A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Jesus said to his disciples, as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the son of man. They ate and drank. They took husbands and wives right up to the very day that Noah went into the ark. And when the floods came, it dis they destroyed them all.
It was much the same in the days of Lot. They ate and they drank. They bought and they sold. They built and they planted. But on the day that Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained down from heaven, destroyed them all.
Now our lord continues. Notice that was Christ speaking there. It will be like that on the day that the son of man is revealed. On that day, if a man is on the rooftop and his belongings are down in the house, he should not go down to Getham, neither should the man in the field return home. Remember Lot's wife.
Whoever tries to spare his life will lose it. Whoever seems to forfeit his life will keep it, keep those lines in mind. I tell you, on that night, there will be two men in one bed. One of them will be taken, the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together.
One will be taken and one, the other left. At this, some of his disciples said, Lord, where? And he answered, wherever the carcass is, there will the vultures be. Don't ask me what it means. This is the gospel of the good news of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. There's one thing very clear from this reading which is to me very mysterious. You one anyone of you can explain it to me after mass. But there's one thing here very clear.
Our lord's telling us all to be on the alert. You'll notice these readings during November. They have to do with death and dying. But you see, that's not the correct way of saying it. They way to talk about it.
Because you see, we have a very screwed up conception of death today. And I mean, people who who will use all the including me. And and we use the best kind of words telling notice how we pray to be notice in that opening prayer, did you get how many of you caught it? We prayed to imitate imitate Saint Joseph at it being a martyr for our brother. Did you get it?
How many of you are willing to step out of this church to be a martyr for your brother? Just suppose. Just suppose. And this has happened, folks. It's happened in my lifetime down in Mexico.
When just to step out of this church, professing your Catholicism could cost you your life, how many of would step out? I don't know. With god's grace, I I think a lot of us would. Because remember, when a situation like this comes up, you need god's grace. You're not gonna do it on your own.
But the point is that I wanna make is this, we have such an overweening conception of the value of life. You'll hear these dumb people talking about life is sacred, yet that very same person will go out and step on a million mosquitoes or they'll chop down an oak tree. Now if life is sacred, how can you then cut down an oak tree? It has life. How can you kill a rattlesnake?
It has life. How can you kill kill a million mosquitoes with joy? It have life. Each every an individual mosquito. You see how we've gotten we're We we don't know where we're going in this country.
Life isn't sacred. It's the cheapest thing on earth. You walk along the seashore and every time you put your if the tides come in, every time you put your foot down, you're you're killing, I don't know how many, very tiny little shrimp. Whoever thinks about it. You say, look.
Now now remember some Hindus do think about it. That's the reason they even cover their mouths so they can't bring in and breathe in a gnat. At least they're consistent. Now you just think the way today we we we we make physical life the beginning and the end of all living. And remember, a lot of these good intentioned Catholics who argue against suicide, what do they have to say about a martyr who voluntarily gives up his life for something?
And remember, martyrdom is not martyrdom is a cheap commodity. You can get a martyr for almost any cause. Take that situation down in Texas. We've gotta get our thinking straight. There's nothing immoral about dying.
Death is not an immorality. It's the same thing with having a baby. Everybody gets excited when an unmarried girl has a baby. There's nothing immoral about her having the baby. The immorality was in the fornication or the adultery.
And yet today, we treat that as a as an indoor sport, literally. We pass out the condoms so the girls and the boys won't make mistakes. You see, we are in the most mixed up state of immorality the world has ever seen and don't compare us to a pagan world. The pagans knew what they were doing. They were consistent.
They all believed in a god, not only a god but in a lot of gods. Any of you who've gone to Rome or to Greece can verify this. You keep break pushing your head from one side to the other to the sea that's shrine to this god, shrine to that god. They were loaded with gods. So don't compare The United States Of America to a pagan world.
We aren't pagans. We are way below the pagan. We're way beyond that belly of that snake. And I'm not exaggerating this. That's the reason we are the scorn of so many sensible people abroad who have some some sense of logic.
We don't know where we're going. We don't know what we're about. We don't know what's wrong. We don't I mean, as a nation because we've given up moral standards. All this hell of a loo about crime and it's it's an awful situation.
Compare The United States and our primary to any other Western world or any any world in the any nation in the world, any nation. The District of Columbia is at the top of the heap. And yet all we can do is say, take the guns away from the kids. Think that's gonna keep people from killing one another? You see, you think that's gonna keep people from being cruel to one another?
You see, let me give you another one day on on the boat I had about three or four high school boys, all from Catholic high schools. It was several years ago, and we were talking about war, they were. And, they were all saying that if they came to war, they would all travel to Canada as fast as they could go. And I said to them, did you ever hear of Cicero? Well, of course, they hadn't, naturally.
But I said, well, they said, what did he say? I said, he said, how glorious it is to die for one's country. Do you know what their reaction was? Laughter. Laughter.
They thought it was funny. Cicero was a pain. He said that seriously. Plenty of Romans laid down their life for their country. Look what happened yesterday.
That memorial dedicated to the women who suffered and those who came back and suffered. And some of them are still suffering from their experiences of Vietnam. When they came back to this country and were scorned, were ridiculed. See, you you can't make any sense out of it. As a nation, we are not immoral, we are amoral.
And you don't have any pagans who are amoral. Keep that in mind. Don't downgrade the good old pagans. They had their own codes of morality and in many instances very severe. We are an able we are an aimless as the Germans say which is a beautiful word.
We are without a purpose as a nation. All you have to do is take I haven't seen the Washington. Just get the Washington Post today and look at our international policy. Now I'm not exaggerating this. What I'm trying to bring home to you, good people, is that you're living in a crazy, absurd, irrational world who has no time for your principles that brought you into church here this morning, who despises those things that you think of.
There are people in the church in high position who have rejected our holy fathers encyclical, very toxic splendor, the splendor of the truth because there's no such thing as truth. And they'll tell you even if there were, you couldn't transmit it. These are people in high places in the Catholic church. That's the world you're living. And the fact that you're in the pew those pews this morning shows you stand against it, that you are not part of it.
This is this is your confession of faith. So realize what you do and if the whole darn world is a screw, that doesn't mean you have to be. You have been baptized. And that's that's that very first moment. You take that little baby and you say carry this light, bear this garment immaculately, and then at the end of the baptismal service, you pray that they will be appear before god unsullied.
Notice the baby's hardly been born and here the church is offering a human being after a more or less long life to God. Oh, I I never could take that nonchalantly. To me that's terrific. And that's where we are. We are not.
We know if we're decently halfway baked Catholics, we know what we are about. We know there is a truth because there is God and God is truth and the holy father called it the splendor of the truth which is God. And God stands for absolutes. Absolutes in truth, absolutes in morality. Morality.
There are certain actions which are intrinsically evil and can never be allowed. And yet you have Catholics standing up and tell you there's nothing wrong with masturbation. There's nothing wrong with with sexual intercourse as long as you take preventative to have the baby. Morally, there's nothing wrong in having the baby, it's the intercourse which is wrong. See, that's how screwed up the whole thing is.
But don't let it be screwed up for you. There's no reason for you to be in that position. You know who you are. You know what you're about. You were entrusted with a mission the day you were baptized.
All you have to do is to live up to your commit commitments and And you can do it by yourself? Absolutely not. With god's grace, yes. That was promised to you in baptism and Christ has never withdrawn his pledge to be with you all days. Take it to heart, be joyful.
In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.