A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. There was a certain prophetess, Anna by name, daughter of Faneuil of the tribe of Asher. Anna had seen many days, having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage, and then as a widow until she was 84. Anna was constantly in the temple, worshiping day and night in fasting and in prayer. Coming on the scene at this moment, she gave thanks to God and talked about the child to all who look forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem.
This follows yesterday's reading with with describe the presentation of our lord in the temple. So Annoch came on the scene towards the end of it. Now when Joseph and Mary had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew in size and in strength, filled with wisdom, and the grace of god was upon him. And this is the gospel of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. If you caught the reading, the first reading this morning, and thought and if you think about it, it's going to cause you to wonder, to put it mildly. For example, Saint John says, and he says, he I address you fathers, I address you young men, I address you children. Doesn't say anything here about women and girls, so I guess they're not included. Anyway, he says to these people, have no love for the world, nor the things that the world affords.
And if you love anything in the world, you won't have the father's love, for nothing of the world comes from the father. Carnal allurements, enticements for the eye, the life of empty show. These things are from the world. The world with its seductions is passing away, but the man who does god's will, he lives forever. Well, now, see, if you take that literally, what do you make of it?
I'll tell you what you make of it, or some people made of it. In the in the fifth century, in the time of Saint Jerome, and of course, he's a contemporary member of Saint Augustine. But Augustine had more sense. He was over in Northern Africa. But Jerome, that is the the great scripture man to whom we owe the Vulgate, and who himself, you see, became practically a hermit.
In this century, Jerome and we have plenty of his letters. This isn't fiction at all. This is completely this would satisfy any German research scholar. You could have a whole page of footnotes. Where there was a the attitude was this, that as we just say today, today, if you accepted Jesus, in those days, if you were converted, especially from paganism.
Because remember, paganism was still strong in the fifth century, in the Roman Empire, at least in the Western Roman Empire. If you, submitted to Christ, there was a there was a wave, a wave of humanity flowing into the Nile Valley to be after they'd given away or or or dispersed in some way or other all their possessions, They became, pilgrims and then traipseed over across the Mediterranean, over into Egypt, and went up into the Nile Valley, and there were thousands and thousands and thousands of people over there. Of course, it was chaotic. It was a mess, first class mess. Now this is per I mean, this isn't fiction at all.
That doesn't mean that the people were insincere or all that, but the point is it was a it was a very peculiar movement. For example, when the daughter of Jerome's best and most loyal supporter asked him to guide her to be a good Christian, the first thing he told her is she had to give the world up. That meant to become a recluse in her own home. It meant to devote her all her waking hours to reading the Psalms and to prayer and meditation. Now, you see, if you take a few sentences out of what we've read this morning, you can easily come to that conclusion.
Now, let's be very practical. What father who has the responsibility of a home and children, how can he say, I'm having nothing to do with the world? So he puts his hat on one day or he takes it off and puts it up on the shelf someplace, and he leaves his family to go over to the Nile Valley to give himself to the Lord. Leaves his family at home, then he spends his day singing psalms and praying. You think Christ would approve of that kind of nonsense?
Well, it's been tried, you know. I'm not drawing this drawing upon my imagination. And then, of course, I you have this sentence of our lord which says that whatever you have, give it all away and put your and throw yourself entirely on the Lord. Saint Francis of Assisi did precisely that. Precisely that.
And down to the literal moment, he wouldn't even own a breviary. Therefore, he didn't become a priest because he said, we I wanna own nothing. Nothing. Now the difference between a Saint Francis of Assisi and a Jerome is this. Saint Francis didn't tell the whole world that's what they had to do to be saved.
Whereas Jerome was pretty close to doing that, not entirely, but pretty close. Now you see, look, we're talking about saints now. We're talking about Augustine. We're talking about Jerome. We're talking about Saint Francis of Assisi.
These are all these are all saints, and yet they were as different as night is from day. Matter of fact, you can't even put them in the same time cycle. But they're all saints, at least the church says they're saints. The point I want to make is this. It's not easy to pick up a book and get the truth.
It's not easy at all. And if all that Christ had left us was a book, we would be in a sad state of affairs. Because all of these crackpot ideas have been tried, have been tried. And most of them have been based upon something that somebody read in the New Testament, and it's there. And they took it literally.
And come hell or high water, they they pushed ahead on this single single-minded point of view, which they had lifted out of a book. And this happens practically every century, and it can happen in in and it happens in many a life, that somebody gets on we call say a religious kick. And that and you know, that's a very good description of it. Now a Christian can't afford that kind of nonsense, because Christ left us more than a book. He left us his truth in a living voice to guide us.
And it isn't all that difficult to be a Christian if we listen to his living voice, and not try to lift the truth out of a printed page. Books, and somebody says, they are very dangerous things. Fear the man of one book. That, of course, can be a very ambiguous statement, but there's a great deal of wisdom in it. So we you see, you take a you take a saint like Saint Teresa of Avila, now she is a pretty well known saint, and if you read her right, what she herself has to say, and it's it's for anyone to read if anyone's interested, you will see how absolutely careful she was to keep balanced.
To keep balanced. To try to to understand God's will and to know it, because she was always unsure, very unsure of herself. She never took herself too seriously. And she was extremely critical of her voices and what seemed to be revelations. Extremely critical.
As far as I know, she never acted on one of them without having a great deal of consultation. And that's what caused her trouble. She'd go to this person. Remember the Jesuits and the Dominicans and the Franciscans were all she was surrounded with them all, and she used them. She was one of the most exemplary persons to seek advice, to seek counsel, to be hesitant about accepting anything which seemed to come from herself.
I'm not exaggerating this, because any of you who have read her life, read her letters and so forth, you will know without speaking the literal truth. She was extremely suspicious of whether what she called the voices or however whatever came from God or you know from whom else, the devil. Because sometimes how can you tell? And you certainly can't tell by yourself. And so, what I'm saying is to be a Christian means to be balanced.
It means to be balanced on the truth of Jesus Christ. And that truth isn't simple. Because on the one hand, I'm told not to love the things of the world, and at the other hand, I'm told to be a good father and a good mother. And how so if I take literally, I'm supposed to despise all worldly things. If I take that literally, and say I don't have why should I love money?
Why should I want a bank account? Why should I have insurance? Why should I put a put any money away for a needy day, a rainy day? Why should I care about the world? After all, God, Jesus Christ said, the lilies of the field, look at them, and the sparrows.
So be free, be carefree, go out and have a good time. After all, spending money is good for the economy, and and I'm following God's word. Meanwhile, I'm a family starving. Look at Karl Marx. Kids were starving when he was telling the world how to have a sane economy.
Our blessed Lord never talked nonsense. Jesus Christ had both feet on this earth. He was truly a human being. And when we're dealing with words in the and above all words as they are printed, we are dealing with a very dangerous item. Believe me.
And the truth of Jesus Christ comes from his living voice. And you take such things as as this, what I would call the asceticism of a Jerome. It was Rome, the authorities in Rome who put the who put the kibosh on a lot of that. And so as we listen to Saint John, remember there's truth here. When they say don't love the things of this world, what he's really saying, I think, is don't let them be your master.
Don't be their slave. In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.