Friday, August 23, 2019


OT XXI [C] Is 66:18-21, Heb 12:5-7, 11-13; Lk 13:22-30

Venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen tells us that we will have three surprises in Heaven. The first surprise: We will be surprised to see that many people we expected to be in Heaven are not there. The second surprise: We will be surprised to see that the people we never expected to be in Heaven are there. The third surprise: We will be surprised to see that we are in Heaven! In today’s Gospel, Jesus answers the question, as to how many will be saved, by answering how to enter into salvation and how urgent it is to strive now, before the Master closes the door. Jesus clearly explains that anyone who follows him through the narrow gate of sacrificial serving and sharing love will be saved. Jesus also admonishes his followers to concentrate on their own salvation instead of worrying about the salvation of others.

When the questioner asked Jesus “How many will be saved?” he was assuming that the salvation of God’s Chosen People was virtually guaranteed, provided they kept the Law. In other words, the Kingdom of God was reserved for the Jews alone, and Gentiles would be shut out.  
Hence, Jesus’ answer must have come as a shock. Jesus affirms that God wants all persons to enjoy eternal life with Him. But he stresses the need for constant fidelity and vigilance throughout our lives. Thus, Jesus reminds us that, even though God wants all of us to be saved, we all need to work at it. Entry into God’s kingdom is not automatically granted, based purely on religious Faith or nationality.
How many will be saved in the end is a decision that rests with God and depends His Justice which includes His Mercy.  Jesus came to bring God’s love and freedom to the whole world. The message of his Gospel is that there is not a single person, people, nation, race, or class, which will be excluded from experiencing the love and liberation that God offers. Hence, the role of the Christian community, from the beginning until now has been, first and foremost, to proclaim to the whole world the Good News of God’s love for the world, and then to show this Good News to be real, reflected in the loving, sharing and serving lives of individual Christians.

Eternal salvation is the result of a struggle: “keep on striving to enter.”It is like the effort one would make in swimming against the current in a river.  A man must ever be going forward or else he will go backward.   We must enter through the “narrow gate” of sacrificial and selfless service.
Entering through the narrow gate denotes a steady obedience to the Lord Jesus — overcoming all opposition and rejecting every temptation.  It is the narrow way of unconditional and unremitting love. Mere faith in Jesus and membership in His Church by Baptism cannot guarantee salvation.  Some of the Fathers of the Church interpreted the narrow door as that small place in the heart where one says “yes” or “no” to what one knows to be true.  It is the one place through which no external force can enter to shape or coerce one’s choices.
“Being saved’ is the end-result – seeing God face to face in Heaven. Jesus explains that Salvation begins with Faith.  But it is also the result of how that Faith is lived.  We cannot “earn” our way into Heaven by good works, but we also believe that we must allow God to work in our lives through His grace, a grace that is reflected in our actions.

Hence, our answer to the question: “Have you been saved?” should be: “I have been saved from the penalty of sin by Christ’s death and Resurrection.  I am being saved from the power of sin by the indwelling Spirit of God.  I have the hope that I shall one day be saved from the very presence of sin when I go to be with God.”  Therefore, the Catholic faith is not like that of some Evangelicals who believe, once you receive baptism in faith you are saved for ever; you cannot lose your salvation.  This is not what the Bible teaches in today’s gospel.
We need to make wise decisions and choose the narrow gate.  God allows us to decide every day what road we will walk down and what gate we will choose.  He encourages us, however, to choose His way:  “Choose life” (Moses – Dt 30:19-20); “There are two paths: one of life and one of death, and the difference between the two is great.”(Didache);   “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” Says Jesus (Lk 9:23).   This means a consistent denial of self and the steady relinquishing of sinful pleasures, pursuits, and interests. 

The “narrow road” or “narrow gate” concerns our everyday—pursuing the Kingdom and God’s justice instead of fame and fortune; and it involves not condemning others. It involves repentance, obedience, humility, righteousness, truth and discipleship.  Hence, let’s strive to enter through the “narrow gate” by prayer and supplication, diligently seeking deliverance from those things which would bar our entrance, and acquiring those things which would facilitate our entry.


Friday, August 16, 2019


OT XX [C] Jer 38:4-6, 8-10; Heb 12:1-4; Lk 12: 49-53

Some time ago a newspaper columnist, Arthur Jones, shared an important moment in his earlier life with his readers. It happened when he was drafted into the Royal Air Force and found himself in military barracks with 30 other men. On the first night he had to make a decision. He had always knelt to say his prayers. Should he continue to kneel now that he was in military service? He squirmed a little and then said to himself: “Why should I change just because people are watching?  Am I going to begin my life away from home by letting other people dictate what I should do or not do?” He decided to kneel. By the time he had finished, he became aware that everyone else was aware of him. And when he made the Sign of the Cross, he was aware that everyone else knew he was a Catholic. As it turned out, he was the only Catholic in the barracks. Yet, night after night he knelt. He said that those ten minutes on his knees often led to discussions that lasted for hours. On the last day in boot camp, someone said to him, “You are the finest Christian I’ve ever met.” He replied, “Well, I might be the most public Christian you’ve ever met, but I don’t think I’m the finest. Still, I thank you for what you said.” – That story illustrates one of the points of today’s Gospel. Commitment to Jesus means taking a stand on certain things. And sometimes that stand sets us in opposition to other people. 

In the First Reading, we heard how Jeremiah was mistreated by the king and his officials for speaking the Word of God. They threw him into a deep, muddy cistern to die for his audacity to preach that the Lord God said that the king had to surrender to the mighty army of Babylonian empire to save Israel.  They considered it a “treason” and punished him.

The message that Jesus brought caused conflict between people who stood for truth and people who resisted it; conflict between people who accepted good and people who sided with evil; conflict between people who cherished love and people who spread hatred. So Jesus spoke to the crowd, "Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! This division was all the more evident in the early Christian community. And this division exists even today. There is the conflict between good and evil. There is the conflict between people who keep the commands of the Lord and people who disregard them. There is the conflict between people who respect the rights of others and the people who ignore them. There is the conflict between the people who keep the precepts of the church and the people who vehemently oppose them.
If no one is ever offended by the quality of our commitment to Christ, that commitment may not be authentic, and if our individual and communal living of the Good News casts no fire and causes no division, then perhaps we are practicing “inoffensive Christianity.”

As Jesus walked the road to Jerusalem, the disciples had to decide whether to go with him or not. To be with or against Jesus is a decision which has the effect of judgment and division. Even though Christ did come to establish peace between God and man, that peace causes a division between those who accept it and those who reject it. In this way he becomes a sign of contradiction, as Simeon who took the baby Jesus in his arms in the temple and foretold: This child will be cause of rise and fall of many, meaning he will bring division.

Christianity tore families in two, because a follower of Christ had to decide which he loved better — his kith and kin or Christ. In Christianity, the loyalty to Christ has to take precedence over the dearest loyalties of this earth. Belief in Jesus and commitment to him cause fires of arguments to erupt between believers and non-believers in the same family or community, resulting in the division of families and conflict in society. Standing up for what is right, working for justice and truth are higher aims than unity, and working for those aims will sometimes cause division. Hence, Christians today may cause division and rouse opposition because they share, through their Baptism, the prophetic charism of speaking God’s word, no matter how unpopular, and of giving a voice to those who have no one to speak for them. Let us remember that Jesus’ sense of justice brought him into conflict with those who exploited the weak and the poor. His integrity invited confrontation with the dishonest and hypocritical leaders, and his love for the poor, for sinners and for the outcast alienated him from the narrow-minded and self-righteous. C.S. Lewis once said that the Gospel was concerned to create “new people” not just “nice people.”

The Jesuit Cardinal Avery Dulles, writing about the role of prophecy in the modern Church communities in his book, Models of the Church, remarks: “Christianity is not healthy unless there is room in it for prophetic protest against abuses of authority.” God continues to send such prophets to every parish community, and it is the duty of the bishop, pastor and parish council to listen to the well-intended and constructive criticisms of prophets like Jeremiah.

Every day, we are called to make choices, decisions as to which way we will go that day. Sometimes, those decisions are costly, in terms of money, or family, or friendships. If our destination is important to us, we make the correct choice. Not every time, perhaps. But often enough. May God give us wisdom and courage to make those choices in the days ahead. 


Wednesday, August 14, 2019


Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Rv 11:19a, 12:1-6a, 10ab; I Cor 15:20-27a; Lk 1:39-56)

The Feast of the Assumption is one of the most important feasts of our Lady.  We believe that when her earthly life was finished, Mary was taken up, body and soul, into Heavenly glory, where the Lord exalted her as Queen of Heaven. (CCC # 966).  It was on November 1, 1950, that Pope Pius XII officially declared the Assumption as a Dogma of Catholic Faith. 

Although the New Testament does not explicitly affirm Mary’s Assumption, it offers a basis for it because it strongly emphasized the Blessed Virgin’s perfect union with Jesus’ destiny. Perfectly united with the life and saving work of Jesus, Mary shares his Heavenly destiny in body and soul.
In AD 325, the Council of Nicaea spoke of the Assumption of Mary. Writing in AD 457, the Bishop of Jerusalem said that when Mary’s tomb was opened, it was "found empty. The apostles judged her body had been taken into Heaven.”  There is a tomb at the foot of the Mt. of Olives where ancient tradition says that Mary was laid.  But there is nothing inside. 

The tradition holds that Blessed Virgin Mary died in Jerusalem (or Ephesus?) and during the last moments of her earthly life all surviving Apostles were present there except St. Thomas, who was then preaching in India. He then was miraculously brought there, and he insisted on seeing the dead body of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But to everyone’s surprise, her tomb was found empty, excepting her clothes.
In his decree on the Dogma of the Assumption, Pope Pius XII gives a couple of theological reasons to support this traditional belief.

The decay of the body after death is the result of original sin.  However, since, through a special intervention of God, Mary was born without original sin, it is not proper that God would permit her body to degenerate in the tomb. In other words, at the first moment of her life, by a very special privilege of God, Mary was preserved free from the stain of sin. At the last moment, by another very special privilege she was preserved free from the corruption of the grave.
Since Mary was given the fullness of grace, Heaven is the proper place for this sinless mother of Jesus. Hence, unlike other saints, Our Lady is in Heaven not only with her soul but also with her glorified body as her Son.

In the first reading, the author of Revelation probably did not have Mary of Nazareth in mind when he described the “woman” in this narrative.  He uses the “woman” as a symbol for the nation and people, Israel.  She is pictured as giving birth, as Israel brought forth the Messiah through its pains. The woman is also symbolic of the Church, and the woman’s offspring represents the way the Church brings Christ into the world.  The dragon represents the world's resistance to Christ and the truths that the Church proclaims.  As Mary is the mother of Christ and of the Church, the passage has indirect reference to Mary.

In the song of Mary, given in today’s Gospel, Mary declares, “the Almighty has done great things for me; Holy is His Name.” Besides honoring her as Jesus’ mother, God has blessed Mary with the gift of bodily Assumption.  God, who has "lifted up" His "lowly servant," Mary, lifts up all the lowly, not only because they are faithful, but also because God is faithful to the promise of Divine mercy.  Mary’s Assumption gives us the assurance and hope of our own resurrection and assumption into Heaven on the day of our Last Judgment.

Since Mary’s Assumption was a reward for her saintly life, this feast reminds us that we, too, must be pure and holy in body and soul, since our bodies will be glorified on the day of our resurrection.  St. Paul tells us that our bodies are the temples of God because the Holy Spirit dwells within us.  He also reminds us that our bodies are members (parts) of the Body of Christ.

Finally, it is always an inspiring thought in our moments of temptation and despair to remember that we have a powerful Heavenly Mother, constantly interceding for us before her Son, Jesus, in Heaven. The Fathers of the Church said: To Jesus through Mary.

St. Maxmillian Kolbe whose feast the Church celebrated yesterday had a great devotion to Mary. He said: Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did. Nobody can love Mary more than Jesus loved, and if we did, that would be idolatry as Mary is not God, but only mother of Jesus the Son of God. Since Jesus is one person, not two, like: one human person and one divine person; but one single person. Mary is the mother of Jesus who is Son of God and son of Man at the same time. Therefore she is the Mother of God, yet, not God. Honoring Mary is honoring Jesus who loved and honored Mary more than anybody in the world. And if we dishonor Mary, it is equal to dishonoring her Son Jesus. No son likes to see his own mother dishonored or disliked by anybody. Therefore, let’s love and honor Mary, Mother of Jesus. Mary leads every believer to her Son Jesus. And she tells everyone to do what Jesus tells. As Kolbe said: Bring every soul to the sacred heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.