“[Saint] Paul understood that the suffering he was going through somehow allowed him to share in Christ’s suffering for the world…In his own life, there was a time when he asked the Lord three times to remove a particular suffering from him (see 2 Corinthians 12:8). The response he received from the Lord was not “Oh, my oversight. That’s right, I took care of all that suffering. You don’t have to do anything.” No, God’s response was, “[Paul], my grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9)…It is completely opposite of the way the world thinks…What looked like the worst thing that ever happened on earth—Christ hanging on a cross, bleeding to death—became the source of salvation for the entire world. The point of weakness became the point of strength; it was transformed into the power over death and Hell. We have to get it through our heads that the kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom according to the world’s perspective. Weakness confounds the wise. The poor and obscure confound the rich and famous…Whatever you are going through right now, remember that God has a plan for you. He wants to be united to you so closely that it resembles a spousal relationship…your suffering is not inconsequential; it is extremely valuable in the economy of God.” —Jeff Cavins, When You Suffer
“Cheerfulness strengthens the heart and makes us persevere in a good life. Therefore the servant of God ought always to be in good spirits.” — St. Philip Neri
“If we are a little envious of one person or another, we don’t contain our envy but sometimes share it with others by speaking badly about the person. This is how gossip seeks to grow and spread to another person and yet another. This is the way gossip works, and we have all been tempted to gossip. I too have been tempted to gossip! It is a daily temptation that begins slowly, like a trickle of water. This is why we have to be careful when we feel something in our heart that would lead to destroying people, destroying reputations, destroying our lives, leading us into worldliness and sin. We must be careful because if we do not stop ourselves in time, that trickle of water, when it grows and spreads, will become a tidal wave that leads us to justify ourselves, just as the people from the day’s Gospel justified themselves and eventually said of Jesus: “It is better that one man die for the people.”—Pope Francis
The tension in the Gospel of John, even more than in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is that from the beginning, Jesus is clearly the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God. If all we have are the Synoptic Gospels, we can almost be persuaded that Jesus of Nazareth was a good and holy man who went about the countryside teaching people about God, healing their diseases, and preaching a moral lifestyle. In the Gospel of John, we have to wrestle with the fact that this good and holy man is in fact the human manifestation of the one, true God. And yet, Pope Francis always finds a way of bringing lofty theology to a level where we can see clearly how it can have an impact on our everyday lives. One of his frequent themes is the danger of gossip. Here he reminds us that our very tendency to dismiss it as a minor failing belies the danger it can have in disrupting relationships, social structures, and ultimately lives.
We have opportunities every single day to say no to gossip. Find a way to pay attention to those opportunities for the next few days. You might want to keep a paper tally, a click of a counter app on your phone, moving a small item (a paperclip, a pebble, a dried bean) from one pocket to another. Just the act of noting these times may be enough of a reminder not to indulge in this seemingly minor sin.
St. Margaret Clitherow (1556-1586), also called Margaret of York, lived in York, England, the daughter of a candlemaker and wife of a wealthy Protestant butcher. She was raised Anglican just after the time that King Henry VIII severed the Church of England from communion with the Roman Catholic Church. A few years after her marriage, at the age of 18, she converted to the Catholic Church due to the work of covert missionary Catholic priests. While her husband remained Protestant, she aided persecuted Catholics by sheltering priests (which included her brother-in-law) and having Mass and Confessions said in her home, which became a safe house and hiding place for priests.
Margaret witnessed the tortuous death of many of the priests she aided, and she would publicly pray on the spot of their martyrdom. Undaunted in her work, she was imprisoned numerous times. On her final arrest she was charged for harboring Catholic priests and was condemned to a public execution by being crushed to death, a martyrdom of which she considered herself unworthy. All three of her children entered the religious life, two priests and a nun.
St. Margaret Clitherow, the “Pearl of York,” is the patron saint of martyrs, businesswomen, and converts. Her feast day is March 26th.
“This world is filled with many vulgar and dishonorable things that will claw and tear at your Christian purity if you allow them to. Don’t let them! Seek instead the things of God. He will purify you and free you from your slavery to profane and inconsequential things.”— Patrick Madrid, p.1
“O man, when the world hates you and is faithless toward you, think of your God, how he was struck and spat upon. You should not accuse your neighbor of guilt, but pray to God that he be merciful to you both.”— St. Nicholas of Flue
“When You Wrestle With Pigs in the Mud, You’re Gonna Get Dirty“
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
March 20-21, 2021
Gospel: John 11: 1-45
I’ve hear a lot these days that we live in a “cancel culture.” Do you know what that is? It’s when people say mean things about you and try to erase your very existence. However, I disagree that we are living in a cancel culture. I was in a cancel culture. I was in the U.S. Army for 24 years and served in three wars. They tried to put an expiration date on my birth certificate, and they were pretty darn good at it too. That’s cancel culture. We are not living in a cancel culture. What we have here is an evil culture. People are trying to do evil under the appearance of good. They are claiming what was evil is now good. These sins are included in the four sins in scripture that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. Members of the cancel culture scream at you just as they screamed at our Lord and crucified Him. There’s nothing new under the sun as scripture says. And there’s not. The good news for us is that we don’t have to be that way. But, if you wrestle with pigs in the mud, the pigs doesn’t mind, but you’re going to get dirty.
Let me ask you a question. Do you know what the secret to happiness is? Want me to tell you? Our Lord has told us to be holy. He said, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you.” This is a peace that the world cannot take away. So, if we seek and strive for holiness and to be one with our good Lord each day, we will have a happiness that no one can take away. That doesn’t mean you won’t have your share of sorrows and troubles. We all have our illnesses, and we all have our struggles. Our loved ones have been taken from this world to Heaven. That happens to us all. It doesn’t mean Christ stopped loving us. It means we are sharing in some of His Passion for the sake of the Body of His church, for our own redemption, and for the souls of others. We know deep down that as long as we do not turn away from our Lord through mortal sin or unrepented venial sin, He will always be there. Even though we cannot feel it, He is always present with us. Our peace and joy will come later after our trial on Earth is done. Our suffering is redemptive.
Saint John Paul II was suffering from end-stage Parkinson’s. He loved classical music, so they brought in a world famous orchestra and conductor to play for him. I don’t know his name…it’s not ZZ Top, so it’s beyond me. Because of the steroids he was on for the Parkinson’s, he was bloated, shaking and drooling. He could barely move. The last piece the orchestra played was his favorite, and the orchestra played it so beautifully, it would have made angels weep. When the orchestra finished playing, the conductor turned around and looked nervously at the Pope. The conductor was a little scared, because they were playing for the pope. The Holy Father could barely move, but he looked at the conductor and gave him a thumbs up. Even in his suffering, you knew he was a man of God. He had a happiness about him no matter what happened. He had the weight of the whole Church on his shoulders. He had a fatal illness that is terribly debilitating. But, he still had peace. And, that’s what we can have, because we have Christ. However, because we have Christ, we have an obligation to help others.
So, how do we fight this so-called cancel culture? We must try to be even more holy and to pray for people. Some of them are like those in I see in the gated community, a state sponsored residence with its own security system. Those incarcerated never had a chance. They were abused in childhood, so the chances were less than average that they would have a good life. They had a lot of things working against them. Granted, they chose to do evil, but they had a lot more crosses than we do. That’s not an excuse, but it’s a mitigating factor. How do we help those people who are evil and who try to say what we believe is evil and must change? Even the Catholic Church says sometimes what we believe must change. That’s not true. They are lying. They aren’t wrong…they are lying. Educated people who know better are lying. How do we change that? Have a little chat with them? Even though I’m almost 68, I’m still a soldier, and part of me would love to say, “Let’s go outside and discuss this.” No. Our Lord said to love them, sacrifice for them, and pray for them. They were taught from a young age that sin was good. We see the outcomes of sin and evil. We don’t have to be like them. But, instead of fighting with them, we need to love them.
Those who advocate evil are just like little children who don’t get their way, and they throw a tantrum. That’s me some days. Ever had a child…or a husband…throw a temper tantrum? What happens? Like our guardian angels, and like any good parent, we slowly take them in our arms, close to our heart. They are all worn out from their temper tantrum and break down in tears. So, we hold them close to our heart, giving them comfort and love. That’s what we are to do with this cancel culture. We can hold out our arms to them, no matter what they say to us, and no matter what they try to do to us. We can pray for them, sacrifice for them, and slowly bring them in to our heart.
This culture is not cancel…I know what cancel is. Cancel is evil. We are living in an evil age. Actually, every age is evil. But, we don’t have to be like that. Remember, when you grow close to Jesus, you have both a gift and a command to go out and bring others in and to change the culture. What’s very sad about people who are caught up in the cancel culture is that they don’t see how blind they are. They are like someone who has had too much to drink. The cops stop them, and they say, “I only had two beers!” Really? That math is wrong. They can’t stand up, never mind drive. “I’m okay!” They don’t see it…they are blind. It’s just like alcohol blinds the alcoholic and dope blinds the dope addict. And, the only cure for that is divine love.
During my time working in hospitals, I’ve learned that the only proper way to treat a disease is to find out what the disease is. So, we shouldn’t say it’s a cancel culture when it’s an evil one. People who are not eradicating evil are promoting it. There’s a big difference. Saint Mother Teresa tried to eradicate evil, and look at the love she spread. So this is what we do. We don’t have to be like them; instead, we need to love them, to pray for them, and to sacrifice for them.
How will you apply this message to your life? Will you, like Saint Mother Teresa, try to eradicate evil by spreading God’s love?
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 page). There is also a search box if looking for a specific topic.
“The same God who called Abraham and made him come down from his land without knowing where he should go is the same God who goes to the Cross in order to fulfill the promise that he made. He is the same God who in the fullness of time will make that promise a reality for all of us. What joins that first instance to this last moment is the thread of hope. Therefore, what joins my Christian life to our Christian life, from one moment to another, in order to always go forward— sinners, but forward—is hope. Yet, what gives us peace in the dark moments, in life’s darkest moments, is always hope. Hope does not disappoint: it is always there, silent, humble, but strong.”—Pope Francis
These powerful words from Pope Francis remind us that hope is one of three “theological virtues,” along with faith and love. With St. Paul, we believe that the greatest of these is love, but hope is the virtue that keeps us going when even love seems to fail. Sometimes our ordinary use of the word hope can reduce it to something like wishful thinking: I hope I pass this exam. I hope my test results are good. I hope my children will be happy and successful. We use the word for things that are out of our control. We use it for times when perhaps our efforts have fallen short. We use it for all the uncertainties in our daily lives. Pope Francis reminds us that the real source of our hope is always in God’s faithfulness and mercy. Abraham has always been the prime example of this kind of hope. He left everything to follow God’s call. We all have times in our lives when we, too, find ourselves going forth into the unknown darkness. In those times, hope in God’s promise is all we have to cling to—and cling we must, sometimes with only our fingertips. The image of hope keeping us from drowning can seem all too real at times when we are overwhelmed by life’s struggles: addiction, despair, depression, death. The theme of our Lenten reflections is hope. The hope of Lent is clearly Easter and the resurrection. But there’s a deeper hope that is with us each and every day, that knows no times or seasons. It’s the ground on which we stand, the bedrock of our foundation. That thread of hope runs strong and resilient through our lives, caught at each end by the grace of God’s merciful love.
St. Dismas (1st c.) is the name Church tradition has given to the “Good Thief,” one of the two criminals who were crucified alongside Jesus Christ on Good Friday. All we know about St. Dismas is what is mentioned of him in the Gospels: “Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.’ The other [St. Dismas] however, rebuking him, said in reply, ‘Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.'” Then St. Dismas, as an expression of his faith in Christ as the Messiah, said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus replied to St. Dismas, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:39-42). The feast day of St. Dismas is March 25.
