A reading of the holy gospel. This is the conclusion, in fact, of the holy gospel according to Saint Mark. And, of course, these are our lord's last words just before his ascension. Jesus appeared to the 11. Notice Judas is gone.
And said to them, go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation. The man who believes in it and accepts baptism will be saved. The man who refuses to believe in it will be condemned. Signs like these will accompany those who have professed their faith. They will use my name to expel demons.
They will speak entirely new languages. They will be able to handle serpents. They will be able to drink deadly poison without any harm. And the sick upon whom they lay their hands will recover. Then after speaking to them, the lord Jesus was taken up into heaven and took his seat at god's right hand.
The 11 went forth and preached everywhere. The lord continued to work with them throughout and to confirm the message through the signs of which We are the spirit. Amen. The reading for the cycle a has more to it. It's our lord tells his disciples to go forth and to teach all nations.
The Greek there says to make disciples, but it's the same thing. Everything hinges on that word discipline, which means to it means teaching. Disciple means the follower of a teacher. Of course, the word discipline has an entirely different meaning today in English. It means punishment.
Well, it's too bad, but that's not the way the word what the word means in these texts. The point I wanna make is this, you know, the last words that a man or a woman utters before they die are supposed to be very important. We have any number of speeches that those close to death have put together spontaneously, or their secretaries did it for them. I don't know who did it. Anyway, some of them have pretty long speeches for dying persons like some of these operas, you know.
But the point is this, the last will, the last words, the last wish of a dying person are very important. What what is our lord's even today's this cycle be, what is our lord's command? It's to know him. Now knowing means that you get teaching, that you have doctrine. The word doctrine comes from the verb to teach in Latin, docere.
We need knowledge. Now notice our lord said earlier in his life that the greatest commandment is to love god. And the second commandment is to love yourself, which has a concomitant commandment to love your neighbor as you love yourself. The reverend Moon in a great big two page paid well, it's not an advertisement. I'm sure some of you saw it the other day in the post.
He gave a speech, to which people were invited at a hotel, and his opening paragraph answers the question, why did God make you? And the reverend Moon said, God made you to love. Of course, doesn't say what he means by love. But what how can you love what you don't know? There has to be knowledge before you can love something.
You have to know something before you can will it. And so our lord, in his last commitment, his last words, his last command is, go teach ye all nations. Teach them. Now the word there means make the Greek is make disciples of. It's the same thing.
You follow somebody because of that somebody's teaching or doctrine or whatever. And then he repeats it, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit. And teach them every everything that I have taught you, and I will be with you to the end of the world. Now this of course, the the new catechists, the catechesis that we've had since the Vatican two, they seem to forget this. They wanna tell us that the revelation of of God, the revelation of Christ, that's one thing.
But you have another revelation which is your own individual experience. The church doesn't teach that at all. If you have a private revelation, fine and good. But the point is that is no substitute for the teaching of Jesus Christ. That he committed to his church.
Notice he didn't write it down. He didn't put it on a computer. You don't find it on any software. There was the the by the New Testament as we have it at the earliest is sixty AD and the latest is January. The church existed before that.
And our lord says, go teach. And teach what? My experience? To teach the what? What am I supposed to teach?
To teach what I like? To show pictures of a running brook with the snow all around it or the clouds of the sky or the surf of the sea or a little child walking through a pasture with the daisies all around? This is the kind of stuff that's been in our catechisms. What is it teaching? Is that what Christ said, walk in the field of daisies?
Look at a brook and what? Or as one learned nun said, don't read the catechism of the Council of Trent. Go out and pray at the moon. And who applauded her? The huge convention of Catholic educators.
After about five years ago. But our lord said, go out and teach. Teach what? What I have told you, and I'm going to be with you all days even to the end of the world. Could anything be clearer than that?
Nobody's doubts the authenticity of the text. The Greek is perfectly clear, but we've forgotten it since Vatican two. Not that Vatican two did it. Now the essence of Catholicism is doctrine. Good, boring, tedious doctrine.
It's taking the creed and dying for the creed, which as we sit in our pews on Sunday puts us to sleep. But it's doctrine that counts. You can't love what you don't know. You have to know before you can love, and you don't get knowledge by sitting in the pews passive. You don't get knowledge by your mother's milk.
You don't get it by some kind of a some kind of a relationship between metals. It's hard work. But we we have to do our part. We have to know. And who's the we?
Little kids in grammar school? Adolescents in high school? Collegians in some college, or is it as mature adults that we know the truth of Jesus Christ? Or are we as adults with children and maybe with grandchildren, all we know or think we know, is what we learned in grammar school a few years ago. Ask yourself that question.
Ask it. What books do you have in your library at home that tells you something about the truth of Jesus Christ. Do you have the New Testament at your elbow that you can easily reach out on the kitchen table and get it? Do you? When did you read the New Testament last?
That is, sit down and read the whole of Saint Mark. Takes an hour at the most at the most. When did you do it last? When did you last read a serious book about Catholic thought? I don't mean like some popular theologian.
I mean something authentic from the church which is dull, dry reading. But it's the essence of our faith, and men and women down the ages have died for it. And we sit back and go to sleep. And so listen to our lord's words today. Take them to heart.
Wake up. You have to know before you can love. And if you want to know what love is, read Saint Paul. He tells you in one paragraph what love is. No harp no argument about it, but read it.
But when you've all when you when you said all of this, you have to come back to the this. That out without Jesus Christ, we can do nothing. Do all your reading, study, all you want. We have to come back to Jesus because he said, I will be with you all days. Let's take him at a word at his word.
But at the same time, we have to make an effort to be with Jesus. In the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit. Amen.