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MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021
“May the Lord help us to journey along the path of the commandments but looking toward the love of Christ, with the encounter with Christ, knowing that the encounter with Jesus is more important than all of the commandments.”
Pope Francis
“Rules? There Are Rules?”
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
May 8 – 9, 2021
Gospel: John 15:9-17
Now, when I was in seminary we had to study…a lot. “So, Father, you learned a lot of rules.” Maybe. We had a semester in Moral Theology. Then there was the Canon Law course which we took twice, because there are two different versions…the one we were living under at the time and the one that would be in effect five years down the road. The funny thing about that is the first part was the one we had to study and were tested on, but it was only written in Latin. It could not be translated into English, because there wasn’t a precise translation, and Canon Law is very precise. So, you sit there in class with a Latin dictionary. Great! One year of Latin in high school just didn’t quite cut it. So, yeah, there are a lot of rules, if you want to look at it that way. If you look at them without love, then they are RULES. But, if you at them with love, they are the way God gives us His healing power and keeps us from harm. So, they aren’t really RULES.
You know what else has RULES? Flight school. Anybody can take a plane up, and everybody can land it…but, landing the plane safely is the tricky part. You know who else has RULES? Doctors. Medicine has lots of RULES. You can’t do this and you can’t do that…well, you could, but a good outcome would be doubtful. What’s the first rule in. Medicine? Do no harm. Great idea! That philosophy almost applies to military doctors. Doctors study all these RULES so they can bring God’s healing gift to you. Otherwise, there are a lot of people who wouldn’t be here today. What are the RULES for? Through the actions of our health providers, the RULES are there so that God’s healing gifts may be granted to heal us, to console us, and to comfort our families. It’s the same with God’s Commandments. If you follow them, you get what He promised. The RULES of medicine are acts of love. The emptying of oneself, because you don’t know everything, allows God’s healing power to flow from you to the other person.
The same thing is true with the Church. The RULES are set in the Gospel as Commandments. What are they? They are works of love. “If you love me, keep My Commandments.” So, the Commandments are works of love. They are not RULES. What makes people look at the Church and say, “There are a lot of RULES” is ego. We call that “king baby.” “I want what I want when I want it.” Now, I am blessed to have a wonderful cardiologist. He’s a very, very gifted man and a wonderful healer, except he lacks something in his education. Maybe, he was sick that day in medical school. Apparently, he doesn’t know that bacon is heart healthy, and I can’t quite convince him that it is. I want what I want when I want it. Those are people’s RULES.
God loves us unconditionally, because God is love itself. He created us out of love, and He saved us out of love. God continues to loves us even when we tick him off by sinning. We have to accept His love and give that love back. But, we put conditions on receiving Him as if we are the ones making the RULES. Is anybody here perfect? Bea, don’t put your hand up. So, no one. That’s why we need a Savior, and that’s why we are here. This is a hospital for sinners – not hotel for saints. We do not set conditions on His love; instead, we seek it. He wants to give Himself to us, but not if we aren’t prepared to receive Him. These are the RULES so that the gift of His love will not be insulted, mocked, or held up for ridicule. We take His love and make a mockery of it.
Even though God’s love is unconditional, we cannot do whatever we want just because God will love us anyway. “I can do this because God loves me unconditionally.” “I’m going to do that because God will love me anyway.” No…you cannot. In the Gospel, our Lord said, “Whoever does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple” (Matthew 10:38) and everybody left Him. When He declared that marriage is between one man and one woman (Matthew 19:4-7), everybody left Him. When our Lord told His disciples, “…unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53), everybody left Him. Christ said, “If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love” (John 15:10). These are the RULES. We have RULES to guide us so that we understand what acts of love are and what they are not.
We all make mistakes, and we are judged on them. “My conscious is my guide.” Well, it shouldn’t be. The judgement of the Church should be your guide, because it is infallible in matters of faith and morals. My own judgement is not too good. Remember bacon? There are rules about Holy Communion. Non-Catholics and non-practicing Catholics cannot receive. Saint Paul wrote that whoever receives the Eucharist unworthily “will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:27-30). They are not guilty of being impolite – they are guilty of His death. Instead of loving Christ, those who receive unworthily are taking His gift and throwing it in His face. “I don’t care what You want, this is what I want.” Be sure to read the black part of Scripture, and leave the white part alone. These are not RULES. There are no RULES in the Church…only acts of love. If we find His Commandments and the Church’s rules to be odious and burdensome, that’s our ego from the first sin. Remember, it was not committed by Adam and Eve, but by Lucifer who said, “I will not serve.”
The next time you hear someone say, “Catholics have a lot of RULES,” just say, ‘”You know, if you read the Gospels, Jesus had a lot of RULES. But, those RULES tell us how to die to ourselves so that He can live within us.” Yes, we have RULES, but they are acts of love. If we have a problem with the RULES, then we have a problem with our love of God.
How will you apply this message to your life? Are you making a mockery of His love by following your own set of rules instead of His Commandments?
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 you are looking for a specific topic.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 2021
“The Lord wants to tell us that before the observance of His commandments, before the beatitudes, before works of mercy, it is necessary to be united to Him, to abide in Him. We cannot be good Christians if we do not abide in Jesus… The fruitfulness of our life depends on prayer… Let us entrust ourselves to the intercession of the Virgin Mary. She always remained completely united to Jesus and bore much fruit. May she help us abide in Christ, in His love, in His word, to bear witness to the Risen Lord in the world.” Pope Francis
“There’s No Apple Pie in Heaven (Darn It!)“
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
April 10 – 11, 2021
Gospel: John 20:19-31
You may remember my sermon on Holy Thursday that was so wonderfully entitled “When a one man band gets hit in the butt with a beer truck, the music stops.” Our Lord gave the apostles and their successors the ability to carry on with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the ages so that the fruits He won through His death could be passed on. He told the apostles if you forgive their sins, they are forgiven. That happens every generation with every priest. Any priest who says the Mass has the power to give these gifts and to forgive sins. We have to hear the sins by the way. Jesus told the apostles, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven, if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” So, how do we know? Because people tell us. The sins we hold bound and do not offer forgiveness for are those you are not sorry for and those you are not going to try to stop. If you come in and say you are living with two girlfriends as husband and wife, and you are not going to stop, I cannot forgive you because you are attached to the sin. So, you have now heard part of the penance course.
Also in the gospel, and the main point I want to get at, is that the transfiguration took place about ten days before the Passion. Our Lord showed us what the saints are like in Heaven. They are recognizable, and they know the future because Heaven is the eternal now. We are in time, but Heaven is not. Our good Lord shows us what the saints would be like after the resurrection of the body and the General Judgement should we pass that final exam. The questions come from Matthew Chapter 25… I’ll give you a heads-up so you can prepare for it. He shows us what it will be like and how to get there. He shows us that we will have a body and that it will be recognizable and that it can move through walls. “It’s a ghost!” No, it’s not. It has physicality to it. Touch my hand. Touch my feet. In the gospel, Jesus asks for food, and He ate it. Now, we won’t need food in heaven, which I find quite disappointing. My mother has been gone for several decades, and I was looking forward to her apple pie. Even her sisters say they can’t bake like my mother did. Thanks, a lot! So, there will be no food in heaven, but we know that we will have our body with us.
Heaven is a place. A physical body needs a place in paradise to be in the presence of God. Our Lord also teaches us how we can get there. Probe the nail prints in My hands and the spear marks in My side. Bishop Sheen said that God will judge us by the resemblance of His Son in us. He will look at us. He will look at the three parts of man having suffered with My Son for the admission of sin for the sake of others. He will look at the body, soul, and spirit. Not everybody will have physical suffering to the extent Christ had, but everyone will have emotional or spiritual sufferings. Some suffer greatly depending upon the time, the place, and the person. This is what our God the Father will look for – to see the marks of His Son. This is how we become like Jesus, God’s resurrected Child.
We will have our body reunited to our soul. Remember, the soul and the body cooperated with Christ, therefore they both will receive the reward. The soul and body cooperated in sin, so they both need to do the punishment. Our Lord not only showed us what Heaven would be like, He also showed us how to get there. As Saint John said in his epistle, “If we love Him, keep His commandments.” A lot of people forget that one part. If you love Him, keep His commandments. After all, His commandments are not burdensome.
How will you apply this message to your life? Do you love Him? Are you keeping His commandments?
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 you are looking for a specific topic.
Jesus gives us a road map to heaven, not a to-do list.
RELIGIONJOHN T. GROSSO Published March 19, 2021
“Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ ” (Matt. 19:21).
This directive to a young man who asks Jesus what he must do to enter into eternal life raises legitimate questions for Catholics today. Do we really have to give away what we have to get into heaven? Then why are there faithful Catholics with houses, cars, sports memorabilia, and entertainment systems?
Jesus’ response to the young man is actually threefold: “keep the commandments . . . sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor . . . follow me” (19:17, 21).
Rather than a specific task that guarantees salvation, Jesus gives us the road map to heaven.
The lesson Jesus is trying to teach his followers is deeper and more complex than “throw away everything you have!”
Jesus demonstrates how easily “stuff” can get between us and God. If we possess too much, we can become consumed by what we have and forget about God. Jesus warns us to not be possessed by our possessions. The more we have, the harder it becomes to resist the temptation to obsess over worldly things, rather than keep our attention where it belongs: fixed on God.
Jesus is not asking us simply to declutter our lives or live in a minimalistic way for its own sake.
If we look at this story through that context, we can see that Jesus is not necessarily just calling us to reject all of the physical possessions we hold dear. He also wants us to share the other parts of our lives we try to possess: our time and talents.
It might not be necessary to give up all that we own to get into the kingdom of God, but it is absolutely necessary for every disciple to offer time, talent, and treasure for God’s glory here on earth. How do we do that? By using those possessions to serve the poor, the hungry, the immigrant, the “least of these” (25:35–36).
Jesus is not asking us simply to declutter our lives or live in a minimalistic way for its own sake. He does not want us to empty ourselves for some arbitrary reason. He tells us to empty ourselves out of love and a desire to enter into relationship with him.
In sharing our posessions with those on the margins, we fulfill the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” (19:19). In using our time, talent, and treasure to encounter the less fortunate, we encounter Jesus himself.
So, while we don’t have to start packing away everything in our houses just yet, we’re not off the hook. Following Jesus isn’t easy, and true discipleship requires sacrifice.
No matter who we are or what our socioeconomic status might be, we are called to offer what we have for God’s glory and to make sure our pursuit of possessions does not prevent us from receiving the one real treasure: the gift of heaven and eternal life.
This article also appears in the March 2021 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 86, No. 3, page 49). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
Image: Heinrich Hofmann, “Christ and the Rich Young Ruler”, 1889 via Wikimedia CommonsT
//U.S. Catholic – Faith in Action//
“And it is only by the observance of the first and greatest commandment that we can keep the second. The more we love God, the more we shall love man; the less we love God, the less we shall, in the true sense of the word, love man. Our love will become capricious, fitful, and unreliable—not charity, but passion. If you feel that your love for your fellowman is dying out in the fumes of selfishness, there is but one way to revive it: strive for, pray for, the love of God. As the heart turns toward its source, it will be quickened and expanded. There is no true, no lasting spirit of charity apart from the practice of religion. Therefore, we cannot keep those commandments which teach us our duty to men unless we are keeping those which teach us our duty to God.”— Fr. Basil W. Maturin, p. 160