Happy Mother's Day to all of the Mothers out there! How beautiful that we celebrate mothers on the same weekend that we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the appearances of our Blessed Mother, Mary, to the shepherd children - Lucia, Saint Francisco, and Saint Jacinta - at Fatima in Portugal. May our Blessed Mother continue to bless all Mothers with her prayers and intercession so they might be holy Mothers after her pattern.
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| Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us! |
P.S. Lucia lived until 2005 and her cause for canonization has begun, but it isn't far enough along yet for her to be beatified or canonized. Hopefully we will all see the day when she, too, will be listed in the canon of the saints!
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Homily: 5th Sunday in Easter – Cycle A
My brothers and sisters, as we
continue to celebrate this great season of Easter—this season in which we
proclaim with joyful voices that Jesus Christ, the Divine Word of God, who became
one with us in human flesh and suffered death to redeem us from the punishment
due to our sins, has risen from the dead and now lives so that we may have
eternal life with God, our Creator and Father—as we continue to commemorate and
celebrate this great event, we also have the happy opportunity to celebrate the
100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady to the shepherd
children in Fatima, Portugal: the first of which occurred on May 13th,
1917. This is important, I think,
because there are urgent connections between our celebration of Easter and the
messages that Our Lady gave to those children 100 years ago.
If you know anything about the
apparitions, then you’ll know that for six months straight, on the 13th
day of every month, Mary appeared to the three shepherd children—Lucia,
Francisco, and Jacinta—and spoke to them.
You’ll also know that in these appearances, Mary gave them three “secrets”. The first two were revealed in 1941, but the
third secret was sealed until the year 2000.
I’ll leave you to explore booklets and things to learn more about the
secrets, but I want to speak about the first secret, in particular.
In this first secret the children were
given a vision of hell, shown to them in the traditional form of a great lake
of fire filled with suffering souls and cruel devils. This was given to them to impress upon them
the terrible consequences of sin and the urgency of praying for the repentance of
sinners and of making sacrifices in reparation for their sins so that more
souls would not suffer this cruel fate. This
vision reminds us of the two basic things that we know about hell: namely that
it exists and that people go there.
I bring this up today because there
has been a movement both within and outside of the Church to deny either one or
both of these facts. In other words,
there are many people today who are trying to convince themselves and others
either that hell doesn’t exist at all or that no body actually goes there. Their intentions, on the surface, seem noble:
they see the existence of a place of eternal torture and separation from God,
and the idea that our God, who is Love and rich in mercy, would allow persons
to suffer such a fate, as diminishing the love and mercy of God. Therefore, they must deny hell’s existence,
or, at least, the fact that people go there, so that their idea of a loving and
merciful God will not be tarnished.
Unfortunately, this is the great error of all the heretics: that is, it shaves
off the corners of a square peg to make it fit into a circle hole.
My brothers and sisters, let’s be
clear: to deny the existence of hell and/or to deny that God would permit
anyone to suffer such a fate is a mistake.
Jesus came precisely to save us from this fate; and so, what value would
his coming have had for us if there was nothing from which to save us? Even if we admit that hell did exist before Jesus
(and perhaps still exists) and that people went there before Jesus, we cannot
claim that people no longer go there. To
do so would deny the truth that one must be in right relationship with God,
following his commandments, if one wants to enjoy the fruits of that
relationship, which are the joys of eternal life with Him. In other words, even though Jesus has made it
possible to receive forgiveness for our sins (and, thus, to restore our right
relationship with God), there is still a necessity for us to cooperate with
this grace through repentance and conversion (swearing off our sinful ways and
turning towards the way that God’s commandments show us).
Therefore, the vision of the first
secret—the vision of hell as a great lake of fire filled with suffering souls
and cruel devils—is a reminder that we need today of these truths. Still more, the purpose of the vision—to be a
reminder of the terrible consequences of sin and the urgency of praying for the
repentance of sinners and of making sacrifices in reparation for sins—is still relevant
today, perhaps even more so today. This
is not something new, however; rather, it is something that has been part and
parcel of the Christian life from its very beginning.
In our second reading today, Saint
Peter calls the first Christians to let themselves “be built into a spiritual
house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through
Jesus Christ”. A priest is someone who
offers sacrifice on behalf of the people.
Peter, knowing that not all of the Christians were priests who offered
physical sacrifices (like that of bulls and goats), nonetheless reminds them that
Christians are priests who can offer spiritual sacrifices (like prayer and
mortifications: such as fasting and giving alms). And, as we heard in our first reading from
the Acts of the Apostles, the first Christians saw this work as so important
that, when other works of charity threatened to disrupt the Apostles from it,
they appointed other persons to minister the works of charity so that the
Apostles could focus on the critical work of spreading this Word of salvation
and of making spiritual sacrifices for sinners.
Thus, as we hear these words today, we, too, are reminded that the
priesthood of all Christians is to offer these spiritual sacrifices.
My brothers and sisters, the messages
of Our Lady at Fatima simply reinforce this truth: that we, who share in this
priesthood of all believers, must take up this work of offering spiritual sacrifices
of prayer and mortifications for repentance and reparation. We must do this because many people are still
being lost to the cruel fate of suffering and torture in the fires of
hell. The good news of this, however, is
that it isn’t all up to us. What I mean to
say is: the task doesn’t lie on our shoulders alone. Rather, by taking up this good work, we make
ourselves conduits for Jesus’ saving grace to pour out more profusely in the
world. It is Jesus who will bring about
the repentance of sinners; and it is Jesus’ blood, shed on the cross, that will
make reparation for sins; but it is our cooperation that will open up doors for
Jesus’ work of salvation to reach more hearts and, thus, to save more souls
from hell.
The even better news is that this
promise is for everyone. While Jesus’
saving act didn’t save everyone automatically, it is available for anyone and
everyone to receive. This is what he
meant when he told his disciples, “In my Father's house there are many dwelling
places” and “I am going to prepare a place for you”. Thus, our work is even more urgent since,
literally, every living soul on earth is hanging in the balance between heaven
and hell. Let us, therefore, take up
this good work of repentance from sin in our own lives, prayer for the
repentance of others, and making sacrifices for the reparation of sins so that
none of the dwelling places that Jesus has prepared would ever remain empty.
Finally, on this Mother’s Day, I don’t
think that I can fail to note that God sent Mary with this message. I believe that He sent her because she is our
mother and because he knows that we more readily listen to our mothers when
they address us tenderly. No mother
loves us more tenderly than Mary, our Blessed Mother, and so let us honor her
this Mother’s Day by taking up this good work so that she might delight that
more and more of her spiritual children are saved. Mary, Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Given
at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – May 13th & 14th,
2017
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