Tag: Rules

Posted on

Sermon Notes – June 25, 2023 – The High Price of Low Living

The High Price of Low Living

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

June 24 – 25, 2023

Gospel:  Matthew 10:26-33

Years ago, my older brother, John, went to the doctor.  The doctor told my brother that she had bad news for him.   John said, “What’s that?”  The doctor told him that he had Hepatitis C.  She also told John that he could probably be cured of it, but that he would have to stop drinking.   My brother thought about it and said, “I appreciate that doctor, but I like to drink.”  This was a guy who kept a bottle of vodka in his freezer.  Now, my brother was not a stupid man.  John and my twin brother both had Mensa cards, members of the Society of Geniuses.  John had a great doctor who offered all her talents and abilities to increase the odds of his survival.  Sometimes Hepatitis C can lie dormant forever, but it can also come and take you out.  My brother decided to play the odds and to continue drinking, but he lost the gamble.  The doctor had tried to help John, but he refused God’s gift.  I was there when he died.  He died a much more painful death than he should have.  It was not a pleasant way to go. 

I’ve been reading all these articles in Catholic newspapers about our needing to be a “welcoming Church.”  I have a question.  Remember “Welcome Back Kotter” and what happened when Horshack had a question?  OOOOHHH!  OOOOHHH!  OOOOHHH!  I have a question!   When were we not a welcoming Church?   My brother’s doctor used all her expertise trying to get him to change his mind.  But he was stuck on stupid.  You cannot fix stupid; you can only medicate it.   Saying that we are “not welcoming” is an insult to the people of God.  Look at all the Catholic hospitals, schools, and orphanages that took everybody.   A lot of times when the poor inquired about their bills, there were none.   How can we not be welcoming? 

Now, I’ve been a Catholic for 69 years and 40+ weeks.  I was very young when I was baptized, so I don’t remember the exact date.   My father was an usher, and I never saw him throw anyone out of church.  I have never seen Lori body slam anybody who came into the office.  That doesn’t mean she hasn’t wanted to, but she’s never done it.  I have been here for 20 years, and I have never observed anyone not welcome in this church.  Bea’s husband, Tommy, was an usher here for 55 years, and he was not Catholic until near the end of his life.  That’s an interesting story.  Tommy attended a Baptist church for 55 years.  When he was very sick, I went to his house to see him.   We watched Russian crash videos which I highly recommend by the way.  While I was there, Tommy said, “Father, how do I become Catholic?”   Well, I can hook a brother up tomorrow – no problem.  How can we not be welcoming?   Did Stump or Navy-boy Timmy ever check your baptismal certificates or bank statements?   No.  Did you ever hear me say, “If you are not Catholic, you are going to hell”?    No.  So, I get pretty indignant when people say that we are not welcoming.  What did Christ say?   “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28-30).   “Yeah baby!”   Not so fast.  He also said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.”   “Oh, so there are conditions?”   Yes.  You must give up the high price of low living.  “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mk 8:34).    Leave your father and mother; sell everything you have and give it to the poor; eat My body and drink My blood; one wife and one husband, marriage between male and female. . .  Do you think our Lord got it wrong? 

Our Lord has a lot of conditions, but they are not burdensome.  The Commandments are acts of love, and love is easy.  It is the mindset that comes from sin that tells us they are difficult.   Just like addicts we think, “You don’t care.  If you really cared for me, you’d give me my drugs or booze.”  Come up higher . . . You will feel much better when you stop doing that stupid stuff.  Aren’t you tired of hurting?   Come up higher.  Come enjoy the grace of God.  Come enjoy His peace in your soul and the full joy of not being bound by old habits and sin.   Is it always instantaneous?  No.  When people get sober, tell them it takes about two years to regain their marbles.  It takes about five years to learn how to play with them, because original sin diminishes the will and intellect.  Repeated sin does the same thing. 

We are always carrying our cross.  When we preach what Christ did, we are a welcoming Church.  We are not being hurtful or hateful.  I came to Albemarle 20 years ago, and I am responsible for the spiritual care of all people within 404 square miles.  Church law doesn’t say “all Catholic souls” – it simply says “all souls.”  By virtue of my office, I am supposed to be welcoming to all people.  So, I take the insult that we are “not welcoming” personally.  We are trying to help people.   When we carry our cross, we take his place.  The Pharisees said, “We will believe you if you come down from the cross.”   But Christ said, “Come up with me. Share My passion.  Then you will know true peace.”   

We are very welcoming of people here.  You should have been at the baptism I had yesterday.  They were Spanish, and I couldn’t pronounce their names.  Y’all know how great my Spanish skills are.  It was a lot fun and full of laughter as the Anglo struggled to speak Spanish.   When I was overseas, we had people from Bangladesh and Pakistan who wanted to come to Mass.  But they couldn’t when the Saudi Arabians were around.  The Ministry of Internal Security wouldn’t allow Catholic Mass, so they would sneak in with us, and they were all welcome.  They were afraid that the Saudi Arabians would bust in during Mass.  I told them that we had a couple hundred of heavily armed men who were not in a good mood.   I didn’t think anyone was going to bother us. 

We are all one in Christ.  We are all welcome.  Yes, Christ has certain rules, that’s true.  But by being here, we are all a testimony that those rules are not burdensome.   We welcome everybody.  Unfortunately, we have plenty of pew space.  I wish that more people were here.  I would even add another Mass if needed.   We are welcoming.  People will always be drawn to Him.  And in that welcoming, in that call from Up Higher, they will see Christ.

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 Facebook page at ola.catholic.church.  Click on “Groups” and then “Sermon Notes.”

Posted on

Prepare for the Rules to be Broken

Will Smith slapping Chris Rock. Vladimir Putin and Russia invading Ukraine. COVID ripping through the world.

What do these all have in common? The rules get broken.

We all know the rules. The lights turn on. The toilet flushes. We all play nice. But that’s not “how things work”. That’s “how things have been working”.

Today, Fr. Mike tells you what to do when you get slapped in the face by a broken world.

Posted on

Sermon Notes – Rules? There Are Rules?

“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.