Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
We heard in yesterday's Alleluia verse Jesus say in John 8, 12, I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will have the light of life.
In the verse before today's Gospel, we heard him say to us, I chose you from the world to go and bear fruit that will last.
John 15 verse 16, so fruit for all eternity.
In the Church, we begin the month of June, the month of the sacred heart, celebrating a litany of martyrs, St. Justin martyr yesterday, St. Peter and Marcellinus today, St. Charles Luanga and companion martyrs tomorrow, even Monday will be St. Boniface as well.
To be a martyr is to literally be a witness for Christ, a witness to the love of the sacred heart for us and for all people.
The martyr's liturgical color is red, symbolizing the blood that they shed for the truth, and as Leviticus 17, 11 says, the life is in the blood, the life is in the blood.
Tertullian famously said that the blood of Christians is the seed; basically, it's the seed for new Christians, is what he was saying.
Christ's blood poured out for us, gives us the grace and the strength to do the same thing that he did.
So an imitation in and participation with Christ, the pouring out of the martyr's blood, is what gives spiritual life to non-believers.
Jesus chooses us out of the world to be his light to the world.
So if we lose the light of Christ, if we abandon our witness to Christ, then we're no longer a light to the world.
We return to being like the world, essentially, which isn't a help to anyone, really.
You're either a light to the world, or you're worldly.
There's not a lot of middle ground there, unless we're spiritually a bit schizophrenic, right?
St. James talks about that in his New Testament letter, he talks about people who are double-minded.
He says in James 1, 18, it's not a good thing to be that way.
The world, as it's been doing now for a number of years, chooses the month of June to celebrate a behavior and a lifestyle which God says should not be celebrated.
Almost 20 years ago, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts imposed gay marriage upon us Bay Staters, and the people of our state were blocked from being allowed to actually vote on the matter, even though we petitioned to place the question on the ballot and the petition had far more than enough signatures necessary to be put on the ballot.
In spite of that, the efforts of the people were blocked, and in just two decades, our culture has shifted so radically that homosexual marriage is universally a given nowadays.
It's a cultural change, not for the better, but for the worse.
It's progress, yes, but it's progress in a very dark direction.
It's opened up the door to a flood of confusion about sexuality in general, which is corroding our culture and corrupting our children.
Children of today will be the persecutors, our persecutors of tomorrow, sadly.
We'll be praying the words of our Lord very shortly.
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
2334, forgive them because they've really been brainwashed by our culture.
Concretely, you can think of the cultural shift in this way, so if I live on planet Earth and I decide to travel to Neptune, besides Neptune not being the friendliest place for human life, I've moved a lot farther away from the light of the sun by going to Neptune.
Much farther away from the physical light of the world, so it's darker, a lot colder on Neptune because of that.
It's kind of what's been happening in our culture over the past 50 years or so.
Each year we've progressed, meaning we've moved further and further away from the sun, capital S-O-N, so further and further away from Christ, who is the light of the world.
And the world's now a colder and a darker and a more fractured place because of that.
For many people, our world is even a world without purpose or meaning nowadays.
Jesus says in Matthew 24, 12, he says, because of wickedness or lawlessness, because it's multiplied, the love of many will grow cold.
That's essentially the times we're living in now.
Confusion and errors regarding marriage and sexuality are in many ways the fruit of the contraception revolution of the 20s and 30s of last decade and the subsequent sexual revolution of the 60s, so it's all a deeper confusion about love, about family, about life, purpose, meaning, all those things.
The word revolution is a bit of a euphemism.
It's actually more of a rebellion, a rebellion essentially against God himself.
Those things, love, life, family, purpose, they're all rooted in God, in his nature, and in his plan for us too.
God is love.
We read that in 1 John 4, 16.
God is life.
We read that in John 1, 4.
God's purpose for us is to make us like him.
Again, we read that, 1 John 3, verse 2.
God's also family as well.
He's one God whose Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the natural family of a father and mother and a child is a small reflection of actually who God is in himself.
So the systematic rejection of God and his commandments and the rejection of his Son, Jesus Christ, the rejection of the gospel essentially, which in Greek does mean good news, rejecting those things only leads to bad news.
So the present culture uses the same words that we use.
They'll talk about love or life or marriage or family, but they've gutted those concepts of their true meaning.
What's left is a counterfeit understanding of love and a falsification of what marriage and the family are.
And all that is lived under an overarching sense of meaninglessness, essentially, which ultimately leads to death.
Death?
How?
Well, embracing the errors and sins of the culture leads to spiritual death, meaning that we're not living in God's grace.
It leads to the death of truth, death of goodness, faith, hope, and charity.
Also leads to eternal death, which Jesus calls in the gospel the fires of hell, which we also call eternal damnation, eternal separation from God, who is goodness and love and truth and justice, and all those things which the pride culture rejects.
Catholics cannot compromise on the truths of human sexuality and the truth of marriage as being between one man and one woman.
We can't compromise on God's words and on God's standards.
To do so is to extinguish the light that Christ has given us.
Pope Francis, in his homily for Pentecost, actually just a few days ago, warned the church against following the agenda of the world, he said, and following wherever the wind is blowing is what he said.
So affirming or encouraging or going along with the woke culture and with what God says is wrong is sinful.
God says that contraception, that sexual activity outside of marriage, that homosexual activity, homosexual marriage, that gender ideologies, all of those are gravely sinful.
God either says that explicitly in his revelation or he says it explicitly through his church, which is his mouthpiece, the church which is, as St. Paul says, the pillar and foundation of the truth, 1 Timothy 3, 15, the church which has the power to bind and to loose, as we read in Matthew 16, verse 19.
So affirming or encouraging or embracing or going along with what God says is wrong or is sinful means we're actually willing to forfeit our eternal salvation in order to keep up with the fads and the changing beliefs of the times.
It's actually the opposite of what St. Paul tells us to do in Romans 12, 2.
Romans 12, 2, the apostle says, do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds so that you will know what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.
So many Catholics are conformed to the world in their thinking, and sadly there are some heretical clergy members, too, who promote and even embrace the errors and the sins of the sexual revolution as well.
But the bottom line is that you're risking your eternal salvation by siding with the world or with the pride or the woke culture, whatever you want to call it.
You're essentially testing God.
You're saying to God, you're saying you won't condemn me for supporting or embracing any of these errors.
It's not a wise thing to do.
Deuteronomy 6, 16 says, do not put the Lord your God to the test.
And Jesus reiterated that precept in his discussion with the devil in the desert, Luke 4, verse 12.
In truth, if we embrace the lies of the world, God won't have to condemn us.
By embracing lies and living a life, which is sinful and therefore a lie, we'll have already condemned ourselves, really.
He who does not believe in the Son, says St. John, meaning who does not embrace the gospel and live by God's revelation is condemned already, he says, John 3, verse 17.
So God came to save us, not to condemn us, but he won't save you if you embrace and celebrate and condone sin and embrace the popular lies of the day.
As a friend of mine says, she says, eternity is too long to be wrong, right?
Eternity is too long to be wrong. 
Eternity is too long to be wrong.
So sometimes we need to ask ourselves and maybe even ask others as well, why risk eternal damnation, foolishly betting that God has changed his mind about the fundamental realities of human nature and human sexuality, foolishly buying into the perverse ideologies and superficial slogans of the day, foolishly believing that sin is not sin and that God doesn't punish sin.
Why should we embrace those things?
Why be foolish?
Why risk everything, essentially?
Proverbs 12, 15 says, the way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.
We need to be right in God's eyes, not in the world's eyes, not in our own eyes either.
And for those who reject God and reject his revelation, even that sense of meaninglessness or purposelessness that many of those people experience today on a regular basis, believe it or not, that's a good thing that they feel that way.
It's actually God's way of silently speaking to their heart and telling them, you won't be satisfied without me.
We need to pray that they begin to make an honest search for God.
We can even say that it's actually a grace to be an unhappy atheist, right?
To actually be a happy atheist or a contented atheist is actually a really, really bad sign when that's the case.
Pray that God will make all the atheists unhappy so that they begin to search really for the truth.
And lastly today, we do want to end with a word of encouragement for those who maybe have same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria.
The word is simply that you are loved by God and that he knows and sympathizes deeply with your struggles.
If you offer up your sufferings to the Lord, they'll be meritorious.
And maybe the Lord is asking you to carry those crosses for those who have the same difficulties and unlike you, they choose to reject God.
Maybe that's why he's asking you to carry that specific cross.
Crosses accepted and carried faithfully are never wasted, and they're truly sanctifying too.
So learn to lean heavily on the Lord and on Our Lady, and they'll take care of you.
They promise to do that.
So our Lord needs faithful witnesses today.
The question for all of us is, are you going to be one of those faithful witnesses?
Are you going to be light, or are you going to embrace the darkness of the day?
Let's ask Our Lady for the wisdom and for the courage to not cave into the world that needs our faithful witness, that needs to see the light of Christ, that needs to learn to take pride in godliness, not in ungodliness.
Praised be Jesus and Mary. now and forever.

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Ave Maria.