A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus went to his native village and spent his time teaching the people in their synagogue. Notice that. He went to their synagogue, his synagogue. And the people were all filled with amazement and said to one another, where did this man get such wisdom and miraculous powers?
Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't Mary known to be his mother? And James and Joseph and Simon and Judas, his brothers? Aren't his sisters our neighbors? Where did he get it all?
In short, they found Jesus altogether too much for them. Jesus said to them, no prophet is without honor except in his hometown, indeed in his own house. And Jesus did not work many miracles there because of their lack of faith. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ.
Name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. As I said, this is May Day, and the Russians of course make a great thing of it, but it's worth noticing that the labor movement in The United States Of America did not choose May 1 as its day, For the simple reason, and this goes back a good many years, the labor leaders did not want to be identified with that movement, which showed they were pretty smart. Now, on this feast of Saint Joseph worker, we had this we had these readings. Did you notice that opening prayer?
Now, that's one of our modern concoctions. You don't have to be a genius to recognize the handwriting on the wall. In that opening prayer, we prayed that we use God's gifts for the benefit of others. Well, of course, that's not true. The first thing I should use God's gifts for is for my own benefit.
The first thing I have to do in this world is to save myself. Let's not forget this. There's so much talk today going back to the nineteenth century, and, well, the news going into it. But the point is, as I've said many times, we live in the world in which we live. Now you may quote me on that, that's a profound statement.
But we sometimes overlook this, and we can't separate ourselves entirely from the world, from the milieu, the atmosphere, the culture, the opinions. We can't separate ourselves from these things entirely. It's impossible. And yet our Lord said, don't be of this world. Now there has been so much talk today about social justice, and as long as it's talk it's not doing any good, you know.
Just keep that in mind. But there has been, and it's still with us, and we're losing and going as I say back to John Stuart Mill and the utilitarianism and out, we have this idea that I must live for my neighbor. Well, the first thing I have to live for is for God. See, that's the point. Not for me, not for you, not for my brother-in-law or my sister-in-law or for my kids or for my wife or or my husband.
I first have to live for god almighty. He made me to worship him. He made me to work to reverence him. He made me to obey him. Obey, o b e y.
I hope I spelled that right. I'm helpless without a dictionary. This this is the absolute basic truth. And you see, many oriental religions, they have this in mind more than we have in our country. I don't say us, I say as a nation, as a nation, as a people.
The very great virtue supposed to be altruism, and that goes back to an atheist named John Stuart Mill whose father was named James. It goes back to Auguste Comte in France. And we're just getting on the bandwagon. The first the first obligation I have in this life isn't to me and it's not to you, it's to God Almighty. And I'll tell you, this is a truth which is being ignored today.
Ignored. Ignored. When you can pick up a magazine devoted to missionary activities and practically find nothing in there, I mean nothing, that separates the activities and everything else from secularism around us, which has a lot of altruism in it, which has a lot of philanthropy in it, which has a lot of social so called social justice. There's something radically wrong when that happens, you know. Do you make men better by making them healthier?
Now, it all depends what you mean by better. If you Of course, a horse is a lot better when it's healthy. Somebody says a live jackass is better than a dead racehorse. It's one another one of my basic principles. But they there's some truth in that, you know, you know what a dead racehorse is worth.
But we we're forgetting some basic things. I am in this life to serve God. And anybody, I mean anybody, I don't care what religion they have or the name you give it. Because I've told you many times religion can be an obstacle to to our obligations to God almighty. It can be it can be a wall between me and God.
I can lose myself in all these trappings of what we call religion, I should say in quotation marks. It's easily done. It's easily done. It's almost inevitably done unless we're on our guard. Here you have a prayer which says I'm supposed to use God's gift for my men for my neighbor.
Who says that? Why should I serve him rather than myself? Unless in serving you, I'm serving God. Unless in serving him, I am fulfilling my obligations to God. Oh, you see the big difference, or do you see the difference?
Because you can't weigh the difference in fact, FACT. It's a matter of orientation. It's a matter of the fire which is driving me to do these things. You see, the the the the tremendous fallacy of altruism is why should I choose my neighbor over myself? If you can't answer that question, let's go out and have a drink.
So we come back to this. God has given us this world. And and we had the first reading from Genesis. And he gave it to gave it to us to use for all of us to use, and for all of us to use for our individual goal. Because in the last analysis, it's individual.
It's not collective. It's not social. If I live a life of fulfillment, I'm the one being fulfilled. And when I stand before God, I'm going to stand up there as myself, for woe or for woe. And so we we we've got to come back to some of the some of these very basic truths which can be lost in the with the best of goodwill with the best of goodwill.
That what matters when the chips are all down is God and me. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.