Tag: Judge

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Sermon Notes – October 8, 2023 – “We Do Not Know”

“We Do Not Know”

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

 October 7 – 8, 2023

Gospel:  Matthew 21:33:43


While I was proclaiming the gospel, I thought about the servants the master dispatched.  They were cursed at and thrown out.   I can empathize with that.  I’m glad you are sitting down because I’m sure you will be stunned when I tell you that sometimes I have not been treated very well by people. Shocking, isn’t it?  Blanch and John’s little boy has been mistreated.  I’ve been cursed at and thrown out of patients’ rooms.   My cousin yelled at me one time while I was attending my aunt’s funeral.  She said, “You still believe in this stuff?” to which I replied, “Yeah, what happened to you?”   Our Lord created us out of love, sustains us in His love, and wants us to respond to His love so that we can be with Him for all eternity.   That’s why He not only sent prophets, but He also sent His Son to remind of us His great love.  People treated them not so well.   He begs us to respond to His gifts.  He begs us not to grow weary or to become jaded.   He begs us to continue the walk to salvation.  He tells us in the Gospels, point blank with no grey area or ambiguity, what we should do and not do.   And if we happen to stumble, He gives us the means by which to pick up our cross and follow Him.  He continues to show His everlasting love because He doesn’t want anyone to be separated from Him for all eternity.  That’s not His plan.  That’s our plan, not His. 

We are called to judge people for we will know them by their fruits.   I do not want to eat a sandwich made by someone who just came from the bathroom without washing their hands.  Call me fussy, but I do not like that, and I’ve been to some pretty disgusting places.  So, you will know them by their fruits, but you can never judge them for eternal salvation.  You can never judge people beyond God’s mercy.  About eight years ago, I was making my rounds in Hospice and a nurse came up to me and said, “Father, the patient in Room 3 has a statue of Buddha in his room.”  So, I went into the patient’s room, and we talked for a while.  He was a Marine during World War II.  He had three island landings, and the second one hit him badly.  It took him out of the game, but they fixed him up and sent him back in.  The third one hit him so badly that he could no longer be a Marine.  So, we were sitting there talking and he said, “I’m Buddhist.”  Now it was time to talk about the elephant or the Buddha in the room.  We take people where they are.  The patient asked me if I knew anything about Buddha, and I said not much.  I mean I know if you rub the fat guy’s belly it’s supposed to bring you wealth.  But that’s about it.  What did Buddha say to the hot dog vendor?  Make me one with everything.  The patient loaned me a book about Buddhism, and I took it home and read it.  The next time I saw the patient, I told him that I had read the book and that it was very interesting.  Then he told me why he became a Buddhist.  After his tours of duty during World War II, he was sitting on an island, and he looked down at his left arm where he was wearing a silver ID bracelet.  There were 28-29 notches on the bracelet which meant he had personally put the whack on 28-29 Japanese soldiers.  Marines get up close and personal.  When he came home from the war, he tried to be a good husband and father.  He talked to the clergy to find help for what was going on inside him.  But he could not find the answer for the damage the war had done to him, so he found peace in Buddhism.  I can live with that.  I came out of the room and told the nurses not to worry about the Buddha.  The Buddha is fine.  The upside of the story is that this patient got better and left Hospice although not in the usual way.  He actually walked out of Hospice and moved to Florida to live with his daughter. 

We had this woman come into hospice at the VA.  She was acting very ugly and was throwing staff members out of her room.  If she was in a good mood, she would let one nurse and one doctor enter her room.  Finally, one of the chaplains went in and talked to her.  Know why she was in Hospice even though she was only in her early thirties?   She put herself there by living a very bad life.   She was self-medicating because of the severe abuse she experienced as a child.  Some might say, “She doesn’t know Jesus, so she’s not going to Heaven.”  You know, I wouldn’t be so sure about that considering the crosses she has had to carry.  That’s why we don’t judge other people. 

We don’t judge people because we don’t know the crosses they carry.  We don’t know what the heck has happened to them or to those they love.  God judges that.  The Gospel says, “And other sheep I have which are not of this fold” (John 10:16).  We don’t know, so we pray for them, and we implore the merciful judgment of God’s mercy upon them.  In the future, I will probably be thrown out of more rooms.  Will it hurt my feelings?  Maybe.  But that’s what I’m supposed to do.  Before HIPAA rules, which every hospital and nursing home has, the staff would let me know when someone was dying, and I would go in and say the Prayer for the Departing Soul.   I’ve told the funeral directors here that if someone doesn’t have anyone to pray for them at their graveside, call me and I will come and say the Prayer of the Dead.   Because we are all children of God created in His image and likeness.  We all deserve that.  We don’t wish for God’s judgment on anyone.  If we do, we are wishing it for ourselves.   We don’t know the agony other people have endured, so we implore God’s mercy on them. 

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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Minute Meditation – Judging Makes Love Impossible

Without a forgiveness great enough to embrace even the obscure side of things, we are burdened (and I do mean burdened) with our own need to explain and to judge everything. Who is right now? Who was wrong there? These are eventual and important moral questions, but we cannot, we dare not, lead with them. If we do, we make love and compassion impossible. This is the centrality, and yet unbelievability, of Jesus’ words, “Do not judge” (Matthew 7:1).

—from the book Jesus’ Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount
by Richard Rohr, OFM

//Franciscan Media//

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Sermon Notes – October 30, 2022 – “If They Can Do It, So Can We”

“If They Can Do It, So Can We”

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

 October 29 – 30, 2022

Gospel:  Luke 19:1-10

1 He entered Jericho and was going through the town 2 and suddenly a man whose name was Zacchaeus made his appearance; he was one of the senior tax collectors and a wealthy man.  3 He kept trying to see which Jesus was, but he was too short and could not see Him for the crowd; 4 so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus who was to pass that way. 5 When Jesus reached the spot He looked up and spoke to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I am to stay at your house today.’ 6 And he hurried down and welcomed Him joyfully.  7 They all complained when they saw what was happening. ‘He has gone to stay at a sinner’s house,’ they said.  8 But Zacchaeus stood his ground and said to the Lord, ‘Look, sir, I am going to give half my property to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody I will pay him back four times the amount.’  9 And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too is a son of Abraham; 10 for the Son of man has come to seek out and save what was lost.’

This week we are celebrating All Saints Day and All Souls Day.  They are feasts of the Church because they fall within the science of the Church called Ecclesiology. . .a sacred science.   Ecclesiology falls under what?  Christology, because the Church is not a “what” or an “it”.  “Itt” was the member of the Adams Family who had a lot of hair.  The Church is a Who.  As scripture tells us, it is the Body of Christ.  And we do not refer to a body as an “it.”  Calling the Church an “it” is blasphemy.  Making a mockery of things that are holy or sacred is blasphemy and a sin.  There are three parts of the Church.  We are the Church Militant because we are still working on our salvation.  This week we are mindful of the other two parts of the Church:  the Church Triumphant (souls in Heaven) and the Church Suffering (souls in Purgatory).

On All Saints Day, we call to mind all of those who have used the means of faith to reach their goal of salvation.   They leave behind for us an example and a map of the mine field to follow.  “This is how I got through the mine field.  Walk where I walked, and if you don’t see a footprint, do not step there.  Follow in my footsteps, and you will be fine.”  The saints leave us with that, so we have the same means and opportunities as they had.  Time is insignificant to God.  So, when we read about the lives of the saints, we are encouraged because they suffered so much, and we can see our sufferings in theirs.   And if they can do it, we can too. 

On All Souls Day, we pray for all souls that are not in a perfect state of grace and cannot yet enter Heaven because nothing imperfect can reside with the Perfect.  “Well, that’s unfair.”  No, not really.  Would you like a little bit of listeria (a bacterial infection) in your salad?  How about a bit of botulism?  Maybe some Covid?  How about a smidgen of the norovirus (vomiting virus)?   No?  The Feast of All Souls gives us consolation.  It is a feast of God’s love because it is a feast of God’s mercy.  You have to be judged before you can receive mercy.  You cannot just walk down to the courthouse and say, “I’m throwing myself on the mercy of the court.”  The judge will say, “Great.  I appreciate that.  What have you done?” You have to be guilty of something before you can receive mercy.  Mercy is a manifestation of God’s love after death.  So, while those in Purgatory are cleaning their baptismal robes, we can help them enter Heaven sooner by our prayers and sacrifices.  Going back to the courthouse story, if you are found to be guilty, the judge will say, “Sorry, you are guilty.  You have to pay $1,000 or do 30 days of eating bologna sandwiches in jail.”   You say, “I don’t have a $1,000, so I guess I’ll take the bologna special.”   But then the judge says, “Here is $1,000 bucks, you can go.”  Thank you!  Would you be grateful that you wouldn’t have to spend 30 days in jail eating bologna sandwiches or the square fish at Felon University (FU)?   Oh yeah!  That is how the souls can be helped, because in Heaven our love is not only purified but it is expanded to all, not just our friends and family but to the entire Church.  We don’t realize it, but we have countless intercessors in Heaven.  They are always praying, 24/7 and 365, before the Father on our behalf for our temporal welfare, but most importantly, for our spiritual welfare – that where they are we shall also be.  

Perhaps, especially on All Saints Day, we can say “thank you.”  Saying “thank you” is one of the greatest things about prayer that is neglected.  Thanksgiving is one of the five points of the Mass, but is often neglected because it is the last part of the Mass.  As soon as the Communion is finished, there is a race to the door to leave.  And I ask Doc or Stump if I gave them permission to leave.  No!  What is happening in Albemarle that people are in such a hurry to leave?  I know it is legal now to walk around town with booze. . . just what this town really needed.  What’s the draw?  Where’s the “thank you”?  If someone came to your house and got dessert but left while you were getting the coffee, you would be hurt, wouldn’t you? So, stay a few more minutes to say, “thank you, God.”  Even in your prayers, stop to say, “thank you.”  When you get up in the morning, thank God for another day.  Thank Him for not letting you have a heart attack, get sick, or commit a mortal sin.   Say simple prayers just like that.  On All Saints Day, we could offer our prayers of thanks and just be aware of how many people love us. . .billions upon billions of those in Heaven are expressing their love.  In the words of Saint Therese de Lisieux, “I will spend my eternity in Heaven doing good on Earth.”

Father’s Reflections. . .
It’s Halloween, and I had this spooky thought.  I remembered about a time when I was overseas in the first Gulf War and Desert Storm which turned into Desert Shield.  The XO, the second in command of the battalion, ordered everyone in the battalion to fill out their death certificate.  We completed the form except for our date of death.  We kept that form in our wallets in case we had the whack put on us.  Thank you, sir!  I’ve gone to bed with happier thoughts.  I still have that form.  When we were being deployed to the Middle East, my assistant saw me take one of the two dog tags I wore around my neck and put it inside my boot.  He asked me, “Sir, why are you doing that?”   Well, in case one part of my body gets separated from the other part there will be something to send home to my parents.  He said, “Oh.”  Do you know what we do for a living here?  We work in a very dangerous neighborhood!

How will you apply this message to your life? ______________________________________

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Saint of the Day – November 1 – Saint Deborah the Prophetess

St. Deborah (11th c. B.C.) was a godly widow and saint of the Old Testament. She was a courageous prophetess and champion of the Israelites. All Israel came to her to judge their disputes, and God prophesied to Israel through her. She was Israel’s only female judge. Her role as the military leader who defended the Israelites is commemorated in the Bible’s “Song of Deborah.” It was her military counter-attack against Sisera at Mount Tabor that successfully delivered Israel’s enemies into their hands. As prophetess, she foretold that Israel would have peace for 40 years following this victory. St. Ambrose and St. Jerome observed that St. Deborah is a good role model for the encouragement of courageous, godly women. Her feast day is November 1st.

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Meditation of the Day – Do Not Look For The Faults of Your Friend

“Do not look for the faults of your friend. Do not repeat the shortcomings of your neighbors in your talk. You are not the judge of creation. You do not have dominion over the earth. If you love righteousness, admonish your soul and yourself. Be the judge of your own sins, and chastise your own transgressions.”— St. Ephrem the Syrian

//The Catholic Company//

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Meditation of the Day – There is Good Reason to Be Astonished

“There is good reason to be astonished that men should sin so boldly in the sight of Heaven and earth and show so little fear of the most high God. Yet it is a much greater cause of astonishment that while we multiply our iniquities beyond the sands of the sea and have so great a need for God to be kind and indulgent, we are nevertheless so demanding ourselves. Such indignity and such injustice! We want God to suffer everything from us, and we are not able to suffer anything from anyone. We exaggerate beyond measure the faults committed against us; worms that we are, we take the slightest pressure exerted on us to be an enormous attack. Meanwhile, we count as nothing what we undertake proudly against the sovereign majesty of God and the rights of his empire! Blind and wretched mortals: will we always be so sensitive and delicate? Will we never open our eyes to the truth? Will we never understand that the one who does injury to us is always much more to be pitied than are we who receive the injury? . . . Since those who do evil to us are unhealthy in mind, why do we embitter them by our cruel vengeance? Why do we not rather seek to bring them back to reason by our patience and mildness? Yet we are far removed from these charitable dispositions. Far from making the effort at self-command that would enable us to endure an injury, we think that we are lowering ourselves if we do not take pride in being delicate in points of honor. We even think well of ourselves for our extreme sensitivity. And we carry our resentment beyond all measure . . . All of this must stop . . . We must take care of what we say and bridle our malicious anger and unruly tongues. For there is a God in Heaven who has told us that he will demand a reckoning of our ‘careless words’ (Matt. 12:36): what recompense shall he exact for those which are harmful and malicious? We ought, therefore, to revere his eyes and his presence. Let us ponder the fact that he will judge us as we have judged our neighbor.”— Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, p. 49-51

//The Catholic Company//

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Sermon Notes – You Cannot Judge Someone’s Insides by Their Outside

“You Cannot Judge Someone’s Insides by Their Outside“

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

February 6 – 7, 2021

Gospel:  Mark 1: 29-39

A number of years ago, I was vacationing at my now dead brother’s house.  My sister-in-law is very nice, and she let me stay there.  Why she married my brother is a mystery to me.  In my bedroom was a fireplace. This is a four bedroom house with two fireplaces, and I had one of them.  I was looking around at all of their pictures…I love looking at people’s pictures.  I saw a picture of my sister-in-law’s brother.  He was a good looking officer dressed in his Army Class-A uniform.  I asked my sister-in-law if he had ever served in Vietnam, and she said yes.  Did he ever tell you anything about the ribbons on his uniform?  She said no.  Well, I wouldn’t expect him to, but I’ll tell you this, because I think you need to know.  You might want to ask him about this top ribbon.  The highest award always goes on top. That is the Distinguished Flying Cross which is usually a downgraded Medal of Honor. You should know about that.  A few years later, he and I were sitting in the ICU while my brother was on his journey to Heaven.  He told me about some of his travels while he was in Vietnam.  I can’t tell you about them, because they are all classified, but, he did some pretty impressive things.  Now, he looks like a retired old man.  You just never know what people have done…about the good they have done.

When my brother was laid out in the box, he had all of these badges on his uniform.  He was a fire captain and assigned to fire and rescue.  I didn’t understand what the badges meant, so I asked a friend of his, Mike Scallion.  Mike said, “He never told you?”  No.  “Well, these are for the people he saved… he saved a lot of lives.”  But, my brother never told us.  People would come up and ask him to loan them money.  He’d say, “Sure!”  To my brother, it was a gift.  He never loaned money. You never know the good things people have done.  I still hear stories about my brother when I go home.

Conversely, you never know about the crosses people were given to carry by our good Lord.  There are the crosses we bear from birth that God gives us all.  Some change throughout our lives and come with age.  There are the crosses we have because of our sins which we have acquired on our own.  There are also the crosses that other people have given us.  Perhaps we didn’t have perfect parents.  I see a lot of those crosses in the Gated Community I visit.  People with those crosses have a harder shot at life than most of us.  You never know the crosses people are called to carry.  But, they have made their choices, and their crosses are mostly because they avoid God and choose to do evil.  The habit and attraction of sin carries its own cross.  Finally, there are the crosses we bear for our family, friends, and others. 

Now, when you leave here, you will probably encounter people who will irk the living you-know-what out of you.  Somehow, they find a way to stumble across our path.  They may cut us off in traffic. They may take our buggy in Harris teeter or Walmart.  They’ll do something, and you may want to go charismatic on them.  We might do that to people too, believe it or not, some of you might irk other people…I don’t know.   My First-Sergeant had a very effective counselling technique.  He was charismatic and laid hands on people.  We used to call it “wall-to-wall counselling,” and it usually solved the problem in one short session.  If it’s not strangers that irk us, it’s our family.  Those are the ones who can irk us the most.  My cousin calls me and always wants to Face-Time.  The last time he called me, I was hearing confessions when all of a sudden the theme from the “Godfather” starts playing – that’s my ring tone.  My phone showed that it was Jim, and he wanted to FaceTime.  Hey Cuz – I don’t do Face-Time. Learn it.  God allows people in our lives for a number of reasons, not just to irk us, but to teach us patience.

You obviously want to be holy, because you are here.  But, being here is only a part of becoming holy.  You have to go out and practice what you receive here.  All of those rosaries do no good if we don’t use them.  All the great Catholic books in the world and all the crucifixes do no good if we don’t put them into practice.  It’s nice when people say, “Father, that was a great sermon.”  Thanks. Take a copy of the sermon notes; I’ll even autograph it for you.  But it does no good unless you put the message into practice.  So, God sends people into our lives to remind us to pray for others and to help them carry their crosses. He puts these people in our lives to help us learn patience along with suffering.  We don’t know what crosses people are carrying.  We all would like for people to be considerate and compassionate toward us, but how can we be considerate and compassionate toward them?  By praying for them and helping them carry their crosses, whatever those crosses are.  They may be helping to carry someone else’s cross…you never know.  You cannot judge someone’s insides by their outside.

I ask patients how they are doing. Some will say, “Fine!”  But, you are in Hospice care.  Do you know what fine means?  I think we need to talk.  I wouldn’t be putting in menu orders for tomorrow if I were you.  We don’t know what’s going on inside of people. But, if they are like us, and yes, they are all like us, some better…some worse, but generally, we are all the same.  We can help them carry their crosses.  If they are irksome and obnoxious to us, it may be because you have called upon them when they were struggling or having a bad day, or maybe they had just gotten some bad news.  There are all sorts of reasons, culpable and inculpable, but we are called to pray for them all.  By doing so, you are helping them carry their cross.  Even if we do something nice for them, and they don’t thank us…boy, that ticks you off, doesn’t it?   You do something nice for someone, and they don’t thank you?  Oh, baby!  I need a thank you note for that dinner or that Christmas gift!  But, be thankful to have been found worthy to suffer for Him.  Say, “Thank you, Jesus for allowing me to suffer for the sake of your name.” 

Father’s Afterthoughts…

Alcohol is very good for COVID, but only if used externally

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.”