Author Topic: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live (Read 1770011 times)

cassini · « **Reply #130 on:** November 05, 2025, 01:18:09 PM »

Fr Sean again
The Church: A Different Kind of Building

The Roman Catholic Church throughout the world annually commemorates the dedication of St. John Lateran Church in Rome. It is the diocesan cathedral of the Bishop of Rome who is the Pope of the universal Church which Jesus founded on Peter in communion with the other Apostles. It was dedicated by Pope Sylvester in 324 A.D. Its official title is “The Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour and Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist at the Lateran.” It is known as “The Mother of all churches,” the oldest Church building in the history of Christianity. Its dedication marked the legitimization of Christianity by the Roman Emperor, Constantine, in the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. Why commemorate a building? The dictionary defines the word ‘building’ as the act of constructing or erecting something. A building, then, is a structure. In commemorating a building the Church is reflecting on herself as a particular visible structure whose purpose is the continuation of the Good News of Jesus Christ that He came to save mankind from sin. The form of a building or a structure is determined by its purpose. In commemorating the dedication of the Church of St. John Lateran, Catholics are reflecting on Jesus and His Church in which He is sacramentally present to all who freely choose to believe in Him as the only Way to Heaven, the only Truth about who God is and what human beings need, the only Life that enjoys and happy eternity.

Jesus and His Church are One

Jesus made faith in Him and in His Church synonymous. We can’t truly believe in Jesus without believing in His Church and neither can we believe in His Church without believing in Him. Jesus founded His Church on Peter (Mt 16:18) to whom He gave the keys to God’s Kingdom with the authority to make laws or to dispense from laws (Mt 16:19) along with the power to forgive or deny forgiveness of sin (Jn 20:23). To highlight the unity between Himself and His Church Jesus revealed to Peter, “He who hears you hears me. He who rejects you rejects me. And he who rejects me rejects Him who sent me” (Lk 10:16). Jesus warned that, “Whoever acknowledges me before men I will acknowledge before my Father in Heaven. Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown before my Father in Heaven” (Mt 10:33). The Church is the structure wherein all people are given the opportunity to both privately and publicly acknowledge Jesus before the world. It is within the structure of the Church that Jesus provides believers with the necessary graces to resist the temptation to deny Him before others especially when disordered desires enter our mind.

The Physical and Spiritual Building

The Church founded by Jesus isn’t a material building, although the material building visibly symbolizes the presence of His Church. The Holy Spirit inspired St. Paul to reveal that the Church is the People of God. “Brothers and sisters, you are God’s building… Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.” He also tells us that the Church’s only foundation is Jesus Christ. “No one can lay a foundation other that the one that there is, namely Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:9-17). Jesus emphasized the intimate relationship with His Church when He described the relationship as that between a bridegroom and his bride. God revealed through Isaiah, “As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you” (Is 62:5). Through St. Paul, the Holy Spirit declared Jesus’ intimate relationship with His Church as the standard for husbands in loving their wives. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph 5:25).

Graces Flow Through the Church

The necessity of the Church as the means through which Jesus bestows His graces to save mankind was prefigured in the Old Testament in the vision of Ezekiel (47:1-2, 8-9, 12). God showed Ezekiel the Temple from which water flowed out of the sanctuary into the sea and made the saltwater fresh, enabling all living creatures to multiply and all plants and trees to be fruitful providing food and medicine. This is an image of the Church from which God’s graces flow to refresh mankind with the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness. This image was reinforced by the Psalmist (46:2-9): “There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High. God in the midst; it shall not be disturbed …” Jesus assured His Church that she would continue until the end of the world and would be unconquerable. Before He ascended into Heaven Jesus commissioned His Apostles to “Teach them (all men and women) to carry out everything I have commanded you” (Mt 28:20a). Then He promised Peter and the other Apostles, and through them, His Church: “And know that I am with you always, until the end of the world!” (My 28:20b). As the Bridegroom, Jesus promises to never abandon His Bride, His Church. Because the members of the Church constitute the Bride of Christ He will never abandon them

When Jesus saw the Temple in Jerusalem being used as a market selling birds and animals, even though they were used for offering sacrifices to God, He became angry and shouted, “Take these out of here and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace” (Jn 2:13-22). Why? Because the Temple, which was designated as a holy place for worshipping God had now become a place for making money. He quoted Ps 69:10: “Because zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who blaspheme You fall upon me.” The Temple prefigured the Church founded by Jesus. Jesus is zealous for His Church because He made her a necessary means through which He offered salvation to mankind. Zeal for Jesus is impossible without being zealous for His Church. Why?

Essential for Salvation

The Church is essential for salvation simply because Jesus founded her as the visible body on earth through which He would continue His saving mission received from His Father. The Church is the visible sign of the Kingdom Jesus established on earth. In the Name of Jesus, her bead, the Church, as His body, announces to all generations that, “This is the time of fulfilment. The Kingdom of God is at hand! Reform your lives and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15). Jesus has come; He suffered, died, and was raised from the dead by His Father, and is here now in His Church. It is in His Church that Jesus can be heard in the preaching and teaching of His Word of Truth. It is in His Church that Jesus can be seen through the eyes of supernatural Faith, tasted, and touched in her Sacraments, particularly in the Holy Mass, and in carrying out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Nowhere else, other than in Jesus’ Church which He founded on Peter and continues down to today through their successors, the duly ordained Popes and bishops, faithfully handing on the Apostolic Tradition and moral teaching given to the Apostles directly by Jesus and the prompting of the Holy Spirit, can we hear and meet Him in the most intimate of settings and experiences. Jesus founded only one Church that gives witness to the fact that, in the inspired words of St. Paul (Eph 4:5), “There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and works through all, and is in all.” The Catholic Church provides the only hope for unity among those who want to follow Jesus and be saved. As Jesus Himself declared, “There is only one flock and one shepherd” (Jn 10:16) characterized by four marks: Unity, Holiness, Catholicity, and Apostolicity. She is Jesus’ personal instrument through which He saves His followers, preserves His Truth, and enters into a personal and communal relationship with His community through her Sacraments.

Only One Way to Be Jesus’ Church

Over the past number of years there has been an attempt to provide a “new way to be church.” The fact is that there is no “new way.” There is only one way, namely Jesus’ way – the Way of the Cross. That Way is the divine way for all ages spelled out in the Holy Scriptures and the teaching of His Church. The Church is not a building, a structure like other buildings or structures in the world. It’s not just another organization that’s non-governmental. The Church is a building of humans joined together by Jesus as the Centre around Whom and in Whom they are graced to witness His sacramentally Real Presence in the world calling it to salvation. The Church is old and yet every new because she belongs to Jesus and not to any particular age or generation or political regime. She is counter-cultural through calling all to let Jesus love them by learning and keeping His commandments (Jn 14:15). By default we must recognize that if we don’t know and obey Jesus’ commandments we don’t love Him and so deprive ourselves of following His Way to Heaven – the only way; His Truth – the only truth about God, ourselves, our world, our destiny, and our true purpose; His Life – the life that only He can give us and the only life that brings eternal joy and happiness. Yes, the Church is a Divine building, symbolized in human buildings where Jesus builds sinful human beings into saints by structuring their lives through lovingly obeying the Ten Commandments and practicing the Beatitudes. It is an indestructible building created and maintained by Jesus who assures her faithful members of God’s unconditional love, entry into which is attained only by accepting Jesus who revealed, “I have come to call sinners (to repentance) (Lk 5:32)… that you might have life and have it to the fullest” (Jn 10:10). (fr sean)

Builders of Eternity
Isn’t it strange that princes and kings
And clowns that caper in sawdust rings,
And ordinary folks like you and me,
Are builders of eternity.
To each is given a bag of tools,
An hour-glass and a book of rules,
And each must build, ere time is flown,
A stumbling block or a stepping stone.
(R. L. Sharpe)

cassini · « **Reply #131 on:** November 12, 2025, 12:22:59 PM »

Fr Sean again
There’s No Escape from Divine Justice:

During this month of November when the Church focuses on praying for the dead God speaks to us about justice. St. Thomas Aquinas noted that if we didn’t believe in divine justice we’d have to invent it. Why? The good of society requires that every person receive his or her due and be held responsible and accountable. Everyone needs to know that good actions are rewarded and evil actions are punished, whether in this life or in the life to come. Since human justice is often flawed due to prejudice, ignorance, greed, revenge, and lies, divine justice is needed to assure just treatment for everyone. What is justice? Dictionaries define it as “the exercise of authority in vindication of right by assigning reward or punishment.” It’s the quality of being fair and impartial by awarding everyone what is due him or her. God is the final arbiter of justice and He is the ultimate Determiner of reward and punishment for the good or evil we do. Jesus is the final Judge. The Holy Spirit teaches us that, “The lives of all of us are to be revealed before the tribunal of Christ so that each one may receive his recompense, good or bad, according to his life in the body” (2 Cor 5:10). No one escapes God’s justice. He holds each of us accountable for all our thoughts, words and actions.

God’s Justice Forces Us to Judge Ourselves

Jesus’ Church proclaims God’s promise through the Prophet, Malachi: “The day is coming … when all evildoers will be stubble … but for you who fear my Name, there will arise the sun of justice with all its healing rays” (Mal 3:19-20). We hear a lot about God’s mercy but not very much about His justice. God, of course, is both just and merciful. But God’s mercy is the love and patience giving us the chance to reform our lives through repentance for our sins, our acts of injustice, and act justly toward Him, ourselves and our neighbour. Jesus provided us with this opportunity in His Church’s Sacrament of Reconciliation. He promises those who repent their injustices that He will, “…have compassion on them, as a man has compassion on his son who serves him. Then you will see the distinction between the just and the wicked; between him who serves God and him who does not serve Him” (Mal 3:17-18). The Holy Spirit revealed through the Psalmist that the Son of God would come as the Just Ruler, to “… rule the world with justice and the peoples with equity” (Ps 98:9). At the moment of our death you and I will have to pronounce judgment on ourselves when God’s justice exposes whether we’ve lived life justly or unjustly, gracefully or sinfully. The standard He’ll use to determine our reward or punishment is whether we lovingly obeyed the Commandments and did our best to live the Beatitudes as members of His Church. We will see whether we have used God’s mercy as chances that God gave us to put order in our disordered lives by making our relationship with Him our first priority. At the end of time God’s judgment will show that His justice tempered by His mercy has rewarded or punished everyone according to his or her deeds. It’s God who rewards us for the good we do, but it’s we who will condemn ourselves for the evil we did and died unrepentant. We condemn ourselves because in the presence of Jesus we’ll have to take full responsibility for our behaviour when faced with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The 4 Kinds of Justice

Because Jesus is the just Judge, He alone, through His Church, teaches us how to be just in our dealings with God and with one another. There are four kinds of human justice: Distributive or economic justice that assures fairness in the distribution of goods and resources; Procedural justice that assures fairness in how goods are distributed; Restorative justice that assures restitution for harm or deprivation; and Retributive justice that assures the punishment is proportionate to the crime. Looking at the world today it is evident that these forms of justice are not being practiced. We see injustice enshrined in legislation such as abortion, euthanasia, same-sex “marriage,” transgenderism, etc. Sadly, the law, whose purpose is to maintain order and protect the rights of the people so that justice reigns in order that people may be at peace, often denies human rights to others such as the unborn and even those that survive abortion. This guarantees the continuity of injustice which undermines any hope of peace, since peace flows only from justice. What’s legal isn’t always what is just, what is moral.

Relationship of Justice and Mercy

Human justice should mirror God’s justice since the creature’s behaviour should reflect the Creator’s intention for its existence. Our behaviour should reflect our relationship with God who created each of us to be at peace with Him, ourselves and our neighbour. That’s why we must follow Jesus’ teaching in order to love goodness, act justly, and walk humbly in God’s sight (Micah 6). God revealed to Isaiah (61:8): “For I, the Lord, love what is right, I hate robbery and injustice …” Jesus tells us what is just in every Holy Mass when the priest prays at the Preface, “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give You thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ our Lord.” He warns us: “See that you are not deceived, for many will come in my Name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and ‘The time has come!’ Do not follow them!” (Lk 21:8). Today there are many false “prophets” both outside and within the Church who are promoting false teaching and deceive people into thinking their lifestyle is fine when in fact it is mortally sinful. There are people within the Church who promote false ecuмenism and instead of calling all people to unite with Christ in His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, they want the Church to embrace them without requiring conversion. They want a Church that promotes mercy but not justice. St. Thomas Aquinas noted that “mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.” Mercy makes sure that justice isn’t cruel but restores the moral order for the good of everyone. Mercy is the chance God gives us and we give one another to get things right, to act justly, morally, in our relationships. The promoters of mercy try to portray Jesus as being only merciful while ignoring His just demands, such as “If you love me, keep my Commandments” (Jn 14:15-31). Jesus is always both merciful and just towards us. His justice reflects His mercy and His mercy reflects His justice. Because Jesus isn’t merciful without being just or just without being merciful, His Church must preach, teach and practice both. The goal of mercy demands the practice of justice. Amendment of one’s life is an essential characteristic of the Sacrament of Reconciliation where God displays and justice together. Satan loves mercy without justice because it leads to a lack of accountability and assures the continuity of immoral behaviour.

Justice Brings Suffering

As the Judge of the living and the dead, Jesus is the only true arbiter of justice and the only Teacher with the authority to tell us what’s right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust. To be just in this world evokes the ire of those who don’t want to be reminded of their injustices. Jesus wasn’t crucified because He was merciful, but rather because He was just. Jesus knew what lay ahead for His Apostles and disciples as the messengers of His mercy and justice so He prepared them to put all their trust in Him and be faithful to His teaching. He assured them, “I myself will give you a wisdom in speaking (the truth about what is right and just, our duty and our salvation) that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute” (Lk 21:15). Jesus spelled out the reality they would face and He told them: “You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair of your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives” (Lk 21:16-19). Is it any wonder, then, that people want the Church of Nice, the church that preaches mercy without justice, rather than Jesus’ Church that preaches and teaches that mercy without justice leads to moral decay.

How We Know We’re Acting Justly

Our adherence to Jesus’ teaching through His Church regarding justice telling us what is morally right or wrong, prepares us for His judgment in the face of which we must judge ourselves on the day we die. God’s Law reflects God’s justice. God’s justice reflects God’s love. We reflect our love for God by being obedient to His law and giving Him His due by worshipping Him and giving Him the first place in our life. Obedience to His Law means that we’ll strive for justice and fairness in all our endeavours. Then we’ll have the peace that only Jesus can give; a peace that flows from justice – peace of mind, heart, soul, all of which relaxes our body and saves us from distress. When we act justly we’ll “keep busy and not act unruly like busybodies” (2 Thes 3:11). Following Jesus as our Teacher and Judge, led by the Holy Spirit present in His Church, we know that we “will never grow weary of doing what is right” (2 Thes 3:13) despite the fury it may invoke from God’s enemies. Injustices won’t discourage us or make us seek revenge because we know that no one escapes God’s divine justice. (fr sean)

Life

A mother can give you life.
A doctor can save your life.
A lawyer can defend your life.
A soldier can protect your life.
But only God, through Jesus Christ,
can give you everlasting life.

cassini · « **Reply #132 on:** November 19, 2025, 11:22:49 AM »

Fr Sean again
The Only King whose Kingdom Is without End

The Catholic Church brings her liturgical year to a close by celebrating Jesus as the King to whom everyone is accountable and by Whom everyone will be judged according to his or her deeds here on earth. Why does the Church celebrate the Kingship of Jesus? Because the Church’s task is to inform everyone about Jesus’ Kingdom, whose visible sign on earth she is, so that they can benefit from the supernatural freedom, justice, love and peace that He offers. It is only within Jesus’ Kingdom that we can find ultimate meaning, value, power, purpose, and a joyful future in which to hope, without fear of being deceived (Rom 5:5). This is where our yearning for what’s real, true, good, and beautiful will be fulfilled. Jesus’ Kingdom isn’t of this world (Jn 18:36). This world has another “King,” namely Satan. This fallen world is his “kingdom” and will be so until Jesus returns again. Satan, “the father of lies” (Jn 8:44, promises to satisfy all our needs by tempting us to focus only on satisfying the three blind desires emanating from our brain stem, namely eat, drink, and gratify our sɛҳuąƖ urges. He wants us to ignore the desires of our soul, which is the seat of our intellect that’s satisfied only by the truth (Christ Jesus) and our will that chooses the good (God Himself is the ultimate Good). Satan falsely promises that popularity, possessions, power, and pleasure will satisfy our in-bred need to belong, be free, be powerful, and be joyful. Since these are spiritual qualities they can be met only by the God who created them in us at the moment of conception. We want these qualities permanently, not just temporarily. The only one who can empower us to change for the better, free us from sin, give us a joyful spirit, and offer us a happy future is Christ Jesus. This is why Christians call Jesus their King. He is the One who makes them heirs to His Kingdom. The world - Satan’s kingdom - is passing away and makes his followers heirs to eternal death.

Know the Real Jesus

Who is Jesus? In the inspired words of Peter, He is “… the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16:16). It wasn’t Peter’s own powers of observation that enabled him to recognize Jesus as Son of God and Messiah. That required supernatural Faith. Natural faith based on the senses wouldn’t be sufficient. Jesus explained to Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in Heaven” (Mt 16:17). Jesus told His Apostles, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him…” (Jn 6:44). Supernatural Faith is a gift from God, the first of the three Divine Virtues the practice of which God gave us in Baptism. St. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, helps us to deepen our understanding of Jesus as our King who demonstrates supernatural Faith through His obedience to His Father’s will: He “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation … For in Him were created all things in Heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible … all things were created through Him and for Him … He is the Head of the body, the Church” (Col 1:15ff). He is the King on whom all creation relies for its existence and perfection. When Pilate questioned Jesus if He was a king, He replied, “My Kingdom does not belong to this world … Yes, I am a King. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice” (Jn 18:36-37). Ironically, in mocking Jesus by writing “King of the Jews” on the cross, His persecutors were unwittingly speaking the truth. The enemies of the truth unwittingly give voice to the truth whenever they condemn it because truth can’t be conquered.

The Visible Sign of Jesus’ Kingdom

Jesus came to establish God’s Kingdom on earth so that every human being would have the opportunity to enter that Kingdom. He taught His disciples to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven” (Mt 6:10). God’s Kingdom is wherever He is enabling people to do will. Satan’s kingdom is wherever God’s will is rejected, ignored, or dismissed. Jesus gave His Kingdom visibility on earth by founding His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church on Peter. Baptism into His Church is the door to Jesus’ Kingdom of Heaven and His Church’s Sacraments are His royal and personal meetings with His people individually and communally. The characteristics of Jesus’ Kingdom on earth, as it is in Heaven, are the values He established for everyone to embrace, namely freedom from the slavery of sin, justice in relationships, charity towards all, and peace to people of good will.

The Baptized Are Heirs to the Kingdom

The Psalmist proclaimed his joy at entering the visible sign of God’s Kingdom: “I rejoiced because they said to me, ‘We will go up to the house of the Lord.’ And now we have set foot within your gates, O Jerusalem” (Ps 122: 1-2). Jerusalem symbolized God’s covenantal presence where He prepared His people for the establishing of His Kingdom on earth. Jesus established God’s Kingdom on earth with the founding of His Church where His people could meet and worship Him as their King. By belonging to His Church Jesus makes us heirs to His Kingdom. The Holy Spirit reveals that, “If we are God’s children we are heirs as well: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, sharing His sufferings so as to share His glory” (Rom 8:16ff). Because Jesus is present in His Church, through which we belong to His Kingdom and we adore Him as our King, we can be joyful because in the inspired words of Peter, “you are sure of the end to which your faith looks forward, that is, the salvation of your souls” (1Pt 1:8-9).

Kingdom Benefits and Duties

Jesus’ Church invites everyone to embrace Him as their King by uniting with Him through, with, and in her Sacraments. Jesus is the Head of His Church, the visible sign of His Kingdom, and holds her close to His Sacred Heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, leading her to perfection by calling her members to do God’s will “on earth as it is in Heaven” (Mt 6:10). Through Jesus, sacramentally present in His Church, God the Father has, “delivered us from darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of His Beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:12ff). Jesus transferred the repentant thief from darkness of sin into the light of grace when he humbly prayed, “Jesus remember me when you come into Your Kingdom.” He responds similarly to you and me when we repent, seek forgiveness, and make restitution for the damage caused by our sins. Then He speaks these words to us: “Indeed, I promise you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23:42-43). Every time we pray “Thy Kingdom come” in the Lord’s prayer we are anticipating the Kingdom of God, namely Heaven, and promising to “do His will on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:10). We are acknowledging our membership in God’s Kingdom through belonging to Jesus’ Church that, through supernatural Faith, recognizes Him as the only King of Heaven and earth. Jesus is our King and in praying for His kingdom to come we are committing ourselves to hoping for and to promoting His Kingdom on earth by being faithful members of His Church upholding the Apostolic Tradition which He gave His Apostles and which He commissioned them to hand on through His Church to all generations until the end of time. Jesus is the only King within whose Kingdom our deepest hopes and dreams are fulfilled. If you haven’t already freely chosen Jesus as your King , now is the time to choose Him and invest yourself fully in His Kingdom of freedom, justice, love, and peace. (fr sean)

Full Disclosure in the Presence of the King

“Each of us must come to the evening of life. Each of us must enter on eternity. Each of us must come to that quiet, awful time, when we will appear before the Lord of the vineyard, and answer for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad. That, my dear brethren, you will have to undergo. … It will be the dread moment of expectation, when your fate for eternity is in the balance, and when you are about to be sent forth as the companion of either saints or devils, without possibility of change. There can be no change; there can be no reversal. As that judgment decides it, so it will be for ever and ever. Such is the particular judgment. … when we find ourselves by ourselves, one by one, in His presence, and have brought before us most vividly all the thoughts, words, and deeds of this past life. Who will be able to bear the sight of himself? And yet we shall be obliged steadily to confront ourselves and to see ourselves. In this life we shrink from knowing our real selves. We do not like to know how sinful we are. We love those who prophesy smooth things to us, and we are angry with those who tell us of our faults. But on that day, not one fault only, but all the secret, as well as evident, defects of our character will be clearly brought out. We shall see what we feared to see here, and much more. And then, when the full sight of ourselves comes to us, who will not wish that he had known more of himself here, rather than leaving it for the inevitable day to reveal it all to him!” (St. John Henry Newman, p101 “A Year with the Saints”)

cassini · « **Reply #133 on:** November 26, 2025, 10:52:06 AM »

Fr Sean again
Advent: Time to Wake Up!

The Catholic Church begins a new liturgical year with the holy season of Advent. The Church refers to the year as liturgical because she devotes the time to publicly worshiping God and thanking Him for the blessings He has bestowed on the worshippers. Liturgy is all about the solemn worship of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Advent is the first season of the liturgical year during which the Church prepares her members and the world to celebrate Jesus’ birth and reminds them to be prepared for when they meet Him face-to-face by uniting themselves now with His Sacramental presence in His Church. The other holy seasons are: Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost. Throughout this New Year, God will bestow graces through His Church on His children and through them on the world calling it to repentance and conversion. The impact of the blessings from those graces will depend on the degree of receptivity of those upon whom they’re bestowed. As the Holy Spirit reminds us through St. Paul: Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think” (Eph 3:20). As we begin this new year of grace, the Holy Spirit expresses urgency regarding the correction of our sinful behaviour: “You must wake up now: your salvation is nearer than it was when you first converted ... Let us live decently ... no drunken orgies, not promiscuity or licentiousness (sɛҳuąƖ behaviour characterized by lewdness and lack of chastity), no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:11-14). He reminds us that we are subject to the Lord. “While we live we are responsible to the Lord, and when we die we die as His servants. Both in life and in death we are the Lord’s…Every one of us will have to give an account of himself before God …” (Rom 14:8-12).

Preparing us to begin this new year of grace, the Holy Spirit, guiding Jesus’ Church, rouses us up from our spiritual torpor and calls us to make Jesus the centre of our life empowering us to counter the wiles and ways of Satan and our own proneness to sin. He urges us in the words of St. Peter: “Be of sober spirit, be alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour” (1 Pt 5:8). Satan is cunning. He hates us and will do anything to destroy us by promoting lies as truth and making false gods attractive. He uses false teachers, even within the Church, who try to promote his lies about creating a “new way to be Church” instead of Jesus’ way, which is the Way of the Cross. Therefore, Jesus warns us to, “Be on your guard against false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but underneath are wolves on the prowl” (Mt 7:15). False prophets come both from without and from within Jesus’ Church aiming to make her more amenable to worldly thinking. It’s so easy to be lulled to sleep by the humanistic/atheistic/nihilistic culture that focuses only on gratifying the body while totally ignoring the soul. This culture of death offers impotent remedies and poisoned food when the starved soul makes itself manifest in feelings of emptiness, loneliness, self-rejection, depression, inner turmoil, joylessness, listlessness, wrath, addiction, abuse, violence, etc. Only the “armour of the Lord” (Eph 6:11) will guard us from these spiritual maladies spawned by the malignant enemy that underlie much of our loneliness and our vain search for love in all the wrong places. Satan uses our loneliness to tempt us to try and fulfil ourselves with what fails to satisfy us or to get us to doubt that God cares for us and wants to make us whole through calling us into an intimate relationship with Him as His children.

A New Opportunity

A new year is always an opportunity for a new beginning. It is a time to reorder our priorities so that we can make the most of this new period of time with which God has gifted us and during which He is present to us in His Church and in our hearts as members of His Church. How does this new beginning and reordering of our priorities take place? It takes place through the grace of God which He bestows on His Church as our Mother, who, following the example of the Virgin Mary, tells us to “Do whatever He tells you” (Jn 2:5). Where does Jesus speak to us? He speaks to us through His Church’s proclamation of the Gospel and in her Sacraments, prayer, and worship, especially in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and in carrying out the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. He revealed the importance of His Church through Isaiah that, “In the days to come...people will say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob that He may teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths ...He will wield authority over the nations and adjudicate between many peoples ...they will beat their swords into ploughshares ... there will be no one training for war” (2:1-5). A new positive beginning and an essential change in priorities leading to good living come about only when we embrace God’s ways. Someone noted that “if we don’t give God the first place in our daily life, everything else in our life is in the wrong place!”

Our First Priority

We give God the first place in our life by embracing His ways through faithfully adhering to the traditional and biblically based teaching handed down by Jesus’ Church. The Temple and Jerusalem prefigured the Church which Jesus founded on Peter and assured her continuity until the end of time through the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Her teaching will always reflect her unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity so that all generations will come to know Jesus her Head, her Bridegroom. In her preaching, teaching and celebrations, Jesus Church keeps before us the ways of God enshrined in the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and in her Moral Law and the works of mercy.

Don’t Be Caught Napping

As we begin this new liturgical year, Jesus urges us to, “Stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming ... You must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Mt 24:37-44). He told His listeners the story of Noah and warned that it will be like that when He returns at the end of time. The people “suspected nothing until the flood came and swept all away.” They laughed at Noah building an ark in the desert and ignored what God told him only to be hit with a tsunami in the desert. Having taken God’s advice and done what He told him, Noah and his family were saved while the others perished in the flood. This is a stark reminder of Judgment day. Yes, Jesus is talking about the end of the world here, but the end of the world for each of us is the day we die. Jesus’ Church has always taught her members that there are two judgments, a particular judgment of each person at the moment of death and a general judgment of all humanity at the end of time when all creation will see that God and His followers have won and Satan and his followers have lost and are cast into hell. The judgment you and I will receive from Jesus the day we die will determine our eternal happiness or eternal suffering.

Make God’s House Your House

God is asking you and me to begin this New Year of Grace publicly worshipping Him in the spirit of the Psalmist: “‘Let us go to God’s House.’ And now our feet are standing within Your gates, O Jerusalem ... There to praise the Lord’s Name,” (Ps 12:1-9). Thus we receive the good God wants us to have and the peace He wants to give us in our homes and in our hearts. Jesus’ Church is “God’s House,” where we find His teaching, His truth that sets us free, and where He nourishes our soul that fills our heart with joy, peace, love, the grace to repent and be forgiven, mercy, hope, chastity, friendship, and a bright future in which to hope (Gal 5:22-23). God’s ways are far above the world’s ways. This is why Jesus’ Church is counter-cultural and why His ways seek to convert the world’s ways that are otherwise doomed to failure. So the Catholic Church must never be led by the culture or embrace the culture’s priorities. Rather she continually challenges the secular culture in her teaching, proclamation, and celebration of God’s ways, always embracing the priorities He sets for all those who wish to be saved from sin and enjoy eternal happiness. It’s time to wake up and clarify whether we’re following God’s ways or the world’s ways. Will we commit to giving God the first place in our life so that everything else in our life may be in the right place? Will this new year of grace alert us to the fact that our time in this world is getting shorter every day? Will it increase our urgency to make the most of the time allotted to us by embracing Jesus’ ways or will we be duped into a false sense of security by the world’s ways, only to wake up when the flood of death hits and realize it’s too late? A New Year of grace begins with Jesus’ call to “Wake up! I am knocking on the door of your heart.” (fr sean)

Anticipating Christ’s Coming

Jesus has come and He will come again. In the meantime, we must practice patience. This first week of Advent can be a time when we focus on the virtue of patience. There’s an old saying that, “Patience is a virtue. Possess it if you can. It is sometimes in a woman but never in a man.” Regardless of whether we are male or female, we all run out of patience from time to time. Nobody has a monopoly on patience. Most of us are “patience challenged.” Someone told me once that we should not pray for patience because God will provide us with lots of opportunities for practicing that virtue.

The word ‘patience’ comes from Latin and literally means ‘suffering’. A patient person is one who knows how to suffer well. My definition of patience is “waiting productively.” Impatience is the act of waiting non-productively. A patient person has learned to put the time spent waiting to good use. The impatient person hasn’t learned that lesson. Imagine an impatient driver in traffic. The fact is that we have to wait anyway, so why become irate. What makes the difference is how we wait. It’s never a matter of waiting or not waiting for something. It is simply a matter of how we cope.

Impatience can be expressed actively or passively. When we act out our impatience overtly, we let everyone know that we aren’t happy. When we act it out passively, we simply disengage. The second is worse than the first. When impatience devolves into disengagement we lose sight of what it is we are waiting for that isn’t coming or happening quickly enough for us. Therein lies the danger in waiting for Christ’s second coming. It seems like a long time in coming. Don’t worry. Christ will come, sooner than we expected. This second coming of Christ will take place for each of us at death.

Positive waiting for Christ, by using our time productively, means that we are focused on being prepared for that meeting. Until that happens, we do what we can to keep us alert and ready for the great event. While we are waiting for Christ to come, we actively involve ourselves in His community, the Church. This active involvement in the Church ensures that we are ever conscious of Christ’s sacramental presence to us now, especially in the Mass, and in the other community celebrations of the Sacraments. The favourite prayer of the patient follower of Christ is, “Come, Lord Jesus. I am ready!”

On the other hand, the impatient person gives up on asking Christ to come since he or she has to wait too long. He or she becomes aggravated and disappointed, deciding to focus on something that is more tangible and more immediately gratifying. Victory comes to those who wait. Those who refuse to wait miss out on what they were waiting for, settling for something less because it was more quickly attainable. We must avoid the trap of settling for mediocrity because we didn’t want to wait for excellence.

The message from God this week is: Don’t be afraid, the Lord is faithful. Therefore, you can be faithful and surrender to Him. He will come on time – His time, not your time, since all time belongs to Him. Practice patience – use the time you spend waiting for what is important to you, doing something that is important to someone else. Be patient, be productive, be cool, and be there when the Lord comes knocking on your door. Be able to say, “Lord I was waiting for You. Please come in. Mi casa es su casa.” (fr sean)

Advent Wreath

Light a candle on your wreath at home each week of Advent, remembering that Jesus is your Light, and pray for your family, the Church, the Pope, bishops, and clergy in preparation for the celebration of Jesus’ first coming as a baby, in thanksgiving for His Sacramental Presence in His Church, and His second coming as our Judge.

cassini · « **Reply #134 on:** December 03, 2025, 10:58:51 AM »

Fr Sean again
Advent: Preparing for Your Meeting with the Lord

A meeting is fruitful when we’re clear about whom we’re meeting, the purpose, the issues to be addressed and the actions that must follow. This applies especially when we prepare for a meeting with Jesus, which is inevitable, whether sacramentally in His Church or daily in our prayer or at the moment of death or when He returns again, if that comes before we die.

Know Who You’re Meeting

The first step in preparing for a meeting with Jesus is to answer the question: Who is Jesus and why must we meet with Him? The answer lies in recognizing Him as the Messiah whom God promised to send in order to save the world from sin and be its Judge of what is right and wrong. God promised He would accomplish this because, “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord … not by appearance shall He judge, nor by hearsay shall He decide … Justice shall be a band around His waist, and faithfulness a belt upon His hips” (Is 11:2-5). He had the power to conquer the warring spirit of the sinful world and replace it with a Spirit of justice, peace and harmony. “He shall govern God’s people with justice …He shall rescue the poor man when he cries out, and the afflicted when he has no one to help him. He shall have pity for the lonely and the poor … from fraud and violence He shall redeem them … as long as the sun His Name shall remain…in Him all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed; all the nations shall proclaim His happiness” (Ps 72: 2, 12-14, 17). He alone was empowered to restore man and woman to the just relationship, peace and harmony with creation that God originally created them to enjoy. Jesus is the visible image and likeness of God; He is the incarnation of God’s Word and the model for all men and women to imitate in order to be fully human and fully alive. Without Jesus we would neither know nor have the wherewithal as to what it takes to live fruitfully, faithfully, hopefully, and charitably.

Why the Meeting Is Necessary

The second step in our preparation to meet Jesus is to answer the question: Why must I meet with Him? Our history began with Jesus and culminates in Him. He, as God-become-man and the Word through which God created mankind, is both the beginning and the end of history. “All things came into being through Him” (Jn 1:3). Jesus specifies this when He revealed: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, ‘the One who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev 1:8). As the Omega, Jesus Christ is the final Judge of the living and the dead, determining who enters Heaven and who has doomed himself or herself to hell for all eternity (Mt 25:31-46). Jesus is my Judge and yours and we can’t escape His just judgment (2 Cor 5:10). He came to restore harmony between mankind and creation that was lost through the sin of Adam and Eve. He did this by establishing justice and holiness on the earth. Isaiah (11:1-10) paints a beautiful prophetic picture of creation restored to harmony by the Messiah. Jesus is the only one who can harmonize you and me with God, with one another and with creation. We can’t avoid meeting Him if we want to enjoy peace and harmony among ourselves and within ourselves since only He can make us right with God, our neighbour, and our self.

What the Preparation Involves

The third step asks the question, “What do I need to do in preparation for the meeting? John the Baptizer, the last Old Testament prophet, tells us that we need to undergo “a baptism of repentance” before meeting Jesus. He warns us to “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand! … Prepare a way for the Lord, make His paths straight” (Mt 3:2-3). He proclaimed: “I baptize you in water for repentance, but the One who follows me is more powerful than I am … He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire … He will gather His wheat into the barn; but the chaff He will burn in unquenchable fire” (Mt 3:11-12). Because we must meet Jesus when we die we need to be fully reconciled with Him beforehand, if we want Him to judge us worthy of Heaven. For this reason He founded His Church equipping her with the authority and power to forgive sin in His Holy Name and make reconciliation possible. Thus Jesus continually offers us the grace of reconciliation with God and with one another in order to live justly here on earth in peace and harmony as we await eternity. Since only Jesus can lead us to justice and holiness, peace and harmony cannot be achieved either individually or communally without Him. As sinful human beings we cannot achieve these on our own. This is why secular political systems fail to establish consistent justice, peace and harmony on the earth.

Examination of Conscience

The opposite of peace and harmony is conflict and alienation which are the result of sin. Sin is injustice, namely denying God, our neighbour, and our self of what is due. We can’t conquer sin on our own since repentance and forgiveness are graces from God. Since only God can make us right with Him, with one another and with our self, we need Him to forgive us and empower us to forgive ourselves and one another so that that harmony may be restored. This is why John the Baptizer calls us to look into our mind and heart and search our soul so that we can expose the sinful areas of our life so that God can restore His image in us. The Church identifies the deadly sins to which we are all prone, namely pride, wrath, lust, sloth, gluttony, avarice, covetousness (envy and jealousy), and an obtuse spirit (blind to the truth).We need to examine our conscience, our language, our morality, “what we have done and what we have failed to do” (Penitential Rite of the Holy Mass), to see which one or more of these is killing our soul, distorting our thinking and framing evil as good . Just as denial of a physical disease contributes to the death of our body, so denying our sinfulness assures the death of harmony in our life and our relationships.

We Must Kill the Sin

The fourth step asks: What actions must I be willing to take in order for the meeting to be fruitful? We must freely commit ourselves to repent, confess our sins, seek God’s forgiveness, and make restitution for the damage our sins have caused. This requires our willingness to avail ourselves of the Church’s Sacrament of Reconciliation where Jesus authorizes the bishops and priests of His Church to forgive sin in His Name. Thus we receive sanctifying and actual grace that makes us holy and resistant to the recurrence of vices, bad habits that foster injustice and destroy inner and outer harmony. All vices, all self-destructive habits, must be identified in order for us to know which virtue God is necessary to eliminate the vice. God doesn’t want us just to get rid of our vices; rather He wants us to replace them with virtues so that we can live virtuously rather than viciously. Virtues are good habits that enhance our relationship with God, with ourselves, and with our neighbour.

There’s a story about a man who lived most of his life in the desert. One day he visited an old friend who lived in a far distant town. The day after his arrival he decided to explore the town and was intrigued by the railroad tracks. Standing in the middle of the tracks He heard a whistle, not knowing it was a train he just stood there. He was knocked down. After a few weeks in hospital he returned to his friend’s home where a party was in progress. On entering the kitchen he heard a whistle and immediately grabbed a piece of wood and began bashing the source of the whistle. Hearing all the noise, his friend ran into the kitchen. When he saw what was happening, he shouted, “Why are you destroying my kettle?” The desert man shot back, “Man, you got to kill these things when they’re small because when they get big they can kill you.” Sin will kill you if you don’t kill it when it is small. Hence, our need to be prepared to do what Jesus, the Killer of sin and the Conqueror of Satan, requires us to do.

We must pray for the grace to kill pride with humility, kill wrath with patience, kill lust with chastity, kill gluttony with moderation, kill greed with generosity, kill sloth with diligenc)e, kill envy with kindness, and kill an obtuse spirit with a spirit of receptivity to the truth, i.e., Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If we don’t eliminate our vices when they’re small and kill them early, they’ll kill us spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, socially, morally, and even physically. When we repent of our sins by making a grace-filled effort to replace our vices with virtues we’ll be well prepared for a productive meeting with Jesus as members of His Church whom He calls to live in harmony practicing justice and holiness on earth as it is in Heaven. (fr sean)

Warning

"Only the Catholic vision - which reconciles and perfects freedom and truth, nature and grace, law and love - can prevent the West from falling into transhumanist utopianism or sterile Islamic submission." (Gaetano Masciullo)

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