AUGUST 26, 2018
12:00 NOON EXTRAORDINARY FORM (LATIN) MASS
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Todays Gospel give us a simple admonition. Easy to say, yet perhaps more difficult to implement.
St. Paul tells us the Fruits of the Holy Ghost.
charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastityYet prior to this enumerates seventeen “works of the flesh” which snuff out the spark of the Holy Ghost within us; and encourages us to crucify the flesh and snuff out vice and concupiscence.
In other news, the Church is receiving a black eye for the actions of a few … well, let’s just call it what it is … criminal idiots. The abuse scandal is back in the press, and this time its at the top of the hierarchy.
My personal take on this, is that is comes from what Pope St. John Paul II called “the mystery of iniquity.”
I guess the official response appears to be to point out that it was “sinful,” and that . . . well . . . we’re all sinners. Sure. Whatever.
It is indeed sinful. But it is also horrific, corrupt, reprehensible, and criminal. And while we all may be sinners, I hope that we aren’t all horrific, corrupt, reprehensible, criminal sinners.
At it’s root, it involves entitlement. A person thinking they can do whatever they want despite the appropriate moral and legal boundaries that help us live in a civilized society.
It also involves exploitation. We’re seeing exploitation of children, people, assets, power, and just about anything and everything that there is that can be exploited.
The worst part, is that these people are priests, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals.
Priests take vows, but the vow that’s being broken isn’t only chaste celibacy … rather, priests also promise to celebrate “the mysteries of Christ faithfully and religiously” as well as to “hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience” … to care for “the Lord’s flock,” to sanctify “Christ’s people,” and to unite ourselves “to Christ the High Priest . . . [in offering] to the Father . . . a perfect sacrifice.”
On May 18, 1986, Pope St. John Paul II uses the phrase “mystery of iniquity” three times in his Encyclical “Dominum et Vivificantem: On the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World.”
In the first mention, he points out that sin is more than breaking a rule. Sin reveals “the evil that sin contains.” That is, evil is real. And sin is evil. Second, he points out that sin is opposed, not by a stasis of not sinning or avoiding sin, but by embracing piety and holiness; to love God to the point of forgetting oneself. And finally, he points out that the end-game is conversion, in which we are to destroy “every fetter by which sin binds [us] to the whole of the mystery of iniquity.”
In the Gospel, Our Blessed Lord tells us:
No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.And that is the choice we all must make each and every day. Whom will we serve?
Certainly not the horrific, corrupt, criminal sinners … the entitled idiots who have exploited the treasures of our Faith.
Rather, Our Lord also tells us:
Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.Let us choose to serve Christ . . . and Christ alone. He Who came to us in the Magnum Mysterium – the Great Mystery – of His incarnation, and He Who left us the “mystÃrio ton mystirÃon” – the Sacrament of Sacraments – the Most Blessed Sacrament – His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity.
Pray for me, as I pray for you. And let us resolve to sever every connection which would bind us to the mystery of iniquity. And let us continue to choose Christ . . . embracing the Great Mystery . . . and despite the darkness of sin . . . let us bring that light of Christ to the World.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
