Pennies From Heaven
Sermon Notes – Maximizing the Minimum
“Maximizing the Minimum“
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
February 20 – 21, 2021
Gospel: Mark 1: 12-15
How can you love God more? How can you experience more of His love? The answer is really very simple. By loving yourself less. God is love Himself. He has no need of our love and is totally self-sufficient. But, God wants to give us His love. Unfortunately, God, being the perfection of all virtues, including politeness and courtesy, won’t break into our souls. We have to open our souls up to Him. If our souls are closed off by self-centeredness, He cannot come in. He wants to give us His immense love and to fill our souls completely with Himself.
We can grow in the love of God by taking on little penances and pious practices. Doing so will help, but two things are important. They have to be small, and they have to be practical. Too often, people say they will grow in the love of God by doing a lot of grandiose things. But, it’s impractical, because they won’t do it. Instead, take little steps. The first step to take is to realize that we need to improve. That’s actually a big step, because many people are satisfied with maximizing the minimums. “Father, I go to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days.” “I go to confession once a year.” “I don’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent.” “I obey the Ten Commandments.” “I don’t rob banks.” Okay. But, there’s a lot more in the book our Lord tells us to do. You know that, right? We tend to maximize the minimums. “Father, I am good.” Well, I don’t know about that. The Lord said not to call anybody “good.” We are called to be perfect. That’s in the black part of the Bible, not the white part. Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. “I’m here at Mass.” You are physically here but is your mind? Look! Squirrel. Distraction during prayer is normal; just come back to it.
Giving yourself totally over to God, to overcome self-centeredness is what we always must work toward. Our first parents disobeyed God, and we continue to do the same thing. “I won’t let God in until I need Him.” “I will only go to church if the Mass is in English, or Spanish, or Latin, and only if it’s at 12:00 on my day off, if I’m not too tired, or if it’s over by 5:30 because I have dinner reservations somewhere.” We use all these stipulations, and the Church has unfortunately bought into to it. “I will only go to confession if there are reconciliation rooms.” So, parishes have spent thousands of dollars creating reconciliation rooms. Come on! I hear confessions…I wish I heard a lot more.
We must take up our cross every day and follow Him. The ego is a terrible thing and destroys people. In any 12 Step program, you must have ego deflation at depth. Where did they get that I wonder. From the Catholic Church? Go figure. How do we overcome our ego and self-centeredness? By doing little things. “I need to pray more.” Well, then pray more. Say the rosary. By the time you get to Coy’s laundry mat or to the court house, you have plenty of time to say a decade of the rosary. There are five stop lights, so you have plenty of time to say it. You have to sit there anyway. You can’t zip right through the traffic lights, although they made it less likely to be caught when they have moved the police station. My point is that you have plenty of time to do little things. “I want to lose weight and to eat better.” Then do it, one step at a time.
God has no limit on His love. We are the ones who limit His love with our self-centeredness. We determine our salvation. God says, “I will give you the way to salvation if you let Me into your soul.” We say, “I’ll get back to you. Thank you very much. Appreciate the offer.” We want to cling to ourselves. One of my good friends who recently passed away, a judge, used to say, “I’m not much, but I’m all I think about.” I deserve to speed, because I’m important. I have business to attend to. That would be me. However, I should mention that a lot of cops are not Catholic. We want what we want when we want it. That’s what we all have to fight…our self-centeredness. “You can’t tell me what to do. “I deserve this.” That kind of thinking shuts God out.
We have to be humble. In fact, we are commanded to be humble. The 4th and 5th Commandments command us to obey our physicians and caregivers. You don’t go to your physician’s office and say, “Oh, what the heck do they know.” Doctors are very intelligent, so listen to them and do what they tell you. That’s humility. “I don’t want a colonoscopy.” That’s humility, especially when I had mine. I know everyone in that department. I work there. I knew them all. Having a colonoscopy is not a side of me they wanted to see, but what the heck…if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. As Saint Therese de Lisieux said, when you are humble, you are small and safe. As long as you continue doing small acts of penance, day after day, you are growing in God’s love and opening the door to your soul so that He can come in. God will not force his way in. He does not need our love. God is self-sufficient. But, He wants to give His love to us, because that is His nature. We are the ones with selfish self-centeredness and close the door on love. But, if we focus on the little things, we will grow spiritually and gradually open the door more and more to allow the love of our good Lord into our souls.
The Law of Physics says that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. If our souls are full of ourselves, God cannot get in. God isn’t going to push us aside. He isn’t going to make us love Him. We have to decide to love Him by renouncing ourselves and our attachment to things. You will discover that once you become detached from things, you will have far more joy and pleasures than you ever could have imagined. Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas both said that if there is any labor involved, love is no labor at all. It’s all a joy. Each sacrifice is a joy. Each sacrifice makes a way for greater enjoyment and greater love. It creates a way for a greater union with the Almighty and, therefore, a greater union with one another. So, we are the ones who determine how much we will love. The secret of loving God and experiencing His love is really easy. We just have to love ourselves a heck of a lot less.
How will you apply this message to your life? Are you maximizing the minimum? Will you fight to overcome self-centeredness and make room for God in your heart and soul?
You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to https://annunciationcatholicalbemarle.com/ and clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” and then “Sermon Notes. From a cell phone, click on “Blog” then “Menu” and then “Categories” (located at the end of the page). There is also a search box if you are looking for a specific topic.
Daily Message from Pope Francis – Following in the Footsteps of Christ
Friday, February 26, 2021
“Love, following in the footsteps of Christ, in concern and compassion for all, is the highest expression of our faith and hope… Love rejoices in seeing others grow. Hence it suffers when others are anguished, lonely, sick, homeless, despised or in need. Love is a leap of the heart; it brings us out of ourselves and creates bonds of sharing and communion.”Pope Francis
Daily Devotion – How Others See Us
“Because they are lazy, therefore they cry out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’” – Exodus 5:8 NASB
When Moses asked to let the Israelites go, Pharaoh evaluated this request in light of his own experience and worldview. To him, Moses’ explanation seemed absurd. He could not conceive that the God of the Hebrews could be real and make this request. The only possible explanation was that the Israelites simply did not want to work.
Pharaoh had his own agenda. He was counting on the Israelites to provide the labor for his designs. Moses’ request conflicted with his agenda. And he didn’t believe the explanation.
Many people react in similar ways to God’s Word. The Bible reminds us that the things of the Spirit are folly in the natural. People can’t “understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV).
As you ponder the way some people respond to the Gospel, remember that this is a spiritual issue, discerned in the Spirit in ways people in the natural may never understand. They are likely to project onto us their own expectations and worldview. Or they may judge us or question our motives.
Remember these facts as you interact with people in the world. Remember how foolish and unrealistic your beliefs and actions might seem.
Ask God to give you discernment about your life and testimony. Pray for His anointing. Seek to apply His principles. Pray for those you know who need the Lord. Pray that He might open their eyes that they might see.
Prayer
Father, I commit these people to You: ________. Open their eyes that they might see the truth. Use me. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Extended Reading
Exodus 5
//Inspiration Ministeries//
Minute Meditation – The Holiness of Negotiation
Pope Francis says, “Jesus always knows how to walk with us, he gives us the ideal, he accompanies us towards the ideal, he frees us from being locked into the rigidity of the law and he tells us: ‘Do this to the extent that you can.’ And he understands us well. This is our Lord, it is he who teaches us. Allow me to share a term with you which might seem a bit strange, it is the little holiness of negotiation: I cannot do everything, but I want to do everything, I am going to agree with you, at least let us not insult one another, let us not make war and let us live together in peace.”
When we hear challenging passages from Scripture, we might be tempted to say, “What Jesus really meant to say…” and then we change the message to something that sounds more like what we think God wants us to do. For people who pride themselves on sticking tightly to the rules of the Church, messages of God’s mercy and tolerance often seem disorienting. We want to be right more than we want to be reconciled. We want to believe that we’re saved and others are damned. We like our world black and white. For Pope Francis, reflecting on the words and following in the way of Jesus, reconciliation is the better choice, even if it means bending our self-righteousness a bit. There’s an old saying, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” If we focus on finding common ground with one another, we’re less likely to end up in irreconcilable disputes. We might never come around to another’s point of view completely, but both sides may move closer to the middle through what the pope calls “the little holiness of negotiation.”
—from the book The Hope of Lent: Daily Reflections from Pope Francis
by Diane M. Houdek
//Franciscan Media//
Saint of the Day – February 26th
St. Porphyry (Porphyrius) of Gaza (c. 347-420 A.D.) was born in Thessalonica in present-day Greece. Although a wealthy man, at the age of 25 he went to live in Egypt as a desert hermit. He later moved to Palestine near the Jordan River, then to Jerusalem itself. He did great penances and would often visit the holy places where Jesus lived and walked, despite his poor health. He then renounced all material goods and his inheritance and became a priest in Jerusalem at the age of 40. The relics of the True Cross in Jerusalem were entrusted to his care. Despite his protests he was ordained Bishop of Gaza, a pagan stronghold with an insignificant Christian community. Gaza’s pagans were hostile, and St. Porphyry appealed to the emperor for protection and for the destruction of pagan temples, which he obtained. St. Porphyry built a Christian church on the site of the most important pagan temple dedicated to the chief god, so that he could say Mass in the place where the devil was previously most honored. St. Porphyry labored for his flock and won many converts through his miracles, though pagan opposition continued throughout his life. He was successful in spreading the Christian faith across his diocese. His feast day is February 26.
//The Catholic Company//
Verse of the Day – The Greatest of These is Love
Meditation of the Day – The Eucharist is Alive!
“The Eucharist is alive. If a stranger who knew nothing about the Eucharist were to watch the way we receive, would he know this? When you and I approach the Eucharist, does it look like we believe we are about to take into our bodies the living person, Jesus Christ, true God and true man? How many times, Lord, have I forgotten that the Eucharist is alive! As I wait in line to receive you each day, am I thinking about how much you want to unite yourself with me? Am I seeing your hands filled with the graces you want to give me? Am I filled with awe and gratitude that you love me so much as to actually want to come to me in this incredibly intimate way? Or am I distracted, busy with other thoughts, preoccupied with myself and my agendas for the day? How many times, Jesus, have I made you sad, mindlessly receiving you into my body, into my heart, with no love and no recognition of your love? How many times have I treated you as a dead object? The Host that we receive is not a thing! It’s not a wafer! It’s not bread! It’s a person – He’s alive!” — Vinny Flynn, p. 8
Morning Offering – He is My Refuge and Sanctuary
“O Sacred Heart of Jesus, fountain of eternal life, Your Heart is a glowing furnace of Love. You are my refuge and my sanctuary.”
— St. Gertrude the Great
Snoopy & Charlie Brown – No Matter How Bad Your Life
