanity than you in truth.
This is something we all have.
This is our litmus test.
As we go through living our lives, one of the ways we can examine ourselves is how well
we serve the Lord.
When it comes to something that we really are gun-whole for, children can often do this
when you're going to the park.
You're going to the park.
How prompt the obedience to get in the car when it's called.
Come on, get in the car.
Everyone's like, can't get in the car fast enough.
We're going to do something we want to do.
Boy, it's done with great vigor and zeal.
Where is that when it's like, come on, let's go to church.
I've got to do that.
I've got to do that.
I've got to do this.
I've got to do that.
Everything and all kinds of host of excuses.
Why and how come?
Or it's time to pray.
It's, oh, again, oh, it's an agony.
But if it's something that we want to do, there's the litmus test.
Something we want, do we want to be with our Heavenly Father?
There is a time we get some pleasure, some idea of heaven from the joys of this life.
That gives us some inkling of the joys of heaven.
And this is part of what he's discussing in here.
The joys of heaven are everlasting.
It's a party you're going to go to where there's no end.
We all like parties, right?
We always like, we like having fun.
Well, in heaven, it's a happiness which will never be taken away from you.
The fun that we have at any kind of a party, one of the things that makes a party sorrowful
is that you know when you go, it's got to come to an end.
At some point, you've got to go home.
Parties in this life, anything that's joyful, pleasant, enjoyable,
even the thing.
Even the crosses and the sufferings in this life, they're not everlasting.
They can be the start of what's everlasting.
We don't like to accept the cross in our life.
Well, if you don't accept the cross in this life, you're taking on a cross
which is going to be everlasting.
Because we do have to carry the cross.
It's either we carry it now, as I've talked about, the two crowns.
We've got two crowns to pick from.
Either we pick the crown of suffering now, the crown of thorns now,
and God reserves.
This is the crown of glory for hereafter.
Or we choose the crown of glory now,
and God has to reserve the other crown forever, you know, for eternity.
It's the crown of suffering.
But you have to pick one of these two crowns during this time,
and the other one is reserved for eternity.
So we go on.
They are often deceived by their hope.
Now, this is of those who are pursuing their worldly goals, worldly pleasures.
Well, my promise is deceived.
No one, and leaves empty-handed no one who confides in me.
What I have promised, I shall give.
What I have said, I will fulfill for any man who remains faithful
and my love until the very end.
I am the rewarder of all good men, the one who rigorously tests the devoted.
Write my words in your heart and study them diligently,
for they will be absolutely necessary in the time of temptation.
Whatever you fail to do, you will fail to do.
Whatever you fail to understand in reading my words
will become clear to you on the day of your visitation.
The Holy Spirit is given to us to be a reminder.
How can the Holy Spirit remind us of what he's told us in Holy Scripture
if we never spend time reading it?
Then in that time of trial, the Holy Spirit can't remind us
because we never read it.
We don't know anything about it.
But if we have read it, he will remind us, and it will come to us.
A beautiful example of this, if you've never read it,
under the shadow of my wing, printed by Ignatius Press,
the young seminarian at one point finds himself in a place
where he felt he was dead.
And all of a sudden, from his days of being in the office,
and that's where the whole book takes its title from,
it talks about being under the shadow of his wings.
And that whole psalm verse comes when he felt totally abandoned.
He said, he just kind of like lifted,
opened him up and gave him the courage that kept going on.
He felt paralyzed.
And then he turned to God and asked God for help.
And all of a sudden, that whole prayer from night prayer,
it's a short little prayer.
I will cover you with the shadow of my wings.
I shall shelter and protect you.
No one shall touch you.
Bombs going off everywhere.
He's being shot at from above.
He's in a low spot, and people can see him.
If he moves, he's totally petrified.
And from that psalm, God gives him strength
to creep, to crawl, to safety.
And the safety he gets.
We too need to have this faith.
This is our faith.
This is the strength that we receive from the Holy Spirit.
And we go on.
I am accustomed to visit my elect in a double fashion,
that is, with temptation and with consolation.
And I read to them two lessons each day.
One to rebuke them for their faults,
this is what Fr. John Joseph does
when he's talking about vice and virtue.
And it corrects everybody, including the speaker.
The speaker's not perfect in virtue.
He's striving too.
So you need to pray that I practice
and put into practice what I'm preaching.
I don't like to cover up if I know I've got a fault.
Well, if it's a fault, then you can pray for me.
At least he's got the courage to preach
about his own faults too.
So we know that he's working on it too.
I'm not the Immaculate Conception either.
I'm trying to get there.
I'm praying for that grace to become immaculate.
I do pray for that.
But so far, I haven't reached that yet.
So you can pray for me.
And the exhortation to practice the virtue,
which is contrary to our faults.
That's the best way to strive to overcome ourselves.
He who possesses my words, yet spurns them,
earns his own judgment on the last day.
Our Lord has come to us who are poor in virtue.
And this is one of the things we get
out of the theme for today's gospel.
He's come to bring glad tidings to the poor.
And we can accentuate what we mean by poor
because we can be not only material poor,
but we can also be spiritually poor,
lacking in all the virtues and graces that we need
to live a holy life.
And he sent our Lord to proclaim liberty to captives,
those bound in sin and their failings.
The recovery of the sight, the light of faith,
to know the truth and to follow after that truth.
To set us free so that we might be able to walk
in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ
and to carry his cross after him,
as he calls all men to do.
Whether it do truly well be physical, temporal sufferings,
or if it's sometimes those spiritual sufferings
which he sends for the sanctification of his just.
May he give us the courage and light
through his word, to be able to walk in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through his word, to take up our cross,
to turn to him in our need, to do our part,
and yet depend on him for the graces we need
to carry faithfully our cross in his footsteps.
May it be Jesus and Mary.
Amen.