Today we celebrate the memorial of the
dedications of the churches of Saints
Peter and Paul in Rome and in the sacred
liturgy we are presented with three
kingdoms that set themselves up against
the worship of the true God. The first
was that of Antiochus in the book of
Maccabees which occupied Israel and
forced the Israelites to abandon the
worship of the true God and even in the
most cataclysmic way for the Jews
set up
the worship of the true God in the
temple which is what scripture calls the
abomination of desolation on the altar
of sacrifice in the temple which was
probably an idol of Zeus before which
the Jews were forced to worship. This is
you know like the worst nightmare for a
devout Jew and in fact the temple was
defiled and would later have to be
purified the altar even being removed and
a new altar being built and the whole
temple being being rededicated. The
second kingdom that set itself up
against the worship of the true God in
today's liturgy is that of Jericho. The
blind man was sitting by the roadside
begging when Jesus walked by and he was
near the town of Jericho. Now of course
in the Old Testament Jericho was the
city the first city that the the Jews
when they came to take possession of the
Promised Land had to conquer and it was
sort of the gateway into the Promised
Land and God through his wonderful power
delivered Jericho over to the Israelites
when they obeyed his commandment when
they worshiped him truly with the Ark of
the Covenant and in their presence and a
giant the walls Jericho came tumbling
down the third kingdom that set itself
up against the worship of the true God
in today's liturgy is that of Rome which
was the mammoth and universal power in
the old world which which was very early
on set against the worship of Christ and
became the great persecutor of the early Christians but because of the
perseverance of those who believed because God sent the Apostles to Rome to
set up the center of the church right in the middle of the beast right in the
middle of the beast and because they persisted because st. Peter would not
leave Rome even though he was tempted to do so there's that story about Peter
leaving Rome because he had gotten tired of the whole affair and he didn't
really want to die a martyr and he was walking out of the city on the on the
Appian Way and someone came walking down towards him and he as the person got
closer he realized it was our Lord and our Lord walked right past him towards
Rome and Peter stopped and turned around and he said Lord where are you going he
said I'm going back to Rome to
die again you know in your place and so Peter you know turned around and went
back to Rome but he persevered to the end as well as st. Paul st. Paul came to
Rome to be tried by the Romans and and pre ended up preaching the gospel in
Rome while he was imprisoned and of course offered his life and complete
sacrifice to the Lord and as we know everything was turned on its head and
Rome became the instrument by which the faith was spread the Rome the the
Empire of Rome became the conduit through which the faith traveled to the
four corners of the world so everything was changed because of God's divine
providence in the ancient Jewish times that in in in the book of Maccabees it
raised up martyrs persecution of Antiochus gave us Judas Maccabee's
and that whole movement by which the Jews were inspired to defend their faith
and and to offer themselves in martyrdom and in today's gospel near Jericho this
the city that represents the the idolatry of the world you know the
worship of the false god there is a blind man sitting at the roadside who is
truly blind and our Lord heals him of his blindness
but this just reminds us of of the blindness of sin and particularly of
that blindness blindness that comes into our lives when we put things before God
you know the formal sin of idolatry is the literal worship of a false god but
we all in one way or another when we sin we choose to love something more than
God and it creates blindness especially when we defend ourselves especially
when we rationalize our sins when we choose to live in the darkness rather
than the light this blind man knew he was blind and he wanted to be freed from
his blindness and he begged our Lord for it he wouldn't stop making a scene
because he wished our Lord to come to him and you know it's a beautiful phrase
Lord please let me see that I may see just give me my
sight what do you want me to do for you our Lord asks and the blind man says let me see
so Jesus says have your sight your faith has saved you and the blind man sees again
we should all pray like the blind man for the gift to see and to be honest about our
sinfulness about where we fail before the Lord so that we can give to the Lord the sacrifice
that he truly deserves that we don't allow our hearts to become a kingdom set up against the
worship of the true God that we don't put a wall around our hearts and try to keep the light out
you know there are many ways in which people can be ignorant and it is the responsibilities of those
who who profess to live in the light to be instruments of the light some people are truly
ignorant they don't know because they've never heard
and they've never been told how many people say you know when I was in college none of the
priests told me that contraception was a sin or that fornication was a sin I think most people
have you know the natural the intuitions of natural law to suspect these things but you
know sometimes they don't hear the gospel preached on the other hand sometimes we don't know because
we don't want to know and that is
the vast ignorance for which we are responsible that's willful blindness and that is something
that that envelops us in darkness unless we ask that the darkness be removed and so you know in
small ways also we can do this we could choose to live in the darkness by not simply not wanting to
give up our bad habits we ask always for the light for the grace to make our hearts a place
where Jesus can come and reside where he can give us the grace of experiencing the kingdom of God
which is in us it's just a very simple thing that we need to do our Lord is asking us what
we want what do you really want and we should all say to him Lord please let me see
you