A reading of the holy gospel according to John. Jesus looked up to heaven and prayed. O father most holy, protect them with your name which you have given to me, that they may be one even as we are one. As long as I was with them, I guarded them with your name, which you gave me. I kept careful watch, and not one of them was lost, none but him who was destined to be lost in fulfillment of scripture.
Now, however, I come to you. I say all of this while I am still in the world that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world has hated them for it. Notice that line. I gave them your word, and the world has hated them for it.
They do not belong to the world anymore than I belong to the world. I do not ask you to take them out of the world but to guard them from the evil one. They are not of the world any more than I am of the world. Consecrate them by means of truth. Your word is truth.
As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. I consecrate myself for their sakes now that they may be consecrated in truth. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Would you please notice most carefully that our blessed Lord in this most eloquent discourse makes it perfectly clear how he wants his followers consecrated.
He doesn't say he wants them consecrated in feeling, in emotion. He doesn't say he wants them consecrated in personal fulfillment, seeking everybody's doing everybody's own thing. He says they are to be consecrated in truth. And he said that the father gave him the word and he gave the word to the world, and the world hated it because of the word. Nowhere in the gospels will you find our blessed lord telling us that we must feel good about our religion.
Nowhere does he tell us that that you're going to feel a tremendous exaltation about your religion. Nowhere does he say that feeling and emotion are the tests of your fidelity and your love of God, of yourself, and of neighbor. Nowhere. Nowhere. What Christ emphasizes in season and out of season is the truth of his heavenly father, which he is transmitting truth.
This is so contrary of the attitude that people have today towards religion. And I'm speaking of our own people. I'm not going outside to anybody else. I'm talking about the people who occupy these pews. They time and again, I've said this, but it's so often repeated.
You say, why don't you go to church on Sunday? I don't get anything out of it. I don't enjoy it. Where in the name of heavens does a person get that attitude about serving God? Can you tell me that it's supposed to be entertainment, that you're supposed to enjoy going to church?
Who said you were? We talk about making going to church attractive for the children. Why? What kid likes to go to church when there are a thousand and one more important things to do and he knows it? He thinks they are more important.
You see, it's the same thing about education. Learning Latin is supposed to be fun. How absurd can you get? Religion is first of all an affirmation of truth, and the world today, for the most part, rejects truth. And even if they admit it as an abstract possibility, they say, as far as I'm concerned, it's impossible for me to get a hold of it, so why bother?
The Catholic church has stood firm down the centuries on its emphasis of dogma, of dogma. There have been all kinds of peregrinations in the order of morals. But when it comes to dogma, the church has always been, I will say, more severe. When you read in this in the sixteenth century, the mark on both sides, the martyrs on both sides, the Protestants and Catholics, what were they dying for? For feeling or emotion?
In many instances, they gave up their lives explicitly, explicitly. For what week did they consider abstract truth? And if you apply the pragmatic norms of James, you'll say, what's it worth? Why bother? That's how far we have drifted from our blessed lord's statement that he wanted his followers consecrated in truth.
He says it. He repeats it. And he says the world will hate you. We think the world's supposed to love us because we know we're so lovable. See, we and yet people expect that that this this thing we call the world is is a very happy place, is a place that we should conform to.
There's more and more of this within the church. This whole thrust of what we call this liberation theology, much of it's based upon its absolute the idea of making this the perfect world just as much as Marx was. Well, actually, they they call it Christianized Marxism. How in the heck you can ever Christianize Marx is beyond me. But this is what's going on and going on in the world today and going on in very vigorous ways.
Now it hasn't reached the that extreme here yet, but just wait. And so these words of our lord remember he's talking to his disciples just before his ascension. This this is a very solemn occasion. It's like a a man on his deathbed speaking his last words to those who are nearest and dearest to him. How carefully chosen those words would be, how selective the subject would be, and Christ is the speaker.
And this is his message. He wants his own united in truth. He wants his own consecrated how in truth. And yet today the world says truth is beyond us. We can't know anything for certain.
There you have it. Anyone who stands up today and claims to have any concept of any absolute is left to scorn. And I'm speaking from experience within the last week. I'm not theorizing at all. So let's realize where we are, who we are, what we are called to be.
Christ tells us what we are called to be. We are to be united with him, consecrated with him in truth. The truth that he came to give us, and Christ never wrote a book. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of spirit. Amen.