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Sermon Notes – October 15, 2023 – “Evil Must be Converted or Destroyed”

“Evil Must be Converted or Destroyed”

 Father Peter Fitzgibbons

 October 14 – 15, 2023

Gospel:  Matthew 22:1-14


I’ve been here with you for many years, so you know that I know a guy.  Actually, I know a couple of guys, and those guys know a couple of other guys.  So, I have sources of information that you may or may not have.  As the song goes, I have friends in low places. I know people on the dark side.  Over the years, I have queried my sources on several topics, and they have been most helpful.  There is one query in particular that all my sources gave me the same answer.  So, I have it on good authority that Mother Teresa was never a member of Hells Angels.  You can take that to the bank.  I heard she liked to ride, so why was Mother Teresa never a member of Hells Angels?  Because she didn’t want to be.  Why not?  She had the greatest of all things in her heart which is Jesus Christ.   Over the years, through many trials, tribulations, and great suffering, she survived with joy because she always kept Christ in her heart. No matter how great her difficulties were, she found peace in the person of Jesus.  The world will only find peace when they have Jesus in their hearts. 

Just this week, I received a phone call from the diocese.  They told me that I have to migrate my emails to another location.  Yeah, what are the odds of that happening.  I’ll give you a clue as to where they can migrate them.   Many years ago, the diocese called my former secretary and said, “Father’s email account is full.  He’d better delete some of them or we are going to close the account.”   My secretary said, “Father has been in Iraq for the last eight months.”   I tend to ignore these requests.  Let me put it this way; we built Catholic hospitals, Catholic orphanages, and Catholic universities.  We Christianized the world by bringing God’s love to it and all without computers or the internet.  When I was in seminary, I used an old-fashioned manual typewriter.  People actually wrote books using those things.

There are evil people in the world.  A small percentage are evil because they are mentally ill.   Some of them are over at FU (Felon University; i.e., the prison).   Most people are evil because they have satan in their hearts.  They are not evil because they don’t have fresh plumbing or a smartphone.  Do you realize that we have saints who didn’t have flush plumbing?  “Oh, people are bad because they don’t have stuff.  If they just had flush plumbing, a smartphone, or more bandwidth, they would be okay.”   It has been proven over the years that giving people stuff does not work.  My parents grew up poor, and they weren’t sociopaths.  My uncle did go to prison, but he was a correctional officer and got to go home at night.   It’s not the lack of stuff that makes people evil.  It’s what is lacking in the heart.  I’ve been with men all over the world, and we didn’t have stuff other than what we could carry.  None of us were sociopaths.  They would die for me, and I would die for them.  Sociopaths may not have had stuff, but they certainly didn’t have Christ in their hearts and so they are evil. 

There is no negotiating with evil.  It would be like negotiating with cancer.  “Hey, Cancer, we’ll let you have the gall bladder, but you cannot go anywhere else.”  “Okay, you can have the appendix, but don’t touch any of the survivors.”  No!  You have to eradicate cancer by putting pharmacies into people to kill every cancer cell in the body to make sure it doesn’t come back.  Would you be happy if your doctor told you that they got most of the cancer?  Would you be happy with that?   No, you wouldn’t.  Cancer is evil in the body.  Sin is evil in the soul.  You cannot make friends with evil, and you cannot negotiate with it.  It must be converted or destroyed.   

In the synod on synodality, they are promoting openness while people are being butchered and babies are being decapitated in the Holy Land.  They have no conception of reality.  “Well, we all believe in the same god.”  No, we don’t.  “But we are all Christians, so we believe in the same god.”  No, no, no!  I’m throwing the BS flag on that one too.  All religions are not equal.  So, you cannot say that we are all Christian.   My Christian God doesn’t think that killing babies in the womb is a really good idea.  Decapitating babies or making excuses for those who do is pure evil and satanic.  My Christian God also doesn’t think that washing our hands of mom and dad when they get a little too old to care for is a good idea.  “Sorry, Mom and Dad.  We need the bed.  Bye-bye!”  No!  Our God does not do that.  But the Nazis did.  Life unworthy of life was a Nazi designation for segments of the population which, according to the Nazi regime, had no right to live.  Know what happened after the war?  We tracked every one of them down and we hung them.   A little neck stretching exercise courtesy of the U.S. Army. 

We don’t negotiate with evil.  It is either converted or it must be destroyed.   You cannot negotiate with evil.  Jesus said, “Let your Yes mean Yes and your No mean No.  Anything else is from the Evil One.” (Matthew 5:37).   He didn’t say to negotiate.  The danger for us is that they use all these fancy words that actually mean nothing.  I have a degree in philosophy.  I hear all these fancy words, and it’s academic bravo sierra.   We would use all those big words to fill up a term paper, so it looked like we’d actually done some work.  It’s a game.  Congress said, “We’ve come to an agreement.”   Nah.  The only way to have peace in the world is to have Jesus constantly in our souls.  Evil is in the world because satan, and not Jesus, is in our hearts.

 How will you apply this message to your life?  ________________________________

You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to annunciationcatholicalbemarle.com and clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” then “Sermon Notes.”  On a cell phone: click on “Blog” and then “Menu.”  Scroll to the bottom and click on “Categories.”  Sermon Notes are also available on the Church’s Facebook page at ola.catholic.church.  Click on “Groups” and then “Sermon Notes.”

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The Catechism in a Year – Day 290 – The Duties of Citizens

As citizens of a nation, we have certain responsibilities in accordance with God’s Law. The Catechism provides parameters for contributing to society, welcoming the foreigner, refusing obedience, and resisting oppression. Fr. Mike helps us better understand our role as co-collaborators in society within the lens of our world today. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2238-2243.

Click on link: https://youtu.be/dM_X7N2xsbw?si=fBqyv3m3waKNWXqg

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The Catechism in a Year – Day 289 – Family, Society, and the Kingdom

While family is important, the Catechism states, “The first vocation of the Christian is to follow Jesus.” This means that parents should support Christ’s call for their children. Fr. Mike explains that when we deny Jesus or his teachings for the sake of our families, we are making an idol of the family. We also learn the duties of civil authorities. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2232-2237.

Click on link: https://youtu.be/GA7bWqW0EjM?si=cuj9eAMzhs0QCkc2

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Saint of the Day – October 17 – Saint Ignatius of Antioch

Saint Ignatius of Antioch’s Story (d. c. 107)

Born in Syria, Ignatius converted to Christianity and eventually became bishop of Antioch. In the year 107, Emperor Trajan visited Antioch and forced the Christians there to choose between death and apostasy. Ignatius would not deny Christ and thus was condemned to be put to death in Rome.

Ignatius is well known for the seven letters he wrote on the long journey from Antioch to Rome. Five of these letters are to churches in Asia Minor; they urge the Christians there to remain faithful to God and to obey their superiors. He warns them against heretical doctrines, providing them with the solid truths of the Christian faith.

The sixth letter was to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who was later martyred for the faith. The final letter begs the Christians in Rome not to try to stop his martyrdom. “The only thing I ask of you is to allow me to offer the libation of my blood to God. I am the wheat of the Lord; may I be ground by the teeth of the beasts to become the immaculate bread of Christ.”

Ignatius bravely met the lions in the Circus Maximus.

Reflection

Ignatius’ great concern was for the unity and order of the Church. Even greater was his willingness to suffer martyrdom rather than deny Christ. He did not draw attention to his own suffering, but to the love of God which strengthened him. He knew the price of commitment and would not deny Christ, even to save his own life.

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Saint of the Day – October 16 – Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque’s Story (July 22, 1647 – October 17, 1690)

Margaret Mary was chosen by Christ to arouse the Church to a realization of the love of God symbolized by the heart of Jesus.

Her early years were marked by sickness and a painful home situation. “The heaviest of my crosses was that I could do nothing to lighten the cross my mother was suffering.” After considering marriage for some time, Margaret Mary entered the Order of the Visitation nuns at the age of 24.

A Visitation nun was “not to be extraordinary except by being ordinary,” but the young nun was not to enjoy this anonymity. A fellow novice termed Margaret Mary humble, simple, and frank, but above all, kind and patient under sharp criticism and correction. She could not meditate in the formal way expected, though she tried her best to give up her “prayer of simplicity.” Slow, quiet, and clumsy, she was assigned to help an infirmarian who was a bundle of energy.

On December 21, 1674, three years a nun, she received the first of her revelations. She felt “invested” with the presence of God, though always afraid of deceiving herself in such matters. The request of Christ was that his love for humankind be made evident through her.

During the next 13 months, Christ appeared to her at intervals. His human heart was to be the symbol of his divine-human love. By her own love Margaret Mary was to make up for the coldness and ingratitude of the world—by frequent and loving Holy Communion, especially on the first Friday of each month, and by an hour’s vigil of prayer every Thursday night in memory of his agony and isolation in Gethsemane. He also asked that a feast of reparation be instituted.

Like all saints, Margaret Mary had to pay for her gift of holiness. Some of her own sisters were hostile. Theologians who were called in declared her visions delusions and suggested that she eat more heartily. Later, parents of children she taught called her an impostor, an unorthodox innovator. A new confessor, the Jesuit Claude de la Colombière, recognized her genuineness and supported her. Against her great resistance, Christ called her to be a sacrificial victim for the shortcomings of her own sisters, and to make this known.

After serving as novice mistress and assistant superior, Margaret Mary died at the age of 43, while being anointed. She said: “I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus.”

Reflection

Our scientific-materialistic age cannot “prove” private revelations. Theologians, if pressed, admit that we do not have to believe in them. But it is impossible to deny the message Margaret Mary heralded: that God loves us with a passionate love. Her insistence on reparation and prayer and the reminder of final judgment should be sufficient to ward off superstition and superficiality in devotion to the Sacred Heart while preserving its deep Christian meaning.

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Saint of the Day – October 15 – Saint Teresa of Avila

Saint Teresa of Avila’s Story (March 28, 1515 – October 4, 1582)

Teresa lived in an age of exploration as well as political, social, and religious upheaval. It was the 16th century, a time of turmoil and reform. She was born before the Protestant Reformation and died almost 20 years after the closing of the Council of Trent.

The gift of God to Teresa in and through which she became holy and left her mark on the Church and the world is threefold: She was a woman; she was a contemplative; she was an active reformer.

As a woman, Teresa stood on her own two feet, even in the man’s world of her time. She was “her own woman,” entering the Carmelites despite strong opposition from her father. She is a person wrapped not so much in silence as in mystery. Beautiful, talented, outgoing, adaptable, affectionate, courageous, enthusiastic, she was totally human. Like Jesus, she was a mystery of paradoxes: wise, yet practical; intelligent, yet much in tune with her experience; a mystic, yet an energetic reformer; a holy woman, a womanly woman.

Teresa was a woman “for God,” a woman of prayer, discipline, and compassion. Her heart belonged to God. Her ongoing conversion was an arduous lifelong struggle, involving ongoing purification and suffering. She was misunderstood, misjudged, and opposed in her efforts at reform. Yet she struggled on, courageous and faithful; she struggled with her own mediocrity, her illness, her opposition. And in the midst of all this she clung to God in life and in prayer. Her writings on prayer and contemplation are drawn from her experience: powerful, practical, and graceful. She was a woman of prayer; a woman for God.

Teresa was a woman “for others.” Though a contemplative, she spent much of her time and energy seeking to reform herself and the Carmelites, to lead them back to the full observance of the primitive Rule. She founded over a half-dozen new monasteries. She traveled, wrote, fought—always to renew, to reform. In her self, in her prayer, in her life, in her efforts to reform, in all the people she touched, she was a woman for others, a woman who inspired and gave life.

Her writings, especially the Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle, have helped generations of believers.

In 1970, the Church gave her the title she had long held in the popular mind: Doctor of the Church. She and St. Catherine of Siena were the first women so honored.

Reflection

Ours is a time of turmoil, a time of reform, and a time of liberation. Modern women have in Teresa a challenging example. Promoters of renewal, promoters of prayer, all have in Teresa a woman to reckon with, one whom they can admire and imitate.

Saint Teresa of Avila is the Patron Saint of:

Relief from headaches

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Saint of the Day – October 14 – Blessed Carlo Acutis

Blessed Carlo Acutis’ Story (May 3, 1991 – October 12, 2006)

Born in London and raised in Milan, Carlo’s wealthy parents were not particularly religious. Upon receiving his first communion at age seven, Carlo became a frequent communicant, making a point of praying before the tabernacle before or after every Mass. In addition to Francis of Assisi, Carlo took several of the younger saints as his models, including Bernadette Soubirous, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, and Dominic Savio.

At school Carlo tried to comfort friends whose parents were undergoing divorce, as well as stepping in to defend disabled students from bullies. After school hours he volunteered his time with the city’s homeless and destitute. Considered a computer geek by some, Carlo spent four years creating a website dedicated to cataloguing every reported Eucharistic miracle around the world. He also enjoyed films, comics, soccer, and playing popular video games.

Diagnosed with leukemia, Carlo offered his sufferings to God for the intentions of the sitting pope—Benedict XVI—and the entire Church. His longtime desire to visit as many sites of Eucharistic miracles as possible was cut short by his illness. Carlo died in 2006 and was beatified in 2020.

As he had wished, Carlo was buried in Assisi at St. Mary Major’s “Chapel of the Stripping”, where Francis had returned his clothes to his father and began a more radical following of the Gospel.

Among the thousands present for Carlo’s beatification at Assisi’s Basilica of St. Francis were many of his childhood friends. Presiding at the beatification service, Cardinal Agostino Vallini praised Carlo as an example of how young people can use technology to spread the Gospel “to reach as many people as possible and help them know the beauty of friendship with the Lord.” His liturgical feast is celebrated on October 12.

Reflection

Carlo Acutis did not strive to become famous but rather to cooperate as generously as possible with God’s grace. That journey brought him many experiences, but they were all united by a burning desire to serve God and others as generously as possible.

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Saint of the Day – October 13 – Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher

Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher’s Story (October 6, 1811 – October 6, 1849)

Canada was one diocese from coast to coast during the first eight years of Marie-Rose Durocher’s life. Its half-million Catholics had received civil and religious liberty from the English only 44 years before.

She was born in a little village near Montreal in 1811, the 10th of 11 children. She had a good education, was something of a tomboy, rode a horse named Caesar, and could have married well. At 16, she felt the desire to become a religious, but was forced to abandon the idea because of her weak constitution. At 18, when her mother died, her priest brother invited Marie-Rose and their father to come to his parish in Beloeil, not far from Montreal.

For 13 years, Marie-Rose served as housekeeper, hostess, and parish worker. She became well-known for her graciousness, courtesy, leadership, and tact; she was, in fact, called “the saint of Beloeil.” Perhaps she was too tactful during two years when her brother treated her coldly.

When Marie-Rose was 29, Bishop Ignace Bourget—who would be a decisive influence in her life—became bishop of Montreal. He faced a shortage of priests and sisters and a rural population that had been largely deprived of education. Like his counterparts in the United States, Bishop Bourget scoured Europe for help, and himself founded four communities, one of which was the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. Its first sister and reluctant co-foundress was Marie-Rose Durocher.

As a young woman, Marie-Rose had hoped there would someday be a community of teaching sisters in every parish, never thinking she would found one. But her spiritual director, Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father Pierre Telmon, after thoroughly—and severely—leading her in the spiritual life, urged her to found a community herself. Bishop Bourget concurred, but Marie-Rose shrank from the prospect. She was in poor health and her father and brother needed her.

Finally Marie-Rose agreed, and with two friends, Melodie Dufresne and Henriette Cere, entered a little home in Longueuil, across the Saint Lawrence River from Montreal. With them were 13 young girls already assembled for boarding school. Longueuil became her Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Gethsemane. Marie-Rose was 32 and would live only six more years—years filled with poverty, trials, sickness, and slander. The qualities she had nurtured in her “hidden” life came forward—a strong will, intelligence and common sense, great inner courage, and yet a great deference to directors. Thus was born an international congregation of women religious dedicated to education in the faith.

Marie-Rose was severe with herself and by today’s standards quite strict with her sisters. Beneath it all, of course, was an unshakable love of her crucified Savior.

On her deathbed, the prayers most frequently on her lips were “Jesus, Mary, Joseph! Sweet Jesus, I love you. Jesus, be to me Jesus!” Before she died, Marie-Rose smiled and said to the sister with her, “Your prayers are keeping me here—let me go.”

Marie-Rose Durocher was beatified in 1982. Her liturgical feast is celebrated on October 6.

Reflection

We have seen a great burst of charity, a genuine interest in the poor. Countless Christians have experienced a deep form of prayer. But penance? We squirm when we read of terrible physical penance done by people like Marie-Rose Durocher. That is not for most people, of course. But the pull of a materialistic culture oriented to pleasure and entertainment is impossible to resist without some form of deliberate and Christ-conscious abstinence. That is part of the way to answer Jesus’ call to repent and turn completely to God.