Our Lord is praying to his Father for his Apostles, his Disciples, because he is leaving
the world, he's going to the Father, and he's leaving his Apostles in the world in the midst
of wolves, really in the midst of wolves and in their weaknesses, although they're going
to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit, and they're going to become very strong and lions
and courageous and go throughout the world withstanding death and sufferings and all
that, but still they're in the world and it's a dangerous place, and so our Lord had to
pray for them, he prayed for them while he was here on earth and certainly in heaven
to his Father, and so there's this emphasis on the world, the world and that it is a dangerous
place to be, we have dangers to our eternal salvation, and we are in a pilgrimage to eternal
life, and we need to be able to see the dangers, which are all...
most of them are invisible, the principalities and powers, and Satan, the flesh and the devil,
we have these invisible, or we can feel them I suppose, the cravings of the flesh that
can drag us down and pull us down and make us selfish and make us want to commit sin
and do evil and focus on ourselves and we can really be our worst enemy, even worse
than the devil.
than the devil, our body, our flesh, our cravings, our desires.
So we have to keep that in mind,
but also keep in mind that Satan is very tricky.
He's always trying to do things little by little, pulling us in.
We won't even see it.
He's like that snake in the grass, ready to get us.
And we have to be really vigilant, really careful.
And so our Lord has given us weapons to fight with,
in this battle of these dangers that are serious.
We're not here to enjoy ourselves.
That's the business of heaven, enjoying ourselves in heaven,
which will be forever.
We'll have plenty of that.
We're here, we're called to fight, to work, to love, to serve.
That's what we're called to do in this world.
We're not called to live a Hollywood life,
watching television and the internet,
and seeing all this glitter and joy and happiness and artificial beauty.
We're not called to that.
And yet so many people watch television for 8, 10, 12 more hours a day
and filling their minds with this counterfeit philosophy of life,
which is you live once, you live for the world, enjoy yourself,
put your heart into this world and strive for,
for pleasures and enjoyments and money and wealth and, and all this.
That's living for this world.
We are called to do the opposite.
That's all for the next life.
And it'll be far beyond this world and pleasures and joys far beyond.
And we have to believe in hope and trust in that.
And of course that's that hope and trust.
And the promise of Jesus is what sustains us through, through this life.
But so we're not called to set our hearts on the enjoyments of this world.
Though the enjoyments of this world are to be taken in moderation and moderation.
We have to remember that we're not here to spend all our time thinking about
how I'm supposed to enjoy my entire life, my entire day.
We take it in moderation and we set our sights on God's will,
what my duties are, what I must commit myself to and be ready for the
cross, be ready for difficulties and embrace them and expect them and even
want them even want to carry the cross to love, to love the cross.
That's the way of a Christian.
That's the example that Jesus and our lady gave us and all the saints.
If we don't do that, then we will live in the culture of death.
The culture of self indulgence is the culture of death and it kills many things.
It kills people.
It kills the unborn.
It kills the, the agent because we don't want to have children and be burdened by
children.
We don't want to have large families and being crimped of my desires for ambition
and, uh, uh, wealth.
And, uh, we don't, we don't want to, we don't want a wife or a husband that is
going to, uh, be, uh, an annoyance to me after years.
And so I won't be faithful and I'll kill my marriage.
Uh, I'll kill my friendship.
If my friends are.
Uh, their faults are too evident to me.
I will kill whatever gets in my path of, of my pleasures.
I will kill it and I will live the culture of death.
And that's what we are living in today.
A culture of death, the culture of self indulgence.
And that's because we don't want to carry the cross.
We won't accept the cross.
We won't accept difficulties.
We want to enjoy ourselves all the time.
And yet that's not what life is all about.
That's not what Jesus has set the example for.
That's not the kind of life that God has made for us after the fall, we are called
to work and that's the only way we'll be happy working, mortifying ourselves, even
carrying the cross out of joy for love of God.
And in our neighbor, we will find joy and happiness in that, not in self indulgence
and then the passion.
And in my selfishness, we are called to live for the next world.
And in this world, we have to be above the world.
We have to be above the passions above, uh, what we get from television and the internet
and, uh, the philosophy of the world.
We have to be above all that.
We have to be living in the spirit, living in the strength of God and to carry the weapons
that our Lord has given to us, humility, humility.
There was a saint, a saint that saw the world covered with, covered with, with demons and
so, so full of demons that the sun wouldn't shine through them.
And he was wondering how anybody could escape the dangers of, of, of the temptations and
the, and the, uh, efforts the, the demons, uh, exert to destroy us.
And then he heard the word humility.
It is humility that will make us succeed and make us conquer, uh, and make us victorious
over, over them.
We need humility.
We need love.
We need the love of God.
And we need to have that deep and strong in our heart, that love that will make us do
anything for God that will make us strong.
We need to fight in this world.
We need to be ready that people will tempt us that people will try to, uh, try to, uh,
lead us into evil that satan will come and try to lead us into sin and we have to fight we can't
just fold our hands and uh and uh and stay in church uh and uh just sit back and hope that
everything will be well what is that saying that evil will prevail if only good men do nothing
we can't just do nothing and and just even pray certainly uh those who are called those are called
to do that and contemplative life they're called to do that and prayer is powerful and more powerful
than than action but we are many of us are called to do action too and we must fight we must resist
we must be involved in the in the world in the political era we must speak up we must resist
we must resist
we must fight fight is is a a virtue but flight too fight and flight they both go together we need
to fly away from the occasions of sin in this world we need to take serious all the dangers
of this world and not not mitigate them not say it's only a little bit bad and you know it's not
too bad and so i will expose myself to it we need to want perfection want to be immaculate
and fly fly when we know we are weak fly from uh temptations and we need to stay close to to our
lady she's the one to enlighten us and protect us we need to stay within her and praying to her
continually always being devoted to her making that consecration which we renew and when we
are consecrated to our lady she takes us in a special way you know under her protection and as
long as we don't uh act in a special way we need to stay close to our lady and we need to stay
close to our lady and we need to stay back uh positively renounce that she will always watch
over us but we have to continue to renew our love and our dedication to her and her weapons she's
given to us the scapula and miraculous middle the holy rosary and to and to live for her to serve her
and to be committed be committed and you know many of us commit ourselves to to religious life
religious life we need to live for her so we need to continue to be committed to her and we need to
to be committed and faithful to that,
even those who are religious
or those who are married and live family life.
So many have left to go to the world
and they're not faithful to their vows of marriage
or to religious life
because they want the entertainments and the joys
and get rid of all the difficulties of married or religious life
because they have forgotten the cross,
they have forgotten heaven,
they have forgotten the promises of our Lord,
they have forgotten how to live well in marriage
and in religious life.
When we live well, our vows, our commitments,
then we will always be happy.
We'll always be happy if we live well
and depend on the strength and help of God.
And so, you know, in marriage we have family life,
children, and they are our protection.
Husbands and wives are a protection to each other.
They call each other.
They're into account.
They check each other.
And children are a check on parents, too.
And parents are a check on children.
And we all help each other to live a holy life,
to sanctify each other,
and to protect each other through this pilgrimage of dangers
to the end of our life.
And religious life certainly does that as well.
We have the schedule.
We have prayer.
We have our vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience
to counteract those desires
for pride and the pleasures of the flesh
and our own will, our own will,
which leads us into so many dangers of selfishness and pride.
And so we use what we can to be committed
to live a life of commitment to our Lord,
commitment to our brothers and sisters,
commitment to our duty to be faithful.
We always have that branded in our mind,
commitment and faithfulness.
To God, to doing His will,
and set His will before our mind as our purpose in life,
not entertainments and enjoyments,
which, again, are to be taken in moderation
to balance off the duties and the fatigue
and things that we have to do for God.
And so let us entrust all these intentions
and worries that can be there,
entrust it all to Our Lady
and ask Her to continue to guide us, enlighten us,
and help us to be faithful and to persevere,
to persevere, persevere to the end.
Amen.
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