Fr. George Rutler - Dec. 11, 2016

FROM THE PASTOR
December 11, 2016
by Fr. George W. Rutler

A cautious child hesitates when told that after eating a vegetable three times it will be agreeable. No such persuasion is needed for ice cream or cake: It is the vegetable that is "good for you" that is suspect. When the subject is Heaven, the case is somewhat similar, but then it is the adult who has to be convinced that it is good. There is something suspicious about eternal bliss when all we know about happiness is in terms of things temporal. The Beatific Vision is too distantly brilliant to be desired more than fireworks and champagne right now. Given the choice between winning the Lottery and Eternal Salvation, human nature would pick the Lottery, while giving pious lip service to Salvation. But the point is: our intelligence is defective in preferring what is temporarily delectable to joy that never passes away. The adult may suspect that "pie in the sky" is not pie at all.

   The child has an advantage over those who are older and more experienced in life's promises and disappointments. For the innocent, it is entirely possible to imagine never getting tired or sick of ice cream and cake. Substitute milk and honey for that, and you have the Bible's version of endless delight-even if you don't particularly care for milk and honey the way a wandering desert people might have. Jesus speaks of the joys of Heaven with a caution: "I still have much to tell you, but you cannot yet bear to hear it. However, when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth" (John 16:12-13). That is to say, the Holy Spirit expands and enlightens mature tastes so that they might have an appetite for those things of Heaven that may not seem desirable from the perspective of temporal existence on earth. The adult then must assume the trust the innocent child has, so that what may not at first seem better than what gives immediate pleasure, ultimately is better. "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3).

   The Lord himself became a child, bringing the truth of Heaven in a mysterious way that does not seem heavenly at all. As Chesterton wrote in The Everlasting Man: "Christ was not only born on the level of the world, but even lower than the world. The first act of the divine drama was enacted, not only on no stage set up above the sightseer, but on a dark and curtained stage sunken out of sight . . . But in the riddle of Bethlehem, it was heaven that was under the earth."

   The Third Sunday of Advent is mindful of Heaven, the third of the Four Last Things, with thoughts guided by the angels and saints: "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things" (Colossians 3:2).

         

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Standing on My Head: Tolerance, Decadence and Violence

Standing on My Head: Tolerance, Decadence and Violence

Exceprt---So we see our society not just drifting into decadence, but suddenly seemingly out of nowhere, we are seeing a full flowering of decadence. The decadence is at every level of society, and is exhibited in disgusting behaviors and beliefs in a multitude of different ways. Sexual immorality is everywhere--children are highly sexualized. Adultery and divorce are rampant. Homosexuality is flagrant. Promiscuity, co-habitation and pre-marital sex are everywhere accepted and open. Furthermore, it is not just among the underclass.

An Outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Fr. Jozo in Medjugorje

This was taken on May 25, 1990 in Medjugorje in St. James Catholic Church during a talk that Fr. Jozo was giving the English speaking pilgrims at 3 pm in the afternoon.

Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter: but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin. (Mark 3:28-29)

This sounds just like the people today who spend years disecting Medjugorje and refuse to believe that Jesus performs the miracles in Medjugorje but believe that satan is responsible for it all---->If we look at the passage from Mark, we shall see that Jesus charged some scribes with blaspheming against the Holy Spirit because they saw people healed of various sicknesses and of insanity, and did not doubt the reality of these cures, but instead of giving God the glory, they accused our Lord of being an agent of Satan: He has an unclean spirit. These miracles were a sign that God was active in the ministry of Jesus: If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. If they believed that he was bringing wholeness to the minds and bodies of men and women thorugh the power of Satan, then they had closed their eyes to the light. They refused to see that actions which were good were in fact good in themselves, and they refused because they disapproved of the person, Jesus, who was responsible for them. Light had become darkness and good had become evil. They committed a sins, but do not know they are sinning. If they refuse the light, where else can they hope to receive illumination, for, in the words of the psalmist, it is in thy light, Lord, that we see light.

In the Gospel-For St. Mark, then the sin against the Hoy Spirit involves deliberately shutting one's eyes to the light and calling good evil. In Luke it is final apostasy, turning away from God's salvation. The sin against the Holy Spirit is not so much an isolated act but a state of mind. The more we judge through prejudice, the more we we distort our own motives and the motives of other people, the more steadily we enter darkness and the more relentless is the movement towards not being able to tell good from evil.

Medjugorje has now attracted over thirty million pilgrims, the vast majority of whom have had their lives transformed or touched by their encounter with the Queen of Peace (not to speak of the tens of millions of others who have never visited Medjugorje but have been third-party recipients of the graces mediated by the Virgin).

The significance of these two facts will be evident to anyone who has studied the Church's time-tested canons for the discernment of supernatural phenomena.
 The Church's great doctors of the spiritual and the mystical life have said for centuries that an authentic supernatural revelation will bear two marks: it will attract the religious and it will cause conversions. Satan posing as an angel of light can bring about many extraordinary signs and wonders, but the one thing he cannot and will not do is bring about a conversion.
*****Monthly Message, May 25, 1990 "Dear children! I invite you to decide with seriousness to live this novena. (Holy Spirit Novena) Consecrate the time to prayer and to sacrifice. I am with you and I desire to help you to grow in renunciation and mortification, that you may be able to understand the beauty of the life of people who go on giving themselves to me in special way. Dear children, God blesses you day after day and desires a change of your life. Therefore, pray that you may have the strength to change your life. Thank you for having responded to my call. " *****