A reading of the holy gospel according to Luke. Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you that beat now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you who then hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile and cast out your name as evil on account of the son of man.
Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for be hold, your reward is great in heaven, or so their fathers did into the province. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you that are full now, for one day you shall hunger. Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.
This is the gospel of the lord. Which two married old priests are mentioned. Their names aren't given, but they're identified as married old priests who are posing to this idea of Christianized Marxism. Now what is the main thrust of this? It's to take the idea of Marx, his economic theories which are supposed to bring so much happiness and satisfaction and and justice and equity and, you know, all the rest of it.
It's supposed to bring all of this into this present life. How you reconcile that with what our lord said here, I don't know. I need that to those who are trying to do. But the thought every time I read what we have just read, you see, it's it's it's very mysterious stuff. Let's face it.
How you know, because when I read his writings, I'm thinking of doing and that servant of his on bodily suffering where in which he in which he talks talks about suffering in general, where his constant theme is that, remember, whatever you can say about Newman, he had a profound knowledge of the human heart, of human psychology, of human life, of the emotions the reality of the human being. And remember, that is not a logical machine. And it's Newman's whole point in that sermon, he keeps repeating it, that suffering in itself and not to have a good name, not to have the necessaries of life, not to have food, not to have all of these things which Christ says you're better without for history. Newman says these things make a bad man worse and in themselves make all of us worse. And certainly I think that's borne out by experience.
If it isn't true, then why are we giving so much effort to giving people the things that they're here they're supposed not to have? If it's better to be without the things of this life, it's better to go hungry, why we trying to give people the better things of the life and trying to get them food? Are we trying to prove Christ wrong or what? Very confusing. Very confusing.
But you have to realize what I think Christ is talking about. And so often, it it's not easy to simply take a little text, lift it out of context, and think you know what you're talking about. And this first reading today of Saint Paul is one of those examples. Boy, that text again is really giving him a bad name, especially for the ladies. But anyway, when you come back to this problem that we're facing here this morning, what is Christ talking about?
And if what Newman says is true, how do you put these two things together? You can't put them together together on along the the natural natural border. Border. You You can't. Can't.
And our blessed lord is not too emphatically pressed. I admit that. But he does say that these things, going without food and being reviled and being ostracized and being all these just think how often you hear from young people how they feel they're outside of their groups, how they feel they're being pushed aside, they're not being accepted. Christ said that's the there's only one way you can put the Christian Christian life life together, together, and that's to be a Christian. And I mean to be a Christian.
That means the totality of being a Christian. It means not just taking this little thing or that particular statement of our lord or this particular sermon he gave or this particular parable and then focusing your whole attention on that and building upon that as your sole foundation for your whole religious life. This is a horrible mistake and history bears plenty of evidence and testimony of its sad, sad consequences. Sad consequences. Now, of course, what I'm dealing with here isn't something new at all.
Thomas Moore, in his dialogue of consolation against tribulation, which he wrote when he was in the tower prior to it being executed in 1535. And here you have a very balanced, very balanced view of this thing. And who in God's word could be more appropriately speaking than a man like First of all, he wasn't born into the aristocracy or the nobility. He was, you might say, a self made man. And I say this again, he was the first layman who was lord chancellor of England.
And just yesterday, I read a very interesting thing that after when he was made lord chancellor, his father was still a judge. And every day that Thor went into his chambers, he went into his father's chambers, knelt down to get his father's blessing. He was lord chancellor next to the king, the highest opposite of land. When he was he was a man who lived up to his position. He had the virtues of magnificence.
He set a good table. He had an elegant way of living. That was his level of existence. He took pride in his home, in his family, in his children. He made every effort that they would be literate and educated, including his daughters.
He he was a man who knew his position, who knew who he was, and accepted it and worked at it and held it. But with all of this, was he a rich man? Of course he was a rich man. But underneath that richness, did the rich here's the point, did the richness possess him or did he possess the rich riches? See, here's the here's the number of question.
Who owns who? And this is the heart of the whole matter. This is the heart of the whole matter. And here is More who in one day he is absolutely at the top of human ambition, of worldly success, of social success. He was one of the leading humanists of England.
He had everything. And all of this because of principle, absolutely because of principle. It was simply a matter of who is head of the holy Roman Catholic Church, and I'm not pulling words. He said that. And John Fisher said the same thing.
There wasn't an equivalent of that. This is Saint Fisher not having a problem of translation for lack of care. Who owned who? But when the chips were down in the name of Jesus Christ and his church, more proved who owned who. None of these things, his humanism, his riches, his because they didn't own him.
None of them owned him. The only thing that owned more was Jesus Christ. And that's the point you can miss when you read this. Our blesser board isn't praising poverty. He's not praising, going hungry.
He's not praising the people from being reviled. In many ways, the multitudes of the world, at one time or another, suffer all of these things. How often you hear people today saying, my the hardest thing I have been put up with is this feeling of lonely science. Look at your papers. All these advertisements are different kinds of clubs, see what they're telling you.
These are money making propositions, so there must be some kind of a public who wants this stuff. So it's perfectly normal to have all of these What controls my decision? Little ones and big ones. I say this repeatedly. Ask yourself, what is the controlling principle of my life?
What controls the decision I make about this money I spend, where I send my kids to school, what I do with my life, whether I buy this book or that book or get in this activity or that activity or how I reckon with my illness and sicknesses I have them, how I handle tragedies which come into my life. What is the dominant overriding principle? And if you can't answer that, you don't know where you are. You do not know who you are, and you do not know where you're going because you've lost your course, you've lost your north star.