Tag: Peace

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Sermon Notes – September 25-26, 2021 – None of Us are Getting Out of Here Alive

“None of Us are Getting Out of Here Alive”

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

 September 25 – 26, 2021

Gospel:  Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48

I want to tell you about my evil twin brother, Paul.  While I was on vacation, I went to the local diner where it’s like Cheers with food, and everyone knows your name.  If you are a regular, you pour your own coffee and bus your own table.  The owner told me that my brother was the happiest when he could do something for someone else.  That was very nice to hear. 

I have good news and bad news for you today.  The good news is about the latest that I have read about Covid.  It’s 99.5% survivable.  Now, that’s really good news!  The bad news is that life is 0.0% survivable.  None of us are getting out of here alive.  One day the doctor is going to tell us that our birth certificate has been canceled.  When I was in Gitmo, I was outside the hooch one night with Father Seamus, a Norbertine father, while he was having a cigar.  This Air Force doctor walked by and said, “You know, Padre, that’s going to kill you.”  Father Seamus took a drag on his cigar and said, “And what are you planning on dying of doctor?”  We are called in the 5th Commandment to take all moral and prudent means to protect our health. 

We are also called to prepare ourselves to meet Christ and to grow daily in holiness.  This dispels the fear that the devil creates about our passing whenever that will be.  Sometimes it will be like Dorothy Strube at age 96, and sometimes it will be much sooner.  There was an announcement in the obituaries about a gentleman who was 46 when he passed away.  We don’t know when it will happen, but constant communion with Him in this life will make us happier and make those around us happier.  It will dispel the fear of transitioning from this life to the next…hopefully to heaven, if you do it right.

I read about this one man who committed murder in France and who was sentenced to death. His conversion in prison was so great and so amazing, that he was nominated for sainthood for being a servant of God.  He did go to the block…the French took their heads off in those days.  So, he was executed, but he was nominated for sainthood for such was his transition even in that small window.  My point is this: Why wait for that small window? 

We are called to grow closer to God.  Drawing close to Him will provide peace for our souls.  That moment of death will not be tragic.  Instead, it will be a fulfillment of our love.  Two hearts who love each other so tenderly will be together for all of eternity and never separated by sin.  I say that to the dying.  I say, “Make your peace with God and go meet your savior.  You will never lose Him again.”  That’s where we are all headed…to have peace so that we can become holy. 

Do not let your crosses, whatever they may be or how many you may have, cause you to think you aren’t doing something right.  “If I were doing it right, my crosses would be much lighter, and I wouldn’t fall so often.”  All of that is “bravo sierra” from the devil.  Saint Teresa of Avila said, “If this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few.”  Conversely, the more crosses you seem to have, the greater the love Christ has for you.  So, carry your cross, if not for yourself, for others and drawing them to salvation and away from the suffering of the world.  The devil uses many things – he is the father of lies – and he may make you think you are not drawing closer to God when, in fact, you are.  Be prudent about your health in all things.  Also, realize that no matter how many things there are to triumph over, there will be a moment when God will call you from this life to another.  And, He will ask you, “Did you love Me?”

How will you apply this message to your life?  Are you taking all moral and prudent means to protect your health as we are asked to do in the 5th Commandment?  Are you preparing to meet Christ by growing in holiness?

You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to 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).  Sermon notes can also be found on the church Facebook page by Googling “Facebook Our Lady of the Annunciation Albemarle”

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Sermon Notes – July 11, 2021 – There is Hope

“There is Hope”

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

 July 10 – 11, 2021

Gospel:  Mark 6:7-13

I came here 18 years ago.  God bless you for doing that penance on Earth.  You are gaining in purgatory here on Earth.  I remember an article in the local paper about a gentleman from Misenheimer.  Unfortunately, he received a cancer diagnosis.  This was in the paper, so it’s public knowledge.  This man decided not to go with conventional treatment, but with alternative medicine like living in a yurt in Misenheimer.  And, as they say in medicine, he did not have an optimal outcome and died shortly thereafter.  I don’t know what he was clinging to, but he had some hope and the knowledge that he wouldn’t have to go through the rigors of chemo, radiation, and surgery.  If the diagnosis was dire, maybe this was one thing that unconventional medicine could do for him.  At one time, shark cartilage was all the rage for people with cancer.  It didn’t help the patient or the shark one bit.  But, it gave cancer patients a glimmer of hope…there was something there, and they grasped at it.  When we are afraid and hurt so much, we want something to heal us. 

There is so much evil, anger, and strife in the world.  We blame our co-dependent behavior on mental illness.  But, we don’t have to be like that.  None of us have to be like we were. . .wicked.  A lot of Protestant sects are dying out.  They try to make each other more relevant by legitimizing mental illness which is a diagnosis for gender dysphoria.  They are co-signing these behaviors.  Our good Lord told us that “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  Follow Him, and you will find peace in your soul.  Our Lord offers hope.  This hope is not theoretical or intuitive, but a certainty.  The hope He offers us is a promise.  We have a program that our Lord has given us, and we know exactly what we must do.  If we do what He asks us to do, these things will happen.

God’s promise has been demonstrated over history.  For example, if you take your medicine, you will see positive results.  If I take a tiny, little pill in the morning, my blood pressure is fine all day.  This is a demonstrable result.  If I don’t take that pill for a long time, bad things will happen to me.  Our Lord gives us hope to enable us to carry our crosses day-by-day.  Some crosses are predominate and have always been with us, while others change over time with old age and infirmities.   Whatever crosses we bear, whether it is gender dysphoria or addiction, the good Lord gives us the grace to triumph over them. This is not a wish, and it’s not a hope as the world sees hope.  It is a certainty that if you do what Christ says, you will get what He promises. 

Your crosses are many, and I know they are heavy.  Our faith gives us not only a hope, but a way of making that hope a reality, bringing peace to our soul, making sense of the sufferings we endure, and giving us the strength to bear whatever cross our good Lord has asked us to bear for love of Him, for our salvation, and the salvation of others.  This is the faith.  This is the Church and the deposit of faith that gives us hope.  There is no other way.  If you look at history, everyone who has tried something different has failed.   In the words of G.K. Chesterton, “It’s not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been found difficult and left untried.” 

You have hope, and you are demonstrating that hope by your presence here today.  You come for God’s grace through the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass so that you can carry your daily crosses and be good followers of Christ.  When you demonstrate your hope, you are teaching others, because they see it in you.   It’s a day-to-day thing.  Give that hope to someone else. 

As a young man, I read the biographies of the saints and how their lives were transformed.  I don’t read fiction. . .I’m a little old for fairytales.  I like to read about what people did so that I can learn from them.  Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founded the Jesuit Order.  Now, I was trained by the Dominicans, so this is a stretch for me to say this.  What did he do?  Saint Ignatius was a professional soldier…a hit man.  He was a hired gun.  Give him a lot of money and, although he wasn’t Italian, he would put the whack on people especially because of their religion.  And, look at what happened to him. He had a great conversion. The head of the gestapo in Rome, Italy, was Herbert Kappler.  He put the whack on people. . . a lot.  After the war, a priest visited him, and he became Catholic.  Dr. Bernard Nathanson performed over 10,000 abortions.  He also converted to Catholicism after a priest visited him. 

My correspondence is different from most.  I received a letter in the mail the other day from the local, state-run, residential community known as the Albemarle Correction Facility, a medium security prison that I visit.  This one man, who didn’t know me, reached out to me.  The envelope was addressed to “Priest Peter Fitzgibbons.”  Close enough…at least he’s getting there.  He told me that he had grown up Catholic, but had fallen off the wagon a bit. . .or a lot.  He’s a “state employee” now and eats state-issued fish.  Ugh!  If you’re out in the parking lot when they are cooking fish, and the wind is just right, you know it.  I’m a hospital chaplain, so smells don’t usually bother me, but that one does.  Anyhow, this inmate wants to come back to the Church.  He’s had enough.  There are a couple of other inmates that I’ve brought in to the Faith.  They also were at a point where they’d had enough and reached out to me in hope.  You know who touched them in prison?  It wasn’t me…I’m only there once a month.  Other inmates who’d had enough and came back to Jesus.  They saw hope realized in other people. 

Our testimony to the world is the faith that we have been given, the faith that we have been called to hand down, and the faith that we teach by example.  We are living testimonies of the power of Christ by carrying our cross every day.  We may fall down, but we have the strength to get back up and carry on.  This is the hope and reality we can pass on by our actions.  It is how we teach and how we give hope to others.  We can give other people hope with their struggles just as you found hope with the crosses you carry.  But, we can’t if we are angry and bitter.  What’s wrong with you?  Jesus was a man of peace.  Our good Lord loves them and wants to transform them.  You are not your sins.  You are not your crosses.  You are children of God.  God has given us the truth, the means, and the infallible teaching of how to achieve the daily transformation we need in order to get to heaven.  Sometimes, these transformations are amazingly quick, and at other times they are sustaining.  “Well, Father you have been a priest for a long time.”  Yes.  “I see you haven’t changed much.”  But, can you imagine what I’d be like without my prayers every day, my confessions, and daily Mass?  Can you imagine what I’d be like?  I’d rather not…You cannot unsee some things.  Our transformation is always happening in us and won’t be complete until we die. 

How will you apply this message to your life?  Renew your hope in Him so that you can teach others by your example. 

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.

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Sermon Notes – Peace is Found in a “Who”

“Peace is Found in ‘Who’ and Not ‘What’”

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

January 18 – 19, 2020

Scripture : John 1:29-34

We all want peace in the world. Saint John the Baptist made an epiphany by pointing the way to peace: “Behold the Lamb of God…the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.” That’s the way to peace. Always point the way to the Lord; not to some individual priest, but to the One in the Tabernacle. Priests come and go. Someday, I will take a dirt nap, okay? I might drive up onto a telephone guide wire and flip my car like what happened over on Montgomery Avenue the other day. I could get sick, and they’ll bring another guy in here. Also, contrary to popular belief, peace is not gotten by taking away someone’s stuff and giving it to somebody else. That has never worked in the history of the world. “Oh, if they only had more stuff they wouldn’t be bad.” Yeah, they would be…police lock up rich people too. It is not about stuff. It is sin that causes division in the soul and the self. Sin causes violence. Remember, in scripture, the three marks of the demonic or sin in the soul are: nudity/sex, self-mutilation, and violence. When a soul is in torment what does it do? It takes the torment out on everybody else. People say that criminals are misunderstood. No. It’s violence, an evil. “I’ll fight you all”…that’s evil in the soul.

God wants us to have peace, that’s why He sent His Son. Peace is a “Who” not a “what”. You’ve heard the line, “No justice, no peace.” Nah, justice is a virtue. Justice is a step toward the primary virtue which is possession by the All Mighty God. Peace means possessing and being possessed by Christ and having no sin in our soul. I just talked to a guy, a “Methhead,” in the ER over at the VA. He lied to me, and I expect that, so I don’t take it personally. In 12-step programs, reestablishing a relationship with the Creator is one of the first steps in releasing people from their addictions. Through sobriety, you can have peace in your soul. Where do they get this? They get it from the Church which points out the way to Christ. People say, “Father, there are a lot of unholy people in the Church.” That’s why they’re here…trying to work on it, okay? You are trying too, because you are here. We are all here trying to work on holiness. I say my prayers in my sweet little voice, because, I am a great sinner and need prayer. We all strive and struggle.to follow Him. As I said last week, if you have no sin, you don’t need to be here. People say, “Father, some priests aren’t perfect.” Well, nobody in the Church is perfect. But, Father, “people are always going to be that way.” I have never read anything about Mother Teresa going in and starting a bar fight. Have you? She could probably clear the place out…I’ll give her that. She was a tough little woman. But she never started a bar fight. Amazing! Mother Teresa possessed and was possessed with Christ in her soul. Jesus was her peace. Saint John didn’t go downtown to the Hells Angels’ clubhouse and beat up on clubhouse members, did he? No! Look at the saints; they did violence on themselves.

There’s no problem with what we believe, but in how we live. I work in a hospital a few days a week and have seen doctors with pot bellies. You would think they’d know that being overweight is not good for them, right? A couple of times, I have seen the doctors and nurses getting their lunch out of a vending machine….popcorn, candy, soda pop. Now, near as I can tell, there are no vegetables and salads in those vending machines! They know better. They have forgotten more things than I ever learned on their first day of school. It’s not that they don’t know it, but knowing and doing are two entirely separate things. It’s tough to live it. It might take me out of my comfort zone whatever that is; or I might have to give up a bad habit. We all struggle with the knowledge, but our Good Lord gives us the means to live it. He said, “Come and follow Me.” Do you know what “follow me” means in the New Testament? It’s not like little ducks and geese following their mother across the road. “Follow Me” means imitate Christ; imitate Me in My sufferings; join Me in My sufferings; imitate Me in My sacrifices; imitate Me in My teaching, imitate Me in My prayer, follow Me, do what I say. Do what I did, and you’ll get what I got. Follow Me to the cross. He teaches us exactly what we must do to be like Him and to have His peace. He gave us the means to peace in the Sacraments. No, there’s nothing wrong with the Faith, it’s just how we live it.

People say, “You are Catholic.” Yes, I am. They say, “Well you don’t do this, and you don’t do that.” I say, ”You know, you’re right…I’m working on it though, but thank you for reminding me.” Am I perfect? Not even my mother thought I was perfect. I have a lot of people reminding me of my imperfections. And that’s alright, they only see the visible ones, I have a lot more they don’t see. But, I know the Person who can help me change, and I can point you to that Person. That Person takes away my sins, absolutely, and He feeds me with the most precious body and blood. At every Mass, the Church uses these words when the priest lifts up the host and says, “Behold the Lamb of God; behold Him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to suffer of the Lamb.” Everybody is called to that suffering. Everyone.

Down here, a lot of people read John 3:16. Okay, how about John 6:53? Didn’t read that far down in the book, did ya? You have to read the whole book…not just part of the book…take the whole book. Christ said, “If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” That means real meat and real drink. Don’t forget that part! This is the way to feast, and our Good Lord couldn’t be any clearer. I mean, when you are hungry, do you eat or just read a cookbook?

Our problem is that we aren’t perfect. We fall down a whole lot, but we get up again. Part of our baptismal promise is that we will always go back and follow Him. We know how to achieve peace, our Good Lord told us, and we’ve been doing it for the last 2,000 years. Peace is found in a “Who” and not a “what.” All we have to do is follow in His footsteps.

How will you apply this message to your life? When you fall, will you get back up and follow Him? If you need more peace, do you seek it in Him? Do you follow in His footsteps?

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Sermon Notes – No Justice…No Peace?

“No Justice…No Peace?”

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

September 19-20, 2020

Scripture: Matthew 20: 28-32

We often see around the church, especially during this political season, all these signs about “No Justice…No Peace.” If we don’t get justice, we’ll have no peace. But, that’s not true. It’s not true theologically. In the real world, you really don’t want justice….what you want is mercy. For example, if the cops give you a blue light special and write you an “I love Stanly County” donation/ticket, you might be a bit upset. “Oh! No, no, please…my mother’s sick!” You don’t want justice. But, justice is that you were speeding, so you got a citation, and you paid the fine. That’s justice. We don’t want justice, because when we get justice, we aren’t very happy at all. We want mercy which is the fullest expression of God’s love. The greatest experience of God’s love is when He forgives and forgets all of our sins. Those of us who may not have committed dreadful sins as others have…at least not yet…we have a gift for which we should be thanking God.

Spiritually, we have no idea how heinous and egregious our sins are. That’s why I visit the sick, because receiving Last Rites is so important. That’s also why it is essential to call a priest near the hour of someone’s death…preferably before that, while they’re still conscious…so they can talk. Sometimes, I get a call from the family…”Oh, they died two hours ago.” But, it’s too late…they’ve passed now. Those who get to receive Last Rites experience God’s mercy, and having had moments of terror all the way up to the moment of death, they can now be at peace. The Four Horsemen of death, war, plague and famine are gone. They got to experience God’s mercy at the time of their passing. They heard God’s words of love preached over them, and they had the chance to say, “I love you Lord and I’m sorry for everything I’ve done wrong.” And, that is sufficient because of God’s grace, even for those who have lived very colorful lives, and some of them have been quite colorful. But, now they have peace. I refer you to the poem by Francis Thompson, “The Hound of Heaven”…look it up. If you’ve never had an experience with the Four Horsemen, I pray that you never do. Pray for those who still see them.

Our Lord said from the Cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” This so-called demand for justice blinds us. Look at the workmen in the Gospel. These men were working, but were not grateful even though, by working, they had the ability to feed their wives and children. Almost everyone back then was married and had lots of children. These men had a chance to feed their families. Were they grateful to the man who hired them? “Hey…thank you for helping me feed my family!” Nope. But, those men standing around and who had not been hired were most grateful. They had been terrified all day thinking that they would have no money, no food…nothing…for their families and that their children would cry and their wives would complain. Instead, they experienced God’s great mercy. Until then, they had experienced the terror, fear, bewilderment, and darkness that occurs when the Four Horsemen come.

So, these men have been standing there all day…idle; they don’t have their own business, and they have no other source of income. They are day laborers, and they got hired. The Gospel related that none of them thanked the man for hiring them. Justice…it blinds us. It also causes a lack of compassion and self-centeredness. The men hired at the end of the day now have a chance to feed their families. They got a full day’s pay, so they were able to go home and feed their wives and children and provide them clothes. The other workmen did not care. They were not grateful for the opportunity to earn a day’s wage and feed their own families. These schmucks had no compassion for the suffering of the people dependent on those men. They also had no compassion for their interior agony. Again, our Lord’s words from the Cross were “My God, my God, why have You abandoned Me.” The Four Horsemen were with the men that day. They had been terrified they would have to go home to their wives and children with empty hands. The other guys couldn’t have cared less. And, they weren’t going to pony up some money for them. No, they just wanted more. “But, that’s justice!” No. You haven’t learned anything about this, have you. God reveals Himself through His mercy. The greatest experience of God’s love is the experience of His mercy, and that mercy is always spelled out for us. God’s mercy is where His love resides. There are two ways to experience the greatness of God’s love – by receiving His mercy and by never losing His love by sinning.

How will you apply this message to your life? Will you stop insisting on justice and instead ask for His mercy? Will you pray for those who are dealing with the Four Horsemen?

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Sermon Notes – Make Room for Peace

“Make Room for Peace“

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

December 24-25, 2020

Scripture: John 1:1-18

I had dinner with a bunch of priests on Tuesday night. It was a nice dinner, because 1) I didn’t get arrested; and 2) it was a free dinner. We talked about a number of things…basically a whine session…about people not coming to church and things like that. One of the priests, a great guy, said “Jesus told us to feed the sheep…not count them.” And, that’s true.

So, we have the Special Forces of the Catholic faith here with us tonight. You braved this terrible COVID epidemic to be here. You have come out to be a part of Christ’s act of love. Today, we celebrate the anniversary of our Lord’s coming to earth in human form with the human nature He took from the Blessed Mother. Today, we don’t have to look up to heaven, we can look down at Jesus in the manger or over there in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Now, heaven is on earth until the end of the world, because our Lord resides there in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Remember when I told you about the Mass not being an inanimate object like that candlestick over there? The Mass is not a stage-play. It is not a what. It is a “Who.” It is a sacrifice of Christ offered by Christ to the Father.

Scripture says there was peace when Jesus was born. Know why? Because anyone who put their head up, the Romans chopped it off. The Romans did not take kindly to disagreements, and they did not invite dialogue. Don’t like Rome? Whack! Peace was restored, and they had legions of armies to enforce it. Peace is not a what. It’s not a thing, and it’s not a prize. It is a person. Jesus is our peace. He told us in the Gospel, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you.” The Lord is with us always. What is He offering? Himself. He is our peace. Peace is not found by changing the personal pronouns referring to people. It is not found in tearing down statues or renaming schools. Peace is not found in giving away stuff. It is not an agreement where everyone gets together in Geneva and signs something. Peace is not found in calling evil, good and good, evil.

True peace comes from having Christ in our soul. The price of peace is losing our sinfulness, our selfishness, our bond to self, and our love of sin. The greater we grow away from ourselves, the greater Christ can come into our souls. Physics tells us that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. So, the more peace we want, the more sin and selfishness we must rid ourselves of. Christ offers as much of Himself as we want. He is our peace….a true peace that no one can take from us. What is the cost? The cost is the one thing none of us want – all the evil and garbage in our souls.

Sin is what drives Christ out of our hearts. I feel really bad for the police, because for the past several nights, they have been very, very busy. These days, all people want to do is fight. That’s all sin. The police don’t want to enter into fights…they want to go home to their families. People are not fighting because they don’t have an iPhone 5…or whatever number it is up to now. They are fighting because they don’t know Christ who is our peace. We will have peace on earth only when we have peace in our souls.

How will you apply this message to your life? Will you make more room for Christ by ridding yourself of sinfulness and selfishness?

Father’s Afterthoughts….• In the last sentence of today’s Gospel, it says Joseph didn’t have relations with Mary before she gave birth to a son. Now, you may be thinking, “Well, that means Mary could have had other children.” As lawyers would say, “That assumes facts not in evidence.” The Gospels tell us only what we need to know. Did you ever notice that the Scripture never talks about dinosaurs? They existed, but they were not essential to the message of salvation. Scripture only tells us what we need to know. So, non-Catholics cannot say that Mary and Joseph had other children. It’s just not true.• Yesterday, I received a rather odd message from my sister-in-law. She said that my brother sold something on E-Bay. My brother has been dead for 18 months. I’m thinking, “Where do they send the check?” Fair question! Welcome to my family. And, you think yours is strange.