Of course, in today's Gospel, our Lord is pointing out that to love God above all things
is greater than all the burnt offerings and all the sacrifice offered in the old dispensation.
Indeed, all that the burnt offerings and the sacrifices pointed to
were the coming of the Savior of mankind, and it was in accepting him that mankind would be saved.
But there also is an allusion here to those who would think that by their burnt offerings
and their own sacrifices, they may produce or forge their own way to salvation.
Particularly, we see this in Eastern religions in which their fastings are really none other than a form of pride,
a form of pride that St. Augustine points out causes them to become so blind
that they don't know what to do with their lives.
That they do not even know their state because they take on an extraordinary penance without the grace of God.
And indeed, St. Francis in his life had to point out several times to many of the brethren
who tried to imitate him in every detail of his life, including the six periods of 40-day fast
that he would undergo in which he would only take a bite of bread and a sip of water on the 39th day
because he did not believe that anyone should duplicate.
Exactly what the Son of God would do when one friar was about to starve to death,
St. Francis had to intercede in order to deliver him from that because he was,
even though he was a good friar, he had a form of pride in which he thought he could duplicate
what was clearly a miraculous work of God rather than to exercise the ordinary prudence
by which all sacrifice and all suffering must be endured when God gives.
A soul, the extraordinary grace to do the incredible amounts of penance that someone like St. Francis did,
that grace becomes very clear in the life of the soul to try to reproduce those manifestations of the divine
working in the soul in an extraordinary way is simply another form of pride,
a pride that does not allow the soul to exercise the ordinary prudence to go about diligently
trying to do the best they can knowing that they are complete.
completely dependent upon the Lord.
And this is rooted in knowing the Lord, loving the Lord,
for we must always constantly turn to him with our hearts, with our soul, and with our minds
in order to gain from him the strength even to live out the ordinary life.
Indeed, we can see even in the practice sometimes of virginity,
if that virginity is not undertaken for love of God, then those who are practicing become cold.
And indeed, there is an indication that one of the,
those virulent modernists in the history of the church did in no way ever violate the vow of chastity he had taken,
but clearly he did not take that vow of chastity in order to please God from all that we know in his life.
We pray that at the final time he repented of his modernist position,
but he did not by any appearance violate the vow of chastity,
and yet his mind became clouded with the thoughts of modernism and with the pride by which he thought to develop
and to expand.
the doctrines of Jesus Christ.
And so if we truly love our Lord with all our hearts, with all our minds,
we will try to come to know him, to love him, and to serve him,
not according to our own opinions, our own ideas,
but according to what he has revealed, all the truths and all the doctrines,
and then we will pray unceasingly to be conformed to those doctrines
in order that we may truly receive that promise that the man received today,
that we will come to know that the kingdom of God,
is not far from our grasp because we have humbled ourselves in his presence,
constantly trying to form our minds according to his truth,
form our hearts according to the way he proceeded,
and indeed to imitate him in all things.
And so let us then strive to know, love, and serve the Lord,
and most particularly not by chasing the false doctrines of the modernists
or the false teachings of those outside the church
who hold out false doctrines of the modernists,
who hold out false pleasures to the human mind and the human heart
and thus lead them on the path of perdition.
But let us truly resolve to follow him who alone came to reveal truth,
him who alone reveals to us how we are to offer our burnt sacrifices,
how we are to offer our sacrifices, and how we are to do all things.
Christ has not left any detail in the spiritual life undone.
He has left with the church the complete deposit,
the complete deposit that helps us to go forward exercising all the penances,
performing all the prayers that are necessary for our salvation,
and most especially by through his sacraments receiving the grace
to put all those things into practice according to our own vocations,
according to our own state in life,
so that we may truly, cooperating as one body of Christ,
truly bring together all that God has given us,
all that God intends to give us,
so that he may be manifested,
to each man, woman, and child in the world,
so that we, cooperating with his mission,
may draw all souls out of darkness,
and most especially those who are practitioners of false religion and false hope,
so that being drawn out of the darkness,
they may come to know the love of Christ,
who is not the cruel taskmaster,
as scripture has pointed out to us all during this Lenten season.
Indeed, he came to call us all from the slavery of Pharaoh,
that is, from slavery of Satan,
in order to be free children of God,
not the product of the slave woman,
but the product of the free woman.
And we know full well that the free woman is an image of the mother of God,
a sign of the mother of God,
who truly frees us to do all things for love of God,
so that all our prayers, all our penances, all our sacrifices,
are done first and foremost for love of God,
and it is only then that they are truly free,
if they are done for any other purpose,
for any other intention,
than they simply enslave us to the slavery of pride.
And so, let us strive this Lent to continually beseech Our Lady
to give us the grace constantly to do all things for her sake,
to do all things for the sake of her Son,
so that we may truly become transformed into Him
for the salvation of the world,
as He became man for us in order to claim us from slavery of sin,
so that we too may be willing like Him
to make that most important,
tremendous of all sacrifices.
For the Christian life is merely,
can be summed up in one thing,
it is a preparation for death,
but it must be the death of Jesus Christ,
for our lives are the hardest thing for us to give up.
It is the hardest penance,
the hardest sacrifice for any human being to perform,
is to give his life up freely for love of God.
Some are called to do that in a modest death,
some are called to do that simply living out their life
according to the dictates of Almighty God,
until the end of time,
so that when He comes and our bodies are ravaged by disease,
or if our life is taken from us quickly,
that life is offered as a sacrifice to Him who sacrificed for us.
And so, let us constantly strive to truly strive for that time
when we will be found a pleasing sacrifice,
when our death will merely mean the entrance into eternal life,
where our death will be truly only death in the body,
but life in the spirit,
where at the end of time we will be reunited with our bodies
to praise God for all eternity as members of His eternal kingdom.
For more information, visit www.fema.org