A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. I noticed this identification of Bartholomew with Nathaniel. That is uncertain. It's at best probable, but that's the way it's handled in the liturgy, that it is thought that, Bartholomew's first name was Nathaniel, that these are the same persons. So Philip sought out Nathaniel and said to him, we have found the one that Moses spoke of in the law and the prophets too, Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth.
Nathaniel's response to it was, can anything good come out of Nazareth? And Philip replied, well, come and see for yourself. When Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him, Jesus remarked, this man is a real Israelite. There is no guile in him. Nathaniel asked Jesus, how do you know me?
And Jesus answered, before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree. Rabbi, said Nathaniel, you are the son of god. You are indeed the king of Israel. Jesus responded, do you believe this just because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see much greater things than that.
Then Jesus went on to tell to tell them, I solemnly assure you, you shall see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Well, whether Nathaniel was Bartholomew or Bartholomew was Nathaniel, I don't know.
Bartholomew was only mentioned once in the New Testament. Nathaniel is mentioned often. But there's one thing I surely do know, that in France and outside of France, Saint Bartholomew is a well known name, and it's attached to the word massacre. Massacre. Because one of the most memorable events of French history occurred in the latter part of the sixteenth century, about fifteen seventy something, when well, thousands, whether it was 3,000 or 70,000, and these figures are all given, Huguenots were massacred.
The massacre started on August 24 and lasted until October. Now when I'm no historian. I just read it very briefly, but it's something that's been in my life from the very beginning, the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's day. Now if there's any if if there's anything that comes out very clearly in all this, it's this, that many a war in the name of religion had nothing to do with religion at all. Nothing.
It's simply that people use religion for their own ends. In reading and reading the history of the Reformation, which I've been doing, of the sixteenth century in Germany, it's just that Luther came on the scene and Calvin came on the scene at a special time of history when you had a very definite turmoil and confusion in the on the political scene. And the various princes, kings, sovereigns of all sorts, they used it for their own ends, Just as the crusades were used for their own ends. Just as many a holy name society, when we used to have holy name societies, were used not for the end of religion, but to promote some political candidate. I saw this.
Everybody in connected with these things have has seen it happen. It's very difficult to keep one's religion pure religion. It's very easy to use religion for all kinds of purposes for which it was never intended. Right now, the bandwagon. Right in the Catholic church, what's all this talk about liberation theology?
It's to make this world a better world. And we use religion as our die of our as our springboard. As our springboard. In reading some of the literature, not in English, but of what has been happening down in South America, you see, it's it's very easy for us to look upon what in many instances, these are just names. But what has happened in many instances now I'm not imputing motives, but you see, I don't care about motive.
That's between a person and God. Nobody ever accused Hitler of being insincere. Nobody that I know of. Sincerity? What's that?
That's that's integrity, personal integrity. But and so often, religion is used as the introduction. You take a priest going into a a group of people. He represents a church which they all admire, they love. It's it's about all they have in many instances.
So he comes in there as representative of this church that they have known for centuries. And then he introduces this kindly Marxism so that becomes attached to his religion. Right now in the cabinet of Nicaragua, there are four priests, Sandinistas, if you please. So that look at Ireland. We call it the Protestants and Catholics.
That has nothing to do with it. It's just an it's just a word. Now my point at what just as religion has been used and abused and misused and corrupted and distorted by men and women for their own selfish ends because Catherine de' Medici was one of the prime movers behind this Saint Bartholomew massacre. They had used religion for something that religion is not intended to do at all specifically. Now I that word specifically is very important.
As Cardinal Newman pointed out magnificently, that the church and that the religion of Jesus Christ has secondary consequences of cultural development, of inspiring the arts, of of preserving civilization. The church has done all of these things, but that's not the purpose of the church, not its not its primary purpose. You see, the one purpose of religion is to worship God. That's it's that simple. The one purpose of religion is to worship God almighty.
Not my neighbor, not the good life, not security, not self fulfillment, not to make me a not to make this a better world, a more comfortable world, to make my own life happier, as we say. That's not the purpose of religion. Not its ultimate, not its primary purpose. It may have these other consequences, but they're collateral, they're supplementary, they're secondary, they're offshoots. Now in our own lives, you see, we don't have to look at Northern Ireland.
We don't have to remember the Huguenots in France. We don't have to remember the Crusades. We don't have to remember the Protestant Reformation in Germany. We can bring this into our own lives. What do we use religion for?
And the point I make is this, you can never use religion for anything. Because as soon as you make it your religion an instrumentality a tool, you have already degraded it. Because what you're doing, you're actually, in fact, using God to serve you to serve you. Let me give you a very couple it's couple years ago, there was a sign out in the vestibule here, and it said something about a retreat. Great big letters.
Something about a retreat. And it said, you will feel better or you will be better feel better or something like this if you make a retreat. Is that why you make a retreat? Why not go out and buy a bottle of scotch? Go on a vacation to Nassau.
Maybe go on a diet. Lose some weight. All of these things may make you happier. It's very easy to use god as a means to an end. What end?
Me. Me. And as soon as that happens, that is absurd. You're make you're turning the whole thing upside down. Now this is a constant warfare because we we're involved in it.
As I said, we're human beings. We're not angels. We're not separated substances. We're not pure souls. We're not disembodied ideas.
We're human beings, and we operate as human beings. We have a new carpet here. What's that got to do with the worship of god? Something or nothing? It all depends.
All depends. A lot of people make their re they make their living out of religion. Is that how how do you how do you manipulate that? I, Again, it all depends. It's very easy, you see, to lose sight of ultimates and become completely concerned with proximate details.
As I said yesterday, it's very easy to overlook the precious gift and concentrate on the wrappings. Very easy. But you can see how absurd that is, but that can happen. Now when it happens with something like religion, it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy.
And many of the most horrible, regrettable, any adjective you wanna use, afflictions that have destroyed men and women have been committed in the name of religion. In the name of religion, People are using religion. You take Henry VIII. Oh, well, there's no use going into details. In almost every instance, what seems to be a great championship of God and of principle and of of his true religion and all of that turns out to be nothing of this sort.
It turns out to be lust or or financial gain or political power or some of those things. And religion and God are simply used as a means to the end. And you can never do that. Remember, Immanuel Kant, who was not exactly a wonderful Christian. I'm not sure he was even believed in God.
But he said that greatest crime you could can commit is to use another person as an end as a means to an end. In other words, when when when a one human being uses another human being as a tool, as an instrumentality, as a medium, as a as a way to achieve their own personal goal, Immanuel Kant said that is the greatest or worst of all crimes. What do you make of it when it's God you use that way? So that you see, you must ask yourself, what do I expect of religion? What do I what is my paramount what is my paramount vision of what religion is supposed to be?
Feeling good about it, having religious experiences or whatever they are, being fulfilled, as we say, finding satisfaction in your prayers. Where did our blessed lord find any of that? And you can't do much better than imitating Jesus Christ. In the name of the father, and of the son, and holy spirit. Amen.