In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Our Lady, seat of wisdom.
Saint Joseph.
Our patron saints and guardian angels.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It's very clear the theme for the readings today all talk about the will of God.
Especially the first reading we hear about, you know, the priesthood as St. Paul's letter to the Hebrews,
telling them how the priesthood of the new covenant far surpasses that of the old,
and that Christ offered himself once for sin,
and that we don't have to be re-offered in the same sense as they did in the Old Testament.
We celebrate the Mass, we represent the Holy Sacrifice at Calvary,
but we don't re-sacrifice Christ.
And, of course, it's Christ who is the priest being offered and offering
in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
St. Paul was trying to show the Jews of his day,
about the importance of embracing the new covenant,
this New Testament that Christ had established with his death on Calvary,
and how the priesthood truly far surpasses that of the old.
And he points out that the thing that makes it far superior is that because Christ himself,
the Son of God, came to do the will of God.
St. Paul was trying to show the Jews of his day, about the importance of embracing the New Covenant,
And not to offer something else in sacrifice,
but to offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin.
And it is the will of God that He was doing
that sanctified us.
It is how our Lord has sanctified us
by consecrating us by His will.
By uniting His will.
As we know, His will is always the same as His Heavenly Father.
But the will of God was our sanctification,
our salvation.
That He wanted to undergo the most horrible torture
and suffering out of love for us
and for His Heavenly Father.
Then we hear in the Responsorial Psalm
the attitude of one who is the good disciple.
First and foremost,
these are the good disciples.
These are the words on our Lord's own lips.
Here I am, Lord, I come to do Your will.
Sacrifice or oblation You wish not,
but ears open to obedience You gave me.
Burnt offerings or sin offerings You sought not,
then said I, behold, I come.
And it is truly, you know,
the will of God is our sanctification.
And we must have that same attitude as Christ.
The will of God is manifested to us
in the teachings of the Church.
You know,
when we go to pray that we are truly open
to know what God's will is for us.
What does He desire for us?
And we pray that every day in the Our Father,
the prayer that Jesus taught.
It is central to that prayer
that Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
So we hear in the Gospel today,
you know,
those around our Lord as He's preaching,
telling them, you know,
your mother and your brothers and sisters,
your sisters are outside wanting to speak to you.
And He reminds them,
who are my mother and my brothers?
And He says,
whoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother.
How important is the will of God?
It makes us so united and so intimate with Christ
that we are considered His brother, sister, or mother
because we are truly doing what is
the heart of God.
The heart of God.
The heart of God.
The heart of God.
The heart of God.
The hallmark of being a member of God's family.
You know, God, in the Old Testament,
the people thought it was a great thing
to be just God's servant or His slave.
To be, you know,
they didn't have this maybe familial
as well as we would think.
In the New Testament,
it's really made clear to us
this intimate relationship
that God wants to have
with each and every one of us.
He's no longer a brother.
He's no longer, you know,
satisfied with just letting us know
that we are His servants
or that we are,
but rather we are His members of His family
by the will of God.
The will of God is manifested in, of course,
establishing the church
to be the family of God here on earth
and ultimately and finally
all together in heaven
with our Heavenly Father
and with our Heavenly Father.
With Christ, our brother,
and our Lady, our mother.
And the thing that makes us all members of that family
is not that we all have the same physical lineage,
but rather we have the same spiritual ties,
and that is that we all have done the will of God.
We know that the will of God
sometimes can be very difficult
or very challenging at least,
but we know with the help of God's grace,
we're all able to do the will of God.
No one will have any excuse
at the end of their life
for not being able to accomplish God's will.
God is wanting and makes known to every man
His will.
And so, therefore, we must unite our wills,
our desires,
our desire for the good
and to do the good,
unite it with God's will.
And we know that the will is,
well, it's not so much,
the intellect is always made to know the truth
and to, you know, to discern the truth
and discover the truth in things.
The will is not so,
it's meant to love the good
and it only chooses the good,
but it doesn't make the distinction sometimes
between what is the highest good
and what is a lesser good.
There are people out there today
in our world
who are loving God,
who are loving God,
who are loving good things
but not the best thing that God wants for them.
They're loving things that are good
but they're not the ultimate good
or the thing that is the proper good
in its proper order.
And that is why the will needs help
from the intellect
to recognize the highest good
and the goods in their proper order.
That we don't place things,
created things,
above the created things.
That we don't place things above the creator
and that we always want to do God's will
above every other will.
You know, that we want to place
what he wants above our wants
and his will above our will.
Let us today pray
because it's the grace of God
that helps us to do God's will.
And Our Lady is our model.
You know, our Lord was not at all
putting down Our Lady
as we've said many times.
He was holding up her to all of us
that the thing that makes her truly his mother
was first and foremost that in her heart,
in her will,
she only wanted to do what God wanted.
And because her will was so perfect
and immaculate,
it was able to attract God
to become man in her holy womb.
And to the degree that we do God's will,
we can therefore become
images of Christ.
When we do God's will,
we begin to reflect God
in the most perfect way,
in our words and actions
and in manifesting the works of God.
You know, when the Pharisees confronted our Lord,
you know, we heard earlier in the week,
you know, accused him of having a devil.
And he said, you know, to them,
well, if I'm, if, you know, that his works,
or what manifested part of the fact
that he was not of the devil,
because his works didn't reflect the devil.
He said rather to them
that their works reflected who their father was.
Their father was not Abraham, but the evil one.
So when we unite our will to God's will,
we truly do manifest where we stand.
Are we doing the works of God,
or are we doing the works of the evil one?
Let us stand.
Let us today pray that we will always have our will
united with God's will.
That is sanctity.
That is holiness.
And that is what we hope to have at the end of our lives,
this union for all eternity, our will with God's.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
Amen.