A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Our lord entered the temple and began to throw out the money traders saying, scripture has it, my house is meant for a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. Jesus was teaching in the temple area from day to day. The chief priests and scribes, meanwhile, were looking for a way to kill him, to destroy him, as were also the leaders of the people. But they had no idea of how to do it.
For indeed, the entire population was listening to Jesus and hanging on his very words. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Of course, they knew how to kill Jesus.
There wasn't any problem about that, but they were scared to do it. See? They didn't have the courage of their convictions because they were scared of the people. And this is very interesting how they how all the there are there please remember there were exceptions. But allowing for those few exceptions, the the the teachers of the law, the scribes, the pharisees, these were the cream of the cream.
And by and large, they had nothing to do with Jesus except to try to destroy him to get rid of him. It's very significant. Now we've been reading the from the books of the Maccabees. It's a mysterious sort of book. It's it's not in the Jewish canon at all.
Protestants call it apocryphal. We call it deuter we we call it meaning is that it's that it's canonicity has been questioned. However that may be, you had it on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. One of the most dramatic actions in the Old Testament, in in my opinion, of course. It goes back, you see, to the Antiochus, Epiphanes, Antiochus the fourth, apparently a Greek king of Syria.
I should tell you that the book of Maccabees were was written anywhere from about a 100 and twenty BC to about fifty AD. We don't know when it was written. We don't know who wrote it. We know that it was written in Greek and probably written in Alexandria. Now notice those dates.
It goes from about a 100 and twenty BC to about fifty AD. It could have been in any place. There are three books. It's any time in there. Now Antiochus ruled king of Syria from a hundred and seventy five to a hundred and sixty four BC.
So that part of it's alright. And, apparently, the the dear king, through his henchmen, was trying to subdue the Jews, not just merely to destroy them, sell them into slavery after they had captured Jerusalem, but they were trying to break their will. Now when you read the papers about what's going on over there, keep in read the read the Maccabees. It may not be in the canon, but it it's and it may not be first class history, but there's a great deal of historical truth in it. So they were trying to break the will, and the first story was on Tuesday, chapter the sixth, second book of the Maccabees.
And you have this old man, Eliazar. He's way up in years. He's tottering. He's frail, but extremely distinguished. He's an old man, highly regarded.
So all all that the the Greeks well, the Assyrians Assyrians, all they were asking of him was just take a little bit of pork and eat it and sacrifice it. That's all you had to do. He says, Nick's. So then his friends said, look. Don't be so dumb.
We'll give you some first class kosher meat, and no one will know the difference. Go ahead and eat that. And then you'll save yourself, and you'll be the king's friend, you know, and all the rest of and that's true. If you serve the world, it will it will reward you. He said, I I cannot do it.
Now listen. Course, you heard this on Tuesday. I just wanna refresh your memory. Here's one of the sentences that he said. This is Eliazar, the old man at the end of the end of his life.
Here, there his friends, even among his persecutors, his executioners, they're saying, look. Here's some kosher meat. Go ahead and eat it. No one will know the difference. Ali Eisar said this, as you'll recall from Tuesday.
If I die bravely notice the adverb bravely. Everybody's going to die. Do we wanna die die bravely? If I die bravely, I shall show that I deserve my long life and give good example to the young men to teach them how to die a good death. Gladly note note notice all this stuff today about dying.
You think it was the worst possible thing could happen. Gladly, nobly. Now notice. Four are revered and holy laws. Now notice, then he was dragged away and finished off.
Notice, he's not talking about the 10 commandments. He he's talking about the law, the five first books of the Old Testament, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and then, of course, Deuteronomy, where, of course, you were the Jews were forbidden to eat pork. But that's not the real issue here. The issue is what that would have signified if he had eaten the pork. It meant that he was renouncing his own god and that he was conforming to the gods of the Greeks.
Notice they they people who spoke Greek were called Greeks no matter what they were. Now I want notice how that view of death because this is Maccabees. That's it's very late. See, it's not at all as early book. That's one of the one of the strikes against it.
How here he stands up to and he says, I have to be an example of how to die gladly. Is that the Christian attitude today? Think of it. Is that how you look about death? As going from one room to the other and that it behooves you to do it in proper form?
Well, anyway, this is a marvelous sentence, that he could not have go along with their centrifuge because, of course, I've just taken this one text because he says, look. The young men will find out about it. And when they find out then what happens, they will be utterly scandalized. I can't do it. Now Wednesday, we had chapter seven.
The reading was chapter seven, and this is a gruesome story if you if you take the time to read it timely and not just sit and listen to it coming and going. Here you have it's the same persecution that Theocles Epiphanes the fourth, the Syrian king, or some of his henchmen. Now we have the story of the mother of seven boys, young men. Seven. Not one, seven sons.
And they are all called upon to eat pork and then sacrifice the pork to the gods. And they absolutely refuse to do it. Now it it's the the tortures they went through are fairly well described in the text. I don't have to go into it. It's absolutely crucial.
And here's a mother with her seven sons sees the oldest boy absolutely brutalized because he would refuse he refused to to eat the pork and sacrifice to the dog. You see, today, in our fine pragmatic way, he would say, what's the difference between a pig and a cow? If you wanna eat one, eat the other for heaven's sakes. Who cares? And remember, all that they were doing this for was because of the law.
The law. Not there's nothing in here about going to hell or any of that kind of stuff because of their respect for the law. So this dear lady watches her first boy be at the at the in her sight. The other six are watching. They they offer him all kinds of of rewards.
If he'll just do this silly tiny little thing, everything will just be fine. He says, Nicks. Nicks. And they go right through the seven of them until they come to the seventh boy, the youngest. I wish you'd go back and read this.
This is chapter seven of the second book of Maccabees. It was read to you on Wednesday. Read it yourself. I'm only hitting the high spots. And she goes over to this boy because she's afraid that maybe his first of all, he's young, he's seen his six brothers, what happened to them, and maybe he'll start weakening.
Who wouldn't weaken? It's all happening one after the other, same day. The text explicitly says that. She goes over, and then she speaks to them the text said in her native tongue so the others won't hear it. They think the mother's encouraging not to do it.
What she is doing, she's encouraging him to to do exactly what his six brothers have done. And this is just a little bit of what the dear woman says. She says, you came into existence in my womb. I don't know how. It was not I who gave you life and breath and developed your body.
It is the creator of the universe who molds man at his birth and plans the origin of all things. Notice all things. Don't be afraid of saying all things. That includes what we call the bad, the evil, the cat the catastrophes, the terrible calamities that happened, they are all in some way attributable attributable to the creator. Don't you ever forget it.
Some people are afraid to say that, you know. Therefore, he in his mercy will give you back life and breath again since now you put his laws above all thought of self. Incidentally, it's in the book of Maccabees that you have a very strong explicit doctrine of immortality. But remember, as I say, that's it's the last that's a very late book. As I say, was written for between a hundred and twenty and a hundred and fifty AD, but it's there, very much there.
Now here's the point I wanna make. These Hebrews, these Jews, Eliazar, and the seven sons and their mother, they are willingly putting themselves to the utmost torture. Read it. I don't wanna go into it. You haven't had your breakfast yet.
To the utmost why? Because of their respect for the law, l a w, the first five books of the Old Testament, the law, the Torah. That's why the Jewish men wear that little cap because they are under the law. Now today, what do we have? We have people sitting in those pews where you're sitting who bend the knee before the blessed sacrament, who receive holy communion and believe they're receiving the body and blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ.
Why do they believe that? Very simple. Because they accepted from the church the credibility of the holy Roman Catholic church. That's why. I'm not asking.
I don't dare ask how many of us would do what these Hebrew youths did in laying down our lives for that belief. What I do wanna ask is this. How can the same intelligent person accept the church's teaching on the real presence of god in the a hunk of bread, a tiny piece of bread, and then reject that authority when it says you can't kill an unborn baby and you can't practice contraception. How do you make any sense out of this? You can't, of course, if not if you maintain your your intellectual integrity.
You can't possibly do it, and yet it's happening every Sunday. I know for sure. I can give you names, telephone numbers. How do you make sense of this? I don't.
And yet here you have Tuesday and Wednesday, you heard this story of the Maccabees. Eliazar, who was prepared to die nobly and gladly for the law. Wednesday, you had the mother with her seven sons. They died gladly for the law. And today, there are Catholics who won't even accept the church, which on other ways, they do accept.
So let us remember, faith is a gift. It has to be cultivated, and we are asked to do it. I know about Vatican two. I know about Lumen Gentium. I know what how it talks about the people of God.
But let me tell you, one thing is perfectly clear, that those who willingly do not come into God's church and follow the law or leave it willingly when they know they shouldn't, there's nothing much to be said in the way of guaranteeing salvation for them. So let us take to heart this list that fear this good woman and old man Elias. Our religion, it's a vital thing. Don't ask yourself whether you could be a martyr. You can't without god's grace.
And when that day comes, he will not fail you. But have we the courage and the guts to live our faith daily without compromise, without negotiating. In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.