A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Jesus journeyed through towns and villages preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of god. The 12 accompanied Jesus and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and of other maladies. Mary, called the Magdalene, from whom seven devils had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward, Chusa, and Susanna, and many others who were assisting them out of their means. And this is the gospel of the lord.
The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. There's a little note here which we shouldn't omit or fail to notice and that is that this was that our blessed lord was wandering around the, land from the lake area all the way south, from the sea, all the way to the Jordan, and even East of The Jordan. And he was accompanied by his 12 apostles plus others. Some of the women are mentioned here.
So it was an entourage that was moving around. And they did, as far as we know, all of it, on foot, they walked. The only instant instance of our lord riding is the day that he entered Jerusalem. I wanna go back, however, but don't see, there's so much we don't know about our lord and his life and his few years among us. There was more to it, believe me, than we know, or the or I hasten to add what has been written down.
I wanna go back to this very significant reading of Saint Paul this morning. There's a tendency today to downgrade the actual fact of the resurrection of Christ. It's just a twentieth century Gnosticism. That's what it is. But let's go back into Saint Paul.
Here's a here's a we have an insight into a very living vital situation. And here is Paul talking to these Corinthians, and the Corinthians were hardboiled people. They lived at the intersection of the East and the West world. And the argument he uses to justify practically everything that a a Christian holds is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And he keeps repeating it, that if Christ be not risen, our faith is in vain.
And notice that sentence where he says, if Christ be not risen, then he said, are the most pitiful people on the earth. If he be not risen. Of course, the the the major premise here is Christ has risen from the dead. But the point I want to make is that our Lord Paul holds this out. The fact, the physical fact of Christ's resurrection as a basis of our faith and take that away, says Saint Paul, and you've taken away everything.
And you have left us the most pitiful of people on earth. Some people have tried to tell you that, and everybody has a right to his opinion in some things, this is one of them, That Christianity, even if it were not true, would be a wonderful philosophy to live by. I don't believe that for a minute. I don't believe that for a minute. I agree with Saint Paul that if our faith is not based on a good solid foundation, which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, then not only is our faith in vain, not only is our the the lifestyle that we espouse in virtue of being a Christian, not only is that in vain, but as Saint Paul says, we are the most pitiful of creatures.
Because we have neither this world nor the next. At least, an honest to God secularist has this world, whatever that is, or for whatever worth he may look upon it. There is there today, don't make any mistake about it. If this is within the Catholic church, you can't avoid it if you pick up anything you read. You get the impression that the church of Jesus Christ is exists to make this a better world.
Now there are various ways of phrasing it. The most extreme form of it, of course, is what they call Christianized Marxism. If you can have such a crazy thing or even a concept of contradictories. But that's very much in the saddle today. That the church is kind of a social revolutionary.
And of course, this has been said of Jesus Christ that he came to revolutionize, that he was a social revolutionary. Where is the evidence for that in the New Testament? Where? Of course, they say it isn't there. But they say that we come back that comes as a revelation from the contemporary scene, which puts a very different, interpretation upon what we call revelation.
Now I'm not these are not windmills I'm putting up. I'm not playing the part of a Don Quixote. These are the facts of life, right today. There's a it's a form of, in a sense, a Pelagianism. But whatever words you want to give it, the facts are there.
Look at all this talk today about peace. What peace are we talking about? The lack of war? Christ never said a word against war. Matter of fact, he said, I have came to I have come to bring the sword.
That's what Christ said. And the sword sounds like a pretty that was a pretty ferocious weapon in those days. You see, we've got to keep our orientation. The church does not exist to make this a better world. Religion doesn't exist to make us more comfortable in this world.
Our Catholic faith does not exist to make us more more in conformity with this life, to be more comfortable in this life, to be more successful successful in in this this life. Life. On the one hand, we say that Christ came and and cherished the poor, and we we talk about poverty and all that, and at the same time, nobody wants it. I'm talking about very good Christians. Do you put this together?
The church doesn't stand, of course, for ignorance. It doesn't stand for for for social inequality. It doesn't stand for any of those things. But the church, as the church of Jesus Christ, doesn't exist simply to eliminate those things. The church exists to save our souls, as we put it.
I don't like that phrase. I say the church exists to save me, to save you. And that this world is just the preface to the next, and how we use it or abuse it determines our future. And the church with its sacramental system, all the helps that Jesus Christ gave us, it exists to help us live a successful life in this world. What is that successful life?
Just last evening I got a phone call from a person I hadn't heard from for twenty years. This young when this year was a now she's in her 50s, but about thirty years ago she had an automobile ran in, a drunken driver ran into her and smashed her all up. Since that day she's had 60 operations. She's been in the hospital 60 times. She's almost completely incapacitated, and has been since that accident where a drunken driver smashed her.
How do you face up to that? She's tied hers she's tied her life to the star of Jesus Christ. It hasn't gotten her down. She's not a hopeless case at all. But that's a fact of life.
A tragedy should smack a charming young girl and ruin her whole life. Is it ruined? What is what is the term what is the meaning of success if you apply it to a person like that? What is the meaning of success if you apply it to a man like Peter Klaver? Where was the peace of of the world in his life, or in any any of the saints in any of the saints?
Even those who led a very apparently quiet life. Where is it? You see that the peace of Jesus Christ is his peace, and he told us it is not of this world. So if you're looking for Jesus Christ, I pray you find him. But remember, he loves you, and his peace is his peace.
His love is his love. And it's not the love of the world, as the world may love you. It's not the peace of the world, as the world can give peace. It's his brand. And as C.
S. Lewis says, when you say, Oh God, love me, you better be sure that you're willing to go along with that because God truly loves you. And so when we come back to these words of remember, he was arguing real hard against these Corinthians. As I said, they were hard headed people. They lived at the meeting of the East and the West where in that short isthmus, there was no canal in those days.
And Corinth was right at the was the main city. It was a great transcontinental city where there was all kinds of commerce, people coming and going, great luxury, much wealth, ambition, and all the sordidness that goes with these fine worldly successes. And that's the crowd Saint Paul was talking to. And he's telling you, if your if Jesus Christ has not risen from the dead, your faith is vain, and you are the most pitiful of people. But Christ has risen from the dead, and hallelujah is our song.
The name of the father, the son, the holy spirit, amen.