Our Lord in today's Gospel uses several examples and ultimately to tell the one story,
that is, that ultimately he is the judge of all, that is, of all times, of all places, of all cities, and all events.
And so, we must always trust in the Lord that he will grant to us the grace to persevere,
particularly with the wife of Lot. This was particularly her fault.
She did not trust in the providence of God, and then, in seeing the fire and brimstone becoming forgetful of God,
she looked back to the city, both to see if she could return,
and receive its protection, or with a sort of longing for leaving the pleasures that she enjoyed in that city.
But always and everywhere, the Lord tells us one message,
that we must strive to do his will at all times and all places,
for we know not when he comes, as he says,
some will be grinding, some will be asleep in the night,
and yet, there will come that day of the Son of Man,
when the Lord will come again in his glory to judge the living and the dead,
and no one will escape his just judgment.
And so, we must always have complete confidence in the providence of God,
that trusting in the Lord, he will finish the good work that he has begun in us in baptism,
strives to strengthen through all the worthy receptions of the sacramental life,
and ultimately will bring us to that conclusion in our lives,
where persevering,
in the grace of God,
we will join all the angels and saints,
and receive that reward for which the Lord wishes us all to receive.
And indeed, in our day and age,
we act much, much like the time of Noah,
much like the wife of Lot,
and all those other examples.
That is, we seem to go about never thinking of God,
never striving to wonder whether our selling, our planting, our building, our buying,
and all the such are done either to build up a kingdom contrary to that of God's,
or in cooperation with the building up of the kingdom of God.
And so, we must always strive to seek the will of God in our lives
so that all we do is done not to glorify Man,
but to glorify the God from whom Man has received his existence
and to who he is called to return.
And so, let us not imitate the wife of Lot and the others,
and to the wife of Lot and the others, but let us always
always like Noah, trust in the providence of God, that he is faithful to his word, and no matter
what, even in the case of Noah, who was roundly and thoroughly mocked for building an ark, and yet
he knew it was the Lord's will, and that the Lord had said a flood would come and flood the whole
earth, and so he did not give concern to human respect or what the people were saying. He merely
sought to carry out God's will, and ultimately the rains came, and the flood came, and it was only to
Noah, who did the will of God, that him and his family were saved, and so we too must always and
everywhere recall that we are members of the family of God, and that we too will be saved if
we strive to do what the Lord requires of us, always and everywhere with a good and upright
intention, seeking to do all things to please the Lord, and when we have
found that we have not pleased him, repenting either of our sin, our fault, our failing, using it
in a certain sense as a form of humility, so that we may always
remain on the straight and narrow road, the road that leads to the royal kingdom that the Lord
wishes to give all. There is an open challenge in our day, in our age, to the providence of God.
We are told to deny it, and indeed there are many about, even in this age,
I
have come to understand that there is presently a campaign going in which all of the media is
being used in order to promote a form of humanism, and it contrasts this humanism using many of the
modern leaders, it contrasts humanism to belief in a God, that is, humanism is based on science,
belief in God is based on nothing. Ultimately, this campaign is not merely bad, it is sacrilegious
and it is blasphemous, and it seems to imitate quite precisely what the Lord describes in today's
gospel, eating, drinking, and being married, giving in, marrying and giving into marriage, and all the
other things described in today's gospel, giving no thought to God, and ultimately to that day in
which he will come in order to judge all of us according to what we have done in this life, that
is, have we, have we recalled our good God? Have we, have we, have we, have we, have we, have we
recalled our good God and striven, and striven to show him how sorry we are and repentful we are
for our sins, and then receiving from him the graces to persevere, have we striven to work out
our salvation in fear and trembling? There seems to be no fear of God in the modern world, and so
we must pray constantly that the modern world again acquires that fear of God, not a cowering
fear that is afraid of God, but a fear of God that recognizes,
that without him in his creative act, we truly are nothing, for we would have no existence unless
God has given us that existence, and so let us strive in our own lives, and let us pray for the
world that they may come to see the very reason God has given us life is that we might enjoy him
for all eternity in heaven, and so let us truly commend to the, to the mother of God this day
ourselves and all of humanity that seems bent,
on going down the path of those who mocked Noah, of the, of the wife of Lot, and indeed, if we want
to understand how, how sin, how sin offends God, Saint Alphonsus de Liguri says that the sin of
Lot's wife was not a mortal sin, it was merely a venial sin of curiosity, and yet it caused her to
be, to be cast into a pillar of stone. That shows how offensive sin is, and how merciful God is,
and so if we have sorrow for our sins, then even if we die in, with venial sins, we will not be
condemned, because God will send us to purgatory in order to be purified, so that we may attain
that purity which alone can behold the good God together for all eternity in heaven, and so let us
strive for that for which the Lord has created us, so that we may be an example to the world,
to all times, and to all places, and to all peoples,
that God truly has loved us, God truly has come in order to die on the cross, to save us from our
sins, and ultimately, he will come to take us to heaven, if we do not look back and persevere,
putting our hands to the plow, going forward, always in this life, never dropping the plow,
never looking back, but always plowing ahead, sorry for our sins, so that we may ultimately
receive that reward alone, for which the human heart can be satisfied.
As Saint Augustine tells us, our hearts are restless until they rest in the Lord.
So let us pray in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.