A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Glory to you. Some of the scribes and the Pharisees then spoke up saying to Jesus, teacher, we want to see you work some signs. Jesus replied, an evil and unfaithful age is eager for a sign. No sign will be given it but that of the prophet Jonah.
Just as Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the son of man spend three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth. At the judgment, the citizens of Nineveh will rise with the present generation, and they will be the ones to condemn it. At the preaching of Jonah, they reformed their lives, but you have a greater than Jonah here. At the judgment, the queen of the South will rise with the present generation and be the one to condemn it. She came from the farthest corner of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, but you have a greater than Solomon here.
And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. As I read this over several times, I could not help but relating it to a book that I just finished reading by Mugridge, Malcolm Mugridge. The Englishman, born in '22, so he's about 80 now, who was the outstanding editor of Punch, the British famous British humor magazine, who was one of their outstanding commentators, reporters, writers, BBC reporter, commentator, documentary. He made a very well known, a very notable documentary on the Holy Land.
And then, of course, the documentary he made on mother Teresa of Calcutta, which changed the pattern of his life. Now the book I read is a a series of essays or writings writings and some a couple sermons in there that he that were written or produced listen. In nineteen sixties between 1966 and 1968, and they're on various subjects. Now, in his Halcyon days, Mugridge was an atheist and so was his wife. And for reasons that I don't know, he moved from atheism into Christianity.
But he had nothing, really nothing favorable to say about Christian churches. He didn't want any parts of them. Now the astounding thing about his life is that in 1982, that's just this last year, both he and his wife became Roman Catholics. Now some of you know all of this already. But I have to give it to you as a background because now please notice, in 1966 and 1968, this man was a Christian.
In other words, believed in Christ as the son of God. He believed in the morality, the code of life that Jesus taught. And he believed and accepted a lot of other things that we identified with Catholicism. So much so that some of his, well, contemporaries, enemies, said if you if you think that way, why don't you become a Catholic? Right?
Oh, and get it over with. As the same thing they said to Newman, of course. Now the point I wanna make about this man, the thing that is absolutely astounding is the joy, the joy that he found in being a Christian. I don't know how he feels about being a Catholic. So I say these were written in '16 between '6 1966 and '68.
But it's this joy, this confidence, this trust, above all, this direction of his life. Now up he was a completely successful man. He he had nothing more to gain in this life, and he refers to this often enough. Remember, when he talks about life, he can talk from experience as nobody in this pulpit can. But the part that puzzles me is how did he get there?
How did he get there? I haven't I haven't read anything comparable to what he writes now this is in 1966, about the evil of artificial contraception, how its destructive conjugal love, how it is one of the the most disastrous threats to marriage. This is it remember, 1966. I haven't read anything comparable to to what he says about the the futility of seeking, as he puts it, either power or money or or sex. And he he had he got them all.
He can speak from experience. But the joy, the vigor, the humor, the confidence, the overwhelming strength of this man comes out amazing. This is in 1966. I don't know where he got it. He he he read a lot of Chesterton, but and he read the gospels, and he read Bunyan, and he read the King James version of the bible, the new translations he calls gibberish.
And I'm he has a lot of things that he agrees with me with on, you know. The point I wanna make is the joy that he found in being a follower of Christ. And he said from the moment that that came to him in great luminosity, he had he says, I had no experience of appall. Nothing like that happened to him. The closest he can come to describing it is is that when he was in the holy land, something did happen there.
He doesn't know what. But he came to have a have a relationship with Jesus Christ, which he accepts as divine. He accepts Christ as the son of god. The joy that that man has in that because he says from he from now from in from then on in, his whole he says, everything I do, I used his prayer yesterday. Everything I do, I wanna have it concentrated on that either to reaffirm it or to spread it.
The man is exuberant. As I say, I hope he feels the same way in 1983 because both he and his wife became Catholics last year. Now my point is this. Don't we miss this sometimes? Don't we just pick up the hard parts of being Catholics?
Don't we just see the obligations and the burdens, having to get out on Sunday, it interferes with weekends? You know, being a Catholic is kind of a nuisance. It can also be an embarrassment. It costs us money. It's, you know, it interferes with our life considerably.
Isn't that the way we look at it sometimes? That the worship of God interferes with my living when the real thrust of life is this, to keep my living from interfering with my worship of God. In the name of the father and of the son and holy spirit, amen.