Near 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.
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, Queen of the Family, St. Joseph, our Patron Saints and Guardian Angels,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today's Gospel we hear again our Lord in the context of speaking about marriage
also gives us a teaching about the Resurrection.
And about life after death.
Because he was being challenged about the nature of marriage according to the Jewish understanding.
And he wanted to remind them, as he does in another place, that marriage has its place,
first of all, it is determined by God, the nature of marriage, and not by man.
And that marriage, as he says in this passage, reminds us, is for this world.
But not for eternity.
It has its certain place in God's providence and in his plan of creation and salvation.
And to understand things properly, according to God's plan, is how we are to understand these things.
Isn't it interesting that our Lord himself, in person, had to defend the true nature of marriage in his day?
That John the Baptist, his precursor, had to defend the true teaching of marriage about fidelity and against adultery.
And that we, in the 21st century, are also, as the mystical body of Christ,
having to give our witness to the true nature of marriage as well.
And what is marriage in God's plan, not the way man wants to define it.
On his terms.
And make it into his own image.
Marriage, as our Lord reminds us, was first of all instituted and created and put there as a part of God's plan.
And he's the one who defines what marriage is.
For, first of all, by the very nature of man and woman, he has defined it.
You might say in a natural law.
And then he has defined it again by instituting it as a sacrament.
And this is where we are today.
In trying to defend the nature of marriage according to God's plan today.
We have that same challenge before us as followers of Christ.
And it's important.
Because marriage is the basis for family.
And family is the foundation of society.
If marriage is shaken at its foundation, so is family.
And so is society.
It is a very dangerous thing to tinker with the foundation.
Can you imagine if you went outside your house or in a big, tall skyscraper and started to pull away one little part here and one little part there and think, oh, it's just a little thing.
Well, soon the whole house comes tumbling down.
And that's what we're doing in our society today.
We're bringing down the house.
We're bringing down destruction upon ourselves.
If we start tinkering with these very important societal foundations.
The nature of marriage.
The definition of when life begins.
When is a person human?
From the first moment of conception.
All these are very important things.
And both the killing of the innocent and sodomy, both are sins that cry out to God for vengeance.
And that's a very, I don't think I want to be doing something that is going to cry out to God for vengeance.
I think we're doing all four of the sins that cry out to God for vengeance today.
We're all trying to make them part of the law of the land.
And that's even more dangerous.
It's like the whole society is trying to thumb their nose at God.
And sorry, but God will not put up with that very long.
But, and the important thing is, you know, sometimes you hear people say,
well, you know, I'm just trying to be, I'm trying to think that if I am good and kind
and I still maintain some kind of rapport with people who believe that abortion is okay
or that sodomy is okay or homosexual unions are okay,
maybe I'll have some way of evangelizing them.
But, you know.
If your neighbors were Bonnie and Clyde
and they were, you know, bank robbers,
would you think that somehow maintaining your friendship with them
would somehow bring them back out of the life of crime?
Or would you say, I think I got to stay away from them because they're kind of bad influence?
Well, I would think that those who are in conducting,
I think that homosexual unions are far more dangerous to society than Bonnie and Clyde were.
Because they are far more,
you might say the moral fabric is being more endangered.
Stealing does not cry out to God for vengeance.
Sodom and Gomorrah was not destroyed because they were stealing from everybody right and left.
Or as the homosexual propagandists like to tell you,
that Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed because,
not because they were engaging in homosexual activity,
but because they were inhospitable.
I'm sorry.
But inhospitality does not cry out to God for vengeance.
So I think we have to understand that these sins are so,
you might say there's an added disorder because they're against nature.
There's a certain perversion about it
that the only way to really evangelize them is to pray for them.
But I don't know if they're,
it all depends you might say to the degree of
warped
understanding of their nature,
that you really have to wonder if the way to evangelize is to just pray for them.
But I don't know if associating with them is going to bring about much of anything except
maybe giving bad example
or you might say influencing the rest of society
to think that that's okay.
You know there's so many parents today
who are of one mindset and their children are of another mindset.
They think that their parents are all messed up
because the schools have taught them,
your parents are,
they're in,
they're not,
they're not with it if they don't accept homosexual unions
and they're not with it if they don't see that this is okay.
So somehow the society is undermining the authority of parents
and undermining their moral values
because the schools
and the educational system
and the media
are giving them another message than the one that the parents
are trying to give them.
And obviously
they may be doing a better job of evangelizing
and propagandizing
these young people.
I mean a local pastor
of a Catholic school
is having a hard time convincing eighth graders that homosexual marriage is wrong.
Because they say well it must be okay because the media tells us it's okay
and TV tells us it's okay.
And all the things we're,
you know,
our friends,
they just,
it must be okay because they say it's okay.
And this is where we're at today.
We have to give witness to the truth.
And how do we give witness?
Well it may be the story in the Maccabees today
may be the only effective way that we can give witness.
And that is by suffering for the truth.
In the book of Maccabees,
in the reading this morning about the seven brothers and their mother,
and I encourage you to go to the book of Maccabees
and read that whole story from beginning to end.
And if you don't see Our Lady Chorodemptrix
in that imagery of the mother with the seven sons,
then you're blind.
Because
here's the seven sons and the mother who are arrested
because why?
Because they did something terrible?
No, because they refused to eat pork.
They refused to deny their Jewish faith.
Because the law of the Jews was you're not to eat anything unclean.
And of course when the Greeks took over Judah,
they wanted them to all become Greeks
and worship according to the Greek way,
the Greek gods.
And many Jews, wanting to get along,
in order to go along to get along,
decided to deny their Jewish faith.
They covered over their circumcision.
They started to eat pork.
They went and partook in all the
immoral activities of the Greeks.
And many Jews refused to do so.
And you think, well, eating pork,
that's just a little thing.
Couldn't they just eat a little bit and just
pretend to enjoy it
and still go on their way?
No, because eating pork was
not a disobedience to man,
but it was God's law they were following.
God said, you won't eat pork.
Just like our first parents
in the garden, God said, you can enjoy everything here,
but don't eat of the fruit of the tree
of good and evil.
You know, there's some say that
the first sin of Adam and Eve
was the sin of gluttony,
that they refused to mortify their appetite.
And so God can determine
what he wants us to do.
And so eating pork was a very serious matter
because it was God who told them not to do it.
And so these seven sons and their mother
were very faithful to that.
And they were willing to endure all kinds of torture
than to give in to denying God's authority.
Because that's really what it all boiled down to,
is who are you going to obey?
Are you going to obey God?
Or are you going to obey man?
And that's the same choice before Catholics today.
Today it's not eating pork,
it's will you accept Obamacare
and pay for abortions or pay for contraception?
Will you obey Obama?
Or will you obey a God?
And I think it should be a no-brainer for anybody
who they ought to obey.
But will they endure the derision,
the economic, you might say,
persecution that will come?
Well, far better to do what is right
and to suffer, as Scripture says,
for doing what is good
than for doing what is bad.
So today,
as we look around our world today,
I don't believe, you know,
human nature proves that evolution is not true.
We haven't evolved.
We're no different than Adam and Eve in the garden.
We have the same sins,
we have the same faults,
we have the same human nature.
It hasn't gotten any better
in 6,000 years or whatever
since Adam and Eve were created.
We haven't gotten any new versions.
There's no new models.
We still have the same concupiscences,
the same vices.
We have the same opportunities
for practicing grace and virtue.
The only difference is that Jesus Christ
came into the world and suffered and died for us,
and that's a game changer
because that means that we can
and we ought to
follow Christ
and His will and His law.
He laid down His life for us.
Are we willing to lay down our lives for Him?
In the second book of Maccabees this morning,
the sons and the mother,
all, you might say,
with the faith looking to the coming
of the resurrection of the dead,
for that's what gave them hope.
They believed that,
yeah, I'm going to suffer in this world,
but I know that there's a world to come
in which I will be rewarded for my fidelity.
And really, that's what it all boils down to,
is do we believe in the resurrection?
Do we believe that there is a judgment day coming
and that God will save us?
I'll say,
welcome my good and faithful servant
because you are willing to endure all kinds of things,
all kinds of evil,
on account of my name
and willing to be faithful to me.
Those who are promoting sin in the world today
don't think of that.
They think that all there is is this world
and so that all you have to do is grab all you can,
do all you can,
do whatever you can,
because there is no accountability.
Sad to say that's not reality.
Sad to say we all will have to face the music
at the end of our lives.
Is it going to be happy music
or is it going to be a dirge?
That all depends on the choices we make in this world today.
And like the mother and the Maccabees and the seven sons,
let us choose to be faithful to God.
As the son said in that,
he said,
it is my choice to die at the hands of men
with the hope God gives of being raised up by him,
but for you there will be no resurrection to life.
What such faith.
And when they asked the mother to intercede,
you know, save the last son that you have,
you know, we've killed already six of them,
maybe you want to talk some sense into your son
and tell him, you know,
eat pork so you can be with me at least.
And she said to her son,
far better for me to have you for all eternity in heaven
than you to deny your faith.
And so he also refused to eat pork.
That's the heart of a good mother
and that's the heart of Our Lady.
She wanted her son to offer himself for us.
She wasn't there saying,
oh poor me, spare me.
She was there uniting herself with Christ at the cross
like this mother
and the seven sons.
Let us ask Our Lady in a special way
that we will have the fortitude
that comes from the Holy Spirit,
the spirit of strength,
the spirit of truth,
to give witness to our world today
with the same kind of fervor,
same kind of fidelity,
the same kind of love
for our neighbor that they had,
that they were willing to suffer
for their neighbor,
that they may come to know the truth,
that they may know what is important
and what is necessary for our salvation.
In the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.