A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. The testimony John gave when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you? That's John the Baptist. Was the absolute statement. I am not the messiah.
They questioned him further. Who then are you, Elijah? I am not Elijah, John answered. Well, then are you the prophet? No, he answered.
Finally, they said to him, tell us then who you are so that we can give some sort of answer to those who have sent us to ask you. What do you have to say for yourself? Then John this is again John the bapt baptist or baptizer. John said, quoting the prophet Isaiah, I am a voice in the desert crying out, make straight the way of the lord. Those whom the pharisees had sent proceeded then to ask John further questions.
If you are not the messiah nor Elijah nor even a prophet, why then do you baptize? John answered, I baptize with water. There is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is to come after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to unfasten. All of this happened in Bethany, across the Jordan where John was baptizing. And this is the gospel of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Well, maybe I I didn't have the opportunity yesterday of wishing you a happy New Year, but I do now. And in spite of the fact I would dearly love to have a few chosen remarks on Saint Gregory, Saint Nazian of the Vazil Nazianzin, because the see, we forget that the church was Greek in the beginning. Nevertheless, it is the second day of the new year. We're we're speeding down to the end already.
And I think something ought to be said about it. Now there was an article in the December issue of the Reader's Digest by a good lady who, wrote an article, very very good article, in which she defended the position of of her own situation. She said, Pardon me, but I like housework. The article was devoted to the proposition that being a wife and a mother at home and running a household is a very worthy occupation. And I guess so far so good.
That's not the point of my well chosen remarks. It's her last sentence. The last sentence of the article is as follows, and I quote: How we, men, women, and children, Care for our homes is really a miniature reflection of how we must care for Earth, our only home. And earth is spent with a spelled with a capital e. Well, there you have it.
You have it in a nutshell, or in an eggshell, or in some kind of a shell, that we must care for earth our only home. Now, you see, the problem is this. It's very difficult not to consider earth our only home. It's very difficult. And unless we've got a strong faith in Jesus Christ, and by that I mean, let's get let's try to get down to some some actuality.
By that I mean, knowing something about Christ, accepting the basics of his doctrine, and then trying to live our life according to it. That's what I mean by this funny word faith because that's a lot like the word love and you know what I think of that. We don't do it. I would dare say we can't do it, cannot do it. First of all, we're surrounded by this earth.
That's point number one. Here we are. We're in this building here this morning. We still have the remnants of Christmas around us. We have life to live.
We have responsibilities. We have cares. We have grievances. We have tragedies. We have frightful anxieties on our minds.
All kinds of anxieties. Health. The welfare of our family. We've had a couple bad accidents in the last week. Very bad, afflicting the families.
We've had deaths. Oh, we we are absolutely enmeshed. I love that word. Have you ever seen a fish enmeshed in the net? Well, that's how we are with life.
We can squirm and we can push around and we can flop and we can struggle, but we're we're enmeshed in the net of life. And so it's very easy to say earth is our only home, And it's much more easily done to say that's how we live. Because plenty of us say, oh well we know better than that. After all, we know that God made us to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world in order to be happy with him in our next. And we know all about that our true home is not here.
We know we have these words. We have the words. At least some of us do. But you see, the tremendous problem is to live them to live them and to realize in daily fact that this isn't that the earth is not our home. Now, of course, this is the whole difference between, men and women and children and old folks, any anybody.
This is the main difference. That some have a clear cut perception. And this is not restricted to being a Christian. This is not restricted to being a Catholic. This isn't restricted to being a Muslim or a Hindu.
Because anybody and there are and remember that most of the population on the earth most of the population of the earth are believe in some kind of a deity. We may forget that. Remember the huge majority of mankind is not a bunch of atheists nor even a bunch of agnostics. That's only comes with the with our elevated civilization. Now the fact is that unless we struggle hard against making the earth our home, we will make it our home because it will captivate us.
See, there's the point. It will captivate in other words, it will take me and make me its slave. And as I say, it's almost inevitable. You take a mother and a father or or anyone who has responsibilities for other human beings. Think how they have to have to worry and have anxiety.
Think how they how how hard they work, how they sacrifice. A lot of these things have come to me only since 1968 when I came into this parish. When I saw what it means to be a mother and a father and to have relatives and to worry your heart sick over your family. And you come and say, well, now look, folks. You know, this is this is all trivia.
This doesn't really matter. What matters is hereafter. They look at you as if you were crazy, and, of course, you are if you if you don't understand. And so our blessed lord comes along and tells us some you talk about crazy things. You know, Christ said some awfully absurd things.
Because he comes along and tells us, look, if you strive to save your life, you're going to lose it. And and if you work to lose your life for me, you're going to save it. Did you ever have anything crazier than that? It's real it's ridiculous that Christ said that. I say it's ridiculous because everything's against it.
And he comes along and lays that down. Then he tells us if you wanna be my follower, you have to give up everything. Now he didn't our blessed lord didn't stop there. If there's anything in the New Testament that Christ emphasized ad nauseam, and I mean ad nauseam, enough to make us sick, is that we've got to give up everything for him. And our blessed lord, as I say, he gets right down into nitty, get gritty, concrete terms.
Unless you're prepared to hate your father and your mother and your sister, your brother, your uncle, and your aunt, and your in laws, you're not worthy to be my follower. Did you ever hear anything worse than that? Unless you're prepared to abandon all of them for me, you're not worthy to be my disciple, and you won't be. You can't be. Christ said all these things.
You see how absolutely absurd they are in the eyes of the world. That's not an original statement of mine. And yet this is what a Christian's supposed to do. Not fun and games, folks. It's not fun and games.
And yet, you see, this is not a this is this is Christianity. This is following Jesus Christ. And there's and this is absolutely inescapable, absolutely inescapable, that unless we're prepared to take up our notice, Christ didn't say my cross, he said your cross. And follow me, you're not worthy to be my disciple. And that remember, that's the only criterion Christ gave us for being his disciple.
That's the only one, the sine qua non condition. Now this is you say this is grim. You bet your life it's grim. Every warfare, every battle is grim when your own very life is is depending on a tiny little thread of a bullet hitting you or not hitting you. You bet your life is grim, but it's not hopeless.
It's not without its sunshine. It's not without its joy. But all of these things I've just said rest upon Christ, not upon the world, not upon this earth, not upon this earth. So there we are, we're caught in this vice. It's a struggle, it's a warfare.
It's an original phrase either, am I. And what do we do about it? Well, we can say it's impossible, forget it. After all, I know what I have here, so let's make the best of it. And this is precisely what Newman, Cardinal Newman develops.
This is precisely the thought he develops. Because he says that whenever you're in a conflict with the with all the attractions of these good things of life pulling at you, and against that you have some theoretical concept of God or the hereafter, you know which one's going to win out except for the grace of god. And that brings me to the to the bottom line. When Christ said, without me, you can do nothing. And so, if we are called upon to live in this world, as indeed we are, if we are called upon each one of us, each one of us, to play his or her special role in this life, as indeed we are.
And if we are to play that role as travelers, as men and women who are here not for eternity but for a very short space of time, and for some of it, some people, it's very short and very brief. If that's the state of affairs, as indeed it is, then we must come right back to the great truth of our blessed lord. He said, without without me, you can do nothing. And let us right away slap on what Saint Paul said, that in Jesus Christ, I can do everything. Name of the father and the son and holy spirit.
Amen.