A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, spending the entire night in communion with God. Oh, and he was alone, of course. At daybreak, he called his disciples and selected 12 of them to be his apostles. Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James, son of Altheus, and Simon called the zealot, Judas, son of James, and then Judas Iscariot, who turned traitor.
Then coming down the mountain with them, Jesus stopped at a level stretch where there were many of his disciples. A large crowd of people was with them from all Judea and from Jerusalem, and from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. Now that's the whole area over there excluding the northern part. People who came to hear Jesus and to be healed of their diseases. Those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.
Indeed, the whole crowd was trying to touch Jesus because power went out from him which cured them all. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. Maybe some of you watched the news last evening in which there were a few very brief clips of our holy father's visit to Quebec.
Have to be careful how you pronounce that if you're in Quebec. And among the clips was shown almost empty churches. Because in Canada there's been a starkly decline in the Catholic people's attendance at mass. Then we were exposed to some interviews by men and women on the street. There's where we get truth, you understand.
You go out and you stand on a street corner and ask bypasses what they think, and that becomes truth, I guess. Anyway, we had some interviews with some youngish men and women on the street. I hope you saw it. Now what They asked some of them why has there been this decline in church attendance in Canada. That's why the Holy Father's up there, you know.
He's not up there for his health. Matter of fact, it may be just the reverse. And they answered, well here's what they answered. Chiefly because of the church's attitude towards contraception, towards against having women priests, against divorce with the right to remarry. And then one of them especially said, Well, we used to follow what we were told, but now we think for ourselves.
I don't know what language the French was, I guess, being used. I don't know. I'd love to know what they mean by the word think. Because another one said, I feel comfortable now with my decisions. And that's the standard of morality.
I feel comfortable. You see, it used to be You take the great councils of the church, Nicea, Ephesus, Constantine Noble, They had to do with doctrine, with the blessed trinity, with the nature of Jesus Christ. Who was Jesus Christ? How do you how do you put together the human and the divine in one person? These were enormous questions.
Metaphysical questions, ontological questions. I don't care what word you use, but they were questions worthy of anybody's mind and searching intelligence. But today what's the question? Contraception. Divorce with the right to remarry.
Women priests. And the answers come from my inner consciousness of what makes me feel comfortable. Did you hear Saint Paul's message to the Corinthians this morning? These words are not even used anymore. Listen to what Saint Paul is saying.
We talk about alternative lifestyles. We talk about alternative sexual choices. Saint Paul doesn't talk that nonsense, those absurdities, you those euphemisms. What does he talk about? He says, can you realize that the unholy will not fall heir to the kingdom of God?
In other words, unless you are holy, and the latin word for holy is santus, and that in English becomes saint. Paul then he's talking to the Corinthians, and these were remember, Corinth was the Isthmus. Corinth was between the Aegean Sea and then the other sea on the other side, And it was a great international, if we would use the word, had no meaning then. But it was a great, narrow bit of land. There was no canal there in the in our in Paul's time.
That came later. So ships came in on the eastern side, were unloaded, cargoes transported through Corinth to the other side. So it was a busy, commercial, wealthy, luxurious, and very sinful place. And Saint Paul is talking now to the Corinthians, and he's saying, can you realize that the unholy will not fall fall heir to the kingdom of God? Don't deceive yourselves.
Now notice the words, and they're just as good in English or Greek or Latin. No fornicator, no idolater, No adulterer. No sodomite. No thief. No miser.
A miser puts money above everything. It's a form of idol. No drunkard, no slanderer, no robber will inherit the kingdom of God. We don't even use these words Now, then Paul says, and such were some of you, and such is some of us. That's why these are sins.
Because we are involved human beings are involved in these things, And they're sins. They destroy our inheritance. And then Paul continues, but if you have been involved in these things which destroy your holiness, which disinherit you, he said, you have been washed. You have been consecrated. You have been justified in the name of the lord Jesus Christ, and in the spirit of our God.
There's no reason to despair. There's no reason to try to say I'm hopeless, because you have a savior. That's what Paul is saying. But he's saying, admit what you are. Don't talk to me about alternative lifestyles, alternative sexual choices.
Paul is calling a spade a spade. And in these days, when we are so liberal and so open, we do not do it. We do not do it. When did you last hear the word sodomite used for a homosexual? When did you last hear the word adultery?
We call it extramarital relations. That's what we call it. The kids in the high school putting fornication in the same category as going bowling on a Saturday night. What do they call it? Being sexually active, recreational sex.
That's the stuff we're dealing with today. See, the idea of sin. Let's not talk about sinners. But the concept of sin is being not only neglected and ignored, but it's rejected, you see. It's just totally rejected.
And and this even by people who say they believe in God and in the 10 commandments. By people who say they believe in the holy Roman Catholic church, and yet they set themselves up to be judges of what is right and what is wrong. And what is the criterion? I am comfortable with it. I am comfortable with it.
As if being virtuous makes you comfortable. Let me tell you, trying to be virtuous makes you uncomfortable. And if you don't believe me, you haven't tried it. That's all I can say. You know, somebody said, how do you handle temptations?
Why, if temptations are easily handled, give in to them. No problem. You feel comfortable. This You notice Saint Paul was talking to some hardcore people. No better, no worse than we are.
But he is not giving them a message of despair. He's talking to them honestly. He's saying, look, you are so called Christians and look what you're doing. Look how you're behaving. But listen, you have been saved.
There's no reason for you to despair. Just admit what you're doing is wrong. Don't call Don't lie to yourself. Don't kid yourself. Don't set up beautiful little euphemisms and think you're eliminating reality.
No. Admit what you are. Admit your fault. Admit you are sinners. But remember, you have a savior.
You have been washed in his justice. Blessed the Lord said, I have come not to not to say call the just, but to call sinners. Christ said that. There's no reason to be embarrassed because I'm a sinner. I'm in good company.
I'm in the best company. I'm in the company of Jesus Christ. He knew what sin was, not in his person, but it put him on the cross. And so, you see, it comes back as I said, began my well chosen remark Sunday. Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.
And the gates of hell will not prevail it will rocket. There has never been in the history of the world I mean not in the in the history of the church, any time when the church wasn't being rocked someplace. There has never been a time when the church of Jesus Christ was a very tranquil, easygoing, comfortable bark ship. Never. Here and there, yes.
But where take the sixteenth century, when you had all this tumult in Italy, when you had the whole of Northern Europe going awry, when you had trouble in England, it was practically unknown in Spain. And even under the great and infamous Alexander, if you can believe what the historians tell us, it was one of the greatest periods of the missionary activity of Christ's Church. So let's not be disturbed about the about the church of Christ being in turbulent times. It's always in turbulent times because Christ said the world will hate you. And when the world stops hating you, watch out.
You're in bad company. Because either you have become the world or the world has become Christ's church. And let let me just tell me when that happens. I'd like to be around. You see, and our blessed Lord told his disciples, Going therefore, teach ye all nations.
Baptize them, and teach them everything that I have taught you. He didn't say, Go out and be your own judge about morality. He didn't say, Go out and do what makes you comfortable. He said, Carry your cross. That's all Jesus ever promised us.
It's so easy to get mixed up. And that was the and that's the one of the main thrusts of this latest document on liberation theology that came out from Cardinal Ratzinger, but which was seen and fully approved by the whole by John Paul II, is its insistence, at least two or three paragraphs in it. It insists that fundamentally we're dealing with the sanctity and the holiness of the individual. And you can get involved all you want in great big issues of saving the world, but unless you save yourself you're lost. And the only reality to the community, I don't care how big or how small, is the individual.
And if there's any consecration, if there's any virtue, if there's any holiness, if there's any sin, it's in the individual. Don't talk about society and the community. It's nothing except an idea. What's real are men and women in the throes of life. I said throes, that means pain.
Not comfort. You say, this is a hard doctrine. It surely is. When did you last hear the Christian being called a soldier of Christ? Yet that was a commonplace thing in the middle ages.
Because it life was looked upon as a warfare. We look upon it as a hammock with a mint julep on a little bed table beside me, and a telephone to my left, and a TV going on at my foot. This is the this is the world we're living in. And we Catholics, I didn't say Christian, I said Catholics, are called to something different. We are called to follow Jesus Christ, and that's not an uncertain road.
It is not a road that I make. It's a road that I choose. It's a road that is pointed out to me, and comfort is not the criterion that I'm on the right one. The only criterion is am I on the road of Jesus Christ? In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit.
Amen.