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Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Set Your Light on a Hill and Draw Others to God

Sermon by Rev. John Paul Shea
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Feb. 5, 2017
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, Tucson, AZ
In today’s Gospel (Matt 5:13-16), Our Lord Jesus describes the mission of His disciples by using the metaphors of salt and light. 

As we reflect on the images that our Lord gives to us, let us open our hearts to the Holy Spirit so that we can hear Our Lord’s call to be His witnesses to the world! 

"You are the salt of the earth.”
We all know that salt is a precious commodity. In fact, in
ancient times salt was considered one of the most precious and costly of all commodities. Wars were fought both to protect and exploit salt deposits deep in the earth. 

Although salt is a commodity, salt really does not have much value in itself. It is valuable for what it does and how it affects other things. For example, in Jesus’ times salt was used to season and preserve meat. Along with preserving meat, salt is used to preserve and enhance the taste of food. 

Therefore, as Christians, we are to be like salt -- passionate about the faith we have been given. We are to preserve and enhance it and bring God’s love and truth to others.

In His metaphor of salt, Our Lord Jesus also warns us:
“But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” 

My brothers and sisters, we have been given the Truth! Therefore, we are called to be on fire for our faith! 

If we throw our faith away and live for the world, then we are worse off than if we had never received the faith in the first place. For, nothing can be worse than allowing our faith to be stagnant and not grow.

In fact, in the Book of Revelation Our Lord warned He will be particularly stern with those who do nothing with the faith they have been given.
“I know your works. I know that you are neither cold nor hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out my mouth." (Rev 3:15-16) 
Jesus also uses the metaphor of light in today's Gospel. “You are the light of the world.”

My brothers and sisters, we are called to enlighten the world through the bold proclamation of the Gospel. Nothing about the challenges of the Gospel should remain hidden. The truths of our faith are to be fully exposed as bright as a light placed on a lampstand in a dark room!

Our Lord says also that we are to be a city on a hill. Our Lord says, “A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a

lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house.” In these words our Lord is not talking about a city such as San Francisco or New York or Paris. No! Our Lord is talking about our Church! 

In ancient times, a
 city on a hill was a point of navigation. Travelers would see the light to be guided toward their final destination.

Therefore, our Church is to lead the world in the right direction.This is why we have doctrines, unchangeable teachings that will lead others into the fullness of Truth. 

Our society is built on sand, and as such it will collapse. Yet, the Truths of our faith will remain forever.

The bottom line is that Christians are called to be vibrant witnesses!  “[Our] light must shine before others, that they may see [our] good deeds and glorify [our] heavenly Father." 

Married couples are called to live their vocation of marriage as a witness of God’s plan for marriage. Single persons are called to glorify God by living chastely. We are called to lead others into the Truth regardless of whether or not they like what we represent! 

Today we are living in dark times. We are living in faithless times. Many are caught up in this world of sin and have lost sight of the road to eternal salvation. Many are unaware of the reality of eternal judgment. The gate of sin has opened wide. 


Therefore, brothers and sisters, be God's witnesses. Become His salt. Set your light on a hill so that many will be drawn to know and love God. May God bless us in this endeavour.




Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Live in Nirvana, Live Chastely

by Susan Fox 

In 1994, Dr. Mary Pipher published a book, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. The book is viewed as a call to arms for the feminist movement to remove the violence and sexism that is affecting young women in the United States. But sadly to me the book was simply a candid and pitiful picture of a society that has totally abandoned the virtue of chastity. And so their daughters’ lives are in ruins. 
Pipher bases the book on case studies from her work as a therapist. Perhaps one of the saddest examples is a young 15-year-old girl, Cayenne, who contracted herpes. When Dr. Pipher met her, Cayenne asked about a recurring dream, in which an old man with a goat walks into her bedroom carrying a sharp knife and begins to cut her in pieces and feed her to the goat. The therapist never tells Cayenne or the reader of the book what she thinks the dream means. But Cayenne said the dream means she was afraid of being cut up and eaten alive. What kind of family would allow such fear into their daughters’ lives? 
Cayenne regretted the loss of her once good relationship with her parents, but rightfully — in my opinion — she blamed them for not keeping her safe. I agree with Cayenne on this point 100 percent. Out of a desire to be loved and accepted, Cayenne gave up her virginity to a boy she hardly knew at a what could only be described as a “sex” party when she was 14. The sex occurred in the first hour of the party. Asked what she felt about the boy now, she said, ”I wish it had been more romantic.” She also told the therapist that a movie in which a teenage girl has graphic sex with  a guy she barely knows “tells it like it is.” Her parents told her nothing of chastity. They simple told her to wait and have sex when she was in love. Pretty limp advice. My task was to restore Cayenne’s confidence in life, and try to teach her that living chastely could be a means of accomplishing that goal. Asked what she thought was her greatest virtue, Cayenne responded, “courage.”  

Cayenne, can I share a story with you?

“Gramma! Gramma!” Little Tommy ran after Rene. The tiny boy is completely devoted to Rene and Rene loves to care part time for her beloved grandson. Rene’s adult children are well adjusted, successful socially and deeply faithful Catholics. 

Renee is happy, committed to her family and her Catholic faith. Her husband of 34 years finds her beautiful and feminine. It’s an amazing secret of lifelong faithful marriages — the husband still thinks his older wife is the loveliest creature on earth — even when her tight abs have sagged, and other stuff has turned to cellulite. However, Rene didn’t always have this happiness.
Rene grew up in a very strict Protestant household, and suddenly had the freedom to discover herself when she went to college. There she decided to try tarot cards and atheism, a deadly mix. She chucked her family’s moral values. She met a young poet and fell in love. They were on the college tract and unlikely to marry, but basically who cares when you are in love right? They slid into an affair.

The guy she dated definitely was romantic in a narcissistic way. Unfortunately, he didn’t see her value as a person nor did he seek her good above his own. In fact, he wrote a poem about Rene and compared having “sex” with her to “pissing” in a famous lake in the United States. Rene had very close family ties back home, and she soon realised that her dream man did not really care for her. He was using her. She had a nervous breakdown, and ended up in a mental hospital. Sexuality used as a casual toy can be very dangerous.

No one had explained the purpose of sex to Rene, nor how devastating a casual affair can be. Sexual relations can be a source of joy in your life, but outside of a committed lifelong marriage, they can be awful. 
My husband told our son that it’s basically Pandora’s Box — if you open it too soon you can become enslaved to behaviours and personal trauma that will haunt you the rest of your life. Your health may suffer too. Cayenne, if you wait until you find a real man willing to change diapers, who wants your good over his own, then marital relations are the frosting on a happy cake.

But human beings have a long way to go before they are able to successfully integrate sexuality within their personhood, and therefore enjoy inner unity in their bodily and spiritual being. They have to learn self-mastery. (CCC 2337) Call this state Nirvana if you want, but it’s basically the practice of the virtue of chastity. Sexuality becomes truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one man and one woman in
complete and lifelong mutual gift open to new life. That’s what Rene has now.

Waiting is hard though, and men uninterested in marriage may refuse to date a girl unwilling to “fork it over.” This can feel like rejection. I didn’t marry until I was 30, and usually my dating life consisted of one date only. He never called again because I didn’t sleep around. I’m grateful now for these small rejections, but at the time I thought I wasn’t attractive. Being a chaste single requires courage, a virtue you have recognised in yourself.

Sexuality is called the generative power of man because it allows two people to make

new human beings and bond with their spouse for life. Our first parents discovered this, “And Adam knew Eve his wife: who conceived and brought forth Cain, saying: I have gotten a man through God.” (Gen 4:1) Human sexuality is the sweet glue in a lifelong marriage surrounded by a garden — full of the fruit of new little lives. This is the family.

Sex is the language of the body. It says “I give myself to you totally and completely now. I have already committed my life to you. And

with this act I renew that sacramental lifelong bond,” according to author Mary Beth Bonacci. A committed unmarried relationship says “I promise not to date anyone else until I dump you (or you dump me.)” Bonacci adds, “I have never seen an unmarried relationship improve as a result of sexual activity.” No, because people can use their body to lie. With your body in the sexual act, you say, “I give myself to you completely.” But in your mind you think, “If it works out.” That is not romantic at all, is it?

Everything has a purpose. Everything used against its purpose is an act of injustice. What is the purpose of the eye? It is to see. But say I have a delicious brownie and I stick it in my eye to taste it. Ouch. Can I taste a brownie with my eye? No, put it in your mouth. Yum. Sticking a brownie in my eye to taste it is an unjust act. It is using the eye for something other than its intended purpose.

So what is the purpose of human sexuality? It creates new life in the safe and stable environment of the family in which the spouses are committed to sharing the whole of their lives with one another, and no other. Sex used outside of its purpose is an unjust act. People will always be hurt in unjust situations.

Some people think the purpose of sex is pleasure. Pleasure can be part of this activity, but if pleasure is the only criteria for sex, then women can be kept against their will in harems, sold into sexual slavery and prostitution. Homosexual sex feels good too, but doesn’t make people happy. It was just reported that 52 percent of youth self-identifying by their homosexuality in the

United Kingdom have tried to harm themselves, according to a survey conducted by Metro, a pro-homosexual advocacy group. So the sole purpose of sex is definitely not pleasure.

“Sex speaks one language and one language alone. And that language is ‘You and I, now and forever, sacramentally united, ready for whatever happens.’ It means marriage and marriage alone. Out of that context, sex can mess up a relationship badly,” Bonacci wrote.

Rene regretted the fact that her parents didn’t tell her this. She learned it when she became Catholic. From a mental hospital, she applied to graduate school at a prestigious school on the East Coast, and was accepted. She chose to study languages. In her Latin class, she read that God made her in His image and likeness. God is love. Casual sex has nothing to do with real love. Rene lived chastely after her conversion to Catholicism, and then met her lifelong lover, her husband Robert. They consummated their relationship after they were married.

Lost innocence can be restored. During that time of waiting to meet the one, she practiced self-mastery, which is a long and exacting work. Like me, she had to realise that you only need to date one man, your future husband, and that requires a good self-image, the one that God gave us in the beginning.

The very essence of love is ruined when pleasure becomes its sole purpose. Love involves reciprocity — each spouse loves the other as a person, not an object of self-gratification. Each wants the good for the other. 


Men are different than women. When they enter a romantic relationship their physical sensuality dominates. Men are sight oriented. They can fall into the trap of wanting a woman because of how she physically makes him feel, not seeing her value as a person.

But a women gets pleasure from the man’s attention — even if it lasts one hour (the time it took for your first sexual encounter). In high school, my friend Julie decided to have relations with a man. The rest of us girls were virgins so we were curious, “What happened?” Trying to make it sound like more than it was, she said that what she enjoyed was the “closeness.” She didn’t feel any pleasure. The guy used her, gave her a sexually transmitted disease, and she went on to un-joyful closeness with other men.

Years later I asked her if she ever married. She was married, she said, but only for one year. The rest of her 63 years were spent as a single woman raising dogs. She has no children. She has no lifelong emotional “closeness” with a man. Pre-marital sex essentially ruined her life.

Emotional unchastity is often the weakness of women. Without a good self image we can use sex to get a man’s attention for the purpose of making us feel good. It’s a form of pleasure, but also a form of insecurity. “If I don’t go to bed with him, he’ll dump me.” Unfortunately, women feel pressured into sex because of a lack of good self image.

I used to be a very insecure person. But when I met my future husband, I was given a great gift. I felt deep peace. I was not anxious as I had been in previous dating situations. “Does he love me? Will he marry me? What do I have to do to win him?” None of those sort of questions entered my mind. I had a total
Larry Fox, my husband, with our
son, James, the fruit of 
happy chastity
willingness to wait and see how this relationship would develop chastely. We waited during a one-year courtship and now we’ve been married for 33 years. My hope is that all young women will aspire to this kind of lifelong loving relationship. Wait for the right man. Don’t take second best. 









Susan Fox is working on a master's degree in Marriage and Family at the International Theological Institute in Trumau, Austria. 

Interested in studying at the International Theological Institute? You can apply here.
Each student at ITI is only charged 6,000 Euros a year in tuition, but the actual cost of the education is 20,000 Euros.
Donate here

Or contact: Dipl. Ing. Alexander Pachta-Reyhofen, Director of Development (Europe), International Theological Institute, Email: a.pachtareyhofen@iti.ac.at


Bibliography

Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, Promulgated Pope John Paul II, (Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 2000)  The Vocation to Chastity, 2337-2350 

Bonacci, Mary Beth. Real Love, Answers Your Questions On Dating, Marriage And The Real Meaning of Sex. (Ignatius Press, 2012,) 76-85.


Wojtyla, Karol. Love and Responsibility, trans. Grzegorz Ignatik, (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 2013) 140-141.



Sunday, January 29, 2017

Rules for Happiness

The Beatitudes


Sermon by Fr. Joseph Mungai
Fourth Sunday of the Year, Jan 29, 2017 
St. Mary of the Pines, Shreveport, Louisiana
Father is visiting the U.S. from Kenya

"Happiness is that which everybody seeks." So says the great philosopher Aristotle.

Aristotle also observes that everything people do twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, is what they believe will bring them happiness in one form or another. But the problem is that what people think will bring them happiness does not in fact always bring them true and lasting happiness.

Think of the drunkard who believes that happiness is found in the beer bottle. He runs a red light, hits a car and wakes up in a hospital with plaster and stitches all over his body. Then it dawns on him that the happiness promised by alcohol may be too short-lived. 
Or take the man who frequents the casino for excitement. By the end of the month, he finds he can no longer pay his house rent.  Then it dawns on him that the happiness promised by the casino is fake. So Aristotle says that the ethical person is the person who knows and does what can truly bring them true and lasting happiness.

Another word for true and lasting happiness is “blessedness” or “beatitude.” In today’s gospel, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount shows that He really wants his followers to have true and lasting happiness, the happiness that the world cannot give. This state of blessedness is what Jesus calls living in the “kingdom of God.” 


The eight beatitudes we have in today’s gospel  (Mt 5:1-12) constitute a road map for anyone who seeks to attain this happiness of the kingdom.

Everybody seeks happiness. But often we look for it in the wrong places. Ask people around you what makes people happy and compare the answers you get with the answers Jesus gives. The world has its own roadmap to happiness. It's not the way that God thinks. 


Where Jesus says, 
“Blessed are the poor in spirit;” the world says, “Blessed are the rich.” Where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn;” others say “Blessed are those having fun.” Where Jesus says “Blessed are the meek;” the world says, “Blessed are the smart.” Where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness;” people  say “Blessed are those who wine and dine.”


Where Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful;” others say “Blessed are the powerful.” Where Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart;” we like to think, “Blessed are the slim in body.” Where Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers;” the world says, “Blessed are the news makers.” And where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake;” society says, “Blessed are those who can afford the best lawyers.”

We see that the values prescribed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount are in fact counter-cultural. We cannot accept these teachings of Jesus and at the same time accept all the values of our society. Of course, Jesus does not demand that we abandon the world. But he does ask that we put God first in our lives. Only God can guarantee what our hearts long for -- true peace and happiness. Nothing the world gives provides this, and once God has given it to you, nothing in the world can take it away.


The Eight Beatitudes do not describe eight different people such that we need to ask which of the eight suits us personally. No, they are eight different snapshots taken from different angles of the same godly person. The question for us today, therefore, is this: Do we live our lives following the values of the world as a way of attaining happiness or do we live by the teachings of Jesus? If you live by the teachings of Jesus, then rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

On the Epistle, (1 Cor 1:26-31) God Delights to Work with Nothing. 

The reading tells us that God knows how to write straight with crooked pens; that God, in fact, prefers to write with crooked pens.

"Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are,  so that no one might boast in the presence of God." (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).

Paul begins this section by inviting the Christians of Corinth to consider their call.  It is God who takes the initiative and calls us to His service. We sometimes find ourselves considering whether we should remain in the church or not. We feel that it is up to us to decide to follow Jesus or not. But Jesus tells us that the initiative to follow Him comes not from us but from God himself.

“You did not choose me but I chose you.” (John 15:16)  “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me.” (John 6:44). It is a calling given by God. 

What standards does God use to choose men and women to belong to Him and do His work? Now, this is exactly where God’s ways part from our ways. Normally we would expect God to pick people who are wise, powerful, and of a good reputation in the eyes of the world. But Paul tells us that God actually chooses people who are the exact opposite. Why does God prefer to work with the nobodies of this world? There are two reasons for this: one is  for the best of the one called, and the other is for the best of those among whom they work.

We can  do the work of God only with the strength that comes from God. Therefore, the first requirement of a servant of God is that he or she learn how to depend on God. For this reason God sometimes allows His servants to carry the burden of their human weakness, so that they will learn that unless they stand in God, they cannot stand at all. St. Paul had a “thorn in the flesh,” which he asked God to remove.  God did not remove it. God simply said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” And Paul concluded, “Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, … for whenever I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12: 9-10).

The second reason why God allows human weakness in His servants is so that the people among whom they work will realise that the good accomplished by His ministers come from the grace of God, not their own ingenuity.  If they understand this, people will not be tempted to idolize their ministers. The Christians of Corinth had already fallen into this temptation when they began labelling themselves according to their favourite missionaries: “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas.” God wants us to see beyond the ministers who bring us the word of God and to keep our eyes on Jesus, who is Lord and Saviour of us all.

The Lord calls all Christians, and especially those men and women who minister to God’s word to us in any capacity, to a life of holiness.