In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. This is one bit of the New Testament. Testament. This is one excerpt from a direct speech of our blessed lord that you will not find on your Christmas cards. You won't find it even on your Easter cards.
As a matter of fact, you won't find it scarcely at all. There aren't many people today running around quoting our blessed lord on this matter of why he came into the world. Now I I know I'm repeating myself on this matter, but we have to face facts. I said fact, and the fact is this Jesus said this. Whether we like it or don't like it or or would rather he hadn't said it or whatever, the the point is he said this.
He said, I have come for division. Do you know the use of the force of that word for? That expresses purpose. It isn't something that just happened. Our lord says, this is why I came to establish division.
And notice when he tries to bring home this truth, which is extremely unpalatable, he refers to the family. And he's not talking about the word family or the institution family or the reality family of the of Garrett Park 1982. He's talking to people for whom the family was sacred. It's unity beyond question. And yet he says, I have come to establish division in that sacred institution.
To separate even a son from his father, have you any conception of what that would mean to to Jews even today? See, if you've been in if you've been in the Holy Land, if you've been in Palestine, if you've been in among Arabs, you will understand even today what it the relationship between father and son, mother and daughter, and the in laws, what that relationship is, how tight it is. And yet Christ says, I have come to establish division. And and this isn't the only place he says that. And there is no way you can wiggle out of this and saying, well, now he probably didn't mean it just as it sounds.
He meant what he said. Because as I said yesterday and have said many times, when you take a stand on something, you automatically take a stand of opposition to all that's against what you have taken a stand for. And you cannot possibly wiggle out of that except by renouncing your reason, by renouncing the standard of truth, beauty, and goodness, which is precisely what has been done in the twentieth century, anno domini. Precisely. We are told today there are no absolutes.
So if there are no absolutes, then there is nothing to take a stand on. If there are no absolutes, there there is no reason to think that anything is better than another thing, if it is a thing at all. Because you're going to have to ask yourself, what in the world is a thing? Because if something is something this is awful stuff at this time in the morning, isn't it? But if something is something, then it stands for itself.
What does the word individual mean? It means undivided. It's a unity, and therefore it has a reality and a being of its own. And therefore, in a certain sense, it is cut off from everything around it by being a thing. Because if something is something, it can't be something other than it is, if you follow me.
But today, you see, we have we've eliminated all that. You see, we don't talk they say don't talk to me. I've had men tell me don't talk to me about truth. See? Because what is truth?
Well, if there is such a thing as truth, you can't get a hold of it. What I like to say, of course this is no way to conduct a good friendly debate, but if they say there's no such thing as truth, where do they get that proposition? How do they know that proposition is true? What is the evidence for it? If they're going to say the only evidence is the evidence of experiential data.
But our Lord, you see, took a firm stand. Our lord spoke with authority. And look what he says today. I have come for division to set a son against his own blood father, to set a daughter against her own mother. That's what Jesus said.
Is that his peace? Well, I I leave it to you. It's what the man said. Think of those martyrs of North America. Think of father Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish priest written up in Time Magazine the last issue, who when 10 Polish men was picked at random by a commandant of Auschwitz and condemned the 10 to starvation in reprisal for the escape of a prisoner, father Maximilian Colby stepped forward and put himself in the place of another Polish man who had cried out, have mercy on me.
I'm a father, and I have children. And father Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward and took the man's place and died of starvation. Well, he didn't die of starvation. Towards the end, they gave him an injection which killed him. That's what it is to be a Christian.
That's frightening. Absolutely frightening. To me, it is. You think of a man like Thomas More, and you say, yay, gosh. What would I do in his place?
Would I have the guts to do that? Well, of course, the answer is absolutely not. Absolutely not. And our holy father, last Sunday, in giving in giving his oration at the mass to canonize father Maximilian Colby said this, no man can do that alone. But the point I wanna make is that our blessed you see, we stand by being a Christian, you stand firm, absolute, in opposition to all that is non Christian.
Christ said my kingdom is not of this see, Christ was perfectly consistent, perfectly consistent. Question is, how consistent are we? Now if if we look only at ourselves, we're gonna hang ourselves like Judas did because we're pretty hopeless if we're left to ourselves. Because, again, to come back to the same authority, Jesus Christ, he said without me, you can do nothing. He said nothing.
You can't do a darn thing without him. Do we take this to heart? Do we realize the company we're in? We'll never forget the company you are in is the company of Jesus Christ, the son of god. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen.