A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Mark. I'd like to remind you that Saint Mark seems to have been the main source and basis of the other synoptics, that is Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew and Luke seem to have depended a great deal upon Mark, and Mark's account is the best we have of our blessed lord. It most approaches what we might call today a biography. So today's reading picks takes up our lord's career now in Capernaum, a city up in the Northwest corner of the lake.
And our blessed lord, on the Sabbath as was his custom, entered the synagogue and began to teach. He had, of course, be recognized by the presider or the president of the assembly because keep in mind, there was only one temple. There was only one priesthood. There was only one altar of sacrifice, and that was in Jerusalem. The people who heard Jesus were spellbound by his teaching because he taught with authority and not like the scribes and the Pharisees.
There appeared that day in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit that shrieked out, what do you want of us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the holy one of god. Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit sharply. Be quiet.
Come out of the man. At that, the unclean spirit convulsed the man violently. And with a loud shriek came out of him. Everybody who saw it was amazed, and they began to ask one another, what does this mean? A completely new teaching in a spirit of authority.
He gives orders to even unclean spirits, and they obey him. From this day on, our lord's reputation spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee. That's the whole northern area. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. The lord shall be your everlasting light, and your god shall be your glory.
Those words are not taken from the bible. They are taken from the breviary, the divine office, for the feast of the presentation, which was yesterday from Matins. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. But let me repeat those words because that is the sum and substance of my remarks this morning.
The lord shall be your everlasting light, light, and the purpose of light is to help us to see in darkness. And your god shall be your glory. God will be your glory. None of all these other good and wonderful things that we spend so much time, give so much attention to, as indeed we should, as in fact we're bound to. You just read what Saint Paul said in there about how people involved in the marriage state, in running a house, having children, they are bound to think of a lot of things.
How can they not if they live up to their duty? But that's all very true, but our lord says, you've got to put god and me first. First. Your God shall be your glory. If you try anything less, you're going to be disappointed and embittered.
Saint Augustine said it years and years ago, fourth century AD. Now as usual, funny things happened to me on the way to Rome. It's actually on the way to these Sunday morning discourses. I'm not kidding. It's just amazing how things crop up.
So yesterday, we had the feast of the presentation of our lord in the temple. There's nothing much in the bible about it in the New Testament, But it's a certainly is an opportunity for us to focus on one idea, and that is our blessed lord came to the temple, was presented to god like any other masculine male child to be redeemed. And it's all summed up in one little world. Behold, o lord, I come to do your will. Not mine, your will.
And these days of considerable anxiety never let us forget it. Whatever we're wherever we find ourselves, we have to realize that our first primary ultimate obligation is to do god's will, and that can be pretty difficult at times. We can only see pretty blindly through tears. But in this feast of the presentation, we are very much reminded of our own presentation when we were presented as most of us here at least, but not all, as infants at a baptismal font. Some of you were baptized as adults.
You knew what it was all about. And lo and behold you, towards the end of this past week, after the after yesterday morning, the the mass of the presentation of our lord, on Friday, I learned that I was to have a baptism last evening. Now I don't have too many baptisms, and I am always profoundly impressed when I do. And what impresses me well, one of the things that impresses me is the fact that babies don't cry anymore. Apparently, they're getting to be well cultivated before they're born.
You know, either that or they're just scared to death. I don't know. But they don't cry anymore. This baby last night was wondering if it was alive. And what what impresses me, that farm, we had a pretty good group of people there last night.
I like that. It's it's the church. We were receiving somebody new into the church, and it was very familial as it should be. Family is the core of society. Don't ever forget it.
Even pagan philosophers knew that. Some of. But the point is that the in that if if you if you will recall the baptismal ceremony, the church looks upon this bay this baby was only two weeks old, and yet the church is treating that little baby as it's on its deathbed. That it has gone through its life and now is meeting its god. Who knows what kind of life that child will have?
That boy, that young man, that adult. Who knows? But the you see? But the church is basic. It's so basic that we we overlook it.
Why are we here? Why are we born? Why do we live? It's so easy to give all kinds of answers to that question, and most of them are dead wrong. It's so hard to keep in mind what life is all about, and yet it's no mystery.
No mystery at all. Our blessed lord, it's in the old testament. Our blessed lord affirms it. He affirmed it with his life. He affirmed it with his words.
But it's difficult. It's difficult because, in a sense, we have one foot in this world, and we have another foot in the eternity which the church sees for that little baby that I baptized last evening. We are straddling. And as I began this mass with that business, the hardened heart, people write this stuff, and they it's just guff. It's fluff.
It's moonshine. Our hearts aren't hardened. You wouldn't be here in these pews if you had hard hearts. Whatever that means. I don't that's a Pascal stuff, that hard business anyway.
I don't it doesn't go down well with me because all I know about a heart is a muscle that keeps throbbing in there, and I hope it keeps throbbing a long time. That's a private opinion. But this this point is this. If only we can realize what life is essentially about, there will be tears. There will be joy.
There will be tragedies. There will be triumphs. There will be boredom boredom. There will be all kinds of wonderful things. It's a melange.
It's a potpourri. It's a terrible mixed up confused mess unless unless we see through it with the light of god and to his truth. Thou hast made us for thyself, o god, saints Augustine said, and our hearts will not be at rest until they rest in you. Or to put it differently in the old Baltimore catechism for which I have the highest regard, why did god make you? He made me to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world, to be happy with him in the next.
Notice there's nothing in there about being happy in this life. There's nothing in there about making this life a paradise. There's no Marxism in Catholicism. Now on Friday, I also received a letter from Desert Shield written in pencil from a young parishioner who is, of course, a very wonderful young man. As I he's a very good sailor, and that, of course, tells you enormous amount of his character and qualities, his and his superb existence.
Anyway, he's he scribbled a note to me from Desert Shield. That was written on January 13. I got it Friday. Things have changed. It's desert storm now.
Desert storm. And it is a storm. If any of you have watched your television. And I couldn't help as I contrasted I had the TV on. As I was reading that letter written in Saudi Arabia someplace where this young man is saying that they formed a little bible group, and there are seven or eight of the men meet with a chaplain when he can get spare them the time, and they read some scriptures, and they discuss it.
He asked me if I could make some suggestions. Who am I to tell them what to do? When in the next hour, in the next five minutes they're on alert, remember. They're on alert. Now they're more than on alert.
And here, this young man is writing, and he's trying to bring God, to make life real, to see some kind of sense in what's going on. And if only he can see that, he knows that he'll survive. That doesn't mean he'll come out alive. I said survive because he wasn't born for this world. He was born to die just as we had those that baby last night.
We are born to die. As c s Lewis says, death is perfectly natural. But we wanna die on route. We wanna die on course. We wanna die knowing what life's about.
And it's not about so much what I do, it's why I do it. What is the dominant controlling conviction that rules my life and every bit of its detail? Because whether that young man is over there in Saudi Arabia today or whether he would be in his home getting ready to go to mass this morning, it's a really a matter of of of chances, we say. There's no room in a Christian's perception of life for chance. The only thing there's room for is god's providence, that god is running the show.
And he never said he'd tell us all about how he's running it and why. All he said is, come. Follow me. And the first disciples abandoned everything, even their parents, and went with Jesus. And we are each one of us.
It's a personal, individual thing. It's not a community thing. When we stand alone, that young man is standing alone in his own mind. He's only 17 or 18 years old, but he's standing alone to make his decisions. What is this all about?
And his turning to the word of God, the message, the good news, the hope. The hope. And he will he may not come out of it alive. I don't know. He may come out of it wounded and injured for life.
He may come back robust and wonderful and be and be a better man for the experience or a worse man for it. There are all these, but overall hovers the umbrella of God, of god almighty. He's running the show. We are not. All we can say is that when Jesus went and was presented, behold, o god, I come to do your will.
And where we are is not so frightfully important. It's important. Don't ever forget it. But it's not ultimately important. It's what we do with ourselves in the place where we are.
Now last week, we had the feast of saint Francis de Sales. Now saint Francis de Sales is one of my favorite saints. When I was in the third grade, I was I I had no choice. The Christian brothers, they told us what to do. I very early became acquainted with the authority of the church and of the teacher who happened to be representing the church with a ruler.
Anyway, I became acquainted with three books. The first one was a cocky covered New Testament. It was during the first World War. I was in the third or fourth grade. Then I was introduced to the imitation of Christ by a campus, and then I was introduced a little later to Saint Francis de Sales, an introduction to a devout life.
And they have been the basis of such spirituality as I have. And I have had no reason in eighty five years to change my opinion that they are three basic books. They're very different. Of course, they are. And if you read them, you know.
But I tell you, they are matchless. Because like good music and literature, the only test I know that matters very much is time, endurance. Now Saint Francis de Sales, I was just at in the office for the feast of which was just last week. He died, you know, in 1622. He was born just after Calvin died because Calvin was of Geneva and Switzerland, so was Saint Francis de Sales.
And Saint Francis des Sayles comes into a very turbulent world, very turbulent in the Swiss in the first half of the seventeenth century. Remember, the the Protestant Reformation was at its peak. There were all kinds of political conflicts, all tied up with religion. It was a very bewildering and confusing time. And in that book, these are letters he wrote to a a lady, a noble lady, but then by accident, by coincidence, published as an introduction to a devout life.
Now I want to read to you just one little passage from that. What I want to bring out is that I've quoted Newman to you a lot. But now here's a man who was writing in the half first half of the seventeenth century. He says, it is therefore an error and even a heresy. Of course, he was writing in French.
It is therefore an error and even a heresy. Notice a heresy. A heresy to wish to exclude the exercise of devotion from military divisions, from the artisans shop, from the courts of princes, from family households. I acknowledge that the type of devotion which is purely contemplative or monastic or religious, meaning one who takes the vows, can certainly not be exercised in these sorts of stations and occupations. But besides these devotions, there are many others fit for perfecting those who live in a secular state, and another world for secular is worldly.
We are living in the world. Therefore, Saint Francis says, in whatever situation we happen to be, we can and we must aspire to a life of perfection. And that goes for my friend over there in Saudi Arabia, for us who are here, or for anybody else. Where we are, what our job and duty is, there we can achieve perfection. There we can be we can have serenity.
We can have tranquility of soul. But it's the tranquility of a ship that's tugging at its anchor in a fierce storm. It's being tossed and thrown and dashed about. But as long as the anchor holds, as long as the road or the chain holds, you're safe. You're serene in your cabin.
It's comfy. It's even a lot of fun until you think maybe the chain will break, then it's not so much fun. And so I beg you these days, don't lose your coup. Don't be don't be let not let us quote our let not your hearts be troubled nor be afraid. God's in his heaven.
God's in our world. The question is the problem is, are we in his world? Remember, every so every German soldier in World War two had on his belt buckle, God is with us. God is with all human beings. We are one human race for whom the son of god came and died on the cross.
And even though we have the know how I called up the parents of this young man that sent me the note just to chat with him and let him know I heard said we just talked to him on the phone. And, you know, it was like he was next door. It was so clear. And the thought struck me, ye gods. Here, we can put 400,000 men in a desert.
We can give them telephone communications that just bridged 8,000 miles, and we're talking to them with a clarity of sitting across the kitchen table. And yet, in two thousand years, we have not been able to solve the problem of the barbarism of war. Isn't that a heck of a note that we can do so much as regards things, and we can do so little as regards being good, god fearing Christians. And so it all comes back to what I started with. God is our everlasting light, and your god is your glory.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.