Sermon-Aide

Prodigal Son

2012-02-05T19:12:00.000-08:00

Feb. 20th, (Sun.) 2011: "Prodigal Son" (1 Cor.6:12-20) (Lk.15:11-32)

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ!
In today's Gospel we see the father filled with joy at the safe return of his younger son, while the older son refuses to celebrate, because, as he put it: "what's so great about him coming back home after wasting half the family fortune on loose living? And I'm supposed to dance for joy? And we killed the fatted calf to celebrate that?"
So here you have two different values! The older brother was very put out over the huge amount of wealth his younger brother had wasted, while the father doesn't give a hoot for the lost wealth! The father was happy that his younger son came back safe & sound! "I want to celebrate in a big way because your brother was dead but now is alive again! He was lost, but now is found!"
We human beings all love a story with a happy ending, especially after the hero goes through a terrible crisis, but in the end, with the help of God's grace, it all ends well! Anyone who can understand what a real crisis the pro-digal had just gone through will also understand the father's relief that God brought his son safely back, because a great many "prodigals" are not that lucky! Many young men just fall through the cracks someplace & are never heard from again! Most of us have faced a crisis or two of our own, & will never forget the feeling of relief when someone came along at exactly the right moment for us!
This parable shows how easily a young man can make a bad decision & gets into a real mess! We don't seem to need anybody's help to get into trouble, but we sure do need help to get out of it! Today I'll tell you of another young man who got into some kind of a mess, not that many years ago:
An elderly gentleman was traveling by bus to visit his grandchildren, & next to him sat a young man who seemed to be very agitated & troubled. His fingers were twitching & even his knees were shaking. The elderly man slowly opened a conversation with him & discovered that the young fellow left home several years ago under very stressful conditions, but now he really wanted to come back home, but wasn't sure if his father wanted him around any more.
"Some weeks ago," he explained, "I wrote my dad, telling him that I was sorry for all the trouble I caused & that I wanted to come back home, but since I didn't know whether he wanted me anymore, I asked my dad to tie a handkerchief to one of the branches of the tree in our back yard. When the comes off the highway, it goes past our house, so if I see that handkerchief, I'll get off at the bus station; if I don't, I'll just have to stay on the bus.
"We're approaching our back yard right now," the young lad said, "but I can't even bear to look, because if that handkerchief is not there, I don't know what I will do! Of course, it's possible that my dad didn't even get my letter, or maybe he forgot to put a handkerchief out. Would you look for me please, because I can't?"
"Of course," replied the elderly man & just at that moment the bus went past the lad's home. "Get your bags ready, son," said the gentleman with excitement. "You're getting off at the station. There's a handkerchief tied to every branch on that tree!"
So there we have another forgiving father, who brought a big crisis to a happy ending, by taking his son back with open arms! It may not be the big-gest crisis in the world, but it sure was to that young man, who couldn't even bear to look if there was a hankie tied to the tree! At that moment he just had to have somebody's help, & if that old man hadn't been there for him, he might not have survived this particular crisis.
Our own times are especially hard on the younger people, when they don't have anyone to turn for help! Every prodigal needs someone he can turn to in times of need, & for that reason, fathers might have to be ready to tie handkerchiefs to the branches, maybe a few times before the children can grow up! If a father can't be there whenever a kid needs him, who else?
Dear friends, today's young people are often, much better educated than their parents, but without a lot of real experience, they can easily make bad decisions! The Prodigal Son in today's Gospel didn't realize how quickly money can get used up! With his pockets full of money, he dreamed of being happy for the rest of his life! When leaving home, he didn't want advice from his father or brother, but out in the real world, he soon found out that nobody in the world owed him a cent, & nobody owed him a living!
Imagine his confusion when his last cent was gone! Where did all my friends disappear to? Doesn't anyone see that I'm lost & starving? But there was nobody who cared about him! However all the lights went on in his head as soon as he was hungry enough to eat corn out of the pig trough!
That's when he realized that if he doesn't get home immediately, he will die for sure! His father didn't know where his son was, but he certainly knew how cold & unforgiving the world could be, so he knew his son was suffering someplace out there! So the minute he saw his son again, all skinny & dirty, he knew exactly what he had gone through, & that's why he made that big banquet as soon as his son returned!
Dear friends, a good education costs money, & this son got his, when he wasted his whole inheritance in a few weeks, & actually would have died, if his father had not been there when he needed him! This father could see how close to death his son was, & that's why he celebrated his safe return! He didn't care for the money, but he had to celebrate his son's safe return! Slava………

Zaccheus

2012-01-22T05:31:00.000-08:00

Jan. 22nd, (Sun.) 2012: "Zaccheus" (1 Tim. 4:9-15) (Lk. 19:1-10)

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ:
Today's Gospel shows how Jesus will make use of every opportunity to save a soul! Two thousand years ago, people flocked to Him to be healed of every infirmity under the sun, because through those countless miracle-cures He was not only proving that He was the Son of God, as He claimed to be, but that He also was that Redeemer that God had promised to send to save His people from sin! During those 3 ½ years of public ministry, He was daily teaching & revealing the Kingdom of God to the people! So He needed to prove He was God, so that whoever heard Him speak, would know that every word He said was true! That God's Son was speaking to them!
He was also showing His followers how much God loved each one of them! As He said at one time: "I was sent to seek & find the lost sheep of Israel," & Zaccheus was one of those lost sheep! After Jesus returned to heaven, His Holy Church is trying to find the lost sheep & bring them back to God! The only reason for building His Church on earth, before returning to heaven was, that it might continue seeking & saving souls to the end of the world! Every member of the Church, whether Pope, or bishops, or priests or laymen, we're living only to save souls! That's the only purpose of our life!
Somehow or other, Zaccheus had lost his way & become another one of those lost sheep, that Jesus was sent to save, & the minute Jesus spotted His lost sheep, He invited Himself to his home! "Zaccheus, come down from that tree, because I must stay at your house today!" Zaccheus, although a Jew, got himself a job collecting taxes for the Romans at one of the many gates of Jerusalem! His job was collecting taxes on all the trade-goods, coming in, or going out of the city! It made no difference whether a merchant was Jew or foreigner! All goods were taxed & Zaccheus became rich from his percentage of the take! The more taxes he collected for the Romans, the more he had for himself!
So Zaccheus became wealthy, but lost all his Jewish friends, by collecting taxes for the hated Roman Occupiers! Money came easy for him, because he had full authority to decide the amount of tax, & even if he seemed to tax on the high side, there was nothing anybody could do about it!
On the other hand, he couldn't have been all that bad if he was able to repent so quickly & he was thrilled when Jesus invited Himself into his home! Some kind of graces were already drawing him to Jesus, if he wanted to climb that Sycamore tree, to get a good look at this great Healer that everyone was talking about! He still had to be quite brazen, to sit in the tree, in plain view of all the people, just to get a good look at Jesus!
But what really stands out in this story is, that Jesus invited Himself to the Zaccheus home, & Zaccheus was so moved by this act of respect & kindness, that he immediately decided to mend his ways! Zaccheus' entire household was saved when Jesus invited Himself to their home!
Dear friends, Jesus does that all the time! He invites Himself into every home in the world! He knocks on the door of house after house, hoping to be invited in! He'd like to be a part of every family in the world, not only Zacchaeus', but by receiving Him so warmly, Zaccheus saved his whole family, because as far as Jesus is concerned, every human being in the world has an eternal soul that was made for heaven! However, Zacchaeus was saved when he repented! Zaccheus repented & promised to amend his life!
He promised to give half his money to the poor, & to refund four times the amount, if he ever overcharged any one, & that certainly sounds as if he was only charging the legally prescribed rate!
Dear Friends! Although every human being has sinned, each one can be saved, as soon as he repents! No sin is too big to be forgiven, & neither is there a sinner that God does not love! God's love for us is greater than any sin we may commit!
For a while, Zaccheus forgot all about God & just focused on amassing wealth, & all the Jews hated him, while the Romans never really liked Jews, anyhow!
So let us not look for happiness in the wrong places! Let us remain committed to the Jesus who loved us enough to die for us & never leave the straight & narrow road that leads to eternal happiness! Slava …..

Blind Man in Jericho

2012-01-14T14:01:00.000-08:00

Jan 14th, (Sun.) 2007: "Heal Blind Man at Jericho" (Tim. 1:15-17) (Lk. 18:35-43)
Dear Friends in Christ! "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!" As soon as this blind beggar heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, he knew it was now or never, so he began shouting as loud as he could, that Jesus might hear him! He knew this is his only chance! All the people who were with Jesus, had seen Him heal every kind of sickness, & this poor blind beggar really needed healing! The blind man was fully convinced that Jesus could heal him, if only he could get His attention so he concentrated on getting Jesus' attention, & inform Him that his eyes needed healing! It was now or never!
My dear friends, everybody in this church has two good eyes, so in that regard, we're much better off than this blind man in the Gospel, however, that doesn't always mean that we don't have any other kind of blindness! Even people with good eyes still need God's graces to see & understand divine truth more clearly, so no matter how good our eyes, we all need God's graces just as much as this blind beggar! Everybody in the world needs God's graces, because even though we can see & appreciate all kinds of wonders that pertain to this world, we still need divine graces in order to know & better understand all those divine truths that have to do with our salvation!
None of us can see Jesus with our bodily eyes, even though we know for sure that He is always with us! And even though Jesus is always with us, He is not with bus in the flesh like He was 2000 years ago, so we can't see him with our bodily eyes! But that's where our faith comes in! Through the power of faith we can pray & talk to Him every day, since we know for sure that He hears every word! So even though we can't see Him physically, we can be in contact with Him every minute of our lives!
But the most important thing keep in mind, though, is to be sure that our Faith is the true Catholic faith! We must always make an effort to know what the Catholic Church teaches on whatever topic we are dealing with, because, the worst thing that can happen to us, is to allow our Catholic faith to become contaminated with some false notions! Where our faith is concerned, we can't afford to have any false notions at all, or any confusion at all, so that means it's our duty to make sure we're putting the right kind of teaching into our heads, in order to know exactly what God expects from us! For instance, we have to firmly believe this most basic truth, that there's no way we can ever get to heaven by our own efforts! We need God's graces for everything! That's why the Church tells us to pray to God, as well as to the angels & saints, asking for their constant help & protection! And we must pray by faith alone, because we can never see a single one of them with our bodily eyes!
So, once again I must repeat this fact, although this man in Jericho was physically blind, there are other kinds of blindness that can be worse than his! The worst kind of blindness in the world is a willful blindness, that people can bring upon themselves by not using, or abusing, their freewill! Willful blindness is the self-inflicted blindness of people who have no idea of what their church teaches, because they never took the time to find out what the Church actually does teach! For some reason, the truth was never very important to them! As the old saying goes: "No one is as blind, as he who does not want to see!
I'll give you a very interesting example of an experience I had only a few days ago, just to show how unimportant religion is to modern man, & yet, it wasn't that many years ago that both Catholics & Protestants went to church every Sunday! In fact, people took God so seriously that there were many hot arguments over religion!
Anyhow, a couple of days ago I stepped into a small watch shop to install a new battery in my watch, & while the clerk was changing the battery, the boss came along, & seeing my collar, he asks what religion I was affiliated with, & I said I was Catholic! When I replied that I was Catholic, he says to me: "There's no real difference between Baptists & Catholics, is there?" So I told him there is a very big difference between what the Catholic Church teaches & what the Protestant churches teach!
"But we Baptists are not Protestants!" he said! To which I replied, --- "Of course Baptists are Protestants! Baptists are one of the "mainline" Protestant churches, with the Anglicans & Lutherans! But all Protestant Churches, whether big or small, have the same basic teaching on what it takes to be saved!"
"Well then, can you give me an example of what kind of difference there is bet-ween Catholics & Protestants?" Okay, I said, I'll try to keep it very simple! Catholics have priests, because only a priest can offer sacrifice to God, while Protestants have Ministers, because Protestants do not offer sacrifice to God!
Catholics must strive for holiness all their lives, because our heavenly Father is holy, so if we wish to go to heaven, we must strive for holiness! So, if a Catholic sins, he must repent & confess! After his sins are forgiven, he again keeps trying to be sinless & holy! It doesn't matter how often you go to confession, but the whole idea is to be as holy as possible when you die! So all the Liturgies & Sacraments of the Catholic church are designed to help you stay on that straight & narrow road of perfection!
Protestants don't do this! Protestant teaching holds that, because of man's fallen nature, it's not really possible to be holy, so don't even try! Jesus will save you by Himself, as long as you have faith in Him! All a Protestant has to do to be saved, is, believe very strongly that Jesus will save you! All your life, you're a sinner, but as long as you have faith in Jesus, here's what happens when you die! When you die, Jesus will simply cover your sinfulness with His graces, & take you straight to Heaven! No one can see your sins anymore, because Jesus covered them with His graces! That's why Protestants do not have priests, or confessions or Masses like Catholics do! Faith alone will save you! Catholics must strive for holiness all their lives!
So this man never took the time to find out these very basic differences between churches! I'm sure there are some Catholics that can also benefit from some religious upgrading, & that's why Fr. Michael is having some very interesting evening classes for this purpose! Watch for them in the bulletin! People find them very interesting!

New Year's Day

2012-01-01T04:45:00.000-08:00

Jan. 1st, (Sun.) New Year's, "Finding in the Temple" (Col. 2:8-12) (Lk. 2:20-21, 40-52)

Christos Razdayetsia!
As you can see, the Church-calendar keeps moving right along, because in the course of a year we must cover all the most important episodes in the life of Our Lord! We just barely finished Christmas, & today the Gospel already presents Jesus as twelve years old, going with Mary & Joseph to Jerusalem, for the Jewish Feast of Passover!
Passover marks the time when God finally freed them from the grip of Pharaoh & slavery! It was on Passover night that God sent that final & most terrible plague upon Egypt, which killed every first-born male in the land, including Pharaoh's own son, but in order to protect His chosen people from this plague, God instructed each Jewish family to kill a lamb on that evening & smear some of the lamb's blood over the door-posts of their home! By marking their doorposts like this, the plague could not enter those homes, but "passed-over" it! Not one Jew died from the plague, while thousands of Egyptians did!
So the blood of the sacrificial lambs protected the Jews from the plague & freed them from Egyptian slavery, which foretold how the Blood of the "Lamb of God" would one day free us from the power of sin & of the devil! But all these things had to happen to the Jews, first, before the salvation of the rest of the world would take place on Calvary, because everything God does, He does very precisely! Since God was always so precise in regards to our salvation, we should try to keep His laws as perfectly as possible!
God's Commandments are very easy to understand! Everybody understands that God gave us laws for our own good! When Jesus told us that we must love the Lord our God, with all our hearts, minds, souls & strength, it was only because anybody who does not love God this much, will never be able to live like a Christian should live! Further-more, any Catholic who does love God with all his heart & soul, will eagerly attend Mass as often as he possibly can! So why does Jesus put such great emphasis on love? Because our God is Pure Love & His love for us is infinite, which He proved to us on the cross, so it stands to reason that He'd want all our love in return! If we don't love God more than anything else in the world, it would seem that we don't appreciate all He did for us!
Dear friends, it seems to me that only 50 years ago, that everybody in the world took God more seriously & worshipped more seriously than today! And there was less sin in the world, because all the old-timers really did believe in Hell, so it was very normal to go to confession every month! Can you imagine living in such a world, where Catholics went to confession every month, long before divorces & contraception & sex education became common! There weren't any abortions, or drug abuse, at all! Would you believe that only 50 years ago, hardly anyone knew what word gay or sodomy meant! Most people reached old age as innocent as little children, & yet, they still worried that they might not be good enough for Heaven, because they had an argument with their wife! So they made a good confession every month, just to be sure!
In our present world, everything got really turned around! Although there's much more sin in our modern world, but people got so used to it that almost nobody goes to confession every month, because everybody is confident that they are going straight to heaven when they die! That's how much the world changed in 50 years!
Dear friends, today we're starting a New Year again & in our tradition, everybody is making New Year's resolutions to overcome a vice, or two! I'm sure that most of you have made your resolutions & intend to keep them! But a few people will say: "I don't make any more New Year's resolutions because I've never been able to keep them for long, so I quit doing that!
But making New Year's resolutions is actually a very useful tradition to keep, even if you don't manage to keep them for long, because, if nothing else, it shows how weak we human beings really are! A failed New Year's resolution shows us very clearly that we'll never succeed in anything without God's help! After a failed resolution, we feel like two cents, & that's exactly how we should feel when we turn to God for help! We can honestly tell God that it's perfectly obvious that we have no hope of ever reaching heaven without His help, so please God, take us by the hand & show us how to shape up & turn our lives around! I'm finally admitting to You, God, that I'm lost & confused & I need You to show me the way!
Dear friends, this whole world we live in, is all mixed up, so this is no time to be half a Catholic! We have to work with what we've got, & I just showed you very clearly that none of us has what it takes to get to heaven on our own! Not a single one of us can get to heaven by ourselves, but, the minute we turn to God & ask for His help, we know we're on our way to heaven! Oh, it's still going to be a real struggle to get to heaven, but with God's constant help, at least you know you'll get there!
It would be much easier to be saints if only we had a few hundred more priests & nuns in the Church, like in the good old days, but we don't have them, so, you're pretty much on your own in that regard! So start praying like you've never prayed before! Pray for yourselves! Pray especially for your children & grandchildren, because they are the first casualties of this paganized society, & they have no other support except you & your prayers!
So here's the perfect resolution for this year, to discuss your problems with God every day, & always ask for more of His graces to sustain you! If you faithfully keep this one resolution, you're already on the road to heaven! Chrystos ………..

St. Stephen

2011-12-24T13:42:00.000-08:00

Dec 27th, 2002: "St. Stephen-First Martyr" (Acts 6:8-7:5, 47-60) (Mt. 21:33-42)

Dear Friends in Christ!
Today is another extraordinary Feast Day, but this one is in honor of the very first Martyr, who died for his faith, in the beginning of the Christian Church! After Stephen was stoned to death by the Jews, there would be very many more Martyrs, but Stephen was the very first! Stephen was a very holy Deacon, who lived during the time when all the original Apostles were all still living, & bringing converts into the young, Christian Church! Stephen was the very first Christian to die for his faith! It happened only a few years after Jesus ascended to Heaven, & the followers of Jesus were hard at work evangelizing & making converts in the city of Jerusalem! The Scribes & Pharisees were very upset over all this evangelizing, of course, because the first converts to this new religion were Jews, of course! Anyhow, the Apostles & dis-ciples just stayed in Jerusalem & kept converting the Jews to Christianity!
After a couple years of such evangelizing, the Temple priests & Pharisees got very hostile towards these disciples of Jesus, while at the same time, all the pagan Greeks in the surrounding cities, became very interested in learning about this God of the Christians, who loved His people so much that He died for them, & they began to clamor for attention! The Greeks felt very hurt that the Apostles were ignoring them! They were very peeved that the Apostles didn't have any time to teach this new religion to the Greeks! The Greeks wanted to learn about this Christian God of Love, & they were wanting to join the Christian Church, but the Apostles were too busy converting the Jews in Jerusalem!
Organizing a new church was slow & hard work, & for those first few years, the Christians didn't even have their own place to worship in, so they did their worsh- iping in the Synagogues! For a while, the Priests & Pharisees didn't know what to make of these cheeky Christians, so that's why they didn't get expelled from Temple & Synagogues for a few years! You can say that in the very beginning, things were a bit confused! The Christians were worshipping in the Mosaic tradition, as well as breaking Bread in the Christian Tradition!
Anyhow, they kept doing all their teaching & worshipping in the Temple, until finally the Temple priests couldn't stand it any longer, so the Priests began stirring up the people against the Christian Community! So as I was saying, at first there wasn't a very clear separation between these two kinds of worship, but since the Christians kept on making converts, the Temple Priests couldn't afford to ignore them! They had to do something, so the first thing they did was, to throw them out of the Temple!
At the beginning, the Apostles tried to do everything by themselves, but since there were only 12 of them, & since people from the other cities wanted to learn this new religion, Peter realized he had to start delegating some work to others! You can see how the Infant Church was forced to making some adjustments! And that's where the first deacons came into being!
Peter then called the people together & said: "Choose from among yourselves seven honest & trustworthy men, & then I will authorize them to carry on this same ministry in other cities & countries, because no one should be deprived of salvation! So the people chose seven very upright men from among themselves, & Stephen was among them! Then Peter laid hands on them & ordained the first seven deacons!
So, with more disciples preaching & baptizing, the young Church began to expand still faster, which made the High priests still more angry! Young Stephen was very holy deacon, & filled with the Holy Spirit! He not only was a very good speaker, but God granted him the power to work many miracles among the people! The Holy Spirit also helped Stephen during his many debates with the Scribes & Pharisees, & he was so good at debating, that, the Pharisees never won a single debate with him!
The Priests & Pharisees hated Stephen in particular, but since he was such an exceptional preacher, the people loved him very much! Finally, the Temple priests had him arrested & got someone to swear false charges against him! Stephen was convicted on those false charges & sentenced to death by stoning! Stoning was the Jewish way of putting people to death! You surround the condemned man & kept throwing stones at him until he died! But no one knew which stone killed him! That was how this stoning business worked!
The Jews had to destroy Stephen, because they could not scatter the Christian Flock as long as Stephen was still living & looking after them! It was not a fair trial, of course, but as soon as the judge passed the guilty verdict, they took Stephen out-side the gates of the city, & stoned him to death! Before he died, Stephen cried out as loud as he could: "Lord, do not hold this deed against them!" & then the stones began flying, & that's how the first Christian Martyr died! SLAVA…..

Flight to Egypt

2011-12-24T13:38:00.000-08:00

Dec. 28th, (Sun.) 2008: (Flight to Egypt(2)" (Gal. 1:11-19) (Mt. 2:13-23)

Chystos Razdaetsia! Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Dear friends in Christ
Christmas is perhaps the most joyful Christian Feast-day in the world, because the Savior of the world had finally arrived on earth! Although there are many other important Feast Days in the Church, Christmas is in a class by itself, because with the coming of the long-awaited Savior, man could finally hope for salvation! This Gospel may not be a very long one, but it reveals many important things! The first thing we are given to know is, how corrupt the king of Israel was! King Herod cared for no one but himself!
Secondly, although the angels were already filling the heavens with so many variations of: "Peace on earth, to men of good will", it would take another 33 years before the sins of the world would finally be paid off on that cross!
During His public ministry, Jesus had to explain to His followers that, each man in the world would have at least some part to play in his own salvation! Each man in the world will be required to carry his own little cross after Our Lord! As a perfect example, consider how much suffering God required of Mary & Joseph, because even these two, were given crosses to carry! Just think how tired Joseph & Mary must have been after that long walk over the mountain trails from Nazareth to Bethlehem, but when they reached Bethlehem, God did not even provide a house for them to rest in!
God wanted them to take shelter in a small, cold stable, because there was no other kind of lodging to be found in all of Bethlehem! And if that wasn't bad enough, in only a few days, Joseph was told by the angel that Jesus was in danger, so they had to leave even this cold, little stable in the middle of the night & flee towards Egypt, because Herod was sending out his soldiers with orders to kill every male child, under two years, to make sure that he gets rid of this new king that had just been born somewhere around Bethlehem!
You'd have to understand the mindset of Herod to understand his ways! Not only was he known as a man who would order the murder of anyone who posed a threat to his position in the Roman Empire, but even members of his own family were not immune to his brutal & insidious jealousies. Many of his relatives died if Herod so much as suspected they might be plotting to seize his throne. Anybody at all who might be considered a threat to Herod's power, died! It was lucky that the Three Wise Men decided to take another road home or they might not have got home at all!
So Herod sent out his soldiers, house to house, to kill hundreds of little children in order to make sure he destroyed this Savior-king who had just been born, because he might want Herod's throne later on! So that's how quick an evil man will murder a possible rival for his throne! As it turned out, Christ's kingdom was not of this world, in the first place, but Herod wasn't taking any chances!
So you can see how quickly great wealth & great power can corrupt a person, while good men who live only to please God, wouldn't even dream of killing anyone! It's a very well known fact that worldly power will corrupt anyone! Anyone who possesses very great power, slowly becomes corrupted by it, & that's why the Holy Family was running for their lives for the Egyptian border, to get Jesus away from those murdering soldiers!
Poor, poor Herod! How happy he could have been for all eternity, if only he'd gone with those other Three Kings to adore the newborn Savior! How many blessings would he have received from the crib, & today he'd be safely in heaven with them!
So our lesson for today, is, to never make the same kind of mistakes that the Herods of this world make! If we allow the Holy Catholic Church to teach us & form our characters, we can easily avoid making the kinds of mistakes that others have made, & save our soul at the same time! The Church teaches that it is not that hard to save our souls, but we must be determined to stay faithful to God all of our lives! My friends, there is nothing mysterious about how to get to Heaven, but we do have to work at it!
May the Christ Child who came to save all sinners, also save each one of us! Christ is born! Glorify Him! Chrystos Razdatetsia! Slavimo Yoho!

Christmas Day

2011-12-24T13:31:00.000-08:00

Dec. 25th, (Sun.) 2011: "Christmas Day" (Gal. 4:4-7) (Mt. 2:1-12)
Chrystos Razdayetsia! One of the oldest Christmas traditions in the world is the giving of gifts on Christmas Day! The first gifts given, were to the newborn Savior by those poor shepherds in the Christmas story, & the next gifts were by the Three Kings, who gave gold, frankincense & myrrh! As for myself I pray that every heart in the world be filled with a deep & holy love for the newborn Savior-King, & His Blessed Mother! If every heart was filled with that kind of love, it would transform all such believers into instant saints, & that would certainly be the most precious gift anyone could ever give to Our newborn Savior!
The Christmas story of the birth of Our Savior is the greatest story on the world,
because it is the true story of what our God is like, & how much He really loves us! Although thousands of books have been written on this topic, yet, not even the greatest saints could do justice to the kind of love that God has for us sinners! The whole world knows that St. John Chrysostom was counted among the greatest of all the saints, so let's see how he tried to describe his own feelings in regards to the Savior's birth! He tried to express his own feelings at one of his famous Christmas sermons, & yet, this is the best he could do to describe the awe & wonder in his heart:
"In my mind I see this new & wondrous mystery, while my ears resound with the shepherds song as they sang their first Christmas carol, & the angels & archangels joined the shepherds & blended their voices in harmony, as did also the Cherubim & seraphim, because even the heavenly spirits beheld something no one had ever before heard of; that our God decided to come to earth, so as to enable man to gain heaven & live with Him there! God came from the highest heaven to dwell with man here below, in order to bring peace & salvation to all men of goodwill!
That was the best he could do, because how could any man begin to understand the love God has for man! Chrysostom then admitted that he could not even explain how he was able believe all these things, but believe he did, with all the power of his being, that God loved us so much that He wanted to do all this for us! And God is the only Person in the world who was able to descend from heaven, in order to redeem us, & even though it's above our understanding, we do know that all things move in obedience to God's will!
And yet, strictly speaking, the only thing the shepherds actually heard and saw in the stable in Bethlehem that night, was a young mother adoring her newborn Son, as He lay in a manger, just as the angel had told them it would be! And yet, here is the supreme part of that mystery; -- every person that saw the tiny infant, knew instantly that He was God's Savior, without needing to know anything more!
And today, 2011 years later, in far off Canada, we also believe the very same things & in exactly the same way as the shepherds did, because the full message of our salvation has come to us, word for word, through our Holy Church! None of us have the slightest doubt that we are loving & adoring the very same Babe that lay in the manger in Bethlehem, as we join our voices to a vast number of angels who are still singing the same, joyous anthem; "Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, to men of good will."
What's more, we can only wonder at the marvelous wisdom of God in making these glad tidings known first of all to the lowly shepherds, rather than the Temple-priests, scribes & Pharisees, because of their pride! Because, although the Scribes had been looking forward to the coming of the savior for thousands of years yet, when He did come, & because He was born in such humble circumstances, the Jews quickly claimed that the shepherds' story was no more than a "shepherds dream," while the Scribes & Pharisees scrambled to re-interpret the Sacred Scriptures in a false manner, so as not to believe that this was the Promised Redeemer!
And King Herod was also desperately searching for this newborn King, but not to adore Him, but to put Him to death! What reason did all these people have to hate Him so much, when Christ had come only to bring peace on earth? They hated Him because they were not men of good will, & because God's Savior was not as worldly as themselves! They were expecting a powerful "warrior-king," who would restore the glory & riches of Israel --- not this obscure, weak Babe!
Later on, when Christ rebuked these same priests & Pharisees for their pride & hypocrisy, & blindness & lust for power & riches --- they hated Him still more! They accused Jesus of having a devil, & being an imposter & determined to kill Him as a traitor & blasphemer! Christ did not excuse the blindness of the priests & Pharisees, although He was so quick to forgive the penitent Magdalene! "If I had not done so many miracles in your sight, which no man has ever done, you would have no sin. But you have both seen & heard, & yet have not believed; therefore, you shall die in your sins." Severe words, but they are the very words of God!
My friends, we are here today, because we love our Savior, but consider how many people no longer believe in God! So many reject Christ today, for almost the same reasons that the Jews rejected Him, because he was not "worldly enough for them!" And it will only get worse, because half of American youth no longer believe that Christ is God, & in a few more years, they will be running the country! Today, modern man wants unlimited freedom! Unlimited freedom is become the new god! Everybody demands the freedom to do as they like!
We all like freedom, of course, but we only want to be free to worship our God here on earth, & to be with Him eternally in Heaven! Christ described the right kind of freedom! "Everyone who loves truth, hears My voice! If you keep My word, you shall be my disciples, & My truth is what makes you free!"
God only wants our love, & that's why He came as an infant, because it's so easy to love a little baby! Everybody in the world loves little babies! So let us make room in our hearts for our divine Savior, who only wants to help get to heaven! Christos Razdayetsia!

Christmas Day

2011-12-20T19:02:00.000-08:00

Dec. 25th, (Sun.) 2011: "Christmas Day" (Gal. 4:4-7) (Mt. 2:1-12)
Chrystos Razdayetsia! One of the oldest Christmas traditions in the world is the giving of gifts on Christmas Day! The first gifts that were given, were given to the newborn Savior, by those poor shepherds in the Christmas story, & the next gifts were given by the Three Kings, who gave gold, frankincense & myrrh! As for myself I pray that every heart in the world be filled with a deep & holy love for the newborn Savior-King, & His Blessed Mother! If every heart was filled with that kind of love, it would transform all such believers into instant saints, & that would certainly be the most precious gift anyone could ever give to Our newborn Savior!
The Christmas story of the birth of Our Savior is the greatest story on the world,
because it is the true story of what our God is like, & how much He really loves us! Although thousands of books have been written on this topic, yet, not even the greatest saints could do justice to the kind of love that God has for us sinners! The whole world knows that St. John Chrysostom was counted among the greatest of all the saints, so let's see how he tried to describe his own feelings in regards to the Savior's birth! He tried to express his own feelings at one of his famous Christmas sermons, & yet, this is the best he could do to describe the awe & wonder in his heart:
"In my mind I see this new & wondrous mystery, while my ears resound with the shepherds song as they sang their first Christmas carol, & the angels & archangels joined the shepherds & blended their voices in harmony, as did also the Cherubim & seraphim, because even the heavenly spirits beheld something no one had ever before heard of; that our God decided to come to earth, so as to enable man to gain heaven & live with Him there! God came from the highest heaven to dwell with man here below, in order to bring peace & salvation to all men of goodwill!
That was the best he could do, because how could any man begin to understand the love God has for man! Chrysostom then admitted that he could not even explain how he was able believe all these things, but believe he did, with all the power of his being, that God loved us so much that He wanted to do all this for us! And God is the only Person in the world who was able to descend from heaven, in order to redeem us, & even though it's above our understanding, we do know that all things move in obedience to God's will!
And yet, strictly speaking, the only thing the shepherds actually heard and saw in the stable in Bethlehem that night, was a young mother adoring her newborn Son, as He lay in a manger, just as the angel had told them it would be! And yet, here is the supreme part of that mystery; -- every person that saw the tiny infant, knew instantly that He was God's Savior, without needing to know anything more!
And today, 2011 years later, in far off Canada, we also believe the very same things & in exactly the same way as the shepherds did, because the full message of our salvation has come to us, word for word, through our Holy Church! None of us have the slightest doubt that we are loving & adoring the very same Babe that lay in the manger in Bethlehem, as we join our voices to a vast number of angels who are still singing the same, joyous anthem; "Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, to men of good will."
What's more, we can only wonder at the marvelous wisdom of God in making these glad tidings known first of all to the lowly shepherds, rather than the Temple-priests, scribes & Pharisees, because of their pride! Because, although the Scribes had been looking forward to the coming of the savior for thousands of years yet, when He did come, & because He was born in such humble circumstances, the Jews quickly claimed that the shepherds' story was no more than a "shepherds dream," while the Scribes & Pharisees scrambled to re-interpret the Sacred Scriptures in a false manner, so as not to believe that this was the Promised Redeemer!
And King Herod was also desperately searching for this newborn King, but not to adore Him, but to put Him to death! What reason did all these people have to hate Him so much, when Christ had come only to bring peace on earth? They hated Him because they were not men of good will, & because God's Savior was not as worldly as themselves! They were expecting a powerful "warrior-king," who would restore the glory & riches of Israel --- not this obscure, weak Babe!
Later on, when Christ rebuked these same priests & Pharisees for their pride & hypocrisy, & blindness & lust for power & riches --- they hated Him still more! They accused Jesus of having a devil, & being an imposter & determined to kill Him as a traitor & blasphemer! Christ did not excuse the blindness of the priests & Pharisees, although He was so quick to forgive the penitent Magdalene! "If I had not done so many miracles in your sight, which no man has ever done, you would have no sin. But you have both seen & heard, & yet have not believed; therefore, you shall die in your sins." Severe words, but they are the very words of God!
My friends, we are here today, because we love our Savior, but consider how many people no longer believe in God! So many reject Christ today, for almost the same reasons that the Jews rejected Him, because he was not "worldly enough for them!" And it will only get worse, because half of American youth no longer believe that Christ is God, & in a few more years, they will be running the country! Today, modern man wants unlimited freedom! Unlimited freedom is become the new god! Everybody demands the freedom to do as they like!
We all like freedom, of course, but we only want to be free to worship our God here on earth, & to be with Him eternally in Heaven! Christ described the right kind of freedom! "Everyone who loves truth, hears My voice! If you keep My word, you shall be my disciples, & My truth is what makes you free!"
God only wants our love, & that's why He came as an infant, because it's so easy to love a little baby! Everybody in the world loves little babies! So let us make room in our hearts for our divine Savior, who only wants to help get to heaven! Christos Razdayetsia!

Genealogy of Jesus

2011-12-18T05:12:00.000-08:00

Genealogy of Jesus

Dec. 18th, (Sun.) 2011: (Sun. before X-Mass) (Heb.11:9-10,17-23,) (Mt. 1:1-25)

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ!
First some background, to help you understand why this very unusual Gospel was so necessary! Right after Jesus ascended to heaven, the Apostles were already running into serious problems, because all the Temple Priests, Scribes & Pharisees still refused to accept that Jesus was that long-awaited Savior that God promised to send! And the reason why they rejected Jesus, was this; the Temple priests had become so proud & worldly by this time, that, they were scandalized right from the moment that the Savior dared to be born in a small stable in Bethlehem! How could they ever be proud of a king who that born in such a humble place? Why couldn't God have given them something to be proud of?
So as I said, the Temple Priests had become so proud & worldly that they rejected this humble Savior out of hand, regardless of who had sent Him! This Savior just wasn't good enough for them, since they had been expecting a Warrior King that would destroy all the enemies of Israel & return Israel to her former glory; the kind they had during the reign of King Solomon, when every surrounding nation admired & feared them! That's the kind of Savior king they were waiting for, but since Jesus was not that kind of a king, & just kept preaching humility all His life, they hated Him with a passion & then crucified him! They demanded a better kind of Savior than this Jesus! They were repelled by Jesus & crucified Him!
However, the Crucifixion didn't do the High Priests any good, because Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, as foretold in the Scriptures & then ascended to heaven in plain sight of a crowd of people, after first establishing His Church on earth, & now His followers were busy making thousands of converts right in Jerusalem! So the Priests & Pharisees decided to start using their authority against the Apostles by claiming that Jesus was an imposter & that the Apostles were simple, unlearned fishermen! So that was the situation the Apostles suddenly found themselves in, & that's why they had to prove very clearly, from the Prophecies of the Old Testament Scriptures, that Jesus was the Savior that God sent according to His promise! And that's why this Gospel is using the Old Testament Scriptures to prove that Jesus was God's Messiah!
So, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles took us step by step through all the Old Prophecies that had to do with the Promised Savior, & prove beyond any doubt, that Jesus was indeed that Promised Savior! The Apostles had to do it this way to prove once & for all that Jesus was the Savior! This Gospel sets out absolute proof that Jesus is the Messiah & that God promised to send, & so, there will never be another Messiah! So that's why the Apostles traced Jesus' genealogy through all the Old Testament Prophecies, to prove that every one of them points to Jesus! By going this route, the proof was so overwhelming that anybody could clearly see that Jesus was that promised Messiah! Once the Apostles traced Jesus' genealogy so perfectly, the Temple Priests didn't dare argue about it anymore!
And that's how the Holy Spirit protects our Church & our faith! That's why we can always be certain that our Church is infallible! This genealogy was put together so perfectly, that the whole world has proof that Jesus was the Promised Messiah! It's good to know that everything we believe is true, because our church has been under the guidance of the Holy Spirit from the beginning!
Look at it this way; truth can never change, so once you have learned your faith, that knowledge is good for the rest of your life! You can always study some more if you wish to deepen your knowledge, but you're never going to learn something new! Truth can never change!
Dear Friends! The world needed a Savior 2000 years ago, & we still need the Savior just as much today, maybe even more than 2000 yrs. ago! Jesus is the only Savior God gives us, & He always comes to those who love Him! He always wants to save sinners! In a few days He will again come as a lovable, adorable baby, making it all the easier for every heart to love Him, & want to invite Him in!
So prepare your hearts to receive your Savior! Prepare your hearts with a good confession, & The Divine Baby will do the rest! Isn't it wonderful to have such a God as we have? Love Him & be saved!

Rich man & Lazarus

2011-11-12T13:24:00.001-08:00

Nov 13th, 2011: "The rich man & Lazarus" (Gal. 6:11-18) (Lk. 16:19-31)

Dear Friends in Christ!
Today's Gospel shows God's justice at work & how each one of us will one day have to answer to God for everything we did to our fellowman, or failed to do! To make it easier to understand God's justice, let us apply it to current issues, & what's more current than the present war on terrorism? There have been many debates on the morality of wars in general, & there is even some disagreement whether this war in Afghanistan truly fits into the context of justified defense, & respect for human life!
A few will argue that a Christian should always turn the other cheek, regardless of how immoral the terrorists are, & I was surprised at how many Americans would have been have preferred to forgive & forget that attack on the Twin Towers, rather than go to war! Such a pacifist way of thinking is causing a great deal of confusion in the spiritual lives of ordinary people, as they struggle with the normal emotions of this horrible act of terrorism! The Pope has spoken on this issue several times but although he called for world peace, he did not say America should have turned the other cheek!
Of all the churches in the world, the Catholic Church is the only Church that has made a full study of wars & can define very precisely what makes a war just, or unjust, & it's surprising how many people are now studying these definitions in the Catechism of the Catholic Church!
However, as awful as wars are, they are still a part of our human condition, & some wars are necessary & just! At the same time, even when waging a just war, care must always be taken not to kill the innocent! A just war can even be a war of puni-shment against aggressive people & nations, so, regardless of how awful wars can be, a war can certainly be justified & moral! So any nation that is defending itself against an aggressor, is never breaking the fifth Commandment when killing enemy soldiers!
So when does this business of turning the other cheek apply? The Catechism of the Catholic Church has some very interesting teaching on this business of turning the other cheek, & you will want to file this teaching away in the back of your mind!
(1)A nation has the right, & even a grave duty to protect the lives of its citizens!
(2)A man has the very same obligation to protect the lives of those who are dependant on him!
(3)When someone hits me, I can offer my other cheek if I want to, but, if someone hits my daughter, I cannot stand there & tell her to turn the other cheek, because, since I'm responsible for her safety, it is my grave duty to defend her! If my daughter is able to defend herself, then she can choose to turn the other cheek if she wants to, but the bottom line is this, no one has the right to tell someone else to turn the other cheek! Each individual can decide that one only for himself/herself, but does not have a right to tell another person to do it! Turning your cheek is strictly a personal decision & never a command! The state is always obliged to defend its citizens!
(4)The next obligation a state has, is, to defend the common good, which means that a state has the obligation to make sure that it has enough security in place to prevent an unjust aggressor from harming it's citizens, or at least from causing any more harm! Those in authority have the right to use arms to repel an aggressor & this in no way contradicts the Church's doctrine of respect for human life, because you must first have peace before you can develop respect for human life! (CCC 2265 & CCC 2304)
(5)The state has also the obligation to allow it's citizens to live in peace! Peace is not only a "balance of power" between adversaries, but a tranquility of order, which can only happen when there is justice for all! If an injustice is done, there must first be a restitution paid by the guilty party! Sometimes it is necessary to fight a just-war, if that is the only way to impart justice to the guilty party! But a nation cannot turn its other cheek! The Church teaches that it is just as wrong to be an extreme pacifist, as it is to seek raw vengeance! Both of these extremes are to be avoided, because neither of them is based on justice! War is the result of evil in the world, & as long as there is evil in the world, there will be wars! So we must understand that some wars are neces-sary, but a war must be fought justly!
Now here's a new one: so we know that wars must be just, but, did you know that wars must be waged in a spirit of love? Yes, you heard right, & it's not even hard to understand how a soldier can kill enemy soldiers in a spirit of love! It all depends on what & whom you love! If a soldier goes to war to defend his country and the people in it, he is fighting from a motive of love, & that means he is waging a just war! Everything depends on the intentions of those who fight! Am I fighting to protect my country from an unjust aggressor, or am I just trying to return evil for evil?
Soldiers must pray every day, not only for his own safety, but since we must rid the world of terrorists, we should also pray for their conversion, because if they repent & convert, we have still gotten rid of the terrorists without needing to kill them! But if we do need to kill them, we must still pray that God has mercy on their souls!
Well, the Church teaches all these things but, is it realistic to think that an army of soldiers, can all have all these perfect motives in their minds? For man, these things are impossible, but with God's grace, it becomes possible! So even in the front lines, a soldier must still be a man of prayer, because if he is, God's graces will help him do everything right! No one can be this perfect by his own power, but with God's grace, it all becomes possible!
Dear friends, this sermon shows that there is always a right & wrong way! Even in a war, we kill out of necessity, not raw hatred! If we cannot love our enemy, neither may we hate him! In other words: "love your enemy & pray for him!"
(2) To show that God's Commandments are binding on us, no matter where we are, or what we are doing! During a war, the most difficult Commandment is "Love your enemy"!

King of the Jews

2011-10-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

Oct. 30th, (Sun.) 2011: "Are You King of the Jews?" (Col. 1:12-20) (Jn. 18:33-37)

Dear Friends in Christ!
Today Jesus is before Pilate, on trial for His life, however, since the Jews had no evidence against Jesus, Pilate ended up telling them: "I find no crime in Him!" But the Temple Priests wouldn't give up! Jesus must be put to death, so, if Pilate refuses to execute Jesus on religious charges, they brought the second charge against Him, that He was making Himself a king in opposition to Caesar! This second charge was a serious criminal charge, so Pilate immediately asked Jesus: "Are you the king of the Jews?"
Anyhow, to make a long story short, Pilate ended up condemning Jesus to be crucified, even though he knew he had condemned an innocent man, just to pacify a mob of angry Jews! He knew very well that Jesus was innocent!
However, enough on this topic! I decided not to speak on this trial, because to make a good sermon on Jesus' trial, it would have to be a very long one! Its not possible to give a good sermon on Jesus' trial without bringing in & explaining many other little details that add meaning & perspective to this story, so today's sermon is on a different topic altogether, but one that needs to be brought into the open, so here goes!
My friends, you've probably heard the old saying that the minute you realize that you've dug yourself into a hole, the first thing you got to do, is, stop digging! No use making the hole any deeper! So stop digging & start filling in that hole! Once the hole is all filled up, then you have time to decide how you got into that predicament, & what you need to do, so it doesn't happen again!
So what is the biggest problem we Catholics are facing at the present time? Well, I think we'd all like to increase our church membership, because membership is going down in all our churches! Maybe the faith got weaker, or maybe religion is becoming less important, but for whatever reason, many churches keep getting emptier! It will take a lot of faith & hard work to reverse that trend! Faith is the power to believe & trust in God's providence! Faith is the power behind everything we believe in! Nothing good can happen without faith!
The faith of our pioneers was so powerful that, the first thing they did in Canada, was build a little home for themselves, & then they built all those little churches that are still standing today! But sad to say, that powerful faith they had, did not seem to reach all their grandchildren & great-grandchildren, because not all of the younger set are as committed to God & church as those first pioneers were!
Today's faith is not that total kind of faith that our pioneers had, & as a result, the young generation today, does not have enough spiritual support during any crisis, at the time when they'd need it most! That's a widespread problem & we need to figure out what we can do to help them! It's not a simple matter of just coaxing them back to church, because without the faith, what are you going to do with yourself in church? If you don't have faith, the church can't possibly have any meaning! So our job is to start somehow rebuilding the faith; first in ourselves, in our families & our communities! I admit I don't have all the answers, but I will leave you with a few ideas!
Anyhow, we know that church attendance has been slipping for some years now, & we also know that if we don't find some solution real soon, we might very well be shutting down some of our churches in a few years! Our older parishioners who have been supporting the church all their lives, are now starting to leave this world, one by one, but we can also see that not enough young people are coming in to fill all those empty pews! Maybe if they had the faith of their forefathers, they would be here, but as things stand right now, they are not interested in church! Somehow or other, we of the older generation, failed to pass our own faith to them! We did not realize the importance of making sure we passed our faith on to the next generation!
But don't misunderstand me! From the worldly point of view, our young men & women are at the top of everything! Our young people are every bit as successful as anybody else in the world! They are well educated & well paid, except that they're not doing as well from the religious point of view! The only thing missing is the faith, & without the faith, our churches get emptier, & we lose our youth to the world! Faith is the power of believing, & if you lose that, you lose everything!
At one time churches were full! No shortage of priests, monasteries & convents were full! So there was a lot of faith, right here in Canada at one time, but WE DIDN'T KEEP PASSING IT ON TO THE NEXT GENERATION! That traditional faith was sort of put on the back burner for a while, because we ourselves were too busy with worldly things! So the decline didn't start with our youth! It started with us! It's we that didn't pass our holy faith to our youth!
I have a suggestion to leave with you, for whatever it may be worth! There is no doubt that today's kids do not receive enough religious training, & they never will have a deep faith & a deep love of God, if they're only going to get half hour of Catechism a week, so I would suggest that parents start teaching their own children at home, a little every day! Also make an effort to discuss religious news & happenings around the supper table, as a family, because when kids hear parents discussing religious affairs like that, then they know it must be very important!
You can get the appropriate Catechism books through the church, for free & start teaching your kids some Catechism every day! Parents know their own children best, & they know exactly how much to teach every day! They also know how much the children understand, or if some parts need to be explained a little better! I think parents are the best Catechism teachers in the world! If you do your part, your kids will never leave God or the church! That's the way to pass our faith on to the next generation!

Do unto others

2011-10-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

Sep 29th, 2002: "Do unto others" (2 Cor. 11:31-12:9) (Lk. 6:31-36)

Dear Friends in Christ!
Today we're on the topic of love! Everybody in the world knows what love is, even a little kid! Mommy, daddy, I love you! Young adults know all about love because they're constantly falling in love! The elderly know still more about love, after so many years of experience!
However, the whole, overall thrust of today's Gospel is on holy love; God's kind of love, & how this holy kind of love should motivate us to spend our lives doing good to others! We should be loving & charitable towards others! So Jesus is talking about some-thing much deeper than a shallow love & just being nice to each other! Jesus is making it very clear that real charity is not just another word for love, or being nice to others! Love is love, while Charity has more to do with being very fair & just whenever we are dealing with our fellow-man!
In this Gospel we are told to be charitable towards others, regardless whether they are friends of ours, or not! Then Jesus tells us why it's so important to love everybody! We can't love only those who are easy to love, but everybody, including even those who are difficult to love, such as our enemies! We must learn to love everyone, because God loves everyone!
Why is Jesus putting so much stress on our obligation to love everybody? Well, this is why! Since we are children of God & followers of Christ, we should always be trying to follow His example! We should love everyone, just as He does! After all, what's so difficult about loving someone who love us? Any pagan at all can do that! Or, to put it another way, is God going to take us to heaven just for loving our friends? What's so special about loving those who are easy to love?
People with the coldest hearts can be nice to those who are always friendly to them, but as for us, being that we are followers of Christ, we must strive to love as He does! So that's why we must be able to love the good & the bad, because God loves the good & bad! Since Our Lord Jesus Christ loves everyone, we must also try to love like that!
Dear friends, Our Lord is telling us to practice real, Christian love, even when it's difficult to do so, & that's why I spent so much time on clarifying this topic! But now Jesus is taking us a step further! Not only does He want us to love the good & bad, as He does, but to open our hearts still more, even when its going to cost us some money, & we all know that money is a very important commodity in this world! So what Jesus is now asking us - can we love someone enough to lend him some money, if he really needs a loan, but you're not sure that he'll ever pay you back?
Because if the man was a safe bet, he'd talk to his banker & any bank would have lent him the money, so it probably means he's not a safe bet! So what is Jesus telling us about lending money in this kind of situation? Lets be sensible! Common sense tells us that if are wealthy enough to take such a risk, then it would be a holy thing in the eyes of God to make such a risky loan, even if you never get repaid! So if the person is in some crisis, & if you can afford to take such a risk, you'd be doing it only to please God!
We know it's foolish to lend money to people who probably can't pay you back, but, to those who are in a position to absorb such a loss, your reward would certainly be very great in heaven, because God will reward every good deed! So common sense tells us that there is a limit to everything, so we have to act not only with prudence, but also with a sense of charity! So this is what we have to decide; do we have to be repaid in this world, or, can we wait until we reach the next world, where God will repay us?
My friends, we all know how to be charitable to others, & we've all done favors to others when we see the need for it! How many times you have stopped to help a stranded motorist on the road, without wanting to get paid? We've all done things like that without taking a cent for it! And there were times when some Good Samaritan stopped & helped us! So all we need to decide is the limits of charity!
And now lets move on to our last topic! Jesus reminds us that it may be necessary to do favors even to those who are never grateful for anything, & there are those kinds! There are those who won't even say thank you, because the world owes them everything they need! And yet, if you do run into such a person, but as long as you're doing it only to please God, rest assured that you will be well repaid in the next world! God will repay you for every act of kindness that was done in His name!
Dear friends, if you want to condense the lessons in this Gospel into a few words, it simply means that Jesus is showing us several different ways of setting up a bank account in heaven, & building up that account, by being charitable to the needy here on earth! It is a sure way to have our own little bank account in Heaven, & that bank account will sure come in handy when we get there! Slava

Let Down your Nets

2011-10-15T17:15:00.000-07:00

Oct. 16^th, (Sun.) 2011: "Put out into the deep" (Cor. 9:6-11) (Lk. 5:1-11)

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ!

In this Gospel Jesus & Peter met for the first time, & after preaching to the people from Peter's boat, He told Peter to "Put out into the deep & lower his nets for a catch." Peter replied, "Lord, we have fished all night & didn't catch a single fish, but I will do as you ask!" Peter was a fully experienced fisherman & he knew for sure there were no fish out there, but still, Peter saw something in Jesus that made him want to do what He asked!"

Jesus, on the other hand, had already decided He wanted Peter for one of His Apostles, & He wanted Peter to have total faith in Him! Jesus is about to work a great miracle, & that's why He told them to lower his nets! Jesus & Peter both knew there were no fish out there, & yet, the minute he lowered the nets, he caught so many fish that they filled two boats with fish, to the point of sinking! This one miracle was all it took, to convince Peter of Jesus' divinity, & he was never the same Peter again!

Anyhow, Jesus likely used a different approach in calling each of the other Apostles to follow Him, & there's no doubt that He also calls each one of us through some sign or other, that we may all want to be His willing & faithful followers! Rest assured that Jesus is always near to each one of us, & trying to deepen our faith in Him! All we need to do is cooperate! Had Peter refused to lower the nets, that miraculous catch would not have happened!

In our time, Jesus mostly speaks to us through His Church, because remember that before returning to Heaven, He put all His teaching authority into that special Church He had built upon Peter!

And what a Church He gave us! His Church is so perfectly organized that, never for a moment are we without Divine protection! And in order to better realize how important this Church is in our lives, let us ask ourselves this one question; what did Christ come to save us from? And what has this divine, Catholic Church been saving us from, these last 2000 years?

The answer is this; everything that Jesus did in this world, & everything that the Church has been doing over the last 2000 years, has to do with saving people from Hell! The only reason that Jesus came to earth was to pay off our sins, & save us from Hell! When our first parents sinned, God immediately promised to send a Redeemer to redeem the human race! If God had not sent us His divine Redeemer, we'd all be lost! Everything God does for us, will help us get to Heaven! This Church is God's greatest gift to us, because it's the one & only road to Heaven!

The Old Covenant couldn't get anyone to Heaven! It was only meant to prepare the Chosen Race for the coming of the Promised Savior! The Old Covenant could not forgive a single sin! Everything had to wait for the Redeemer, & that's why Jesus had to suffer & die for our sins, because it was the only way to pay them off! Then Jesus make a New Covenant with His people & established this New Church, because, the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant had no power at all to forgive sin! Only the Church of the New Covenant has this power! That's why Jesus had to build this Church of the New Covenant, which does have divine power to forgive sin! The difference between the Old & New Covenants is in the priesthood!

The priests of the Old Covenant did not have the power to forgive a single sin, while the priests of the New Covenant really do have the power to forgive sins! Before Christ established His New Covenant & priesthood, nobody can be saved! So the power to forgive sins is the most important power that Catholic priests have! With the help of the Seven Sacraments & the graces that Christ earned for us on the cross, every repentant sinner can now have all his sins forgiven! Even the worst sinner in the world, when he repents & then confesses his sins to a priest, will have all his sins forgiven! Sins are our greatest obstacle on our road to salvation!

So always remember that the Sacrament of Confession is God's greatest gift to mankind! It is the only hospital in the world, where sick souls are made well again! So this is the main point I wanted to put across today, by pointing out what a special Church Christ gave to us members of the New Covenant! Christ had to build this special Church, because no other kind of church can save us!

Dear Friends! Our Catholic Church has many other powers, besides the power to forgive sins, but today I stayed only on the topic of sin & confession because even Christ said that --- there is no one without sin, --- no not one!

So today, I explained the most important facts about sin & salvation, & why we must belong to this extraordinary Church to be saved, & never to take our salvation lightly! Christ lives in the Tabernacle of His Church & speaks to us through His Church, so it stands to reason that everyone who believes what the Catholic Church teaches, we will be saved! Slava….

Palm Sunday

2011-04-17T02:34:00.001-07:00

Apr. 17th, (Sun.) 2011: "Palm Sunday" (Phil. 4:4-9) (Jn. 12:1-18)

Dear friends in Christ! Hosanna to the King of Israel!

Today we have arrived at Palm Sunday & right after this we go into Holy Week, to walk with Jesus, step by step, as Gospel after Gospel describes Jesus' awful betrayal by Judas, His Apostle, followed by His mock trial before Pilate who sentenced Him to death, & finally, Jesus' "awesome Sacrifice of Love" on Calvary, on Good Friday! Dur-ing Holy Week, many unexpected things happen to Jesus in quick succession!

Today He is greeted so enthusiastically by a large group of people who loved & admired Him & really wanted to make Him their king, so as soon as they heard Jesus is approaching Jerusalem, they got all excited, & broke off palm branches, & went to meet Him, knowing precisely how to welcome a king into the city in the official manner! They waved the palm branches & chanted: "Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna to the King of Israel!" The words themselves come from those Psalms which foretold the coming of God's Messiah!

These words of greeting were taken from those Psalms that foretold how Messiah would enter Jerusalem, riding on a donkey's colt on which no one else had ever sat, & there is great significance even to that! These people of Jerusalem were inspired by God to spread their garments before him, because you must do that when receiving a king! If a great king came in peace, he would ride a donkey colt exactly like Jesus did, but if a king comes as a conqueror, then he rides a great, white stallion!

Anyhow, although this group of greeters was quite large, it still doesn't mean that everybody else in Jerusalem was in the same mood as they were, because when the Phar-isees, who hated Jesus, saw what a royal welcome Jesus got, they were shocked at what a large number of the people wanted Jesus to be their king! So Jesus had to be destroyed very quickly! They must destroy Jesus very quickly, or else He will be made king for sure! They just had a preview of how quickly Jesus could become King of Israel, if they didn't destroy Him quickly!

In the past, the Scribes tried many times to make Jesus look stupid in front of the people, but it always backfired! Because every time they tried it, Jesus always managed to turn the tables on them, & it was the Scribes & Pharisees who ended up looking foolish! Now that these people wanted Jesus to be their king, not only were the Pharisees worried, but also those businessmen & traders that Jesus had driven out of the Temple with a whip, so the entire Jewish leadership knew they must move quickly!

Dear friends! Many of you know the basic story of how Jesus entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, but what I'm doing is explaining why the priests, Scribes & Pharisees were suddenly in such a panic to kill Him! As for the Apostles, I don't think any of them had the slightest idea how quickly Jesus' life would end! Jesus might very well have been the only person that knew exactly what was happening!

But back to ourselves for a minute, I think it's very good for us to know that God loved us so much that He'd want to send His own Son from heaven to earth, sacrifice Himself for us on the cross, because there was no other way to save us! Anyhow, right after Palm Sunday, things began to move quickly against Jesus! First He was betrayed, then arrested & after a short trial, sentenced to die, & first thing you know, He's already dragging that huge cross up the hill to Calvary!

After the crucifixion, a great fear came over the bewildered Apostles & with Jesus being executed with such hatred, their whole world seemed to have collapsed around them! So they took refuge in some upper room & kept out of sight for fear of the Jews, & we don't hear any more about them until early on Easter Sunday! But that is for another time!

But what I will do, is show you how deadly sin is! Sin is what brought all those woes upon the world! Just consider for a minute how many barriers sin had built & placed between God & us! In order to clear the way between us & heaven, it was necessary for Jesus to suffer exactly as He did! You can't dismantle the sin-barriers with a hammer & claw bar! Jesus was forced to dismantle all those barriers through all His suffering & humiliation, & with His last drop of Blood!

Let us remember that with his very first sin of disobedience, Adam shut the gates of Heaven against the entire human race! With that very first sin, Satan gained posses-sion of all the earth, & brought death into being, with the power to imprison every soul in some kind of a dark underworld! Jesus came to break all these chains & fetters, & to clear out our road to heaven, but it cost Him very dearly!

Today however, we are given to see how much the ordinary people craved for a really good king, who would love them, protect them & look after them, & they saw all those qualities in Jesus! They welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem in their own name, & invited Him to be their king! Alas, it was not to be! This time Judas betrayed Jesus & all the hopes of good people, for a measly 30 pieces of silver! Another sin came through Judas & destroyed all the hopes of these poor people who just wanted to have a good king for a change!

So here we have hundreds of decent people waving palms in welcome before the King of kings, while at the same time, Judas the traitor was making a deal with others as evil as himself, to hand Jesus over to them! That's how ugly sin is!

Dear friends! There is only a limited amount of peace & happiness for us in this world, because we're here to prove ourselves before God! But we also know that real & everlasting happiness will be ours in the next world if we remain true to Jesus & follow the teaching of the Catholic Church! We have everything going for us, & we can all be in heaven for all eternity, by remaining faithful to Christ in this life! Let us never take our eyes & mind off that eternal reward that Christ promised to His faithful! And I wish to you & yours a very happy Easter!

Lenten Mission Homily

2011-04-09T17:50:00.001-07:00

GIMLI PARISH MISSION, APRIL 9th, 2011:

Dear Friends in Christ!

The whole season of Lent is a special time of divine grace, when we Catholics are encouraged to take stock of our relationship with God & of our spiritual life! For some of us, this may be when we make our annual visit to a Catholic Book Store & add another good book or two on Catholic spirituality, with which to curl up on the chesterfield, in order to recharge our spiritual batteries with holy reading! Nothing else can draw us closer to God like a good book can!

The high point of a good & fulfilling Lent is usually reached at the parish Mission, during which we get to hear an inspiring mission homily that is designed to put us in the right mood to make a really good Easter confession! As long as we try to follow the guidelines of the Church & participate in the special Liturgies of this holy season, especially Missions like these, we are sure to become revitalized by the many divine graces that God pours out upon His people during Mission! God always wants what is good for us, so at every Mission, God sends divine graces upon the participants, to re-enforce your faith to face future challenges!

Divine grace is the first thing we must have in order to build up our spiritual def-enses, & these graces can only come to us through the Seven Sacraments of the Church! All of these Sacraments are necessary for our salvation, but out of the seven, there are two that we need to receive quite often! The first is the Sacram-ent of Confession, when the priest forgives & absolves you of all your sins! Christ gave to His priests the power to forgive any & every sin! Even though the priest is still just another human being, but yet, through the Sacrament of Ordination, every Catholic priest in the world has the absolute power to forgive any & every sin that is confessed to him! Every Catholic priest in the world has this power to forgive sins! There are no exceptions! When you confess your sins & hear the priest say the words of absolution, you know that every sin you confessed, no longer exists! That is the power of every Catholic priest!

The second very important Sacrament that we should try to receive often, is, Holy Eucharist, or Holy Communion, which is always available to you at every Mass, or Divine Liturgy! In receiving Holy Communion, you always receive Our Lord Jesus Christ! When you hear the priest pronounce the words of consecration, This is My Body, & This is My Blood, each piece of bread on the Altar changes immediately & entirely into Our Lord Jesus Christ! It still looks like bread & tastes like bread, but it is no longer bread! Every piece of bread is now Jesus! Every Host is truly Jesus!

Jesus loved us so much that He wanted us to receive Him as food! When He was giving His Apostles this awesome power, He used very precise words! "He who believes in me, has eternal life! He that eats my flesh & drinks my blood has everlasting life and I will raise him up on the last day! For my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed! He who eats my flesh & drinks my blood, abides in me, and I abide in him! So that's what Holy Communion is, & why it is so necessary for our salvation! For a little while after receiving Holy Communion, you & Jesus are one!

So whatever comes to us from God & through the Catholic Church, has all the graces we need to grow in holiness! The only thing we have to be careful about, is, to receive Holy Communion worthily! Whenever we receive Holy Communion worthily, we always increase our faith & become more resistant to those many temptations that we must face in our daily lives! That is why a Pastor makes such an effort to obtain the services of another priest or two, to help with the Easter Confessions, because the graces that result from a good confession are immeas-urable! Almost without exception, whoever sincerely repents of his sins & then makes a sincere, heart-felt confession, such a person leaves the confessional with the awesome feeling that some kind of a great weight had just been lifted from his mind & body!

Although sin is no longer taken as seriously as it should be, it will always be the greatest danger to man's salvation! Christ knew how easily sin can separate man from God, & it was probably that the main reason why He needed to build this Church & establish the Catholic priesthood, because if it wasn't for this Church & the Catholic Priesthood, there would have been no other way to free sinners from sin! So, although sin is still dangerous to our salvation, we are very well protected by the Catholic Church & Her priests!

Consider for a moment what an amazing Church we have! Today, as you worship in this little church, in a small Manitoba town, you have the assurance of knowing that every Catholic in the world, regardless of where he may live, believes exactly the same things about God that we do! Every Catholic in the world knows that Jesus is the Son of God! Every Catholic in the world attends the same Mass, or Divine Worship as we do! Every Catholic in the world knows he is receiving Jesus into his heart when he receives Holy Communion! And every Catholic knows that the Divine Liturgy, or Mass, is the most perfect act of worship that human beings can possibly offer to God! Our Church & worship are simply perfect!

So if the Divine Liturgy is so perfect, then what is it that makes it so perfect? For sure it's a very holy form of worship, but what makes it so holy & so acceptable to God? How about a full explanation? Or to frame the question still differently, what is the Divine Liturgy?

Here goes! The Divine Liturgy is not only a means of worshipping God, but is the actual re-enactment of Jesus' Sacrifice on Calvary, but in an un-bloody manner, on the Catholic Altar! Since we bring all the merits of Calvary to our Catholic Altars at every Divine Liturgy, it is the re-enactment of the One and Only Sacrifice on Calvary! Jesus does not suffer and die every time we have the Divine Liturgy! He died only once and for all, but at the words of Consecration, the priest brings Jesus to his Altar, together with all the very same merits that He gained for us 2000 years ago, & the priest then has the power to offer all these merits to God in atonement for our sins!

Why am I going to so much trouble to explain the mystery of the Mass, or the Divine Liturgy? Simply because whoever fully understands what a huge mystery takes place during the consecration of the bread & wine, would never, ever dream of not attending the Divine Liturgy every Sunday! Never believe for an instant that the Divine Liturgy is just another way of worship, among many other ways! Catholic worship is from God, while every other form of worship is some kind of man-made concoction!

So since every Divine Liturgy has exactly the same value as the first Sacrifice that Jesus made on Calvary, where He sacrificed Himself, His life, & His last drop of Blood on the cross, to redeem us of our sins, you can clearly see what an infinite mystery the Divine Liturgy is! Jesus designed this sacrificial form of worship in such a way that, whoever attends a Divine Liturgy & participates in it, receives of the graces that Jesus earned for us on Calvary! But mind you, you have to actually participate in every Mass, not just watch as other people do it!

So let me repeat this very important point: Our Lord Jesus Christ spent three years teaching & preparing His Apostles, because He wanted them to understand what great & divine powers He was giving them, when He changed those twelve fishermen into priests of The New Covenant! Jesus also wants all His people to understand that the Divine Liturgy is the re-enactment of Calvary, except in an un-bloody manner! Jesus arranged it this way, because He wants his priests to keep re-enacting the Sacrifice of Calvary, right to the end of the world, & offer those infinite merits to His Father in atonement for sins!

And there is more! After setting up this Divine Worship, Jesus did still more! Ten days after He ascended to heaven, He sent His Holy Spirit upon His Apostles, so that His Church would have a Divine Guide & Protector, also to the very end of the world! That is why the Catholic Church can never teach error! A few bishops or priests can make mistakes, of course, but The Official Catholic Church can never be wrong when teaching faith & morals! And why did Jesus put so many protections in place? He did it so that the whole world may always know where to find the truth, & where to go, to worship God in the proper manner, & where the Sacrifice of Calvary is always made present in an un-bloody manner & then offered to God in atonement for sins!

Dear Friends! Untold thousands of Masses & Divine Liturgies are being offered all over the world, every day of the year! At every hour & from every part of the world, these Sacrificial Liturgies rise from Catholic Altars, to God in Heaven, in atonement for the sins of the faithful! Holy Mother Church has thousands of sinners in Her bosom, & yet, all of our worship is perfect & holy, because the Catholic Church is from God!

So, now that you know how much God loves us, & how holy He is, how much He's done for us, & how perfect our worship is, you should take every precaution to participate worthily in the Divine Liturgy, as well as receiving Him worthily in Holy Communion! It would be a very good practice to come to church a half hour early every Sunday & spend that time in silent prayer to such a loving God! You will find that it is standard practice in many churches, for people to come early & do silent prayers!

In closing, how many of you know what is the most perfect time during the Divine Liturgy to make a special petition to God? Because if you join your petition to that of the priest, God is sure to give you every consideration! The most perfect moment to join your petition to that of the priest, is right after the Consecration, when the priest, together with Jesus, offer all the "Merits of Calvary" to the Heavenly Father, in atonement for the sins of the world! Join your petition to that of the priest when you hear him say: "We offer to you, Yours of Your own, in behalf of all, and for all!" That is the most sacred moment of the entire Mass, when you should join your hearts, together with your personal petitions to that offering! At that moment, the Heavenly Father can hardly refuse any petition that is joined to the Sacrifice of Calvary!

No Catholic in the world, once he understands all these things about the Catholic Divine Liturgy, would ever dream of missing church on Sunday! As for Holy Communion, the most important thing is to receive Jesus worthily, & frequent Confession is the only guaranteed way to purify our hearts & souls, God's way!

Healing the epileptic

2011-04-02T19:38:00.001-07:00

Apr. 3rd, (Sun.) 2011: "Heal epileptic" (Heb. 6:13-20) (Mk. 9:17-31)

Dear Friends in Christ!

We come to church like this to worship God through the Divine Liturgy & to hear in the Gospel readings the same words that Jesus spoke to His Apostles & disciples 2000 years ago, & also how often He reprimanded the Scribes & Pharisees who were so opposed to Him! We also hear of the great healing miracles He worked before the crowds that followed Him wherever He went! But He worked the greatest miracle of all, just before returning to heaven, when built this Holy Church for us upon Peter the Rock! He then set up this Church in such a marvelous way that people today, receive the fullness of His teaching just as His first listeners did, 2000 years ago! Through all these centuries, His words continued to reach His people unchanged! Even in today's Gospel, when admonishing the people for their lack of faith, you get the eerie feeling that His words are directed at us, every bit as much as at the first people that heard them!

Today as Jesus returned to His disciples, He found them surrounded by a large crowd & the Scribes were questioning them! When the people saw Jesus, they ran up and greeted Him, and Jesus asked the scribes what were they discussing with His disciples, but at that moment one man stepped up & said; Master, I have brought you my son, possessed by a dumb spirit who torments him until he foams, gnashes his teeth & wastes away! I asked your disciples to cast him out, but they could not. Jesus answered him & said, "O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him to me." And they brought him, and when he saw him, straightway the spirit attacked the boy, who fell to the ground, foaming! Jesus then asked his father how long this has been going on, & the father replied, "Since childhood! He often casts him into the fire & into the waters, as if trying to destroy him: but if you can do anything for the boy, have compassion on us!

Jesus said to him, If you believe, all things are possible to him that believes!" And straightway the father cried out, and said with tears: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" When Jesus saw the people running up, he rebuked the foul spirit, & said to him, "Deaf & dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him, & do not enter into him again!" And the spirit cried out, threw the boy to the ground, as if dead! But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he rose. Later, when he was in the house, his disciples asked him privately, why they could not cast him out, and Jesus answered, "This kind can only be expelled by prayer and fasting!"

in this scene, Jesus managed to arrive just in time to save the day, because while he was on the mountain with Peter, James & John, His other disciples stayed behind to deal with the crowds that came to hear Jesus & to be healed by Him! As it happened, they were asked to expel this deaf & dumb spirit, but were not able to! A few weeks earlier, Jesus had given his apostles "authority over unclean spirits, & they had already cast out many devils, so why couldn't they expel this one? Why couldn't they cast this one out? Apparently, a big part of the problem was due to the lack of faith of the people! Their lack of faith prevented this exorcism from happening!

Dear friends, that is only one example of the importance of having a strong faith, because in a lifetime, we are bound to run into all kinds of unexpected surprises! Some of the surprises are going to be pleasant & memorable, but others will test our Catholic faith to the limit, & yet, all trials are good for us, so long as our faith doesn't snap when we need it most! These trials & bad situations are what shape & build character & make us real Catholics! Our faith becomes strong from coping with the many trials that God sends our way! Trials are good for us, if they make our faith stronger! This poor boy & his father endured years of demonic possession, all because they had too little faith!

However, through this crisis, Jesus was also showing His disciples how necessary it was to have a very strong faith, because, although He was already sending them in pairs by themselves, to preach in the surrounding towns & villages, but He also gave them power to heal the sick & cast out devils! That's why, even though Jesus was not there, the father asked the Apostles to drive out this deaf & dumb spirit, but none of them could! Then, as soon as Jesus returned, the father begged Him to heal his boy, ---- if He could! Anyhow, Jesus expelled the devil with one command, & the boy became perfectly normal again!

However, you heard how upset Jesus was at the lack of faith in these people, & He criticized them with very strong words: "What an unbelieving & perverse lot you are! How much longer do I have to talk & preach to you? When are you going to believe everything I say, & when will you actually start living according to My teaching?" Later that evening, the Apostles came to Jesus, but in secret to find out why they could not expel that devil themselves! After all, they had already been given the power to heal & expel devils in Jesus' name, so why couldn't they expel this one?

Dear friends! The answer to that one has to do with why Jesus was so upset with the crowd for not having enough faith! After all, he'd been teaching about two years already, & He wasn't doing all the miracles & teaching only for the benefit of His Apostles & disciples! He was teaching everyone, right out in the open, because His teaching can save every sinner who hears His words, & believe in Him! Because whoever wishes to go to heaven, must believe Jesus is God, & believe His every word & then keep His Commandments!

So it's not enough for only the leaders of the Church to believe in JESUS & keep His Command-ments! Every person that wants to be in heaven must also believe in Jesus & then live according to His Commandments! So I repeat, everyone must believe in Jesus, & act the way a Catholic is supposed to act! Every Catholic must strive to know, love & serve God faithfully in this life, & if he does, then for sure he will spend his eternity in Heaven! Every Catholic must believe this & live accordingly, if he wants to be sure of heaven! But our salvation starts with faith! Everybody in the world needs a good, solid, Catholic faith!

Dear friends, Jesus healed hundreds of sick people, but did you also notice that He'd almost always ask the person first: "Do you believe I can heal you?" And the sick person would always reply: "Yes Lord!" after which the person was instantly cured! So that's how important our faith is to Him! He didn't even like to work miracles in front of people who didn't have enough faith! He scolded them for their lack of faith: "What an unbelieving bunch you are, & how much longer do I have to be with you? Faith can only come to us if we pray for it, because faith is not of this world! Faith is always a gift from God, so if we want a strong faith, you must keep praying for it!

So Jesus wants us to have a strong faith, & I explained that if we want a strong faith, we must ask God for it! So the more we pray, the stronger our faith! Let us keep praying!

Take up your cross

2011-03-27T01:08:00.001-07:00

Mar. 27th, (Sun.) 2011: "If a man wishes to come after Me," (Gal. 2:16-20) (Mk. 8:34-9:1)

Dear Friends in Christ!

Today Jesus sets out a Divine challenge before us, by describing the kind of followers He wants! He wants committed followers who are not afraid to make sacrifices in His name! Actually, such a request is not at all unusual, because every leader likes to have brave & dedicated soldiers on his team! Jesus is different, however, because He is talking about a spiritual commitment! "If anyone wishes to follow after Me, let him first deny himself, take up his cross, and then he will be fully qualified to follow in my footsteps!" Then, Jesus explains why!

"If anyone is going to be focused mainly on protecting, comforting & pampering his body, he will end up losing his soul! But when a man is focused only on saving his soul, it stands to reason that he will save it! Anyone who is ready to sacrifice his bodily comforts, & even his life, for My sake, or for the Gospel's sake, will save his soul! So every once in a while we need to have it all sorted out ahead of time, which things are more important to you; is it eternal salvation, or the material comforts of this world? For what will it profit a man, even if he does gain the whole world, but loses his soul?"

Sometimes we are lucky enough to have them both, but at other times we might have to choose one or the other, so Jesus is saying that nothing in the world is worth as much as one, eternal soul, the kind that each one of us has! So, He's as much as saying, if someone traded you the whole world for your soul, he'd be getting a real bargain, because the soul is eternal, while the world is not! Consider it still another way, even if you actually did own the whole world for a while, your pleasure would only last a few years, & after that you'd have nothing! But if you could just get your soul into Heaven, then you know you'll be happy forever!

Today I will return to my other theme, on how much God had to love us, in order to send His own Son to earth, as the long awaited Savior! All the angels came from heaven to earth to sing "glory to the Newborn King", but then, only 33 years later, Jesus showed the world that His love for us has no limits, when He paid off all the sins of the world with His last drop of Blood! The price of redemption was so terribly high, & yet, He was so happy to pay the price! So that is how much He loves us! So even in today's Gospel He's telling us not to be confused about the real value of things! He's saying in today's Gospel that we are sure to save our souls if we love Him with everything we've got! If He so willingly to give His last drop of Blood for us, we should be just as willing to make big sacrifices for Him!

Since we all wish to go to heaven when we die, our life should be one of loving & serving God to the best of our ability! That is the sure road to Heaven! Human beings are very weak, of course, & God knows how weak we are, because He made us like that! He made us that way on purpose! Although He made us so weak, He still made us in His own image & likeness, because He made us for Heaven! So although we humans are so weak, we're still very special creatures, because God also gave us an eternal soul to protect & bring to heaven! So in spite of our weakness He gave us full responsibility for saving our soul, by giving us something else that only God & the angels have; a free will!

What a wonderful thing that free will is! That means we are responsible for every choice we make! We can decide to face the world in our weakness & lose our souls, or we can choose to stay close to God all of our lives, & get to heaven for sure! So even in our weakness, we are free to make good decisions & choices! Even in our weakness, we still know that we will get to heaven for sure, if we just stay close to God all of our lives! Jesus will never force us to go to heaven, but He made sure that everybody knows how to get there!

Anyhow, everybody knows how Jesus paid off our sins on the cross, & how by His resurrection, He reopened the gates of Heaven! He made sure we all know how to make it safely to heaven! But that decision is ours, because we have a free will! We use our free will hundreds of times every day, by making hundreds of choices during our lives! It is by these daily choices that we keep proving to God how much we really love Him! At first glance, it does seem so simple & easy, but we soon find out that there are God's rules to follow! Because our decisions must all conform to the rules that God laid out for us in the Ten Commandments! Even the smallest choices must be made in accordance with the Ten Commandments, & that's when we must turn to this Church that Christ built for us! We'd all be lost if it wasn't for the graces we get through the Sacraments of our Catholic Church! We need other help as well, but everybody needs graces to be saved, & graces come only through the Sacraments of the Catholic Church!

We all need the graces that come to us through the Sacraments of the Church, because they will help us to make the right decisions! Even then we need more help! In our weakness, we will always need help to get to heaven! We should ask the saints to pray for us! We need to keep asking Jesus for help! We need to keep asking Mary for help! And we will always need the Sacraments of the Catholic Church to be saved! Christ knew how much help we would need, & that's why He built this Church for us! This Church tells us how to stay on the road to Heaven, & if we sin, the priest has the power to forgive your sins & give you a fresh start! What a wonderful church we have!

But even that wasn't enough to save everyone! Jesus knew that some people would still fall through the cracks, so to say! So what did Jesus do next? Even as He was hanging on the cross, He still figured out how to save a few more souls! Even as He hung on the cross, Jesus still made His Mother our Mother, because as long as we have her for our mother, She will still manage to obtain hundreds of graces & blessings for us, that we could never get any other way! So Jesus provided all this extra help for us, because He knows that we need it!

Dear friends! In spite of all this help that's always available to us, everything still depends on us! Everything depends on how we use our free will! Although our freewill puts us on a par with the angels of Heaven, yet, if we don't keep a very tight rein on that "free will", it can be the greatest danger for our salvation! We have to make sure that our freewill is very strong, but it must be strong only for God! We have to make sure our freewill is strong enough to resist every evil temptation, because having a weak willpower can put us in Hell! We must make sure our willpower is strong only for God!

In today's Gospel, Jesus is showing us the sure way to heaven! "If anyone wishes to follow Me, the first thing to do is get rid of every false notion! Start living only for Me!"

Dear friends! How could Jesus possibly suffer so much for us? The answer is so simple! That's how much He loved us! Are we also then, ready to suffer for our faith if necessary? Slava …

Deanery Lecture

2011-03-24T15:50:00.001-07:00

Lecture at a Priests Deanery Meeting:

Important reflections on the 'Priesthood of the New Covenant'(1)

Dear Fellow Priests!
Watch and pray, urged Our Lord in the garden: "Are you sleeping? Can you not watch one hour? Watch & pray that you may not fall into temptation!" My friends, one person may have the luck to slip up ten times in a row & nobody even notices, while the next man, if he has the luck of the Irish, can make his very first mistake & winds up in a terrible mess! But back to this later!

As Catholic priests, we know that our entire purpose for being priests is the salvation of souls! Christ Himself came from heaven to earth only to save all those immortal souls that were compromised by the disobedience of our first parents! Our first responsibility of course, is to the souls that our bishop commits to our care, but in addition to that, God has been known to place an extra soul or two in our path, to take under our wing, so to speak! God does not send us these lost sheep very often, but when He does, we are reminded anew that Our Lord is still rescuing lost sheep, even today, albeit with the collaboration of His priests! However, since this topic is too big to deal with today, it should be on our agenda at some future meeting.

Anyhow, every soul is precious to Our Lord & since our priesthood is all about saving souls, it should not surprise anyone that Jesus would want to bring a few "lost sheep' to the attention of His priests! These little "surprises of God" may not happen often, but often enough to be consider-ed a normal part of our priesthood! Anyhow, the highest duty of a Catholic priest is the salvation of souls, because the highest law of the Church is also the salvation of souls! This law is so well known that whenever the Church is dealing with difficult canonical problem, the first consideration is always this; which way will contribute the most to the salvation of souls? So saving souls is the highest law of the Catholic Church.

Why is it so important to know these things? Because a priest cannot afford to be confused about anything! Priests are only human, but yet we are sent out into the world by Christ to preach, teach & sanctify others, and to bring them to God. Everything we do is geared to that one purpose, bringing souls to God. As we celebrate the Divine Liturgy & dispense the Sacraments of the Church, we are serving God and saving souls, but in order to function most effectively, we need to appreciate the extent of our priestly dignity & then keep telling it to our people, because the more people understand the true nature of Catholic priesthood, the more they will appreciate the worth of their own immortal soul.

To that end, I have found that it's a very beneficial to give a sermon on this topic at least once a year, (perhaps during Lent) to instill in people's minds what a serious thing sin really is, how to make a good confession, & then, after the sin has been confessed & forgiven, why there is need for further atonement, even after a good confession. I found that if I spoke on this once a year, such a sermon is always well received, because people do need to be reminded that priests are always trying to save souls!

Catholics must understand that the Catholic Church is not just one church among many, because this is the Church that Christ built. Catholics should also see themselves as truly "God's people of the New Covenant!" And lets not be confused about the two Covenants! The Old Covenant that God had made with Moses & Israel was concluded at the moment Jesus died on the cross, and was replaced by this New Covenant of Our Lord Jesus Christ! So the Old Covenant had run its full course, fulfilled its purpose & was then replaced by this New Covenant, and so, we Catholics are the people of the New Covenant.

The Catholic priesthood, which is the official priesthood of the New Coven-ant, is the perfect priesthood, with absolute power to forgive & absolve sins in Jesus' name, & after we have forgiven the sins confessed to us, we priests have the further powers to re-enact the one and only, most perfect Sacrifice of Calvary upon our Altars, & then offer all the merits of Calvary to God, in atonement for the sins of the people! I will go more into this in a minute.

What defines a priest? A priest is one who is especially ordained to offer sacrifice to God on behalf of the people! Catholic priests have other powers as well, but the definition of a priest is one who offers sacrifice to God on behalf of the people! Catholic priests offer only one kind of Sacrifice! The sacrifice Catholic priests offer to God, is, that one & only Sacrifice on the cross that Jesus offered to God on Calvary! So, with the words of Consecr-ation, we bring Our Lord Jesus Christ to our Altar, together with all those merits He gained for us on Calvary, & then we have the awesome power to keep re-offering all those infinite merits to God, on behalf of our people!

The priests of the Old Covenant had none of the powers that we have! They did not have the power to forgive sins, & neither could their burnt offerings atone for any of the sins of their people, because the blood of animals could not possibly atone for any sin committed by an act of human will against an infinitely Holy God! How could sacrificing a dumb animal atone for a willful sin committed by a rational, human being?

But before I go any further on this, I want to make sure there are no wrong notions in regards to these two things; the forgiving of sins, which takes place during a Sacramental Confession, & the power to atone for sins, which we priests exercise whenever we offer a Mass, or the Divine Liturgy! Because these are completely different things! Power to forgive sins is very easy to understand! The sinner must repent of his sins, then confess them before a priest, accept the prescribed penance & the priest absolves him of all his sins! At the words of absolution, the sins cease to exist!

Atonement is an altogether different thing. Atonement has to do with repairing all the harm, or fall-out that had been caused by the sin! Even though the sin was already forgiven, there is that further damage that you are still responsible for! For example, lets say you & your friends were playing ball beside my house & you broke my window! So you have no choice but to knock on my door, tell me how sorry you are, & beg forgiveness! And of course I forgive you for using bad judgment & for being so careless around my property, however, I still expect you to clean up the broken glass and install a new window at your own expense, & then paint it to match the rest of the house! That is atonement!

Confessing your sin is the easy part. The harder part is making atonement, or restitution, after that! So, because you caused some harm or damage with your sin, everybody has some atoning to do after that!

Now sin is always an act of disobedience against some Commandment of God, so at least part of your atoning must be to God for every sin you have committed, because as I said, sin is always an act of disobedience against some Commandment of God! On top of that, if your sin happened to cause any public scandal, then there is also that to atone for as well, etc, etc.

You can do a lot of atoning through prayers, fasting, almsgiving, attending Divine Liturgies, but especially by offering Divine Liturgies, and that's why people ask the priest offer so many Divine Liturgies for the deceased and for the intentions of the living! Everybody needs to be doing some atoning for something or other, & that's why we should be in the habit of praying for each other, especially for our departed.

On the topic of sins, there is one more misconception I wish to touch on. Some people think that sins are forgiven during the celebration of Divine Liturgies, & this notion derives from the words of Consecration, when the Celebrant says: "…. This is My Body, which is broken for you, for the forgiveness of sins!" Also, "…. For you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins!" But it needs to be understood that only the small, or so-called 'venial' sins are forgiven during a Divine Liturgy, but not the bigger sins. All the bigger sins must be confessed before a priest, in order to be forgiven!

We priests of the New Covenant have all these powers that the priests of the Old Covenant never had! And we have all these powers only because Jesus gained them for us on the cross, & because Jesus knew we'd need all these powers in order to save souls. So, our priestly powers were gained for us on the cross, the most awesome of which is, the power to bring the 'Sacrifice of Calvary' upon the Altar during every Divine Liturgy, & then to offer all the merits of Calvary to God, on behalf of the people we serve! We will keep doing that for as long as we live! Every priest does!

My friends, even though the devil manages to cause a certain amount of scandal in the Church, that is no cause for us to look for a corner to hide in. We were ordained to save souls, & the people need to know that we're always doing that! Furthermore, the people need to be reminded that they have the duty to always pray for their bishops & priests! Most important of all, the people must have full confidence in their priests! So first of all, a priest must believe in himself & in his priestly powers, because hundreds of souls have no one else to depend on, except us! But we have to keep one thing in mind ourselves, that, the people will never know all these things about the powers of a priest, if we do not keep telling them!

Scandals are challenges that we must face and overcome by carrying out our priestly duties to the best of our ability. God will do the rest!

Nathaniel

2011-03-13T04:19:00.001-07:00

Feb. 21st, (Sun.) 2010: "Nathanael/fig tree" (Heb. 11:24-26,12:2) (Jn. 1:43-51)

Dear Friends in Christ! First Sunday in Lent

Even when you do not fully understand the reasons for all the Liturgies we do during Lent, everyone still gets the feeling that Lent is a very special season during which we have an obligation to muster up enough courage to do a certain amount of fasting! We don't have to be Scripture Scholars, or Theologians to understand that the Church wants us to do a certain amount of fasting! And the Church has very good reasons for encouraging us to fast because, fasting is a self-purifying form of sacrifice & if & when we decide to fast, let's fast in such a way, that it will be pleasing to God!

Some people think that it's hard enough to just abstain from certain prohibited foods, but such thinking is not even worthy of a Christian! On the other hand, even the smallest amount of fasting can be very meritorious before God, if we're doing it to please God! In fact, only a few days ago, in the Gospel of St. Mathew, Jesus was telling His Apostles how to fast & how not to fast! He told them to wash their faces & not to look glum, because nobody else besides God should know that you are fasting! That should be a secret between you & God! He told His Apostles that no one should even suspect that they are fasting!

Lenten fasting is not only about food, because we should try to fast with all our senses! Fasting from food is always first on the list, because that's the simplest way to atone for the sins that come through the mouth! It can also help to offset the present day tendency to overeating, gourmet dining & careless speech, so for these forty days we should make every effort to at least deprive ourselves of the most tasty & appetizing food! You don't have to starve yourself, but choose what to give up!

However, it's a very good thing to mortify the other senses, too! At times we may have offended God with our eyes, by watching bad programs on TV, or looking at bad bill-boards & at various forms of nakedness! During Lent, make every effort to refuse to look at anything that no Christian should look at! So that's another way to please God this Lent!

To state it very simply, the Church wants us to take stock of our relationship with God, & either make some corrections, or somehow control certain weaknesses until we're fully satisfied that we have regained full control over ourselves! So Lent is our opportunity to grade ourselves on our relationship with God, & make a real effort to control our senses until none of them can offend God, anymore! Lent is the time to regain total control of our five senses! If we're serious about improving our relationship with God, we're sure to make a very good Lent!

And now, I'd like to introduce you to Holy Scriptures, by giving just one example of how interesting & fulfilling it can be to read the Bible, especially when you're trying to understand all the finest details! That's why it pays to buy one of the Commentary Books, or Bible Study books, because they really concentrate on the smallest details!

So for instance, now that we're already into Lent, & approaching the Passion & crucifixion of Our Lord, we know that after the crucifixion, Jesus' Body was first wrapped in a white linen burial winding-sheet, & then laid in the tomb! Everybody knows that, but did you ever pick up on another small detail, that, Jesus' Head was covered with still another piece of linen, about the size of a "table napkin!" And here we come to the most amazing part of all: when Jesus Resurrected back to life, the winding-sheet was thrown aside, but He folded up the table-napkin very neatly & laid it at the head of that stony coffin! There is always a very deep meaning to every-thing God does, so some Scripture Scholars wondered what was the significance of that folded napkin?

So to understand the significance of that folded napkin, the Scripture Scholars made a very thorough study of all the Jewish customs of those days, just to unlock the meaning of that neatly folded napkin, especially when the Bible takes a whole verse to tell us that the little napkin was neatly folded & then placed at the head of the coffin! The Bible says that early Sunday morning, while it was still quite dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb & found that the great stone had been rolled away from the entrance! So she ran & found Simon Peter & the other Disciple that Jesus loved, & said: "They have taken the Lord's Body out of the tomb & I don't know where they have put Him!" So Simon-Peter & the other Apostle ran to the tomb! Peter went inside & saw the winding sheet tossed aside, while the table napkin was neatly folded! So why did Jesus fold up that napkin & what was He telling us by that? Now here is what they discovered:

In those days, every king & wealthy man has servants, & a table napkin was a very important signal from the master to his servant, in ancient Jewish tradition! Whenever the servant sets the dinner table for his master, he makes sure it was laid out exactly the way the master wanted it! The table must be perfectly furnished, & everything set out in its proper place, & then the servant would remain out of sight, until the master was finished eating!

Now here is where it gets really interesting! When the master was finished eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers, his mouth, clean his beard, & then toss the napkin on the table & that meant "I'm all finished" so the servant can start clearing the table!

But, if the master got up from the table & folded his napkin neatly & laid it beside his plate, that was the sign for the servant not to touch anything, because "I'm coming back!"

So when Jesus folded up that napkin & laid it on the tomb, He was telling His followers that they will see Him again, because He will be coming back!

forgive/be forgiven

2011-03-05T18:06:00.001-08:00

Mar. 6th, (Sun.) 2011: "Forgive, to be forgiven" (Rom. 13:11 – 14:4) (Mt. 6:14-21)
Dear Friends in Christ!
"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us!" For most of us, the "Our Father prayer" is the first prayer we ever prayed! Our Lord taught the Our Father prayer to His Apostles when they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray properly & since that time our Christian lifestyle has always included forgiving each other's trespasses! If we don't learn to forgive each other, we know that God will not forgive our trespasses against Him!
Let us ask ourselves: what kind of world would we have if there was no forgiveness? What kind of world would we have if no one wanted to forgive? There's this story about two shopkeepers who had stores across the street from each other, & they hated each another for quite a few years. Finally one night the angel of the Lord came to the first shopkeeper and said, "The Lord has promised to grant you a wish, no matter how extravagant it may be. There is only one catch - whatever you ask for, you will receive, but your rival across the street will receive two-fold." So the shopkeeper thinks on it & then replied, "My wish is that you would strike me blind in one eye!"
But then, there is the second story that took place during the American Civil War. President Lincoln was asked, after the war was over, how he would treat those rebellious soldiers who had gone over to fight on the other side! The questioner clearly expected that Lincoln would take out some revenge against them, but the President replied, "I will treat them as if they had never been away!"
So there you have it! Every person in the world has the ability to choose what kind of person he wishes to be, whether he will be the forgiving kind, or the unforgiving kind. A person can nurture his grudges and hatreds to the point of self-destruction or he can forgive those who wronged him, & go on with his life! We can build our lives upon blessings or curses. President Lincoln is still rem-embered to this day as a man of character, but no one remembers the half-blind shopkeeper
Now lets take an example from the Bible. St. Stephen was the very first Christian Martyr, because the Jews stoned him to death for being a follower of Christ & you probably all know how he forgave his executioners, just before the stones began pounding the life out of him. "Lord, do not hold this sin against them," he cried with his last breath! (Acts 7:60). His words of forgiveness were not words of defeat, but words of Christian victory! Consider this: ---- Nobody in the world remembers the kinds of hateful words the mob shouted, but the whole world knows about how Stephen forgave his executioners!
Now I'd like to bring to your attention on how perfect is the Our Father prayer! In spite of being such a short prayer, the words of the Our Father are so perfect, that, our whole Christian faith is modeled around the Our Father prayer! The reason the Our Father is such a perfect prayer, is because it came directly from Jesus Himself! And in spite of being such a short prayer, it still lays out, in the most perfect manner, all the essentials of our faith!
With the first words of Our Father, we glorify God! Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name! Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven! We start by glorifying God!
The next thing we do after that, is tell God that we depend on Him for all our needs! "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." This shows that we are in need of forgiveness just as much as we are in need of our daily bread! Our bodies will soon die without our daily bread, but our souls would die just as quickly if we did not obtain God's forgiveness every day! We need forgiveness from God for our trespasses, but at the same time we must be ready to forgive all those people that trespass against us!
Then, at the very end of that short prayer, we ask yet for God's protection: "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
So, just as today's Gospel is telling us, everybody needs forgiveness, both from God & from each other! I'll finish with another story about a Mexican father in Texas, whose relationship with his son became so strained that the son just ran away from home. The father really did love his son, so he began searching for him, but when he couldn't find him, he put an ad in the local newspaper. The ad read, "Dear Paco, meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon. All is forgiven. I love you. Your father." The next day, there were 800 "Pacos" standing in front of the newspaper office, all of them seeking love & forgiveness from their fathers.
So if that's the kind of a mixed-up world we live in, we probably won't help very many people by accusing them or blaming them, if what they really need is some love & forgiveness!

Last Judgment

2011-02-26T13:28:00.001-08:00

Feb. 27th, (Sun.) 2011: "Last Judgment" (Cor. 8: 8-9:2) (Mt. 25:31-46)

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ!

We can be sure of one thing about the Last Judgment, that, if the Church has been giving this Gospel to all the people of the world for 2000 years already then it's sure to be very traumatic experience! Imagine in your own mind, if you can, when all of a sudden, untold millions of people are being resurrected & then assembled in the air in one location, & then thousands of angels begin to sort them out, -- you, you & you stand on the left side of the great judgment throne, & you & you stand on the right side of the throne!

The Gospel says Christ will sit on a great Judgment seat with all the evil-doers on His left, while the blessed ones are placed on His right! Today's Gospel gives only the most basic reasons as to what sets these two groups apart! Why is it that some will deserve to stand on the right, while others will deserve to stand on the left? Apparently it all depends on how much mercy they had shown to the less fortunate! Many Gospels inform us that God expects us to be merciful to the needy. Today's Gospel says that at the Last Judgment, God will condemn those who have not been merciful to the needy! Christ declares that those who were not merciful to the least of His brethren will not receive any mercy from Him at the Last Judgment!

However, we can also be sure that the last judgment will also deal with every other issue besides mercy, because every good & bad deed will also be addressed at that time, but the most terrible aspect of this great Tribunal is this; every judgment that Christ makes, will be absolutely final! Let me give you just a small example:

In 1944, right after the Second World War, the whole city of Rome was tense & excited, because the former chief of police, a Peter Caruso, was on trial for cruelly murdering several of his prisoners during the war! During the trial, as evidence upon evidence was presented to the court, showing how cruelly he treated his prisoners before murdering them, the man on trial turned pale & even trembled visibly, especially when a medical expert described the condition of the bodies that had been recovered from some kind of a cave.

Ex chief Peter Caruso had to endure a thousand deaths, & the shame & the disgrace of it all, as witness after witness testified how cruel he had been to his prisoners! Witness after witness kept revealing to the world, what the real Peter Caruso was like! At times, Caruso passed his hands before his eyes, as if trying to wipe away the sight of his sins, which were now being revealed to the whole world! His lawyer tried to postpone the trial, but was refused! Peter was judged & sentenced right then & there!

We can say that this trial gives us a small idea of what will happen to every man, woman & child, on that day when the Son of Man comes upon the clouds of Heaven, to judge all the living & the dead! When every deed shall be revealed to the whole world! However, the only sins that will not be revealed are those that were properly confessed & forgiven, because every sin that was forgiven & absolved during confession is completely wiped out! So remember to say every sin during your confession, & you will be rid of it forever!

And yet, even on that dreadful Judgment Day, Christ still promises to be merciful to those who had been merciful to others. God wants to be merciful to us, & He will be, if during our lives we had been merciful to others. We already know that none of us will be totally without sin when we stand before the great Judge, but we at least have His promise that He will be lenient with anyone who had dealt leniently with others! He will be merciful to those who had shown mercy to others! Over & over, Jesus promises to be merciful to those who had been merciful to others!

I'm sure that about now, every one of you are determined to live exactly the way Jesus wants us to, however, God is very good at testing our good intentions to the limit of our endurance, & while it's an easy thing to love the lovable, it's not quite as easy when dealing with those who insist on being difficult! Still, with the Last Judgment in mind, we know that we have it to do!

Anyhow, my friends, that is the Gospel lesson for today, directly from the mouth of Jesus Himself, that, if we want to be very sure that we're going to be standing on the right side of that Judgment Seat, we know that we must strive every day of our lives, to love the Lord our God with all our hearts & souls, & every neighbor, even the most difficult ones, as ourselves!

Prodigal Son

2011-02-19T19:39:00.001-08:00

Feb. 20th, (Sun.) 2011: "Prodigal Son" (1 Cor.6:12-20) (Lk.15:11-32)

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ!
In today's Gospel, the father is filled with joy at the safe return of his younger son, while his older son refused to participate in that big celebration over his younger brother's return, because, as he put it: "what's so great about him returning after he'd wasted half the family fortune on loose living? Am I supposed to dance for joy? And we killed the fatted to celebrate that?"

So there you have two different values! The older brother was very put out over how much wealth his younger brother had wasted, while the father doesn't give a hoot for the lost wealth! The father was happy his younger son came back safe & sound! "I want to celebrate because your brother was dead but now he's alive again! He was lost, but now is found!"

There is one thing all humans have in common; we all love a story with a happy ending, especially if the hero of the story had gone through a terrible crisis, but by God's grace, it all ended well! Anyone who understands what a real crisis that the prodigal had just gone through will also understand the father's relief that God brought his son safely back, because a great many "prodigals" are not that lucky! Many young men just fall through the cracks & never heard from again! Most of us have also had to face a crisis or two in our own & remember only too well that feeling of relief when someone came along at exactly the right moment for us!

This parable shows how easy it is for inexperienced youth to make a wrong decision & find themselves in a real mess! We don't seem to need help to get into trouble, but we sure need others to help us get out of it! Today I'll tell you about another young boy who got into some kind of a mess, not many years ago:

An elderly gentleman was traveling by bus to visit his grandchildren. Next to him sat a young man who seemed to be very nervous & troubled. His fingers were twitching & even his knees were shaking. The elderly man slowly opened a conversation with him & found out that the young fellow left home several years ago under very stressful conditions, but now yearned to return home, but wasn't sure if his father wanted him any more.

"Some weeks ago," he explained, "I wrote my dad, telling him that I was sorry for all the trouble I caused, & that I wanted to come back home. But since I didn't know whether he wanted me anymore, I asked my dad to tie a handkerchief to one of the branches of the tree in our back yard. The bus goes past our house, so if I see that handkerchief, I'll get off at the station; if I don't, I'll just have to stay on the bus.

"We're approaching our back yard right now," the young lad said, "but I can't even bear to look, for fear that there will be no handkerchief. Of course, it's possible that my dad didn't even get my letter, or maybe forgot to put a handkerchief out. Would you look for me please, because I can't?"

"Of course," replied the elderly man & just at that moment the bus went past the lad's home. "Get your bags ready, son," said the gentleman with excitement. "You're getting off at the station. There's a handkerchief tied to every branch on that tree!"

So there we have another forgiving father, who brought a crisis to a happy ending, & maybe saved his son from who knows what else. It may not sound like the biggest crisis in the world, but it sure was to that young man, who was so nervous that he couldn't even bear to look if there was a hankie on the tree! At that moment he just had to have somebody's help, & if that old man hadn't been there for him, he might not have survived his big crisis.

Our own confused times are especially hard on our younger people & many of them could use some help to get out of whatever mess they got into, & now can't get out of it by themselves! When in deep trouble, every prodigal probably longs for the safety of home & family, & that's when fathers should be ready to tie some handkerchiefs on the branches.

We have a Father in Heaven who is always waiting for His prodigal sons to repent & ask forgiveness, because He's always willing to forgive our trespasses, & that's why we can enter the Confessional with such confidence, because we know that He will forgive every sin we confess! God wants us to forgive others in the same way, as soon as they apologize & ask forgiveness! We just can't refuse to forgive others, if we want God to forgive us!

Dear friends, most young people may even be better educated than their parents, but have none of the experience that parents have, so they can easily make bad decisions! The Prodigal Son in today's Gospel had no idea how quickly money gets used up if you start living high! Before he left home with pockets full of money, he didn't want advice from his father or brother, & thought he could live high for the rest of his life without working, but found out very quickly that the world did not owe him a living, & it wasn't until he was hungry enough to eat corn out of the pig trough, that the proper lights went on in his head!

Anyhow, lessons learned the hard way are never forgotten & not until he was eating corn out of the trough, did it occur to him that if he doesn't get home as quickly as possible, he will die! His father knew how unforgiving the world could be to a stranger, & that's why he made that big banquet when his son returned! So it took a lot of money to educate his son! So what is money compared to his son? Jesus really underlined the true value of a human life as compared to money!

Pharisee & Publican

2011-02-12T14:05:00.001-08:00

Feb. 13th, (Sun.) 2011: "The Pharisee & the Publican" (2 Tim. 3:10-15) (Lk. 18:10-14)

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ!

From the words of this Gospel, we can only conclude that the Pharisee was very pleased with himself! Actually, he wasn't so much praying, as pointing out to God how good he was! This Publican, however, (& "publican" was a slang designation for those hated tax-collectors), had no doubt that he was a great sinner, so all he could do was beat his breast & ask for God's mercy! He knew that if God didn't forgive him & somehow help him out of that mess he was in, he's had it! The most common sin that almost all Tax Collectors committed was in taxing people always a little more than the prescribed amount, because their pay was a percentage of the daily take, the more they could tax the merchants, the more they put in their own pocket! So this tax-collecting Publican was just another guilt-ridden sinner seeking God's forgiveness, much as we Catholics are when we make our Confession!

The Pharisee on the other hand, was entirely smug about his relationship with God, because he keeps fulfilling his religious duties faithfully by fasting twice a week, & tithing in support the Temple! He was telling God that he was not a cheat like that tax collector in the far corner of the Temple, & if he wasn't asking for the forgiveness of his sins, it was only because he didn't think he had any!

Dear friends, I'm fond of saying that every Gospel has valuable lessons for each one of us, so lets start looking for the lessons in today's Gospel! First of all, we have to really know what God requires of us, before we start presuming that He's really pleased with everything we're doing, like that Pharisee! No one has reason to doubt that the Pharisee tithed 10% of his income to the Temple & fasted twice a week! And we also safely assume that he'd never kill, steal, or swear, or curse, or tell lies, either, because all these are the bigger sins & everybody tries to avoid committing such sins! But even if he did fast twice a week & donate to the Temple, it still didn't entitle him to stand in the middle of the Temple & brag about it!

Don't you all donate to the upkeep of the church, so when did you stand in the middle of the church & brag about it? And besides, it takes much more than tithing to the church, to get to heaven! Furthermore, our Church has all kinds of great saints & Martyrs, but they didn't become saints just because they refrained from a few sins! Saints are people who learned to love God with all their hearts, & minds, & souls & strength! And furthermore, no decent man ever stood in the middle of the church to brag about how good he was! A good & holy man is too busy praying to God, to brag about himself!

A proud man is neither good, nor pleasing to God, because the whole attitude of a proud man is repulsive to God, while the same God is always pleased to forgive a sinner who repents & asks forgiveness!

Dear Friends, since we know how to be practical in everything else, lets now look at religion from the practical side! We Catholics can be as practical as anyone else, & we know we can compete with the best of them! We know what it takes to be successful in worldly pursuits! We can operate businesses, banks, & mega-farms! We can also be top-notch lawyers, accountants, engineers, & almost everything else you can imagine!

What I'm getting at, however, is this, nobody expects to reach the top without applying himself! We all understand that it takes years of study, determination & hard work to succeed in anything!

Now how about this business of getting to Heaven? Are we exerting just as much time & effort in order that we become saints? Only saints get to Heaven, you know! Nobody in the world will go to heaven just because he was a big banker, or businessman, or because he was a top-notch government Tax Collector! However, every, single saint will make it to Heaven!

We can rest assured that if the Pharisee fasted & tithed, he must have also kept the Commandments, because the Pharisees were known for that, but we also know that he was much too proud for Heaven! On the other hand, that despised & hated Tax Collector had the grace to realize what a mess he had gotten himself into, & turned to God for help! The Tax Collector knew he needed God's mercy & forgiveness, while that Pharisee thought he was already good enough to just step into Heaven!

So that's the important lesson for us in this Gospel, that as soon as we realize that we're going in the wrong direction, it's time to stop & turn our lives around! We must be determined to become saints, because we know that all saints go to Heaven! If you really have your heart set on heaven, then start becoming saints!

And one last word of wisdom; be very sure that all our striving for worldly goods & things is a complete waste of time, because it has nothing to do with getting to Heaven!

How to Receive Communion

2011-02-08T11:16:00.001-08:00

Receiving Holy Communion at Holy Eucharist Parish

Spiritual Guidelines...

The one who wishes to receive Holy Communion must...

1. understand that it is the LIVING BODY AND BLOOD OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST that is being offered to us. We are receiving that which Jesus gave to His Apostles at the Last Supper when He broke the bread and gave it to His disciples, saying, "Take, eat; this is my body." and "Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Mt. 26:26-28)

We also remember the words of our Lord, when he said.... "Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; [...] For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. [...] This is the bread which came down from heaven [...] he who eats this bread will live for ever." (Jn. 6:53-58)

2. BE PREPARED SPIRITUALLY AS BEST AS POSSIBLE... this means spending time in prayer and fasting before the Divine Liturgy .... using theSacrament of Penance (Confession) when we know in our hearts that we need a particular reconciliation with our Lord... making peace with those in our lives with whom we have difficulties... ridding our lives of all things that are contrary to the Will of God... If we are not satisfied in our hearts that we have truly prepared ourselves as best we can, then we must reconsider receiving Holy Communion until we do so. Let us remember the words of the Apostle Paul who writes that, "whoever eats the Bread or drinks the Cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. [...] and drinks judgment upon himself." (1Cor 11:27-29) We should try to fast at least an hour prior to the Divine Liturgy and be in a prayerful spirit well before even arriving at the Church.

3. RECEIVE HOLY COMMUNION ATTENTIVELY! There is nothing else more important in our lives at that moment when we receive Christ... when we become one with Christ! Looking around, smiling at acquaintances, allowing various thoughts to distract us - is not only unworthy of the moment, but it also sets us up to complicate the experience. What should we do? ....

Practical Guidelines...

- the sign of the Cross is traditionally made prior to receiving, but consider doing so as you are still approaching, so that the flow does not have to be interrupted while you make your veneration and so that accidents will not occur...

- stand close enough to the priest so that the Eucharist may be easily placed in your mouth from the Chalice. Move in as close as possible. Hands crossed over your breast or simply at your side

- Stand straight. Do not crouch down. Tilt your head back slightly, and open your mouth widely. Do not extend your tongue. Do not say anything - not even "Amen". The Priest will drop the Eucharist into your mouth using the sacramental spoon.

- At no time should the spoon ever touch your mouth. When someone is distracted, one may naturally react by wanting to close one's mouth over the spoon. Concentrating on what is happening will help us to avoid this. If the spoon touches your mouth, the Priest may change the spoon or sanitize it as need be.

- The sign of the cross is also traditionally made after receiving Holy Communion. However, step to the side (not back) in the direction you will go to return to your place. This will allow the next person to receive Holy Communion as you are making the sign of the cross in faith and/or bowing.

- If you are not able to adhere to the above-mentioned practical directions for some reason, please let the Priest know ahead of time and, if possible and if necessary, some special arrangements may be made. On a given Sunday or, perhaps at a certain age, if a child or anyone else is unable to receive the Eucharist according to the above-mentioned guidelines then they should not be presented to do so. The priest may simply give a blessing is such a case. This will be the practice at least during this time of concern over infectious viruses. We want to respect ourselves and our fellow Parishioners.

___________________________________________________________
You may find the following websites helpful and inspiring...

Communion in a Byzantine Church: http://holytransfiguration.org/communion.htm
Church Fathers: www.acfp2000.com/Saints/St_John_Chrysostom/st_john_chrysostom.html
Catechism- Eucharist: www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm#I

Zaccheaus

2011-02-05T19:23:00.001-08:00

Jan. 25th, (Sun.) 2009: "Zachaeus" (1 Tim. 4:9-15) (Lk. 19:1-10)

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ:

Today's Gospel shows that Jesus will make use of every opportunity to save a soul! He was saving souls 2000 years ago, & still saving souls even to this very day! He also had dedicated followers 2000 years ago, just like today we are His followers! Only His followers change from year to year, but the goal stays the same, ----- to try to find the sheep that have strayed from God, & bring them back to God! That's all that's important in this world, to make sure we save our souls!

Zachaeus had become one of the lost sheep of Israel, until Jesus came along & invited Himself to his house! "Zacchaeus, quickly come down from the tree, because I must stay at your house today!" Zacchaeus was one of those hated tax collectors, that sat all day at one of the gates of Jerusalem & collecting a duty on all the trade-goods that were being brought into the city! It made no difference if the merchant was a Jew or a foreigner, all the goods were taxed & Zaccheoaus became rich from his share of the take! The more he collected for the Romans, the more he got for himself! The more tax collected, the more the tax-man got for himself!

So Zaccheaus was making a lot of money, but also lost all his Jewish friends, as well as his soul by all his cheating! He had everything going for him, because a tax collector has a lot of authority, so even if he did overcharge the Jews, there was nothing they could do about it!

However, in spite of his greed, there must have still been some spark of decency in him that he repented so quickly when Christ spoke to him! Some kind of grace was already drawing him to Jesus, urging him to climb into that Sycamore tree, so as to get a better look at this Jesus he was hearing so much about! Anyhow, who else but a cheeky tax collector would sit in the tree, in plain view of all the people of that great crowd, just because he wanted to get a good look at Jesus?

But lets turn our attention to Jesus, now! What stands out is this; that in order to save this tax collector & his family, Jesus took the initiative & invited himself into Zacchaeus' house! Zacchaeus was so moved by Jesus' act of respect & kindness, that he instantly decided to mend his ways, & with that, he not only saved his own soul, but also of his whole family, & all because Jesus invited Himself over into his house!

Dear friends, Jesus continues to invite Himself into every home! He knocks on every-body's door, hoping that we will invite in! Jesus wants to be welcome in every home, not only in Zacchaeus' home! Jesus' greatest desire is to save every sinner in the world! Today, He invited Himself into the home of a greedy tax collector, & succeeded in saving the whole family from Hell! And why was Zacchaeus so special to Him? Well, as far as Jesus is concerned, even greedy, & cheeky tax collectors have eternal souls that were made for heaven! However, Zacchaeus was saved only because he cooperated with divine grace & repented! Zaccheus was saved only because he truly repented & promised to make restitution!

Then he followed through on his promise to give half of his money to the poor, & also promised that if ever he charged anyone too much in taxes, he would repay him four times the amount! He promised all this publicly, & Jesus was satisfied with his change of heart when he told the people that, today, salvation has come upon Zaccheus & his household!

Dear Friends! Since every man has sinned in his time, how consoling to hear the words of this Gospel, which proves that every sinner can be saved, if he repents! No sin is too big to be forgiven, & there is no sinner that God does not love! God's love is greater than any sin we may commit!

However, lets stop & think on all this! Maybe it's also useful to consider a very important question! Once we know so much about God's love for us, then how can anyone want to sin in the first place? Once we know that Jesus forgives sin, because He loves the sinner, then why can't we love Him enough not to sin? Nobody is compelled to sin! People can only sin if they do not love God enough, because, if we really loved God, we'd never sin in the first place! Why in the world should anything be more desirable to us, than God's friendship? How can anyone want to sin against such a loving God?

For a while, Zaccheus forgot all about God, & just focused on increasing his wealth, & decided to abuse his position of trust, to become wealthy! Soon, all the Jews hated him, & Romans never liked Jews, anyhow!

Dear friends, let us never look for happiness in the wrong places! Let us remain committed to the Jesus who always loves us & never leave the straight & narrow road that leads to eternal happiness! Slava …..

Heal blind man at Jericho:

2011-01-29T11:27:00.001-08:00

Jan 18th, (Sun.) 2009: "Heal blind man at Jericho" (1 Tim. 1:15-17) (Lk. 18:35-43)

Dear Friends in Christ!

"Jesus, Son of David, grant that I may see!" This man was a beggar & blind! He lived in a world of total darkness, but heard that this Prophet by the name of Jesus could heal every kind of sickness! How fervently he prayed for a chance to meet up with Jesus! The rest of him was in good health, but because he was blind, he had to beg to survive! But on this particular day he heard a large crowd of people coming his way down the road, so he asked someone what was going on! Well, when they told him that Jesus was passing through with a huge crowd of people, he cried out as loud as he could, begging Jesus to heal him! Well, Jesus did heal him, & the minute he could see, he began following Jesus, praising & thanking God for being so good to him! He wanted nothing more than just the privilege of following Jesus!

But only last week we heard another Gospel, about another young man, but this one was very rich & had perfectly good eyes, except his conscience kept telling him he wasn't doing enough to gain eternal life, so he came running up to Jesus to ask: "Lord, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus tells him to keep all the Commandments!" "But Lord! I have kept the Commandments all my life!" At those words, Jesus looked at him lovingly & says: "There is an obstacle between you & heaven! First go & sell everything you own, give the money away to the poor, & then come back & follow me!" And you know what this rich man did? He just couldn't part with his wealth, so turned his back on Jesus & eternal life, & walked away!

So you can see that there are different kinds of blindness & people with perfect eyes, can still be blind to the ways of God! Worldly wealth can very easily draw your heart away from the things of God, just as it did to this second young man! However, let's not forget that there are many other things that people can get attached to besides wealth! Some sports that are perfectly harmless in moderation, can quickly interfere with our religious duties if it grows into an obsession! Your involvement in some community-sport, can easily grow into an obsession! Others develop a craving for political power, or any other kind of fame!

Chasing after worldly wealth & accumulating as much as possible, has taken many a mind away from the holy things of God! It's very easy to become so involved with worldly wealth & cares that, we forget that this life will soon be over for us! And what will we have to show for all those years that God gave us? How much have we really done for God in those 50, 60, or 70 years that we lived?

Back to people who are blind & those who see, eyes help us see the beauty of God's handiwork & to help us to better appreciate God's infinite wisdom, but it's just as crucial to have a strong faith, & to LIVE that faith! Only through the eyes of a deep faith, do we start knowing & appreciating the things of God, so we must ask God daily to increase our faith, because faith is always a gift of God, so we can only have a strong faith, if we keep praying for it!

No one in the world can serve God well enough to get to Heaven without faith, because faith is that special grace that makes it possible for us to believe all the things that God has revealed to us! With the help of faith, we can easily believe in things that we have never seen! By faith, we easily believe that both Heaven & Hell exist, & only by faith can we really "know" that God is one, but in Three Persons! So this second young man had good eyes, but not much faith, so when he had to make a big choice, he chose the things of this world! And that is why the story of that rich, young man, has the most valuable lesson for us, especially in Canada, where we are surrounded by almost unlimited wealth!

Now put yourselves in his shoes! I don't have the slightest doubt that you're all keeping the Commandments of God & have all the reasons in the world to think that you're very safely on the road to eternal life! But remember that the rich, young man had also been doing that all of his life, & yet, Jesus told him it wasn't enough! Jesus told him it still wasn't enough to gain eternal life! Gaining eternal life has to do with how much we love God, because, "the Lord your God is a jealous God & refuses to settle for only a small piece of your love! He wants all of it! God refuses to share your love with anyone! He wants all of it, so that's why He told that young man to get rid of all his worldly wealth, & then prove his love by carrying his cross after Him! He knew how attached he was to his wealth, so ----- the wealth had to go!

My friends, I'm very certain that you all want to get to Heaven! And I'm just as certain that you're not going to ask Jesus what more you must do to inherit eternal life, because you already know the answer! You know what he told that young man! Jesus is telling each one of us, through this Gospel story, to get rid of every other "attachment" that we may have, & then just start following after Him!

So how do you start following after Him? My dear friends, with Lent just around the corner, we must firmly decide on making a good Lent, by choosing some "cross" to carry during this Lent! Like what are you going to give up? It's not very likely that you're all going to up & sell everything you have, but perhaps you'll try to do some serious fasting, instead? Will you come for the Stations of the Cross every week? At the very least, will you just eat fish on Fridays, instead of meat?

Dear Friends! Attaining to eternal life is not a cakewalk & the Church never said it was! Just because Canadians are used to the easy life, it still doesn't exempt us from fasting & making some sacrifices during Lent! After all, we just heard what Jesus told that rich young man! Jesus is the way to eternal life! Lets just follow Him!

Rich Young Man

2011-01-22T19:13:00.001-08:00

Jan. 23rd, (Sun.) 2011: "Rich young man" (Cor. 15:1-11) (Mt. 19:16-26)

Dear Friends in Christ!

To better appreciate all the implications of this Gospel, just think back to those times when you were forced to make some kind of important decision on the spur of the moment, because that's what this young man in the Gospel had to do! Since he was supposed to be so very wealthy, then even when he had to make decisions, especially important decisions, such as this one, would be made after much thought! We can also presume that this man would have been quite involved in the affairs of his community, as well, (because many wealthy people are), so anybody that's so involved in community & other worldly affairs, that's really expecting an awful lot of a man to give all this up, especially on the spur of the moment!

On the other hand, his conscience was warning him that something was very wrong with his lifestyle! It must have really been bothering him, if he was so worried about his eternity! And so, he was forced to finally ask Jesus: "Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?" & Jesus said that the first thing, is keep all the Commandments, to which the young man replied that he had kept them all his life! That sounds so easy & clear-cut, because every decent person thinks he's more or less keep the Commandments, & if that's all it takes to get to heaven, then all the decent people in the world are going straight to heaven!

So Jesus' next words were a real shocker! It turns out that Jesus brought the word "perfect" into the picture! Since he's already keeping the Commandments, he can now start working on becoming perfect, by eliminating every attachment to worldly things! So if he wants to be perfect, go sell everything that you have, give the money away to the poor, & then he is ready to follow Jesus, because worldly possessions always detract from God! Go, sell everything you have, give all the money away to the poor, & only then is he ready to take up his cross & follow Jesus! It's not possible to reach spiritual perfection, when you're constantly being distracted by worldly cares! Sooner or later, every person in the world has to make that very same choice that Jesus gave that young man; choose either God, or Mammon! Nobody in the world can serve two masters! Dispose of all your wealth first & then follow Me, but this particular man loved his wealth more than Jesus!

Doesn't this Gospel clarify things? That's how attached people get to worldly wealth, that he turned his back on Jesus & went back to his wealth! We may think that we own worldly wealth,, but it's the other way around! Worldly wealth has a way of owning you! Jesus said so very clearly, that, if he wants to be very sure of eternal life, he must get rid of his wealth & then give his life over to Jesus! However, that young man was already so attached to his wealth, that he couldn't bear to part with it!

The Church teaches us that God made us for Himself & for Heaven, so it's our duty to keep remembering those words, that, the only goal in this life is to make sure we reach Heaven! It's not possible to have it both ways! It's not possible to enjoy the good life here on earth, & then go straight to Heaven when we die! We must choose one or the other, as long as we live! Every day of our lives we must force ourselves to remember that worldly wealth will hinder us from reaching Heaven! Here is a true story of the kind of choices the early pioneers had to make, if they wanted to reach California!

In the early 1800's, thousands of people were arriving in New York, seeking a new life in a new world! There was no railroad back then, so, to get to California, where all the money was, you had to travel by covered wagon! You bought a sturdy covered wagon, a team of good horses & then join some wagon train that was heading for California! It took 5 months of travel! Between New York & California were thousands of savage Indians, so every man needed a good rifle, or two, & lots of ammunition, 'cause you'd be fighting lots of Indians before you got to California, so guns & ammunition were absolutely necessary! You also needed a few other things as well!

A bag of flour, salt pork, because that was the only way to preserve meat in those days, two barrels of water in case you didn't find any water for a few days, some clothes, blankets & a few pots & pans! But some people brought very beautiful furniture from Europe, so they bought an extra wagon & horses, to haul that furniture to California! Wagon trains always started out early in spring, because they must cross the Rockies before winter, because if a storm caught them in the mountains, they'd all die there! Well, the lighter wagons sank two inches into the ground, but the furniture wagons sank 4 inches into the ground! After a couple weeks of travel, the horses that pulled the heavy wagons were all worn out! They had to keep resting the horses, & they were slowing down the whole wagon train!

Finally, the wagon master told that wealthy family that they must throw out every piece of that furniture, because the wagon train cannot afford to be held up any more! If they refuse to unload, the rest of the wagon train will simply leave them behind, & they can deal with the Indians all by themselves! So, hundreds of dollars of the most beautiful furniture in the world was unloaded in the middle of the prairie, & the wagon train rolled on! By evening, the Indians found the furniture, & since it was chilly, they warmed themselves by a warm bonfire all night! So the most beautiful furniture in the world kept some Indians warm for one night, but on the wild frontier, that's all it was good for!

Jesus told that young man that if he wanted to reach heaven, get rid of all your possessions, & this wagon-master told these wealthy pioneers, that, if they wanted to reach California alive, then throw out all your furniture!

So, with this story in mind, we have to be very sure we're not attached to the wrong kind of wealth! Jesus once told the Jews: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where rust & moth consume, & where the thieves can break in & steal, or, considering today's story) where people make bonfires out of furniture, but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where it is really safe! For where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be! We just have to keep making tough decisions! Christos Razdaetsia!

Heal Ten Lepers

2011-01-15T14:37:00.001-08:00

Jan. 16th, (Sun.) 2011: "HEALING TEN LEPERS" (Gal. 1:12-18) (Lk. 17:12-19)

Dear Brothers & Sisters i Christ!

Today's Gospel is a continuation of the last two Gospels which said that John the Baptist was already preaching & baptizing in the Jordan & telling all the people to repent of their sins, because the Kingdom of God was near! Two weeks ago, John pointed out Jesus as He drew near, saying: "This is the Lamb of God! It is He who will take away the sins of the world!" Then as soon as he had baptized Jesus, the heavens opened up & the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, & then a great voice spoke from heaven: "This is My beloved Son! Listen to Him!" All this happened in the last two Gospels!

Now, today's Gospel is describing what great things started to happen as soon as Jesus began His 3 ½ years of public teaching, He began using His divine powers to heal every sickness & infirmity that was brought to Him! Today we are told how these ten lepers begged Jesus to heal them, and Jesus then commanded them to go & show themselves to the priests, & while they were on their way, they were all healed! Nine of them got so excited that they neglected to thank Jesus, & went straight home, but one did return to Jesus to thank Him! Jesus was so keenly disappointed in those ungrateful ones, that He expressed His disappointment publicly: "Did I not heal ten? How come the other nine were not grateful enough to come back & thank Me?"

Dear friends, since every Gospel has an eternal lesson for us, this was Jesus' way of telling every person in the world that He is very disappointed in any person who does not thank God, every day of his life, for the blessings he/she received from God that day! Since we are so ready to thank a fellow human being for any act of kindness, we must be ten times as grateful to God who showers us with His blessings every day! He has a right to our gratitude & that's why Jesus was so disappointed that those nine did not even bother to thank Him for healing them of that incurable disease! Only one thanked Him!

We human beings are such weaklings that, we can always use a helping hand from someone! Everybody needs a helping hand from time to time! But since the only purpose of this life is to get to Heaven, & since only God can help us get to Heaven, we need God's help ALL of the time! And knowing our weakness, God does watch over us all of the time, so the least we can do is, to thank Him from the bottom of our hearts, every day of our lives! So the better we understand how dependant we are on God's providence & graces, the more grateful we will we will be for them!

Samaritans were Jews that had intermarried with some of the pagan neighbors that surrounded Israel on all sides, & because of that, the Jews despised the Samaritans! The Samaritans were forced to live in the mountains on the outskirts of Israel, & since they couldn't worship in the Temple with the Jews, they slowly developed their own kind of worship! Anyhow, Jews had no use for any Samaritan! But only about a month ago, we had the Gospel of the 'Good Samaritan!'

Jesus told the parable of how this good Samaritan came across a Jew, an enemy, who had fallen among the robbers! This Jew was so badly beaten up, that he was half dead! Nobody would have blamed that Samaritan if he had just left his enemy to just die there on the road, but he didn't! He had compassion on his enemy, took care of him & even brought him to the nearest inn, & then paid for his room! Then he promised the inn-keeper that if it costs any more, he would pay it on his way back! So ask yourselves, how much did that Jew that was lying on the road, owe to that Samaritan?

Now we owe to God, just as much as that Jew owed to that Good Sama-ritan! While we were yet sinners & "enemies of God," God had compassion on us, sent His Son to die on the cross for us, & pay off our sins! We not only were enemies of God, but there was nothing we could do to help ourselves, but God still had compassion on our helplessness, paid such a terrible price to free us from the grip of the devil! God loved every sinner the same way! He loved us enough to suffer & die for us, & all He asks for in return, is, all of our love! All of it! Are we going to give it to Him?

So you can see that there is more to today's Gospel than the ingratitude of those nine! Leprosy is to the human body, what sin is to our soul! There is no other cure for leprosy, except by an act of God's Mercy, and neither is there a cure for sin, except by an act of God's Mercy! Once Adam fell into sin, there was no cure for him, or for any other human being, until Christ freed us from that terrible disease on the Cross! No man could do anything for himself, because every sin is a direct revolt against God's Commandments! The guilt of offending God's infinite Goodness, is much greater than we can ever atone for, by only our own powers!

In the old days, lepers were banished from society, so as not to infect others! When we commit sin, we are also banished from God's presence until we are healed by the Sacrament of Confession! It is not possible to heal a soul in any other way, except through the Sacrament of Confession, in spite of what the Protestants claim!

Just as the leprosy eats away the body, so also sin starts eating away at the soul, trying to destroy it! Leprosy destroys the victim, while at the same time causing an unquenchable thirst! Sin also dulls, & destroys the person's common-sense, & his spirituality, while developing an insatiable desire for more & more sin!

So let us give thanks for belonging to the only Church in the world that has the God-given power to save us, & guaranteed to last to the end of time!

Love God! Love His Church, & Love one another!

Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T15:51:00.001-08:00

Care Home:

Dec 24th, (Fri.) 2010: Christmas Eve: (Heb. 1:1-12) (Lk. 2:13-23)

CHRISTOS RAZDAYETSIA!

Dear Friends!

"For," as the Scriptures tell us, "there is a Child born for us, a son given us, Wonder-Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace, & this special Child is, God's own Son!" And the biggest surprise of all, God's Son arrived on earth in the form of a tiny, fragile baby!

The Coming of God's Son is the ultimate proof of how much He loves us, & wants nothing more passionately than to just share in our lives, as soon as we invite Him to! The Holy family is the perfect example of how we humans can live in total union with God! Mary & Joseph were as human as we are, while Jesus was Divine, & they showed the world how rewarding life can be when lived in harmony with God! Imagine what your own life might be like if Jesus could move into your home & became a member of your family!

As for Mary, her entire life was lived in union with God, because from the first moment of her conception, she was totally pure & filled with every grace, so she always was very close to God! However, that's because she was created like that! She was God's most perfect creation, & the only human being in the world, to be Immaculate & filled with grace from the first moment of her con-ception, which pre-disposed her to always be perfectly in tune with God's will, & to always have the most perfect trust in His Providence! As a result, even though Mary's trials were very severe at times, yet, her heart was always at peace!

The most perfect example of this was 2000 years ago, while she was still living in Nazareth, but knowing that her time of delivery was near at hand! She also knew that according to all the Prophecies, the Redeemer was to be born in Bethlehem! So here she was, still in Nazareth, at least a two-day journey from Bethlehem by caravan, & knowing that Jesus' birth was now very near, & yet, there was no caravan in sight!

Nobody would dare travel those mountain trails alone, because mountain trails were infested with robbers, so you had no other choice but to wait until a large caravan was passing through, & then join yourself to that caravan for safety! But as you know, caravans don't come by every day, so how will God manage to arrange for His Son be born in Bethlehem, in accordance to the Prophecies? However, since she had total trust in God's providence, she knew that that God would accomplish everything in His own way! She just waited & trusted, & the ancient Prophecies were fulfilled in a most unusual way!

At the last possible moment, Caesar Augustus, the Roman Ruler issued a most extraordinary decree, ordering all the people of Nazareth to participate in a census! The residents of Nazareth must travel immediately to Bethlehem, & register there for the census, so a caravan was quickly formed to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, & Joseph & Mary immediately joined that caravan & started for Bethlehem! They arrived in Bethlehem well after dark, & everybody began a frantic search for a place to stay! Joseph did the same, but though he knocked on every door, he could not find any place that had room for them! It really began to look like they might have to spend the night outside! But no, everything kept going according to God's plan, & God planned for His Son to be born, not in a palace of a king, but in a lowly cave, with just enough farm animals in that stable-cave, to keep that cave reasonably warm! How mysteriously God works!

Now consider how another mystery began to unfold on that night when God's Son came to earth two thousand years ago! It was a very clear, but cold night, yet the Creator of Heaven & earth, chose to be born in this lowly cave, on the outskirts of Bethlehem! No comforts of any kind for the Holy Family! The Son of God came as the poorest of the poor! And Mary, of course, accepted God's decision in everything! She gratefully accepted the barely adequate shelter of this lowly stable, knowing that this was all God's will! So she was most grateful to God for bringing them in from the freezing cold, because now, Baby Jesus was perfectly safe! She was grateful to God for just enough shelter to survive the cold night! She knew that it was God's desire that His Son be born in a lowly cave, that normally sheltered farm animals from the elements!

But now we come to a still more amazing part of the original Christmas story! The God who created the universe, chose to arrive on earth as a helpless, human baby! That always will be the greatest of all mysteries! But the mysteries keep growing bigger! Since the Son of God had arrived on earth, it was very proper of course, that His angels would escort Him, & be the heralds of His arrival, but to whom were they sent, first of all? The first to hear the good news, were, the lowly shepherds in the fields, so that the poorest of the poor became the very first human beings to adore the Divine Messiah, who chose to be born in the stable!

And what about those mysterious "Three Kings?" Nobody really knows for sure who they were, or why it was so necessary to bring them to Bethlehem, that, God went & created a special star for them, especially to bring these Three Kings to that little stable, where they immediately received the grace to recognize their God, & adored Him! After that, they presented the Divine Child with kingly gifts, & then, returned to their own country! Can you see how many mysterious surround the drama that played out in that little cave? Three holy kings were called in from someplace far in the east, to adore a tiny Baby in the poverty of a tiny cave-stable, while the local king, the evil King Herod of Jerusalem, felt threatened by this same Baby! That doddering, old King Herod, was so anxious for his throne that, he murdered hundreds of baby boys, in an effort to eliminate Jesus!!

All these mysteries unfolded in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, in order to bring peace to men of goodwill! And here we are, 2000 years later, still as thrilled with Christmas, as if it's all happening for the very first time! We can see in our minds the manger with Baby Jesus lying in it! We feel like we're rubbing elbows with thousands of angels & hear the rustle of their wings! Every Christmas warms our hearts like that, because those same mysteries affect us, even today! It's hard to explain this Christmas feeling, & yet, everybody is affected by them!

There are other great Feast-days in the course of a year, but none bring the kind of feelings that Christmas does! When we were very young, we probably chalked up these feelings to a Childish excitement, or, our ability to believe the fairy tale that were told to us, but now, that we no longer believe in any fairy tales, why is it that Christmas still has that same effect on us?

Dear friends! There will always be that sense of awe at Christmas time, because on this day, our Creator becomes a tiny little infant! He looks so helpless & endearing in that little manger that there isn't a person in the world that wouldn't want to pick Him up & press Him to his heart! God come to melt every human heart! God knows how to draw our hearts to His! There isn't a person in the world that wouldn't welcome the Holy Family into their home! We have lots of room for them! And those angelic hosts, who would want to separate them from their God? There's lots of room for them, too!

Dear friends! For 2000 years Christmas has been a real taste of Heaven to men of goodwill, because heaven is wherever God is! If God comes to every person, at every Christmas, who wouldn't feel like he's in heaven? With that, I wish upon all of you, from the bottom of my heart, a share of that eternal peace & glory that the Christ Child is preparing for us in His Eternal Home! May we all meet, one day, in His Home, to share in His eternal glory! Christos Razdayetsia!

Come to My Dinner

2010-12-12T00:57:00.001-08:00

Dec. 5th, (Sun.) 2010: "Come to my Banquet" (Col. 1:12-18) (Lk. 14:16-24)

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ!

Consider how clearly Our Lord taught the faith & morals to the people by means of His parables! Parables were the most practical way of teaching God's truth to the villagers & fishermen that came so eagerly to hear Him explain the will of God to them! Parables made possible for even the unlearned fishermen to easily understand the fullness of Divine truth, because Jesus used common examples, drawn from every-day life, that everyone was familiar with, to help them understand invisible & spiritual things! Parables made it easy for the people to grasp the concepts of the "spirit world," they had never heard of, by means of appropriate examples from this material world!

Today's parable focuses on how disappointed this man was, after he'd gone to so much effort to prepare a beautiful banquet for his friends, when they all began to excuse themselves! He was terribly hurt & disappointed that his best friends could snub him like that! How would you feel, if you spent so much time & money in order to treat your friends to an evening of food & likely some further entertainment, & they all decided they had better things to do? It would hurt a hundred times more if you had always thought of them as the best of friends!

We are God's friends & He loves us all! St. John, the Apostle could only describe Jesus with these words: "God is Love!" so just think how hurt Jesus must be, when the people He loved & died for, turn down an invitation from such a God! How sad He must be to see so many empty pews in His church, Sunday after Sunday! I wonder if Jesus keeps consoling Himself that lots of people must still be buying "five yoke of oxen", week after week, & must go to try them out on Sundays, like those un-grateful people in this parable! Why else would churches all over the world keep getting emptier & emptier, year after year!

Anyhow, I started off by explaining how Jesus was using parables to make the invisible world much easier to understand, & at the same time, His healing miracles made it abundantly clear that He was truly the Son of God, as He claimed to be! He kept making it very obvious to the Jews that He is the promised Savior they had been waiting for!

So now you must be wondering why the Jewish leaders turned against Jesus if they were 100% convinced that He was not only the promised Redeemer, but also the Son of God? Well, to make a long story short, the Priests & Pharisees quickly came to hate Him, because His teaching was different from theirs, & He was also the wrong kind of Messiah! By the time Jesus arrived on earth, the Jewish Leaders had become very corrupt & worldly & arrogant! They only craved after worldly glory, & for that reason they wanted God to make Israel a great nation again! They wanted God to send them another "Warrior-Savior," a "Fighting Messiah," to free Israel from the Roman occupation! They wanted the world to fear the power of Israel & their powerful king, & that's why they flatly rejected a Messiah that came to free them (ugh), only from the power of sin! That was the real reason why they refused to accept Jesus! The Jewish leaders had become so worldly, that, they only wanted worldly power & glory!

But back to today's parable, because it has so many good lessons for us on how we should respond to God, whenever He invites us to His Banquets, because He loves us & considers us as His closest friends, & that's why He keeps inviting us to all those Divine banquets that He keeps providing for us at every Divine Liturgy, so let nobody ever dream of excusing himself like those guests did in this parable! One gave this kind of reason, another gave another kind of reason, & even the young man that just got married, used his marriage as an excuse, of all the stupid reasons! You can always find an excuse if you look for one!

So I showed you how far the Leaders of God's Chosen Race had sunk, that they now dared to torn on God's Son like that, for not giving them the worldly glory they now craved, more than God's friendship! They knew Jesus was God's Son, but their hatred would not be appeased until they crucified Him! Much the same could be said of the invited guests in today's parable, because they also must have been very close friends at one time with that man that prepared the big dinner for them! Maybe the host could see that their beautiful relationship was deteriorating, & wanted to bring the community together again by means of this dinner, but they rejected his friendship in a most shameful way!

Dear friends, we already know Jesus is our true God & that He loves us with an infinite love! We faithful Catholics know that Jesus is only interested in helping us get to Heaven, & that is why we so eagerly accept His invitation to His Divine Banquet at Sunday at Mass! Each Divine Liturgy is Jesus' Banquet of Love that is designed to bring us closer to Him & to each other! Jesus will do anything in His power to prevent us becoming as worldly as those Jewish Leaders had become!

In another Gospel Jesus said that He is already preparing still another banquet for us; a very special "Victory Banquet in Heaven" for all His true friends! In Heaven, as soon as this world ends, we, who were so faithful to Him in this life, will all sit at a great big banquet table with Him, to celebrate our hard-won victory over sin & the power of darkness that we had to contend with all of our lives!

Jesus knows how bitter are our struggles in this world, so His Divine Banquets every Sunday are designed to keep strengthening & renewing us! Lets not disappoint Him! Please God, let it never be our fault if there are any empty seats at the Banquets that Jesus invites us to, on every Sunday! Slava…..

Healing on the Sabbath

2010-11-27T16:11:00.001-08:00

Dec 2nd, (Sun,) 2007: "Healing Woman on the Sabbath" (Eph. 6:10-17) (Lk. 13:10-17)

Dear Friends in Christ!

Today the Chief Rabbi of the Synagogue got peeved that Jesus healed this stooped woman on the Sabbath, but Jesus answered: "You hypocrites! Don't you all untie your donkey, or mule, or ox on a Sabbath & lead him to water?" This reply to the Chief Rabbi is based on the same reasoning as when He once said: "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but give to God what belongs to God & the Sabbath belongs to God! The Sabbath is for worshipping & glorifying God, which is what Jesus was doing when He healed this woman! Such an act of healing a possessed woman certainly gives glory to God! So Jesus was very correct when He called the Rabbis hypocrites, because when some-one is in need of mercy, or charity, it is always the right time be charitable, Sabbath, or no Sabbath!

And now I will change to another topic, because Christmas is almost upon us, I wish to say a few things about Christmas ahead of time, to give you time to think about some of the extraordinary mysteries that surround the birth of our Lord! Scripture scholars have pondered many years upon some of those mysteries, trying to get a better understanding why God arranged everything the way He did! You see, if we don't start thinking about Christmas a little bit ahead of time, then all you'll ever get is the same old sermon on how Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem & that's it for another year! So lets start thinking on the birth of our Savior a little sooner this year!

First of all I'd like to say a few words on the times we are living in, because the world keeps changing a little every year, & not always for the better! Have you noticed anything different about the Christmas Carols lately? When you go out to the shopping malls, how often do you hear the old traditional carols anymore, those that really bring out the Christmas story, such as Silent Night, or Away in a manger? Furthermore, Christmas isn't even called Christmas anymore, but has become "the Holiday Season!" And this so-called Holiday Season isn't about the Savior's Birth & shepherds adoring the Holy Babe in the manger! The real Christmas story is now completely blanked out, so if we "old-fashioned Catholics" want to celebrate the birth of Christ in the traditional manner, we have plan ahead & work it all out for ourselves!

Remember, the minute Adam & Eve sinned by eating that forbidden fruit, God immediately began to makes His plans on exactly how He was going to redeem the world from sin! God planned everything centuries ahead of time, right to the smallest detail, on where & when His Son was to be born, & the Mother of His Son needed to be the purest & most grace-filled Mother the world had ever seen! As I said a minute ago, there were the most perfect reasons for everything that happened at the birth of Christ, & the best Scripture Scholars have made up all kinds of theories as to why God might have wanted His Son to be born in such amazingly humble surroundings!

In fact, I just came across one of those theories on why God might have wanted to send His Son to earth as a helpless human baby? Because if God had wanted to, Jesus could have come to earth in the fullness of His divine glory, but that's not the way God arranged it! So why was it better for Jesus to come to earth in the form of a helpless little baby, instead of in His divine glory?

This is the example they used: A young boy was walking home from school one day, past an empty lot, & he noticed that someone had thrown a few handfuls of grain in the snow, & a large flock of sparrows were having quite a feast! It was so nice to see them eating the grain, so he just watched them for a while! But then he wanted to come closer to those nice little birdies, so he took a step towards the sparrows! Immediately the birds became nervous & fluttered their wings! Slowly he took another small step, & again the sparrows showed signs of fear, but when he took still another step, they all flew away! They were afraid of him!

The boy was very disappointed in those birds, & thought to himself: "What's the matter with them? I'd never hurt a little bird! I only wanted to get close to them!" Then he tried to figure out what would it take to be able to come close to those birds without scaring them! Finally he hit upon the perfect solution! Those birds wouldn't be afraid of him if he could turn himself into sparrow! Well, the idea was good, but since he couldn't change himself into a sparrow, he simply gave up!

Now God had a similar problem with us! He loves us with an infinite love, & He'd never hurt us, but if Jesus had come in the fullness of His glory, we'd be frightened out of our wits, so He used that little boy's solution, & came to earth as one of us! He not only took on a human body, but He came as a tiny, helpless & most lovable infant! And what was the result? Not a single person was afraid to approach Him & even bring Him gifts!

And on top of that, He chose to be born in a lowly stable, in such poverty, that, not even the poor shepherds were frightened of Him! He came for love of us, & as a tiny infant, He immediately received everybody's love in return! However, we have to keep one fact in mind, that, Jesus did not disguise Himself to look human, but, He really became man! He was True God & true man, & He looked like a human baby because, He actually was a human baby! And why did He go this route? He proved how kind & loving He really was, & later on, when He slowly revealed His divinity, all the people knew they could reach out to such a God without fear! And that's what He wanted all along! He wants us to trust Him, talk to Him @ to love Him as much as He loves us!

And what was the purpose of announcing the Savior's birth, first & foremost to those poor Shepherds? Well, for one thing, Scriptures tell us that the shepherds presented Him with gifts, so it proves that no one is so poor, that he has nothing to offer to someone who is even poorer than himself! Even the Shepherds could see that Mary & Joseph were very poor, maybe poorer than themselves, & so they gave gifts!

Just think what a mystery we have here! The Holy Family was very poor! The surroundings were very poor! And the baby was lying in a manger, & yet, all who came, were given the grace to recognize their God! The poor shepherds & the Three Kings immediately recognized the King of Kings, adored Him & offered whatever gifts they could! They recognized their God through faith alone, just as we have the gift of faith to recognize our God in the Eucharist, where others might see only a little piece of bread! So faith is that God-given power through which we can reach out to God, & actually touch Him! That is surely a miraculous power, & we all have it! And speaking of the Eucharist, just think how significant it was, that Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem, because the word Bethlehem means: "House of Bread", & now it turns out, that, Jesus called Himself the "Bread of Life! So we have still another mystery, that, while Jesus now sits on the throne in Heaven, at the right hand of the Father, He is at the same time, always with us, here on earth, in the form of ordinary bread!

Dear friends! There we have lots to think about: how great & glorious God is, & yet He loves poverty & simplicity! I'm sure we wouldn't be moved to love Him, just because He happens to be all-powerful, & yet, we're forever filled with a holy wonder at His humility!

So while we still have time to prepare, let us do so with a still greater sense of awe, love & faith! That's what Jesus really wants from us, that we should love & trust Him with our whole being! And that's why He came to us in poverty, as an infant, so as not to scare us, like that boy scared the sparrows away, but as a helpless infant, in need of our love! And when we arrive, in person, at the little manger on Christmas Eve, & see what the shepherds saw, our lives will never be the same again! Slava……

Eat, drink, be merry

2010-11-20T18:59:00.000-08:00

Nov. 21st, (Sun.) 2010: "I will eat, drink & be merry" (Eph. 5:8-19) (Lk. 12:16-21)

"But God said: You fool! This very night your soul will be demanded of you & all the things that you're been storing for retirement, whose will they be?"

Dear brothers & Sisters in Christ!

I will touch on several points that derive from this parable! I'm sure we all know one or two people who seem to live only for worldly wealth, something like this poor farmer in the parable! Worldly people spend their lives trying to accumulate as much wealth & money as possible, so that, as soon as they retire, they will be able to enjoy all the good things in life, like this man in the Gospel was planning to do! They are focusing so hard on worldly things, that they keep forgetting that they will also have to die some day & give an account of their life before God! When people concentrate too much on worldly things, they sometimes forget about God!

However, this parable might even have a lesson for the best of us, because even good people can't help absorbing some of the worldly thinking that we're surrounded with! Even religious & God-fearing people will absorb bits & pieces of the wisdom of this age! And what is the greatest wisdom of our age? Well, for one thing, almost everybody is planning & & paying into one or two pension funds, so when they retire, they are sure to happy & secure in their old age! It doesn't seem to occur to anyone that no man can see into the future! Nobody knows if he's going to be alive the next day, but it doesn't stop them from investing in all kinds of pension plans & retirement plans, to make sure they have a secure & happy retirement! Retirement might still be 30 years away, but everybody is paying in advance for a perfect one!

There's one little catch, however, because not one person knows what kind of a world we will have in 30 years! No one knows how long he'll live, or if he's still going to be healthy enough to go fishing & golfing, but he's still investing in his retirement! The farmer in the parable was doing the same thing! He was also accumulating wealth for his old age, but now that God said he's going to die this very day, what's the good of all his "retirement wealth? It can't buy him a longer life, & he can't take even one cent with him into the next world! God was just showing us that this hard working farmer was accumulating the wrong kind of wealth!" What a shock it was to him!

So what is the big lesson for us? What does the Church have to say about storing wealth for the future? What is the teaching of the Church on this?

Dear Friends, The Church has the authority to teach in God's name! Human wisdom can often be wrong, the Divine teaching that comes to us from the Gospels, is always infallible, so it's our job to seek for God's Wisdom & to be guided by it! Many Gospels tell us that this world will end some day & all the wealth it contains will simply disappear!

That's why Our Lord tells us very plainly, not to accumulate worldly wealth that the thieves can steal, or worms eat, or rust can consume, but to store spiritual wealth for ourselves in Heaven, & it will be waiting for us when we get there! Not a single saint ever invested in a pension plan, but lived only to please God! They did everything in their power to be perfectly conformed to God's holy will! They did everything in their power to live in union with God in this life, because that is the way to achieve eternal happiness with God in Heaven!

And that brings us to the second topic: our Catholic faith! We must guard our Catholic faith with every ounce of our strength, because faith is always a gift from God! We must guard our faith while we still have it, because, if we get careless about our faith, & lose it, then we've lost everything! While we still have the faith, we can increase it & make it stronger & stronger, especially by attending church & receiving the Sacraments as often as possible!

Faith is the most holy gift anybody can possess in this life! Faith is always a gift from God! Faith is so necessary to our salvation, that, we must be prepared to guard it even with our lives if necessary! Anyone who does not realize the importance of faith in our life will keep losing it, little by little! Those who have lost their Catholic faith, have lost everything! That's why it's so important to protect our faith!

Now the third thing I want to explain is why our Church is so special! I just said our faith is a gift from God, but so is our Church a gift from God! The holiest things in this world have all come from God, & since our faith & our Church are both gifts of God, it means that these two things are our greatest treasures we can ever possess!

Let me pose a question: can we be very sure that our Church & faith are really from God? Of course we can, because its all in the Bible! Who hasn't heard how Christ built His Church on "Peter the Rock?" Peter is also the head of the Apostles! All our bishops are descendants of the 12 Apostles, & all our Popes descended from St. Peter without a break! We can prove that Popes succeeded each other in an unbroken line, right from Peter, all the way to our present Pope, Benedict XVI.

Who hasn't heard how Christ established His Priesthood on Holy Thursday when He changed the bread & wine into His own Body & Blood & then commanded His Apostles to do this in memory of Him, right to the end of the world? Its all there in the Gospels that we hear in Church from time to time!

So that's why our Church & faith are the greatest treasures we can ever possess, & that is why we must be ready to even lay down our lives for them, if necessary! So, be good & be strong! Slava…………

Good Samaritan

2010-11-14T05:46:00.001-08:00

Nov 14th, (Sun.) 2010: "The Good Samaritan" (Eph. 4:1-6) (Lk. 10:25-37)

Dear Brother & Sisters in Christ!

2000 years ago, when Jesus was telling this Parable, nobody would think of calling a Samaritan good, because the term Samaritan, meant Jewish heretics! Samaritans were Jews who got married to the pagan Assyrians & were ostracized by the Jews! This inter-marrying business began about seven hundred years before Christ, when the Assyrians had conquered Israel, & in such an unstable situation, there was a fair amount of intermarrying!

This mixed race of Jews & Assyrians were called Samaritans, like what happened when the first white settlers in Canada married Indians & their children became known as "Metis"! Anyhow, the Jews of Jerusalem had no use for Samaritan people, so after a while, the Samaritans pretty well had to leave Jerusalem, into the surrounding mountains & began developing their own way of worship! They even twisted up the Commandments a bit, to develop a religion of their own! These are the reasons why Samaritans were considered heretics & why they were shunned by the Jews of Jerusalem!

And yet, in this Parable Jesus showed how one of these despised Sama-ritans took pity on a Jew who had fallen among the thieves, though a Jewish priest, & then a Jewish Levite ignored him & left him lying on the road! With this Gospel, Jesus teaches that should we ever see that someone is in dire need, He'd expect His followers to lend a helping hand, regardless of who he is! We must not limit our acts of kindness only to people of our own nation, or of our own race, or to members of our own political group! If we can see that someone needs help, we are expected to help!

Jesus loves everyone, even those who are separated from Him by sin! Hundreds of times when we happened to be in a state of sin, we didn't deserve God's help either, & yet, the minute we get in a mess, we're never afraid to ask God to help us get us out of our mess! Every sinner knows that God will never refuse to help us as soon as we ask Him, & that's why we should also be compassionate to others who need help!

Normally, we don't see too many needy people in Canada, because we have a very comprehensive welfare system in place, to help people in need! The only ones that nobody can help, are, those street-people who refuse to live according to the rules of the "shelters" that the government provides for them! So, if there is such a comprehensive welfare system in place, we might ask ourselves what will they buy with your money!

But that's not the biggest problem we have here in Canada! We have much more serious problem than that! That poor man in today's parable was robbed & beaten by the more ordinary kind of thieves, but there are the spiritual kinds of thieves & robbers that are looking for a chance to rob us! These spiritual thieves & robbers want to steal the Catholic faith & religion from our hearts, so these are the ones to watch out for! These are much more dangerous than the ordinary thieves & robbers, because the spiritual robbers are after our souls! They know how to destroy people's souls, & they can destroy our souls, too, if we do not guard & protect our faith!

In the spiritual world, we have the devil to contend with, & the devil is the worst of all the thieves! When the bad angels revolted against God, they were condemned to spend their eternity in Hell, so they have a great hatred for us human beings who are on our way to Heaven! The rebellious angels lost their chance for eternal happiness & they also want make us disobey God's laws!

These evil spirits are so good at misleading people that, no one can reach Heaven without God's help! Salvation is impossible without God's graces! The devil is so good at deceiving people that, if God had not sent His only Son to redeem us from our sins, we'd all be lost! In spite of our brains & intelligence, the devil can deceive us just as easily as he deceived Adam & Eve! He is such an expert liar that if we get careless about our prayer life and if we neglect to receive the Sacraments very often for our own protection, we will have no protection against him! Our prayers & the Sacraments of the Church are the only things that can save us!

Jesus called Satan a robber & the "father of lies!" Jesus had to warn us about Satan because we would never have known how dangerous the evil spirits are to our salvation! In this world, the only thieves & robbers we know about are the human kind of thieves & robbers! The evil spirits are a hundred times more dangerous to us than the worst kind of man! We might be able to cope with evil men, no matter how evil, but we need God's help to resist the wiles of the evil spirits!

So that is our lesson for today, to be Good Samaritans to those in need! By all means let us help each other in our needs, but most of all in the spiritual sense! There are thousands of our brothers & sisters who have been robbed by the devil! They have been robbed of their faith, so, without our prayers, they will never attain to eternal life! A person who lost his faith is someone who has been robbed & injured by the devil, just like the man in the parable, who was lying dying in the road, & just hoping for a Good Samaritan to come along & help them get their faith back!

Such people no longer know how to help themselves! They need our prayers & compassion in the worst way! So let us be on the lookout for those who lost their faith & pray to God that they get their faith back! Remember that we're all in this together! We are all travelers, struggling through this same valley of tears! So let us always be Good Samaritans to each other, & maybe we can all reach that Heavenly home that Jesus said He is preparing for us!

Heal Jairus' Daughter

2010-11-06T20:58:00.001-07:00

Nov 7th, (Sun.) 2010: "Healing Jarius' daughter" (Eph. 2:14-22) (Lk. 8:41-56)

Dear Friends in Christ!

It's a fact of life that the print-media as well as the television media do manage to influence, to a very large extent, our thinking & our understanding of what is going on around us, & yet, in spite of all the brain-washing that impinges on us, it is still our job as Catholics, to keep one fact in mind, that, this is our opportunity to get to know, love & serve God, that we may live with Him in Heaven for all eternity! This life is our time of testing! All kinds of things keep happening around us, & impacting on us, & vying for our attention, but we refuse to be distracted! We keep asking ourselves the same question over & over again: -- since heaven is my goal, am I making ready to live with God in Heaven, or am I wasting time on worldly things?

Lets face another truth! It takes real willpower to be able to ignore the worldly concerns that we are so surrounded with, so as to transform ourselves into totally God-centered human beings! Worldly people do not go to Heaven! The only people that are sure to reach Heaven are those who really want to live with God forever! Where's the sense of hoarding the treasures of this world, if we can't take anything with us?

The most successful people in the world, the millionaires, business tycoons, & so many others, are really to be pitied, because they've lost their way! They had time for everything else, but no time to love & serve God! God is a complete stranger to them! They have piled up much wealth, but in spite of it, they are nothing more than poor lost sheep! treasures of this world! Today's Gospel tells us how one such lost sheep found Christ!

Jairus was not a follower of Jesus, but one of the chief Priests in a Synagogue, & you know that most of the priests & Pharisees resented Jesus! They resented Jesus because the truth that Jesus preached, was a little different from what the priests & Pharisees had been preaching! Jesus just kept preaching to the poor & healing all the sich that were brought to Him! By now, all the people throughout Palestine had heard of Jesus' healing powers! It was plain as day that Jesus had divine powers, because He could heal any illness at all, & He healed instantly! He was even raising dead people back to life! Only God could do that!

So when Jairus' 12 year old daughter became ill & was at the point of dying, Jairus hurried to Jesus, fell on his knees & begged Him to quickly come & heal his daughter before she dies! Jesus went with him, but the girl died before they got there!

God wants people to believe in Him! To have faith in Him! Very often, before healing someone, Jesus would ask: "Do you believe I can heal you?" & as soon as the sick man replied "Yes Lord!" Jesus would then reply "Your faith has saved you!" & then heal him! Even today we must have total faith in God's goodness! God wants us to trust in Him & have total faith in Him!

Dear Friends! God works miracles even in our own day! Just ask a priest how many souls are saved right on the deathbed! The only difference is that in our day, Jesus works mainly through the ministry of His Priests & through the Sacraments of the Church, especially the "Sacrament of the Sick" or "The Last Rites!" The greatest miracle is when God saves the soul of one who had left the Catholic Church for some reason, or other! Here's one example!

Mike was dying, after being alienated from the Church for a number of years! Two of his closest friends were Catholic, & they stayed at his bedside! Mike didn't have very much time left! They asked him a couple of times if he would like to have a priest come to his bedside, to help him make his peace with God, but he rejected the idea! Slowly, Mike slid into a coma, & one of the men called a priest anyway!

The priest came, but Mike was already beyond talking! Then, the priest decided to give him the anointing with the holy oils, the "Last Rites of The Church", because this Sacrament is so powerful that it often produces the most extraordinary changes in a sick person! After the anointing, the priest spoke to Mike, & told him that if he can hear him, let him try to show some sign that he understands that he received this Anointing! In a little while, Mike's hand went to his forehead where there was a spot of the Holy Oil! The priest froze, because, if Mike wiped the Oil off, that means he's rejecting the Sacrament!

But no, the hand went down to his breast, & then from shoulder to shoulder, as he made the sign of the cross! Mike showed that he accepted God's Mercy & salvation! Once again the Sacrament of the dying had brought peace & salvation to a dying soul, at the very last moment! I think every priest has seen such last minute conversions, because God's mercy is so great, that, even on his death-bed, a man can still turn back to God & be saved!

Another time I was driving home after a very long day! There was a Care Home along the way! I usually check in, but it was after 10, so I wasn't going to stop! And I was very tired! But something kept telling me to step in, so even though I was tired, I stepped in, at least to ask the nurse if everybody was OK!

But as soon as the nurse saw me, was she ever happy I came, because they had a very sick one! I was trying to guess which patient took a turn for the worse, but when I entered the room, I didn't know this patient, nor his wife who was sobbing her heart out by his bedside! He was already in a coma, & fighting with all his might for every breath! There was only one thing left to do, so I quickly gave him the Last Rites!

Then I asked her why she was crying, instead of calling a priest? Can you save a soul just by crying? Five minutes later the sick man was breathing easily & although he remained in the coma, he died easily! Jesus saved another soul by bringing a priest to his bedside! That's what kind of God we Catholics love & believe in! Slava…..

Are you king of the Jews?

2010-10-31T02:38:00.001-07:00

Oct. 31st, (Sun.) 2010: "Are You the King of the Jews?" (Col. 1:12-20) (Jn. 18:33-37)

Dear Friends in Christ!

This is the kind of Gospel that gives us lots of things to think about, because it underlines the importance of Truth in our lives! Christ even referred to Himself as being the Way, the Truth & the Life", & after reading this Gospel, we can understand why Pilate was so ready to condemn an innocent man to die on the cross, & all because he feared what the Jews could do to him, more than what God could do to him! Pilate knew perfectly well that Jesus was innocent of any crime! He even told the Jews: "I find no guilt in Him!"! But as soon as he declared that he found no guilt in Jesus, the High Priests became viciously angry at Pilate for that, because they wanted Jesus to die on the cross! As soon as the Jews saw that Pilate might set Jesus free, they quickly brought another more dangerous charge against Jesus! They accused Jesus of trying to make Himself a king in opposition to Caesar, & this is the kind of charge that could destroy Pilate's career! That's why Pilate immediately asked Jesus: "Are you the king of the Jews?"

That charge was totally false of course, because Jesus did not have the slightest desire to be a worldly king, however this is a charge that could threaten Pilate's career, so when Pilate asked if He was the king of the Jews, Jesus took care to answer that one very precisely, because this charge even claimed that Jesus was ready to oppose Caesar! With that charge, Pilate's whole career was being threatened! Now Pilate himself was on the "hot seat", even more than Jesus was!

All of a sudden Pilate was faced with a dangerous decision! This had suddenly become a very important political case! Since Pilate was being pressured to condemn Jesus to death on the cross, he needed all the facts, & that's why Jesus made it so clear to Pilate that, if He had really been trying to become an earthly king, then His servants would have been fighting to prevent His arrest, so from that alone you can see that His kingdom is not of this world! So once again, Pilate knew for sure that Jesus was not trying to be any king!

Pilate however, had to protect his worldly career, & with the stakes so high, it didn't matter to him if an innocent man had to be executed! His biggest worry was that if the Jews started to riot, he would lose his high position, so he decided it was safer to do what the Jews wanted, & condemn Jesus to be crucified! So when Jesus said that His kingdom was not of this world, Pilate knew how to twist His words around: "Aha, so you admit that you ARE a king? & Jesus answered still more clearly: "It is YOU who are saying I am a King, not me! My reason for coming into the world was to bear witness to the truth! Everyone who loves the truth listens to My voice!" So you can see how completely Jesus took away every excuse that Pilate could have used for sentencing Him to death!

With all the excuses gone, Pilate knew it would be murder to sentence Jesus to death, but he went ahead & sentenced Jesus to be crucified, just to keep his governor's job! And by doing that, Pilate sentenced himself to eternal fire! So there's what happens to people who know the Truth, but refuse to be guided by it! Any man who refuses to be guided by God's Ten Commandments, will have no excuses left when he stands before God!

Everybody knows that Jesus came to save the human race from the bondage of sin, but He also came to bear witness to the importance of truth! So keep this fact always in mind, that, if truth is so important to Our Lord, it better be just as important to us! What I find so interesting is the contrast between Jesus & Pilate! Truth is so very important to God, but truth is of no importance at all to evil men such as Pilate! Pilate's first response to Jesus, was: "Truth? What is truth?" So while Jesus is telling Pilate that Truth is so important to God, that He came from Heaven to bear witness to it, Pilate ridiculed the whole notion of Truth!

Jesus often taught that only truth can make mankind really free, while Pilate, now sitting on his Judgment Seat, is ridiculing the whole notion of truth, & making ready to inflict the death sentence on the Source of all Truth! Two extremes! The Son of God willing to witness to the truth even to death on the cross, while a very evil man will trample on truth, just to protect his worldly career!

Dear friends, Jesus was talking to each one of us when He said: "If anyone loves father or mother, sister or brother, or wife or child more than Me, he is not worthy of Me!" He is God, & nobody in the world is more important, more lovable than God, so when this same God underlines the importance of truth, we must also train ourselves to adhere to the truth! Pilate pronounced that terrible sentence of eternal punishment upon himself, because he was not afraid of offending God, but he was afraid of offending the Jews! He feared the Jews more than he feared God! What a horrible mistake he made! Let's not repeat his mistake! Let us always fear offending God, & never worry what people may think of us!

Our Catholic religion is totally centered upon God's Word & upon His Truth! "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life," said our Lord, so we must make every effort to know all of God's Truth, and then make every effort to live according to that truth! As the source of all truth, Jesus cannot deceive, nor can He be deceived! His truth is the final word on any subject we can think of! Jesus revealed His truth to, because truth necessary for our salvation! Everything we need to know, was revealed to us by Jesus! So, every man can know God's truth, if he cares to search for it, it takes more than that, to get us to Heaven! We must be determined to form our lives according to that truth & that is the hard part! We need the help of God's graces to live like Catholics! In addition to knowing the truth, we all need the help of the Sacraments of the Catholic Church! Not one person could ever be saved without the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, but with the help of the Church, everyone who wants to, can save his soul!

So that's why this Gospel is so important to us, because it shows the importance of truth! To dismiss the importance of truth like Pilate did, means losing our soul! Let us live in Truth! Slava….

Rich Man & Lazarus

2010-10-31T02:35:00.001-07:00

Oct. 24th, (Sun.) 2010: "Rich Man & Lazarus" (Gal. 6:11-18) (Lk. 16:19-31)

Dear Friends in Christ!

This parable shows very clearly the two extremes of the moral spectrum which is personified on one end by a rich & selfish man, who was able to indulge his taste-buds with any food his heart desired, while at the same time knowing that a miserable beggar, by the name of Lazarus, was starving to death at his gate! The rich mans dogs were allowed to come & eat the scraps of food that fell off the table, but not Lazarus! Although Lazarus looked longingly at the food that kept falling off the table, he was not allowed to come past the gate, & that is where he died!

Right after that, the parable shows how God's justice works in eternity! Now the tables are turned! Lazarus has been taken to Heaven, where he is being consoled on the bosom of Abraham, but that same rich man, who had refused to show Lazarus any mercy, is now suffering in the eternal fires of Hell! How easily he could have given Lazarus some food & shelter in his need, but now it is too late to repent! When he asks Abraham for a drop of water, he is told that no one can help him, because in eternity, a great abyss had been fixed between good & evil, & it's impossible for any-one to cross that divide from either side!

For us who still live in this world, it is our time to do good! We really have it good here! Canada is one of the richest countries in the world & every person who lives here, has unlimited opportunity to keep improving his lifestyle still more, if he wants to! If luxury is what we crave, we can have it! If worldly riches are what we crave, there's nothing to stop us from being rich, as long as we're ready to work hard at it! In Canada almost anyone can keep improving his lifestyle & that of his family! No other country in the world offers as much opportunity as we have here in Canada & America! If you're ready to work hard at it, you can be rich & everyone knows it!

My dear friends, there is also the other side to this coin, because, being able to achieve anything you desire in this world through hard work, applies just as much to the riches & treasures that we must have in the world of eternity! This means that we must be just as willing to work, just as hard, to secure those eternal treasures for ourselves, as we did for worldly riches that we've accumulated! Whoever desires to live with God in Heaven, must learn to love God with all his heart, while living in harmony with Ten Commandments of God! Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself encourages us to strive with all our might to reach our goal! So if living with God is our top priority, then let us do whatever it takes, to make sure we reach Heaven!

Which brings us back to the parable of the rich man & Lazarus! The rich man had all the food he could eat, so he was probably wondering where he could find still more happiness in this life! Lazarus wasn't searching for ways to indulge himself! He just wanted something to eat, & there was no one to give him to eat!

But there are many good & compassionate people in the world, who consider it a great blessing to be able to help the needy, & since there are so many thousands of Lazarus's in this world, they can count their blessings every day!

Holy Family Care Home has been looking after the helpless & needy for a long time now, & providing food, shelter, care & compassion to hundreds of needy people, ever since this place was built! Today they are in need of help & care, but rest assured that one day you will meet them again in eternity, where they will have the opportunity to thank you for being there for them in their time of need! Scriptures tell us that Our Lord Himself will greet the merciful with these words: "Come, blessed of My Father, that I may show you the place I have been preparing for you, ever since I laid the foundations of this world! For I was hungry and you gave Me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was homeless and you took me a home; and when I was sick, you cared for me! For truly, truly I say to you, what ever you did for these, the least of my brothers & sisters, you did unto me!"

Dear Friends! God is so good to us! He gives us so many opportunities to be good & compassionate in this world, because in the final analysis, helping the sick & the needy is the surest road to Heaven! Each one of us has been given special talents that no one else has, & we're able to use our talents for God's greater glory! So lets do good! Slava ………..

Sower & Seed

2010-10-31T02:34:00.001-07:00

Oct. 17th, (Sun.) 2010: "Sower & the seed" (Gal. 2:16-20) (Lk. 8:5-15)

Slava Isusu Chrisyu!

I am so very pleased to be with you today, to celebrate the Divine Liturgy for you in this beautiful little church! It looks like I might be here from time to time in the future, but today it will also be a little bit of get-acquainted thing, to get to know each other a bit! Anyhow, by the time I finish this sermon,

We all know that God is eternal! He has always been perfect in every conceivable way, including His Wisdom & knowledge, so He has always known everything there is to know, so it stands to reason that He would never change any of His laws, or any of His Commandments, or any of the truth He revealed to us! And since He made us in His own image & likeness, that has to mean that we humans, beginning with Adam & Eve, have all been made on the same pattern, & by the same God! Since we're all made from the dust of the earth, & since there's still so much of that dust left over, it looks like God can keep on making more people for ever & ever, if He wants to! So what I'm saying is this: ---- God & His laws can never change, so the Catechism you learned as little kids, is good for the rest of your life, because truth can never change!

God is Love & He loves us! He made each one of us for Himself & for Heaven! And even after the human race became disobedient & sinful, God did not abandon us! His only-begotten Son came to earth in the form of a little, human baby, lived among us for 33 years, so as to teach us everything we must do, in order to reach Heaven! He also established His own Church on earth for our benefit, because without the Sacraments of this Divine Church, it would not be possible to get to Heaven! Jesus did all these wonderful things for us, because, He really wants every one of us to live with Him in Heaven!

What are some of the ways this Church helps us? Well, only a few minutes ago, during the Gospel reading, we were treated to another of Jesus' parables, & through this parable, Jesus tells us how important it is to take every one of His Words into our hearts! He begins this parable by telling us what happened when a sower went out to sow wheat on his farm! Every seed was the same, & under ideal conditions, each one of those seeds could produce a hundredfold, but sad to say, only a very few of those seeds produced a hundredfold! Why was that? Well, because every seed fell on different kinds of ground! Those seeds that fell on the hard road, had no chance at all to survive! They just lay there until the crows came & ate them up! That seed was wasted! This is what happens when people reject God & His teaching! The refuse to receive the word of God!

Then, some seeds fell on the rocky part of the field, which was not properly prepared for seeding! There was only a little bit of soil! The seeds tried to grow, but the soil was so stony that the roots couldn't even go down to where the moisture was, so as soon as the first heat-wave came along, all those plants withered up & died! The roots were too shallow! These plants with the shallow roots are like the very easy-going people, who are not very committed to God! Their faith is not deep enough, or strong enough to live through a real persecution! When the Communists took over in Ukraine, there were people who went to Siberia, because they would not God, or the Catholic faith, but those with very little faith, became Communists!

Some seeds fell among the weeds & thorns! These seeds also tried their best to survive, but they simply had no chance against all those weeds & thorns! There was no way they could produce any kind of good harvest under such tough conditions! These seeds represent Catholics that settle down to live in an area where there is no Catholic church within driving distance, & no other Catholics to associate with, & to support each other! It's very hard for your faith to survive under such conditions! In other words, it is not the best place for a Catholic to plant himself & his family, if he wants his faith to survive!

But there were some seeds that fell on good, well-prepared soil! Those seeds were able to send their roots deep, to get all the moisture & nutrition they needed! They had everything going for them, so they yielded, some 30-fold, some 60-fold, & some even 100-fold! This represents the people that take their religion so seriously that they take every precaution to protect their faith, make every effort to receive the Sacraments of the Church as often as possible, to reinforce their faith still more, & who pray to God every day, asking for more & more graces & blessings! People who take their faith & church-life seriously, will always be under God's special protection! Not only will their faith survive every trial, but they will even reinforce the faith of others!

Dear friends in Christ! The seeds in this parable are God's words, & our hearts are like "good soil", that are well-prepared & ready to receive His words & produce a big harvest to the glory of God! Our hearts need to be clean & tidy, with no weeds growing there! A heart that is properly prepared, is very open to the word of God, & has the best chance of producing a great big harvest to the glory of God! So the message of today's Gospel is this: that when God speaks to us through the Sunday Gospel, we should try to prepare ourselves ahead of time to receive His words into our hearts, & treasure them for the rest of our lives!

Sometimes people get confused about what is the right thing to do, & yet, there is nothing that hard to understand about Christianity & salvation! If you still remember your Catechism, you already are off to a very good start! You can also read good books, to learn still more about God, because the more you understand how much God really loves you, you will surely want to love Him as much in return! The better we understand how much God has done for us, the more we will love Him, & that is the surest road to Heaven!

Think of it in this way: there are an infinite variety of people in the world, rich & poor, some are strong, others are frail & delicate! There are kings, emperors, priests, bishops & Popes, & then there are always the poorest of the poor, & yet, in front of God, none of them is any greater than the other! All men are created equal! Beggars & kings & Popes & all kinds of other people all have a soul to save or lose, which means that every person in the world must live according to the Ten Commandments! Every person in the world is equal before God, even though each person has different gifts to put into God's service! Everybody in the world must love & serve God, but each person in a slightly different way!

Jesus tells us in today's parable that He sows His words in every heart in the world, but not every heart is prepared properly! Some hearts are very well prepared to receive the words of God, while others are not! That's why He compares the different hearts, to the different farms! When the field is well cultivated, the seed will yield a good harvest, but if a field is poorly prepared, or not at all, the seed can't even survive, let alone produce a harvest! This explains why it is that, everybody hears the same words, but some derive more benefit out of them than others!

Dear friends! We belong completely to God! We are His property because He made us for Himself & for Heaven! But He knew that some of His beloved people might get confused, so He built this Church to guide us to Heaven! So keep preparing your hearts & treasure every word that Jesus sows in them! And do love your neighbor as yourself! God bless you all!

"Carry your cross after Me"

2010-09-18T11:53:00.001-07:00

Sep 19^th, (Sun.) 2010: "If a man wishes to come after Me," (Gal. 2:16-20) (Mk. 8:34-9:1)

Dear Friends in Christ!

Today Jesus sets out a Divine challenge before us! We all think of ourselves as faithful followers of Christ, but in today's Gospel, Jesus is describing the kind of followers He wants! He is asking for very committed followers! Actually, such a request is not at all unusual, because every good leader likes to have brave & committed soldiers backing him up, except that Jesus is looking for a spiritual commitment to Him! "If anyone wishes to follow after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and only then is he fully qualified to follow in my footsteps!" Then, Jesus explains why we should be so committed!

"If anyone tries to preserve his life, Jesus tells us, he will end up losing his soul! But, anyone who is ready to give his life for My sake, or for the Gospel's sake, will save his soul! For what would it profit a man, even if he did gain the whole world, if he loses his soul?"

Jesus is saying that nothing in the world is worth as much as one, eternal soul, the kind that every one of us have! So if someone gave you the whole world in exchange for your soul, he'd be getting a real bargain, because the soul is eternal, while the world is not! Consider it this way, even if you did own the whole world for a while, your pleasure would only last for so long, & after that, you'd have nothing! But if could get your soul into Heaven, then you'll be happy forever!

Today I will go a little further on those things that I talked about last Sunday! Last week I explained how God showed His love for mankind, when in "the fullness of time" He sent His own Son to earth, as the long awaited Savior of the world! But then, only 33 years later, Jesus proved that His love for us has no limits, by paying for the sins of the world with His last drop of Blood! The price of our redemption was very high & Jesus was only too ready to pay it in full! So that is how much He loves us, & the only thing He wants from us, is, that we love Him, like He loves us! Since He laid down His life for us, we should be just as ready to lay down our lives for Him, or His Church, or for our faith!

Since our greatest hope to spend eternity with God in Heaven, its really important that we spend our lives on earth, loving & serving God to the best of our ability! We humans are very limited, of course & God knows it, because He's the One who made us! He made us the way we are, on purpose! Although He made us from the dust of the earth, He made us in His own image & likeness, because He made us for Himself! We humans are very special creatures, because God gave us an eternal soul, & on top of that, He gave us something else that only God & the angels have; a free will! We are always free to make our own decisions & choices, & we even get to choose where we will spend our eternity! God won't even force us to live in Heaven against our will! That's how free we are!

So Jesus paid off our sins & opened the way to Heaven, but then comes our part as we cope with hundreds of little choices every day of our lives! It is by these daily choices that we keep proving to God how much we really love Him! At first glance, it seems very simple & easy, but to always make the right choice is not always simple, nor easy, because many decisions cab be very difficult to make! Let us not forget that even the smallest choices must be made in accordance with the famous Ten Commandments! Furthermore, the devil gets very involved in our decision-making, by tempting & encouraging us to make decisions that are contrary to the will of God!

The devils are very clever, you know, because they were all very intelligent angels at one time, until they rebelled against God & that's the reason they are so much smarter than we are! We need Divine help against them, & that's why the Sacraments of the Church are so important to us!

The Sacraments of the Church provide us with the graces that will help us make the right decisions, & that's why, in addition to the Sacraments, we should also ask the saints to pray for us, too! We need lots of help to get to Heaven! We can't get to Heaven without help! Every person in the world needs to keep receiving the Sacraments of the Church & we also need to have the saints in Heaven praying for us! That is why Christ established this Church for us, because this Church is a teaching Church & also a sanctifying Church! This Church tells us how to stay on the road to Heaven, & if we sin, the priest has the power to forgive your sins & give you a fresh start! And even that wasn't enough to save everyone, & that is why, even as He was hanging on the cross, Jesus still made His Mother our Mother, because She will obtain hundreds of graces & blessings for us, that we could never get any other way! So Jesus provided all this extra help for us, because He knows that we need it!

So lets stop & take stock of our situation! Even though we have so much going for us, there are still a few people that keep slipping through the cracks, as the saying goes! Why is that? Why are some people still slipping through the cracks, & what causes us to stray so easily? If the worst thing the devil can do to us is, tempt us to disobey God, or leave the Church, then why are so many people listening to the old liar? Why do people listen to the devil, instead of the Church? What is our biggest problem?

Dear friends! The answer to this whole mystery has to do with our free will! Although our freewill is God's greatest gift to us, putting us on a par with the angels of Heaven, but at the same time, if we don't keep a very tight rein on that "free will", it can be the greatest danger for our salvation! We have to make sure that our freewill is very strong, but it must be strong only for God! We have to make sure our freewill is strong enough to resist every temptation! A weak will-power can put us in Hell! We must have a strong willpower!

There are many people in the world who do not have strong willpower, & those are the ones that the devil can tempt very easily! Anybody with eyes can see that God's Commandments are being broken all over the world, even though they know every Commandment! Everybody knows the difference between right & wrong & exactly what the Catholic Church teaches, so if people break the laws of the Church, it isn't for lack of knowledge, but a lack of will-power! So the real question is WHY? Why don't we have enough willpower to resist temptation? What's the matter with our willpower that we keep doing whatever the devil wants us to do? How can we make our wills strong enough to resist those temptations?

Dear friends, the souls that stray the easiest are those who do not love God enough! Do you see now why Jesus wants us to love Him with all our hearts, all our minds & all our strength? You shall love the Lord thy God with all your heart, all your soul, all of your mind & all of your strength! And you shall love your neighbor as yourself!"

Today's Gospel is telling us the very same thing? "If anyone wishes to follow Me, the first thing you have to do is get serious! First of all deny yourself! Start living only for Me!" Today Jesus is telling us to get real! There are times when we must deny ourselves, rather than pamper ourselves! We may need to deny ourselves some of the things we crave for! Our bodies always crave for luxury & the easy life! Do we have the willpower to deny ourselves?

Dear friends! How could Jesus possibly suffer so much for us? The answer is so simple! That's how much He loved us! So it all boils down to how much do we love Jesus in return? The Martyrs of the Coliseum loved Jesus enough to die for Him! The Martyrs refused the easy way out! No! The Martyrs loved Jesus enough to face the lions in the Coliseum! Are we all ready to do the same? That is the only question to ask ourselves every day! Slava…….

Heal Possessed Boy

2010-08-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

Aug. 1st, (Sun.) 2010: ""Heal possessed boy" (Heb. 6:13-20) (Mt. 17:14-23)

Dear Friends in Christ!

Experience shows that during our lifetime, we encounter all kinds of unexpected surprises! Many of them are pleasant & memorable, while others will test our Catholic faith to the limit, & yet, both the good & bad experiences are necessary to our wellbeing, because, these good & bad trials & situations is what shapes & builds our character & makes us what we are! We become who we are, by coping with the many trials that God sends our way! What God sends to us, is always good for us, & you just heard of one such trial, or problem in today's Gospel reading!

In today's Gospel, a certain father had a very heavy cross to bear! His boy was considered a lunatic, & it's not an easy thing to be responsible for such a person! At times this boy would try to jump into a fire & at other times into the water as though he wanted to destroy himself! The father had his hands full, just trying to keep his son from hurting himself!

But this was also at this time that Jesus was just beginning to send His Apostles in pairs, all by themselves, to preach in the surrounding towns & villages & Jesus also gave them the power to heal the sick & to cast out devils, so the father first asked the Apostles to heal his boy, but none of them could heal him! Finally, today, the father came to Jesus & is begging Him to heal his boy! As it turns out, the boy was not suffering from dementia at all, but was possessed by a devil, & when Jesus expelled the devil, the boy became perfectly normal again!

So Jesus expelled the devil with a single command, but at the same time He was terribly upset with the lack of faith of all these people! "What an unbelieving & perverse lot you are! How much longer do I have to be with you & how much longer do I have to keep talking & preaching to you? When are you going to really, really believe everything that I'm trying to teach you? And when will you start living according to My teaching?"

Later in the evening, the Apostles came to Jesus in secret, to ask Him why they were not able to expel that devil themselves? After all, Jesus had already given them the power to heal in His name & expel devils, so why couldn't they expel this one?

Dear friends! Let me now explain why Jesus was so upset that there was almost no real faith among these people, & He had reason to be upset! After all, He wasn't doing all that talking & all those miracles just for the benefit of His Apostles & disciples! Jesus was teaching divine truth, because His truth could lead to the salvation of every sinner who was ready to listen to Him & believe His teaching! In order to be saved, everybody in the world must know God & keep His Commandments!

And having said that, I'm ready to apply the lessons from this Gospel to our own times: In order for all people to be saved, it's not enough that only the Pope, bishops & priests would believe in God & keep His Commandments! Every other living creature that wants to be saved, must also believe in God & keep His Commandments! Everyone needs to have total faith in Jesus & His Church, & then live & worship according to the teaching of the Church! We have to firmly believe that the most important thing in this life is to get to know, love & serve God, so that we can be happy with Him for all eternity in Heaven! That's the only thing we're living for!

So that is the real reason why Jesus was so disappointed whenever He found a lack of faith in His people! Did you notice that while Jesus healed hundreds of sick people & expelled hundreds of devils from them, that He'd always ask the person first: "Do you believe I can heal you?" And the sick person would always reply: "Yes Lord!" after which the person was instantly cured! That's how important it is to Jesus, that we believe every word of His teaching! He didn't like to work miracles in front of people who couldn't make up their minds if He was truly the Son of God, or not! He scolded them for their lack of faith: "What an unbelieving bunch you are, & how much longer do I have to be with you before you start really believing in Me? How much longer must I put up with your doubts? Can't you tell by My miracles that I am your God?"

Faith, for some reason, does not come easily to human beings! Faith is not something of this world, but is always a gift from God, which means we should always keep praying for it! Being creatures of flesh & blood, we function well enough in this physical world, but what Jesus keeps asking us to do is, to believe in a spiritual world that none of us has ever seen! He also wants us to believe in the God that none of us has ever seen! He wants us to believe in Heaven & Hell, that there are good angels & bad angels, because we must choose who we wish to spend eternity with! And here we can't sometimes decide what to believe?

There is another version of this Gospel that tells us of the father's reply to Jesus in regards to faith! In the other Gospel the father of the boy made his very sincere appeal to Jesus: "I do believe, Lord! But help me with my unbelief!" In other words; "I know that I don't believe strongly enough, but help me to believe the way I should believe!

Such a short & beautiful prayer! "I do believe in You, Jesus, & I know that my faith is not strong enough, so I ask Your help! Please increase my faith!"

And that's the grace we should all ask of Jesus, because none of us have the faith of the great saints! After all, we are only dust, & dust does not have the ability to love & believe! So this is how WE should pray: "I do have faith, O Lord, but far too little, so please make my faith better & stronger! And Lord, give me more love, because although I do love You, I want to love you much, much more than that! And the same goes for my faith in Holy Communion! I know that when I receive Holy Communion, I am receiving You, but please help me to believe it ten times more strongly, because my salvation depends on me having real faith! -- So those are the things we should always pray for!

Yes my friends! We have to keep praying for all the spiritual powers we must have! Our salvation depends on how much faith we have in Jesus, & how much we love Him, so, we must pray for these two things in particular!

Jesus complained of a lack of faith, but I explained very fully that we never will have that kind of faith, unless we ask God to give it to us! Neither will we ever love Him with our whole heart, like He wants us to, unless we keep praying for that, as well! So in the back of our minds, we should always understand how easily we can lose our souls, if we don't pray enough! Let us keep praying for the graces we need!

Heal Two Blind Men

2010-07-10T14:02:00.000-07:00

JULY 11th, 1999: "HEALING TWO BLIND MEN": (Rom. 15:1-7) (Mt. 9:27-35)

"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us! Heal us!"

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ!

What a powerful petition this was, that the two blind men made to Jesus! Two blind Jews who want so much to see, & so they're using the most powerful argument they can put together, so that Jesus couldn't possibly refuse to heal them! "Jesus, son of David have mercy on us! You are a fellow-Jew! You are a descendent of David & of the same race as we are! Will you not have mercy on two blind Jews?" Jesus asked if they believe He is able to heal them, & they reply; :Yes Lord!" And with that, they were healed!

Two things really stand out in this story, & we should keep them in mind when we ourselves are petitioning God for something: (1) They really believed that Jesus could heal any illness in the world, & they also knew He could heal them if He'd only want to! So their only concern was to ask Him in such a way that He couldn't refuse to do it, so first they pointed out that they were fellow Jews, & who in the world is going to help them, if He doesn't, so, so all they were really asking Him to be merciful to a couple of poor fellow Jews!

Today I will tell you a true story, & this story will show you another example of a powerful petition, & this one saved a whole ship from sinking in a stormy sea! This whole sermon is designed to prove that God will always grant what we ask for, if we ask for something with real faith! God loves to be merciful to us, so He will always grant what we ask for, when we ask it from the bottom of our heart! The more we believe in His love for us, the more confidently we will pray to Him!

Now I'll point out something still more special about today's Gospel! These blind men in the Gospel used almost the same kind of words to Jesus that a priest uses in making the Offertory of the Divine Liturgy! So it certainly does help to use the proper words when asking for favors! Now back to that ship that got caught in a great storm!

Ships used to be very small at one time! Many years ago, the ocean ships were much smaller than the huge ocean-liners that we have today, & many of those small ships could never survive a big storm! Anyhow, this little ship got caught in a terrible storm & was on the verge of sinking! The waves were so huge, that there was no hope of surviving this one! But there happened to be a priest on board, & he'd love to offer a Mass for their safety, but the ship was tossed around so viciously, that it just wasn't possible to say a Mass! We know that the Divine Liturgy is the most powerful prayer we can possibly offer to God, but during the storm, saying a Mass was completely out of the question!

But then he noticed this terrified young mother holding on to her baby, preparing to die, & an idea came to his mind! Even in the middle of that big storm, He was still going to make this very powerful petition to God, in an effort to save the ship! The petition that always pleases God so much, is the one that priests say at the Offertory of every Mass, ---- so he quickly took the little infant into his arms, raised it up to Heaven & said: "Lord of Heaven & earth! Your justice is perfect justice, & without a doubt there are many sinners on this ship who deserve to perish for their sins! But I am showing You this innocent baby which you have recently brought to life, & this innocent baby has not committed one single sin against Thee, & does not deserve to be punished with the guilty! For the sake of this innocent child, will you spare the lives of all those sinners that deserve to die? Will you spare the many, for the sake of this innocent child, who never once, offended Thee??"

And God heard this powerful plea, was moved to show His Mercy, & He worked a miracle, right then & there, to show how attentive He is to our pleas, and immediately the storm died down, & all were saved!

But the point I'm putting across is that, the petition he made during this emergency was not some new kind of petition, because every priest uses basically that very same petition, every time he says the Divine Liturgy! Priests use this same petition at every Mass! So the miracle that saved the lives of a hundred sinners on that ship, that very same kind of miracle takes place at every single Mass, except that during Mass, the priest raises to God, much more than an innocent baby! He raises to God, --- His very own Son as propitiation for all the sins of the world! So during Mass, the priest petitions God to have mercy on poor sinners, in almost the same way, as was done in this ship story! The priest on the ship had the words of petition in his head, because he uses them at every Mass! He could only raise that innocent little baby to God, but it was enough to save a shipload of sinners!

Now let's turn our full attention to the Holy Altar & what happens at every Divine Liturgy! What's the first thing a priest does, as soon as he changes the bread & wine into the living Jesus? He then raises the Chalice & the Patten towards Heaven & says to God: "We offer to You, Yours of Your own, in behalf of all and for all!" Which means the priest is saying to God that, regardless how many sinners there are in the world, that deserve to be destroyed, but at this very moment, Your very own Son is asking You to hold back Your justice still a little longer, & be merciful to them instead!

It was Your very own Son, O Lord God, who instituted this Most Holy Ritual of Sacrifice which we now call the Divine Liturgy! O Most Holy Father, we, the priests of the New Covenant are only carrying out Your Divine Plan for our salvation! Your only begotten Son enters so willingly into the Chalice & Paten, during Mass, so that we priests can then present Him to You, as the one & only reason to be merciful to sinners, still a little longer! We all deserve to be punished for our sins, but at this moment, Your Son is pleading for still more mercy on poor sinners!

Dear friends! Keep these things in mind as you enter the Church, because a Church where these holy things take place, has got to be the most sacred spot on the face of the earth! Now you know exactly what happens at every single Mass! Every time you attend a Divine Liturgy, a much greater drama is being played out on the Altar, than what took place on that sinking ship!

It's only too bad that so many people don't have the slightest idea about how many invisible, dangers & enemies they face every day! But you just keep attending as many Masses as you possibly can, because they will save your souls from all kinds of spiritual shipwreck!

One day I might have a chance to explain another great mystery, the "Priesthood of the Laity!" because you'd know how to benefit still more from each Divine Liturgy!

Heal Paralytic

2010-07-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

Jul. 4th, (Sun.) 2010: "Healing the Paralytic" (Acts 9:32-42) (Mt. 9:1-8)

Dear Friends in Christ!

Are you already counting the days to the 14th? I'm sure you are, & I'm sure Fr. Michael is counting the days too! Eleven days! Ten days! Nine days! Always something nice to look forward to!

You just heard in the Gospel, how Jesus healed a paralyzed man by saying: "Your sins are forgiven you! Rise, take up your bed & go to your home!" At another time he healed a paralytic who was paralyzed for 38 years, but to this one He said: "See, you are cured! Sin no more lest something even worse should befall you!" So it is quite clear from those two Gospels that these two men had become paralyzed as a consequence of some kinds of sins! Adam & Eve sinned by eating forbidden fruit! Breaking some Commandment of God is always a sin!

In our modern age, God's Laws are broken on a wide scale, & yet, God gave us those Commandments for our own good! God gave us laws to live by, because they are for our protection, but many people don't understand that part of it! Many people think that laws are like a restriction on their freedom! Some people break God's laws quite openly, while others do it in secret, & for the most part they think that there are no consequences for breaking God's Commandments! But yet, the two Gospels I just mentioned, are telling us that no one can ever get away with breaking God's laws!

As a matter of fact, there are good or bad consequences for everything we do! There just have to be consequences, because God is just! In His own good time, God will reward every good deed, & punish every bad deed! So, if we don't see consequences in this world, it only means that God will deal with those people in the next world, but there will be consequences! According to this Gospel, God wanted this paralyzed man to pay off his consequences in this world, but then Jesus came along & forgave all his sins, & he was cured! So we know there are good consequences for keeping God's Commandments & bad consequences for breaking them!

In this world, we try to protect ourselves from bad consequences by buying various kinds of insurance policies! We insure our homes, because we could never afford another one if this one ever burned down! And farmers insure their cars, crops, plus Blue Cross health insurance & then we even buy life-insurance to protect the wife & kids, if ever the husband had a bad accident! All it takes is one misfortune to wipe you out, so that's why you buy some insurance protection!

But what kind of spiritual insurance can we get for ourselves, considering that each one of us have a soul that also needs to be protected? Well, going to church on Sundays is the most basic kind of insurance policy for the soul! Not very many homes actually burn down, & not very many crops actually get hailed-out, either, & yet, we know it's too big of a risk not to have insurance protection! So, the very best way to protect our souls, is, to go to church & to keep God's Commandments! Soul insurance is even more important than fire insurance, because, we know for sure that we will all die! Nobody says to himself, maybe I'll never die! Every person in the world knows for sure that he will die, & then answer to God for every-thing we did, so, we should be protecting our eternity in every way we possibly can!

Dear friends! Almost all of our experience is worldly experience, & we know from experience that a good insurance policy can be very expensive! So it hardly seems possible that God would make it so easy for us to get to Heaven for all eternity! Maybe we'll never really understand God! Neither can we understand why He loves us so much in the first place! And yet, He does, & He certainly proved His love by dying on the cross for us! So, when we participate in the Divine Liturgy every Sunday, what we're really doing, is, showing our gratitude to God, for all He did for us! And, so long as we are grateful to God, we will find hundreds of ways to show it!

Here's an interesting story out of the last war that also has meaning: A squadron of soldiers in Italy, was moving forward in a pitch-black night! They were dead tired, & anyhow couldn't see where they were going, when the order came to stop & rest! This young soldier was so tired that he simply lay down right where he was, & slept! When he awoke in the morning, he realized he was sleeping on the steps of a badly damaged church, so he went inside for a look! Everything was blasted to pieces, but he saw that a statue of Jesus still standing at the front of the church, so he went to see it! When he got there, he saw that Jesus' arms had been blasted off, but another soldier had been there ahead of him, & had written with chalk: "Now I have no arms but yours! --- Jesus has no arms, so can He please use ours?" Well, those words inspired that soldier so much, that, for the rest of his life he just looked for opportunities to do good things in Jesus' name!

Our lives become more & more beautiful, & more & more meaningful, when we make an effort to know God better! We already know that God made us for Himself, so that means we are totally His, & of course, our hands are already His! And since we know we're already His, it's only natural that our hands should be in His service! We just can't help coming to the same conclusion like that soldier did! And if we live only to glorify God, & serve Him, why wouldn't He want us in Heaven? Aren't we lucky that it's so easy to please God? So, knowing how much God has done for us, & then showing our gratitude by worshipping Him at Sunday Mass, we know for sure that our insurance policy will get us to Heaven! After all, Jesus brought this insurance from Heaven, & only the Church sells this policy! Let's all carry this policy!

Prodigal Son

2010-01-30T17:33:00.001-08:00

Blessing of candles at the end of Mass, followed by Myrovania!

Jan 31st, (Sun.) 2010: "Prodigal Son" (1 Cor.6:12-20) (Lk.15:11-32)

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ!
In today's Gospel, the older & more responsible son refused to join the celebration in honor of his younger brother! "So what is so great about my brother came back, after he wasted half the family fortune on loose living! You want me to celebrate over that? Is that something to kill the fatted calf for?" The older brother was very put out over the wealth his younger brother had wasted, while the father was happy that his younger son came back safe & sound! "I want to celebrate because your brother was dead & came back alive! He was lost, but now he is found!"
We all love a story with a happy ending & all the more if the hero of the story came through some great crisis, but things still work out just fine! We can easily understand the father's relief, considering how many so-called "prodigals" come to a very bad end! Some of us have likely faced a crisis or two, & remember our own feeling of relief when someone happened along at the right time & rescued us!
So this Gospel story shows once again that, when we've reached a dead-end, the first thing we long for is the safety of home! Here's a story that happened not too long ago:
An elderly gentleman was traveling by bus to visit his grandchildren. Next to him sat a young man who seemed very nervous & troubled. His fingers were twitching & even his knees were shaking. The elderly man ventured to open a conversation with him & found out that the young fellow had left home several years ago under very stressful conditions, but now he wanted to return home, but was not sure his father wanted any more.
"Some weeks ago," he explained, "I wrote my dad, telling him that I was sorry for all the trouble I caused, & that I wanted to come back home. But not knowing whether they wanted me anymore, I asked my dad to put a handkerchief on one of the branches of the tree that is in our back yard. This bus has to go past our house. If I see that handkerchief, I'll get off at the station; if I don't, I'll just have to stay on.
"We're approaching our back yard right now," the young lad said, "but I can't even bear to look at that tree, for fear that there will be no handkerchief on it. Then again, it's possible that my dad didn't receive my letter, or maybe he forgot to put a handkerchief out. Would you look for me please, because I can't?"
"Of course," replied the elderly man & just at that moment the bus went past the lad's home. "Get your bags ready, son," said the gentleman with excitement. "You're getting off at the station. There's a handkerchief on every branch of that tree!"
So there we have another forgiving father, who brought a crisis to a happy ending, & maybe saved his son from who knows what else. It may not sound like the biggest crisis in the world, but it sure was to that young man, who was so nervous that he couldn't even look to see if there was a handkerchief! At that moment he desperately needed help, & if that old man hadn't looked out the window, he might not have survived his big crisis.
Our own confused times are especially hard on our younger people & many of them could use some help to get out of whatever mess they got into, & in no position to handle by themselves! When in trouble, every one of them probably long for the safety of home & family, & that's when fathers should be ready to tie some handkerchiefs on the branches.

Our Heavenly Father is always ready to forgive our trespasses, & that's why we can enter the Confessional with absolute confidence, because we know that God will forgive every sin we confess! God wants us to forgive others like that, when they apologize & ask forgiveness! We cannot refuse to forgive others, if we want God to forgive us!
But there is another very important lesson in today's Gospel that needs explaining! What was it that that caused the young man to leave home & then blow all his inheritance like that? Why didn't he know any better than that? Why didn't he want anybody's advice?
Dear friends, in addition to the "Swine Flu" that sort of sputtered out already, there also seems to be a spiritual kind of malady going around, which affects the ability to make good, sound decisions, & the name of this malady is "OPINION." No matter what topic you start to discuss, everybody has an opinion on it! The most learned have an opinion on everything, & so do the least learned! Everybody has an opinion on everything! You don't have to study anything to have an opinion!
You see, if you want to know all the facts about something, you might have to study up on it, but you can have an opinion without ever opening a book! I think the Prodigal Son in today's Gospel had this "malady" I'm talking about! Before leaving home with pockets full of money, he didn't want any advice from his father or brother, because he was of the opinion, you see, that he was entitled to a better kind of life than his father & brother were living! He was of the opinion that he could live high for the rest of his life without working! He was of the opinion that the world owed him a good living, but he soon found out, to his sorrow that, nobody in the world owed him a living, & it wasn't until he was hungry enough to eat corn out of the pig trough, did the lights went on in his head!
Anyhow, they say you learn best, when you learn it the hard way, & once he began eating corn out of the trough, the Prodigal Son became really smart! Then he realized how foolish he had been, & that nobody in the whole world owed him even a slice of bread so, if he knows what's good for him, he'd better get home to his father as quick as he can, or starve!
In my work as a priest, I also get to hear different opinions in regards to religion! Some people are of the opinion that all churches are more or less equal, & furthermore, all good people go to Heaven, anyways! Well, since I studied Theology for many years, I am not too likely to agree with such opinions, I've even been reminded that "everybody is entitled to his own opinion, so there!"
I only feel sorry for poor God, because He's going to have an awfully hard time dealing with all those opinionated people! Sure wish I could help Him!

Pharisee & Publican

2010-01-24T09:06:00.001-08:00

Jan. 24th, (Sun.) 2010: "The Pharisee & the Publican" (2 Tim. 3:10-15) (Lk. 18:10-14)

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ!

Anyone listening to this Gospel can easily see that the Pharisee was very pleased with himself! He wasn't even praying, really, as much describing to God how good he was! The Publican, on the other hand, knew he was a sinner! He knew he was a sinner, so he beat his breast & asked God's mercy! He knew that if God didn't forgive him, he's had it! The most common sin of Tax Collectors was taxing people above the set amount, because they received a percentage of the daily take & so, the more they charged, the more they put in their own pocket! Now he was seeking God's forgiveness, just like we Catholics do when we go to Confession!

The Pharisee, however, was feeling just great! He felt he was a hundred times better than that cheating Tax Collector, & that's exactly what he was telling God! He fasted twice a week & gave money to support the Temple, & that's what he was telling God! He didn't ask forgiveness, because he didn't think he had any sins!

So is there any lesson here for us? Did the Pharisee have too high of an opinion of himself? Well, everything depends on how well we know God & how much we think we owe to God! None of us kill or steal, because killing & stealing are such awful crimes that only the most depraved kinds of people would do such things! The same can be said for swearing, cursing, lying, or back-stabbing, or betraying a friend, like Judas betrayed Jesus, which are also very ugly sins! So none of us ever do any of these big sins! Big sins are so repulsive that good people wouldn't even dream of doing such things, & neither did the Pharisee! That's why he felt good he was entitled to stand in the middle of Temple, like that, telling God out all about how good he had been!

You know, other than his lack of humility, he was most likely telling the truth, because, even if he did brag a little about fasting & tithing, it's not really such a big crime to do that! So he faithfully donated 10% of his income towards the upkeep of the Temple! We all try to contribute what we can, to support our Church, & it's not a sin to feel good about it!

However, here's where we draw the line! We might feel good about donating to the church, but not one of us would dare to stand in the middle of the church & brag about it, because it takes much more than donating some money to the church, to get to Heaven! Our Church has all kinds of great saints & Martyrs, but they didn't become saints just because they were able to refrain from stealing & swearing! They became saints only after they had learned to love God with all their hearts, & all their souls & all their strength! And furthermore, no saint ever stood in the middle of the church to brag about how good he was! A saint is too busy praying to God, to think about himself! A real saint knows he can't love God as much as He deserves to be loved, so they keep praying for the grace to love Him still more!

So you see the difference between the Pharisee & a real saint? So basically, a proud man can never be a saint, because his whole attitude is wrong! But a repentant sinner, like that Tax Collector, has a much better chance of becoming a saint, because he was really sorry for all his sins! That Tax Collector in the Gospel is already on the road to sainthood, if he keeps that same attitude of repenting his sins like that! As for pride, nobody will become proud, as long as he can remember that he's only made from dust!

So it's important to have the right attitude towards God! A saint knows that if his sins were forgiven, it was only by the grace of God! A saint also knows that he cannot become holy by his own efforts, but that he also needs the grace of God for that! And he never forgets that he's only dust!

Dear Friends! In this world, we Catholics can compete with the best of them! Some of us have become very successful in worldly pursuits! We run big businesses, banks, & farms! Others are successful lawyers, accountants, engineers, & almost everything else you can imagine! What I'm driving at however, is this, nobody makes it to the top without applying himself! It always takes a lot of determination & hard work to succeed, & those who do succeed, it was only because they were determined to reach the top! That person was ready to give his all, in order to succeed!

Now how about getting to Heaven? How much time & work are you spending in order be a saint? Only saints get to Heaven, you know! Nobody in the world will get to heaven just because he was a big banker, or businessman, or because he was a good government Tax Collector! Saints, however, will all make it to Heaven! We know we're on the road to Heaven, when we get serious about the Ten Commandments, even though the Commandments are only the beginning!

We can rest assured that the Pharisee kept the Commandments, because they were known for that, but at the same time, he was way too proud for Heaven, while that cheating Tax Collector was smart enough to realize what a mess he was in, & turned to God for help! The Tax Collector knew he needed God's help, while that Pharisee though he was all ready to just step into Heaven!

That's the lesson that we must learn from this tax collector, that as soon as we realize we're on the wrong track, it's time to stop! We must strive to be saints, because Saints will all go to Heaven, & with God's grace & the Sacraments of the Church, we can all be saints! Let us try to remember that striving for worldly things is a waste of time, because worldly success has nothing at all to do with getting people to Heaven

Pharisee And Publican

2010-01-23T16:11:00.001-08:00

Jan. 24th, (Sun.) 2010: "The Pharisee & the Publican" (2 Tim. 3:10-15) (Lk. 18:10-14)

Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ!

Anyone listening to this Gospel can only conclude that the Pharisee was very pleased with himself! He wasn't even praying, really, as much telling God how good he was! The Publican, on the other hand, knowing he was a sinner, kept striking his breast & asking God to forgive him! He kept asking mercy & forgiveness, because he knew he was a sinner! The biggest sin of the Tax Collectors was for taxing people a little bit higher than the set amount, because, since they got paid a percentage of the daily take, the more they charged, the more they put in their own pocket! Now he was asking God to forgive him, just like Catholics do in Confession!

The Pharisee felt he was a hundred times better than that cheating Tax Collector, & that's what he was telling God! He figured he was doing all the right things, & that's what he was telling God! He wasn't begging any forgiveness, because he didn't think he had any sins to apologize for!

So is there any lesson here for us? Did the Pharisee have too high of an opinion of himself? It all depends on how well we know God, & how well we understand sin! None of us kill or steal, because killing & stealing are such ugly crimes that only the most depraved kinds of people would do such things! The same can be said for swearing, cursing, lying, or back-stabbing, or betraying a friend, like Judas betrayed Jesus, which are also very ugly sins! Such kinds of sins are so repulsive that good people wouldn't even dream of doing such things, & neither did the Pharisee! He must have really felt good, to be able to stand in the middle of Temple, like that, telling God out loud, how good he has been!

You know, other than his lack of humility, he probably was telling the honest truth! He did point out how he was trying to do everything right, & it's not really a crime to do that! And neither is it a crime to point out that he faithfully donated 10% of his money to the upkeep of the Temple! We all do the same! We also contribute what we can, to support God's Church!

And yet, not one of us would dare to stand in the middle of the church & brag how good we are, because we know there's much more than that to being good! Our Church has many great saints & Martyrs, but we know that they didn't get to Heaven just because they were able to refrain from stealing & swearing! They became saints only after they had learned to love God with all their hearts, & all their souls & all their strength! No saint ever stood in the middle of the church & told God how good he/she was, but only how much they loved Him! And a saint knows he can never love God as much as He deserves to be loved, so they keep asking for the grace to love Him still more!

So you see the difference between the Pharisee & a real saint? A proud man can't possibly become a saint, because his whole attitude is wrong! But a repentant sinner can easily become a saint, depending on how well he repents! That Tax Collector in today's Gospel is already on the road to sainthood, if only he can keep up that same attitude of knowing he's an awful sinner, & if he keeps on repenting of all his sins like that, & most of all, if he can remember that he's only dust & that he will never have any reason to be proud! A saint knows that if his sins were forgiven, it was only by the grace of God! A saint knows he cannot become holy by his own efforts, but only by the grace of God! A saint never forgets that he is only dust!

Dear Friends! In this world, some of us Catholics operate big businesses, banks, & farms! Others are successful lawyers, accountants, engineers, & almost everything else you can imagine, so it just stands to reason that being so loaded down with these great responsibilities, we're always very, very busy! And most of all, you know that nobody makes it to the top without applying our-selves! It always takes lots of determination & hard work to succeed at anything, so, whoever did succeed, it was only because he really wanted to! It means he was ready to devote as much time, work & energy as necessary, in order to succeed!

Now how much time, work & energy are you willing to devote towards being a saint? Only saints get to Heaven, you know! Nobody in the world will get to heaven just because he was a big, successful & rich businessman, or because he was an efficient Tax Collector, but they will make it to Heaven if they decide to become saints! We know we're on the road to Heaven if we get very serious about the Ten Commandments, but the Commandments are only the beginning! I'm sure the Pharisee kept the Commandments, but he was much too proud for Heaven! On the other hand, that sinful, cheating Tax Collector, whom the Pharisee despised so thoroughly, he was smart enough to realize what a mess he was in, & turned to God for help!

That's the lesson that we must take to heart, that if we know we're on the wrong track, it's time to turn around! With the help of God's grace & the Sacraments of the Church, we can all be saints! Striving for worldly things is a waste of time!

Zaccheus

2010-01-16T18:02:00.001-08:00

Jan 17th, (Sun.) 2007: "Zacchaeus the Tax Collector" (1 Tim. 4:9-15) (Lk. 19:1-10)

Christos Razdayetsia!

At the beginning, when Jesus was just beginning His public ministry, the High priests & Pharisees didn't know what to think about Him! Was He another Prophet from God, or maybe even the long-awaited Messiah? There was no doubt that His miracles were the kind that only God could do! Most of the ordinary people already believed that Jesus was at least a very special kind of Prophet! On the other hand, if He was the Messiah, why wasn't He forming an army to drive the Romans out of Israel? What was He trying to prove with all those amazing miracles? When God sent a Savior to Israel in the past, it was always to organize the Jews into an army & drive out the invaders! In the past, every Savior was a great military leader, but Jesus was no military man! So who was He & what was He trying to prove with His miracles?

No one could doubt His divine powers! No one but God could heal leprosy with a single command, or give sight to a man born blind, & who else but God could multiply the bread & fishes until there was enough to feed more than ten thousand people? Was it possible that Jesus was really God, in human flesh? But what the Priests & Pharisees couldn't understand was this, why would anyone with such great powers want to be so meek & humble? Why wasn't He acting like a leader to be feared? Why was He always so concerned about the poor? What did He hope to gain by being so kind & considerate to the poor? Nobody can build a great kingdom with poor people, so why was He wasting His time on poor people? The reason the Jewish leaders couldn't accept Jesus, was because, they were expecting that God would send them a great military leader who would help the Jews destroy the great Roman Empire, & make Israel the top power!

But back to the Gospel! Zaccheus was a Jew, but because he was collecting taxes for the Romans, that is why all the Jews hated him so much! It was a simple a job to Zaccheus! In those days, Jerusalem was surrounded by a high wall & there were several trade routes leading into the city, & the Roman authorities had a tax-collector at every gate! The job of a tax-collector was to place a value on the goods being brought into the city, & charge a percentage of tax! At the end of the day, Zaccheus kept a percentage for himself, & turned the rest over to the Roman Authorities! The city of Jericho was on one of the main trade routes, so an awful lot of traffic passed through that city, & that's what made Zaccheus so rich!

This time a large crowd of people were approaching Jericho & Zaccheus learned that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by! By this time everybody had heard about Jesus, & so did Zaccheus! He wanted to at least see what Jesus looked like, but, being small, he couldn't push his way through the crowd! Then he got this bright idea on how he might get to see Jesus! He ran ahead of the crowd, to a sycamore tree growing beside that road, & he climbed up that tree, knowing that now he would get a good look at Jesus as he passed under the tree! But when Jesus came to the tree, He stopped, looked up at Zacchaeus & said: "Zacchaeus, hurry down, for I must stay at your house today!" So Zacchaeus came down & joyfully welcomed Jesus into his home!

One question immediately comes to mind, why did Jesus favor Zacchaeus by honoring him by visiting his home, if He knew all the Jews hated Tax Collectors? Nobody likes tax collectors at any time, but a Jewish tax-collector, collecting taxes for the Romans, was hated even more! Furthermore, many tax-collectors liked to overcharge, since they got a percentage of those taxes, & that's why Zacchaeus said in his own defense: "If anyone can show that I charged him more than the prescribed amount, I will pay him back four times the amount!" So even though he was a tax-collector, he had been charging only the prescribed amount of taxes!

Anyhow, this Gospel allows us to see how concerned Jesus is for every lost sheep! We can see that our God will do almost anything, to save a lost sheep! When the Pharisees complained that He went to eat in a sinner's house, Jesus replied that a healthy people do not need a doctor, but sick people do! Zaccheus was a lost sheep, but since he was charging only the prescribed amount of taxes, he was not cheating anyone! Even though Zaccheus was collecting taxes for the Romans, he still treated his fellowmen as fairly as possible, & that attitude of goodwill gave God something to work with! God can always lead such a person to salvation! God can always save a person of goodwill! Jesus said He is the Good Shepherd, & that a Good Shepherd will lay down His life for his sheep! A good shepherd searches for a lost sheep until he finds it, & then leads it back home! Today Jesus found a lost sheep by the name of Zaccheus, & brought salvation to him & his family!

Dear friends! It's always the best policy for the sheep not to get lost in the first place, but if it does happen, then make your way back to the Church as quickly as you can! God's laws are easy to understand & neither are they that hard to keep! All of God's laws are laid out for us in His Ten Commandments, telling us exactly what to do & what not to do! Adam & Eve were given only one commandment to keep: "Do not eat the fruit from that one tree!" Was there anything hard to understand about that single Commandment? DON'T eat the fruit from that one tree! And yet, they did eat that apple & lost Paradise!

As a rule, God's Commandments are not hard to understand, but from a worldly point of view, it's always going to cost us something to keep those Commandments! It's always going to cost us something to do God's will, & yet, that's the only way to get to Heaven!

So I will end with a very easy to understand piece of advice: - don't ever allow yourselves to be tempted by any forbidden fruit! If God says NO & the Church says NO, then it's NO, even if everybody else in the world is doing it!

Baptist Arrested:

2010-01-10T12:36:00.001-08:00

Jan 10th, (Sun.) 2010: "Baptist imprisoned by King Herod" (Eph.4:7-13) (Mt. 4:12-17)

Christ is born!

Jesus referred to John the Baptist as the greatest Prophet ever born! God raised this Prophet for a very special job & in order to protect his purity, John led a prayerful life in the desert, in total isolation! God needed a Prophet that was this holy & totally sinless before he'd be worthy enough to reveal His Son to the world, & so, when the right moment had finally come, the Scriptures say that the Holy Spirit went to John in the desert to call him forth, & to do that special job that he was born to do! So John began preaching that it was time for everybody to repent of their sins, because the Kingdom of God had arrived! Then, when the people did repent of their sins, he then baptized them in the Jordan, to wash them clean of their sins! That's how sinless God wanted His people to be, before He revealed the Messiah to them!

John had been baptizing people for some time until, one day Jesus came to John & asked to be baptized, & after Jesus was baptized, God chose that moment to reveal His Son to the world in a most astonishing way; the Heavens opened, & all the people who were present, heard God's voice announcing from Heaven: "This is my beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased", & then the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove! All the people present saw & heard these things with their own eyes & ears!

So let's review the highlights of this story: John had peen preaching that repentance of sin is the proper way to prepare for any meeting with God! After that, he spent another couple of weeks baptizing, but after that, John's work was all finished! It took so many years to prepare this great Prophet, for less than 4 weeks of special service! So, in less than four weeks, John fulfilled the whole purpose of his life!

The Jewish king at that time was Herod, & he had been hearing so much about this Prophet who was preaching & baptizing in the Jordan, so he sent his servants to bring John to the palace, so that he could meet him & talk with him! King Herod was an evil & immoral man, who was living with his own brother's wife, & his brother couldn't do a thing about it! But the minute John the Baptist came into Herod's presence, he called him an adulterer to his face & condemned him in front of the whole court! For accusing the king of adultery, John was imm. Arrested & locked up in the dungeons, & then beheaded there a couple of weeks later! So you can see that God raised his greatest Prophet, especially to do these few, but very critical & important things, & after that, his earthly work was finished!

So let us consider what is the big lesson for us in this Gospel! First & foremost, nothing in the world should be as important to us as fulfilling God's will for us! John the Baptist lived a very short life, & died at 3o or 31 years of age! All the Prophets before him, also lived very short lives, because most of them were sent to condemn the sinfulness & immorality of the Jewish kings & the ruling class, & so, they were all executed for daring to denounce their kings publicly! Anyhow, just as every Prophet had a special job to do, God also gives everybody else special duties to fulfill in this life! We all have special obligations before God that no one else can do for us & we will be judged oh how well we carried out those obligations!

Dear friends, we know that God is going to judge us at the end of this life, & yet, He is exceedingly fair! Look at how He treated King Herod! Herod was depraved & evil, but in spite of all that, God still gave him another opportunity to come back to his senses, repent & save his soul! That's why God arranged for John the Baptist to come before the king, so as to accuse him of living in sin with his brother's wife! Sad to say, instead of repenting, Herod ordered John to be arrested & later on, beheaded! So John died a martyr in God's service, like all the other Prophets before him!

Rest assured that God gives every person in the world the opportunity to save his/her soul, because the only reason He created us in the first place was, to give us the opportunity to attain to eternal happiness in Heaven! That's why we must do everything in our power to only please God, & prove our fidelity to Him! Since we are living in these modern & faithless times, our loyalty to God is being tested every day! Our times are very hard on religion, because religion is not very popular anymore, especially in public, & yet, Gospel after Gospel keeps telling us that we must live only to please God, because in the final analysis, only God matters! Only God will judge us! We will answer only to God, & not the puffed-up people who make life difficult for us believers!

But God is always good to us! Our Church & religion were designed by God in Heaven, & then brought to earth by His Son, Jesus! It was Jesus who gave us this Church, & it's guaranteed to last till the end of the world! God had to guarantee this Church, because it is the only means we have for saving our souls! God really does want everyone to save his soul! God makes it possible for every person to get to Heaven, as long as they really want to go to Heaven!

So once again, we all have to hold a job, if we want the money with which to put food on our tables & to pay the utilities, but over & above that, we must always find time to worship God! We can all do the right thing when we try!

Flight to Egypt

2009-12-26T09:08:00.001-08:00

Dec.26th, 2009: "Flight to Egypt" (Gal. 1:11-19) (Mt. 2:13-23)

Chrystos Razdayetsia! Christ is born!

"Get up, Joseph! Take the Child & His Mother, & flee to Egypt, & remain there until it is safe to return!" Why don't we just stop for a minute & go over a few of the facts? Only a couple of days ago, God revealed His infinite love for mankind, when He arranged for His Son to be born of the purest Virgin that ever lived, but, His Son was not even born in a house! In all of Bethlehem, there was no room for the Holy Family, so they were forced to spend a few days in a cave-stable! Good thing there were some farm animals there, because those animals were the only source of warmth, & that's where God's Son was born!

Then yesterday, three kings arrived from the east, after following a brand new star all the way to Bethlehem, where they found that Newborn King! So they worshipped Him first & then left gifts of gold, frankensence & myrrh! What a place to worship the King of kings! Today, however, they can't even stay in that cold stable any longer! They must run for their lives to Egypt, because the wicked King Herod is searching for that Newborn King, to kill Him!

So the next time you're down on your luck, will you have the heart to complain to Jesus? Just think of what Mary had to go through all this time! As the mother of God's Son, she has much more priority than you & me, & yet God Him-self arranged for Mary & His own Son to suffer & freeze in that little stable, & now the angel tells them to leave that stable & run for Egypt, because Herod wants to kill her little Baby! Today, I will try to expand a little on this, but in the meantime, please bear in mind that Mary always accepted God's will! Mary never said "no" to God, nor did she ever complain to God about anything!

King Herod was so wicked that no one dared to cross him, but these other three kings from the east didn't know anything about him, so they came to his palace to ask how they might find this newborn King! They knew he must be the greatest king that ever was born, since a brand new star was created at His birth! After worshipping the Babe in the manger, an angel told them to avoid Herod, & take another route home!

Dear friends! The first lesson we learn from all the holy characters that we read about in the Bible is, that holy people always want to do God's will! Mary, being the holiest of all, always said yes to God! Mary never once said "no" to God, because that's how much she loved Him & trusted Him! I'm keeping Mary in the center of this Christmas Story, because it's simply unthinkable to celebrate Christmas without recognizing Mary's central role in the whole drama! Mary lived only to please God & never for a moment resisted His holy will! She only said yes to God! She existed only to do God's will, no matter what He wanted of her, & that's how it was possible for God's Son to come to earth in human flesh!

Dear friends, we all know that God loves us, but if anything, we may have trouble in understanding just how much & how much He respects our freewill! So much so that in a certain sense, He almost stands in awe of us! God is meticulous in never forcing His will upon us, which shows how much He respects the freewill that He gave to us!

And He never forced His will upon Mary either, for the very same reason! He didn't have to, of course, because Mary lived only to do God's will! Think back, now, to that moment when He sent His angel Gabriel to Mary, to announce to her, that, God wanted her to be the mother of His Son! All of Heaven waited breathlessly for Mary's response! God did not command her! God asked her if she would consent to such a thing! When Gabriel finished God's message to Mary, the whole universe waited for her reply! And God waited, for Mary's response!

Dear friends! God waits for our decision, every time we make one! Will we always decide in conformity with God's will, or will we be guided by our more base motives? Will we just be grateful that He gave us a cold stable to spend a night in, or will we complain to high heaven? And will we hit the road without complaining, or will we take out our frustrations out on Him? So let us really try to accept God's will like Mary did! It may hurt at times, but it's the only way to Heaven! Christos Raz ……

Christmas Day, 2009:

2009-12-23T20:04:00.001-08:00

Christmas Day, 2009: "The coming of the Magi" (Gal.4:4-7) (Mt. 2:1-12)

Christos Razdayetsia! Christ is born! Glorify Him!

Today the Gospel tells us about the arrival of these three mysterious Kings from the east! I say "mysterious kings" because, all we really know about them are their names, Melchoir, king of Arabia, Gaspar, king of Tarsus, & Balthasar king of Ethiopia, which means they would be classed as gentiles, not Jews, but what is intriguing is this, that these three were also a part of God's plan of salvation, because God has a reason for everything He does, & sooner or later we will know the reason for the presence of these Three Kings! By just allowing that new star to lead them to Beth-lehem, they fulfilled some very important purpose before God! All you have to do is reason it out in this way; if God created a new star especially to guide these Three Kings to the manger where Jesus lay, then for sure it was very necessary for them to be there! So, even tough their role in the Nativity Story is still a mystery, but rest assured that some day, the need for their presence will be revealed to us! In some mysterious way they represented all gentiles before that manger-crib!

And the second mystery is this: why is it that the guiding star disappeared for a while & left those Three Kings confused, & forcing them to go to the palace of the wicked King Herod, where they informed him of the purpose of their coming? By making that star disappear for a while, God forced them to seek help from King Herod! Because the star vanished for a while, that's why they asked Herod how they might find this newborn King, because they desired to worship him!

Herod, on the other hand, became greatly alarmed upon hearing that such a great King had just been born, & schemer that he was, Herod then asked these Magi to report back to him after they had located this "New-born King," pretending that he also wanted to go & worship Him! But Herod had already made up his mind to kill that newborn king! Anyhow, after the Three Kings had found & worshipped Jesus & were making ready to start off for home, an angel appeared to them in a dream & told them not to report to Herod, but to take another road home! God will not allow good people to be used by the wicked!

Anyhow, we can safely presume that these three Gentile Kings represented all us gentiles before that crib, & we can just as safely presume something else, that God did not want His Son to be worshipped only by His Chosen Race, but also by these Three Representatives of all the other races of the world!

Another important lesson that derives from the Gospel is this, that just as God forced these three Kings to touch bases with the wicked Herod, He could just as easily decide to do the same with us, because we're supposed to be witnessing to our faith all of our lives! Sooner or later, God gives every person in the world a chance to deal with some form of evil, & to resist it in Christian fashion, but without losing our own faith in the process! God puts every person in the world through some such testing process, & give us a chance to prove our faith!

Today, however, since we wish to celebrate the Birth of Our Lord in the most appropriate manner, let us also make our way towards that little manger crib, where we can rub elbows with those three awe-struck kings, & offer Him our own gifts! What Little Jesus wants from us, most of all, is our love! He came all the way from Heaven to earth for that, so let us approach that little crib the way those Three Kings did, & with the same kind of awe, & offer Him our gift of love! I take this wonderful opportunity to wish you a happy & holy Christmas & New Year!

Christos Razdayetsia! Christ is born! Let us glorify Him!

Christmas Eve

2009-12-22T18:11:00.001-08:00

Dec 24th, (Mon.) Christmas Eve: 2009: "In those days Ceasar Agustus (Heb. 1:1-12) (Lk. 2:13-23)

CHRISTOS RAZDAYETSIA! CHRIST IS BORN! LET US GLORIFY HIM!

I want to thank so many of you for the beautiful Christmas cards & gifts & wishes! This is the time of year when greet each other in God's name & wish God's blessings upon each other, because this is the Feast of God's infinite love for man! It wasn't enough for God to just love us from Heaven, so on this day, He come to earth in human flesh, to live right among us!

Today the Son of God reveals the measure of His love for Mankind! When our first parents sinned & the door slammed on their special relationship with God, He still loved them so much that He promise to send a Redeemer, who would save humanity from the tyranny of sin! Man of himself, did not have the power to redeem himself before God, & neither could he repair the great harm done to our human nature! Man could only long for the promised Savior to come & save him!

Hundreds of years went by like this, with no sign of the redeemer, & this sense of helpless-ness often drove the people to the point of despair! Maybe God forgot about sending His Redeemer! But when the people would again reach the point of hopelessness & desperation, God would send another Prophet to reassure His people that the promised Savior will surely come, but in the fullness of time!

Isaiah was one of those Prophets sent by God, & this is how he prophesied about the coming of the promised Redeemer; "For there is a Child born for us, a son given us, called Wonder Counse-llor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and the Prince of Peace!" And this is only one example of what kinds of words the Prophets used, to lift up the hopes of His people Israel & why it was necessary to sent so many Prophets during the Old Testament period! Well my friends, 2009 years ago, God did send His Redeemer, in the form of a tiny Babe, & born of an Immaculate Virgin, in a small, cold cave in Bethlehem! That is how the longed-for Savior arrived on earth!

But even with all the prophesies, & even though the Jewish Scholars spent countless hours trying to decipher the full meaning of such words, how could mortals hope to understand God, when He does things in such amazing ways, & the birth of Our Savior is really the most amazing story in the history of the world! And the first thing that really stands out about Mary & Joseph is their extra-ordinary faith in God's providence! It is because of their unshakeable faith that their hearts were able to remain at peace during their many trials! Lets consider only a few aspects! Every member of the Jewish race knew from the prophecies, that the Savior must be born in Bethlehem, so Mary knew for sure that her Son had to be born in Bethlehem!

However, her time was running out! The time of her delivery was so close, that she should have already been in Bethlehem, but here she was, still in Nazareth, which is a three-day journey away from Bethlehem! Because those mountain trails were so infested with thieves & robbers, no one would ever dare to travel alone! For your own personal safety, you would always attach yourself to some caravan, & yet, even though time was running out there just weren't any caravans going to Bethlehem! However, Mary just trusted that God would solve that problem!

Then, like a bolt out of the blue, & at the very last moment, Caesar Augustus ordered an immediate census to be taken, & that's why a caravan quickly formed in Nazareth & started out for Bethlehem! As we all know, the minute the caravan arrived in Bethlehem, Joseph began his search for a place to spend the night, however, he couldn't find any kind of human lodging because, God's Son was not supposed to be born in a house! God willed that His Son be born in that small, cold stable! That was God's holy will, & Mary, of course, always gratefully accepted whatever God provided, & this is what God wanted for His Son!

So maybe we shouldn't be thinking that it was such a terrible tragedy, just because God's Son had to spend the first days of His earthly life in a small cave in Bethlehem! That's exactly how God had planned it to happen, & Mary was most grateful to God for providing this shelter from the freezing cold! As it turned out, they had just enough shelter & animal warmth in that cave, to survive that cold night!

So we have a Divine mystery to ponder tonight, that, God wanted His Son to be heralded by all His angels in this lowly stable, even as He was being worshipped by the humble shepherds from the fields! And soon after that, three earthly kings arrived from the east, & also entered this same little cave, to worship & adore the King of kings! So you can see that the birth of Our Savior is full of mystery! And consider still another kind of contradiction, where we have this tiny Infant seeking some warmth from farm animals, in a tiny stable, while in a huge palace, an old & dying King Herod considered Him an intolerable threat to his throne!

Ponder this mystery! It has already been pondered by thousands of Bible scholars over these past 2000 years, & yet, for all that pondering, the only thing we can be really sure of, is, that God loves us! Furthermore, no one has ever figured out why God loves us so much, but we know that He does! He dotes over us, provides for all our needs, & all He asks of is, that we love Him in return! We totally belong to God! Our very life, & everything we own in this world, is really God's gift to us! Everything is a gift from God!

Dear Friends, I really love being surrounded by God's Mysteries! And we all love Christmas in a very special way, because each one of us can feel the miraculous "Joy" that fills our hearts! It is not easy to describe this "joy", but we can all feel it! And we know what it is! This "Joy" that warms every heart, is the God who came from heaven to earth, to be with His beloved people! True enough, we can find God at any other time of the year, too, if we want to, because God is never hard to find, but everything is much different on Christmas Eve! On Christmas Eve, a shivering Infant & His Virgin Mother are seeking for people with warm hearts! On Christmas Eve, a little Baby comes to every man, woman & child, & knocks on every heart, asking to be taken in! He desires the warmth of our love!

And only on Christmas Eve are we so conscious of receiving the Babe of Bethlehem in Holy Communion! At no other time of year are we so certain that God is with us, & that He loves us! So, before going home, let us go to the manger today, & offer that cold Babe the warmth of our hearts!

So, my Christmas wish to all of you, that the Divine Babe take possession of your hearts, & homes & into your lives! May you all have a very holy Christmas & a most blessed New Year! Christ is born! Let us Glorify Him!

Genealogy of Jesus

2009-12-20T09:35:00.001-08:00

Dec. 20th, (Sun.) Sunday of the "Fathers of the Church" (Heb. 11:9-40) (Mt. 1:1-25)

Slava ….. At the end of this Divine Liturgy, we will have a Panakhyda for the Repose of the soul of +John Rossa, who is the father of our parishioner, Alex Rossa.

Dear Friends in Christ!

Since it's so close to Christmas & I have so many things to tell you, that I have to work three different themes into this sermon! You just heard the Gospel Reading & how precisely the Original Apostles laid out the entire Genealogy of Jesus, because the enemies of Jesus were already claiming that Jesus was not the long awaited Messiah of God, but an imposter! So the Apostles, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, carefully presented the entire genealogy of 40 generations, starting from Abraham & leading all the way up to Jesus, to prove that everything about Jesus is in perfect conformity with the Prophecies that had anything to do with the coming of the Messiah! In addition to that, hundreds of our own, top-notch Bible scholars went over those Prophecies very carefully, to make sure that Jesus is the Promised Messiah! And, of course, there is no doubt at all that Jesus is the Promised Messiah!

Now the second theme! Last Sunday I just introduced you to the Holy Forefathers of the Old Covenant, which refers to the many Prophets that God had sent to the Jews during the Old Testament period! Once the Messiah arrived, however, God did not send any more Prophets to the Jews, therefore, all Prophecies ended when the Son of God came to earth! God did not send a single Prophet after that! After all, why would the Jews need a Prophet anymore after God's own Son came to live among them & teach them? So the Prophets of the Old Covenant are what we call the Holy Fore-fathers of the Church!

Which brings us to the third theme, because this is the Sunday we move into the Christian Era, & today I'll say a few words about the Fathers of the Early Christian Church! Since the Christian Church has been under constant attack from the very beginning of it's existence, what we now call the Early Fathers of the Church, are the very Holy & very gifted saints that God raised up in times of great crisis, especially to defend His Church against the various heresies that plagued the Early Church! We know that after Jesus Ascended to Heaven, the first thing He did was to send down the Holy Spirit to be with His Church to the end of the world, so as to guard it against all those heresies that He knew would come, but the Holy Spirit will never do our fighting for us! The Holy Spirit only works through human beings by inspiring us! Whenever a great heresy threatens His Church, the Holy Spirit will raise some great & holy Saint to mobilize the people against that heresy! So The Holy Spirit will inspire us & show us how to defend our Church, but He'll never fight our battles for us! When we know we have both the Infallible Church & His Infallible Truth, it is our duty to defend God's Truth against heretics!

Some of the best known defenders of the Early Christian Church are: Athanasius, Ignatius, Polycarp, Ireneaus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Cyril of Alexandria, St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom, & then there was the amazing St. Gregory of Nazianzus! These last three bishops are especially honored by the Eastern Church, & what's even more interesting about these three is this, they lived at the same time, they knew each other very well, & they fought the same heresies together, so lets start with St. Basil!

St. Basil was the bishop over such a large area that, he knew he had to have help! His huge diocese needed to be divided into smaller ones, with a bishop in each one! In those times, there at least was no shortage of very qualified & saintly priests, so Basil soon divided up his diocese & appointed John Chrysostom as bishop of one of them, & then appointed Gregory as the bishop of the other one! But as soon as he did, both of these two new bishops were very unhappy with what they got! Both John Chrysostom & Gregory were made bishops over a large enough diocese, but those were under-developed areas, without a single, large city in either one of them! Both John & Gregory were forced to set up their headquarters in some tiny, little towns, so both of them were very unhappy with such a state of affairs! On top of that, there were some very highly connected heretics operating in those regions & that's why Bishop Basil needed these new, very gifted bishops to help him, but what bishop wants to set up shop in a town of a few hundred people? They felt very disgraced!

Before this, John Chrysostom & Gregory had been very close friends of Bp. Basil, but after he put them in charge of such very poor dioceses, their friendship became quite strained, to say the least! Both John & Gregory felt that Basil had betrayed them! Anyhow, God sometimes works in very mysterious ways! Basil was a highly qualified Liturgical Theologian, & it is he who assembled the extremely long, but beautiful Divine Liturgy that we still use once in a while on very special occasions, but since it was a 2 ½ hr. Liturgy, John Chrysostom later on, shortened it quite a bit! That's why we have the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, & why we have the shortened version of St. John Chrysostom! The Liturgy we use now is the short version of St. John Chrysostom! But happy or not, St. John Chrysostom was a gifted speaker, with the ability to inspire his listeners, & became known as "John of the golden mouth!"

Gregory of Nazianzus, however, was also a very learned Theologian, but in addition to that, he a very gifted debater, & that's why God wanted him right there! He was born in 325 & died in 389, at age 64! Even though he never became as popular as the first two, he was the right man at the right time, because he was the most effective Theological Debater in the world at that time! When Gregory saw what the heretics were doing to the faith of the people, he made it a point to confront the heretics 'head to head," & toe-to-toe & won every debate! He just kept shaming & demolishing those heretics in front of the people!

We believe that there is only one God, but there are Three Persons in that one God! It is a mystery that is too deep for us to understand, but that's what Jesus revealed to us & that's what we must believe! But what the heretics did, they separated those Three Persons from each other, & were teaching that the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity were not equal! That the Father is the oldest & the greatest, while The Son, being much lesser than the Father, must always be obedient to the Father! Bp. Gregory opposed this heresy & proved that the Three Persons in the One God were equal in every respect, which is what we believe to this day! So that is why God brought those three bishops together into one region, so as to wipe that heresy off the face of the earth!

And now for a few words on the Season of Advent, as the Christian world prepares itself for the birth of our Savior! We can consider Advent as a time of joyful expectation for the arrival of the long promised Redeemer, a little bit like a mother's joyful "waiting" for that hour when she will bring her baby into the world! Everybody has some very great thing to look forward to, if we know how to look for it! So as I pointed out, all mothers go though their own period of "waiting!" So did the Blessed Virgin Mary have hers! She was also waiting for the birth of her Son! And in some similar fashion, we Christians "wait" during Advent, for the arrival of the Christ Child, who is the long waited for Redeemer of the world!

That happy occasion is now only a few short days away, so please do whatever you are able to, to prepare your hearts & homes for the coming of the Holy Babe of Bethlehem! Slava ….

Come to my Supper

2009-12-14T17:15:00.001-08:00

Dec. 13th, (Sun.) 2009: Sunday of the Holy Forefathers" (Lk. 14:16-24)

Dear Friends in Christ!

"Many are called but few are chosen," was like an admonishment to the people who refused to come to His Supper. In this story, the man who invited his friends to a special supper, was understandably miffed when they refused to come, however, since every parable contains a lesson for us, that's why Jesus made that final statement, that, "many are called, but few are chosen," except that Jesus is not referring to just ordinary Suppers or Banquets, but to the Divine Liturgies!

This Divine Liturgy that we're participating in right now, is another one of the many "Spiritual Suppers" that Jesus keeps inviting everybody in the world to attend! His invitation is to everybody in the world! We who are here, believe very firmly that since Jesus is the God who created us, therefore it's the highest honor in the world to be invited to "The Lord's Supper" & a still greater honor to accept that invitation, but sad to say, we know how many thousands have never honored Jesus with their presence, because they don't even understand that during every Divine Liturgy, Jesus gives Himself to us, Body & Soul, under the appearance of bread! He is truly the "Bread of Life", because that is the only "Bread" that can give us eternal life! But more on this later!

Today the Church also honors what are known as Holy Fore-fathers, which refers to the various Jewish Prophets & Patriarchs of the Old Covenant Era, while next Sunday we'll also honor the Fathers of the New Covenant Era, which is a completely different class of saints! Although it's necessary for us to draw a line of separation between the Old & New Covenants, the Bible is really one, long story of how God has been dealing with His people from the beginning of the world! The Old Testament Era is the name given to all those centuries before God sent His Son to earth, to redeem the world from sin!

So for many hundreds of years, the Jews kept longing for that Promised Redeemer to come & save them from the curse of sin, & spent countless hours studying the prophecies, trying to decipher when that Redeemer might finally show up! So, before the Redeemer came, the Chosen Race kept longing & pining for a Redeemer that was yet to come! They looked forward in expectation to the coming of the Redeemer, while we of the New Covenant look backwards to the Great Redemption that happened 2000 years ago! So you can see how necessary it is to keep that dividing line between the Old & New Covenants!

Today you'll also have a better appreciation as to why it was necessary for Jesus to set up His own Church & then place Peter at the head of it! At the same time He knew that Peter would never be able to protect His Church from error all by himself, so, when He ascended to Heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to guide His Church, because no one else but Him could possibly have the power & wisdom to guard this Church against error, right to the very end of time! I will now give you some examples on how far people can stray from the truth, & what kinds of ridiculous religions they will invent for themselves, when the Holy Spirit is not there to guide them! So for a start, just keep in mind all that humanity started from Adam & Eve, the very first humans that God created! Every race in the world is descended from Adam & Eve!

Therefore, we know for a fact that, at the very beginning, every human being knew that there was only one, True God & yet, as the human race kept multiplying & spreading out over the earth, they slowly kept losing their original belief in the one true God! Then, many centuries later, when the Christian explorers began discovering & exploring the different continents & peoples, these are some examples of faith they found among the native inhabitants!

In different parts of the world, many of the natives still preserved a dim memory of the major events that took place in some distant past. The Australian Aborigines still believed that some great God had created a perfect world, but they referred to that original perfection as the 'Dreamtime'. It must have been nice to live in a perfect world, but didn't exist anymore!

In most areas of the world, from Asia to South America, more than120 different peoples and cultures all believed that a universal flood had at one time covered the whole world! Most of the native peoples believed that a great flood covered the world a long time ago! Our knowledge of that particular flood is quite detailed, because we got it from the Holy Scriptures that the Jews had preserved for us under God's inspiration! So we know that the flood was in response to universal sin & pervers-ion, until God commanding Noah to start building that Ark, so as to save his family & all the various birds & animals that God wanted to save!

In India, the people preserved another piece of the original truth! The Hindus preserved some knowledge of a Trinitarian God, but aside from that, their knowledge of God had become so twisted up, that, the one God of Three Persons had become three, angry & destructive gods & the three angry god were now greatly to be feared!

Other peoples went even further astray and began worshipping stones and trees, rivers and mountains! They had become so confused that they were worshipping God's creation, instead of the Creator Himself. In one instance, in certain parts of Europe & North Africa, thousands of years before Christ, the more enlightened among peoples had begun worshipping the stars! Since they couldn't find a great enough god on earth, they began to seek for him among the stars! One such example is that great astrological complex that was built in England for their worship which is now known as "Stonehenge." About the same time in Egypt, another very advanced people built huge Pyramids in order to worship the Sun & stars, believing that after their death the Pharaohs become stars in the heavens.

So we can appreciate why, & how carefully Jesus protected His Church & our religion from error. Without the guidance of The Holy Spirit, how easy it would be for even us to wander away from the truth & become as hopelessly confused as all those civilizations that were not guided by God's Holy Spirit!

And now before I end this talk, I wish to come back to the parable of the people who were invited to that great supper, and refused to come! Last Wednesday, the Lord Jesus also made a great Supper in honor of His Mother & ours, on the Feast of Mary's Immaculate Conception! We know all about how Jesus made Mary our Mother from the cross & last Wednesday was the Feast of Mary's Immaculate Conception! Mass was at 9:30, a very comfortable hour, & you know what?, only 4 people came! Jesus wanted so much for us to honor His Mother, & only 4 people came to do that!

I understand that the workers can't come on a weekday! But how many are retired? How many of you couldn't come because you bought 5 yoke of oxen & had to go & try them out? And how many of you couldn't come because you bought some land & had to go & inspect it?

Anyhow, my friends, I would think that Jesus must have been very disappointed last Wednesday, that only four people came to honor the Mother He loves so dearly! Lets try and do better in the future!

Sheptytsky & Slipey

2009-11-21T17:17:00.001-08:00

Nov 22nd, (Sun.) 2009: "Slipay & Sheptytsky---- Martyrs?" (Jn. 10:9-16)

Dear Friends in Christ!

We have chosen this day to honor two very well known bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Cath-olic Church, because it fell to these two to guide their Church during the time when Europe went through the horror of two world wars! The first of these is Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky, who was ordained Bishop of the city of Stanislaviv in 1900! Shortly after that, when only 36 years old, he became the Metropolitan and Head of the Catholic Church in Ukraine! He barely had time to get his church organized, after the ravages of the First World War, when the Second World War began in 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland! So Bp. Andrij led the Church though another 5 years of war, until his death on November 1st, 1944! First as bishop & then as Metropolitan, Sheptytskyj guided the Church in Ukraine during the terrible upheavals of two World Wars, until his death in 1944!

During his tenure, Metropolitan Andrew also expanded every effort to re-unite the Eastern & Western Churches, although he didn't achieve anything along that line, because it was a novel idea at the time & wouldn't become more popular until many years later! He was just ahead of his time! Neither was he able to reconcile the Orthodox & Catholic Churches, which he also tried to do! Metropolitan Andrew worked very hard at whatever he believed in! At the present time, the cause for his beatification has been initiated, although that is only the very first step of a long & slow process! For the time being, everything is in God's hands, because nothing more can happen until there is some big miracle that can be attributed to his inter-cession! Only after there is a big miracle, will his cause move on to the next stage! So if God would grant bona-fide miracle now, that can be attributed to Metropolitan Andrew's inter-cession, then it might even lead to his canonization, but this normally takes many years of prayer on the part of the faithful! Nothing big happens without lots & lots of prayer!

The second Bishop that is being honored today is Josyf Slipyj: Joseph Slipyj was born in 1892, in the village of Zazdrist, & was ordained a priest at age 25! Five years later, he began teaching Dogmatic Theology in the Lviv Seminary, & continued teaching in that university until 1944, which is the year when Metropolitan Sheptytskyj died! In 1939, however, Metr-opolitan Andrew had already requested that Pope Pius XII nominate Fr. Josyf Slipyj as Bishop with the right to succeed him! That permission was granted & not long after that, Josyf was ordained a bishop, although secretly, because of the Communist occupation! At the death of Sheptytskyj in 1944, Josyf Slipyj succeeded him as Metropolitan of the Church in Ukraine!

It didn't last very long, however, because before a year was up, Metropolitan Josyf was arrested for treason & sentenced to 8 years of hard labor in Siberia, for refusing to place his Church under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church of Moscow! Before it was all over, Josyf spent 18 years in the Siberian Gulag, until through the united efforts of Pope John XXIII & President John F. Kennedy, Russia finally released Josef & permitted him to come to Rome!

In Rome, he acquired the title of Major Archbishop, which is just below the rank of Patriarch, & then Pope Paul VI made him a Cardinal of the Catholic Church! He wished to be named a Patriarch, however, & at one point, 19 out of 21 Ukrainian Catholic Bishops requested that the Pope confer the title of Patriarch upon Josef Slipyj, but Pope Paul VI did not consent to that. When the Pope refuses such a request, he never gives a reason for his refusal!

Cardinal Slipyj kept himself very busy while in Rome! First he built the small, but very beautiful Cathedral of St. Sophia in Rome & then founded the first Ukrainian Catholic Parish of Sergius & Bacchus there! After that was done, he traveled to all the countries of the world where Ukrainians had migrated to, & visited as many parishes as he was able to, in an effort to better unite the Church of the Diaspora! He received a very warm welcome wherever he went! He lived a hard, long & very active life, & usually managed to achieve whatever he set out to do! He was called to his eternal reward on September 7th, 1984, at the age of 92 years!

As I said at the beginning, both of these bishops were guiding the Church through the most difficult of times! Pope John Paul II called the 20th century, the most evil century in all of history, & some historians even referred to the 20th century as the "Age of Martyrs" because so many people suffered & died because of their religion!

And yet, because of a very clever quirk, the 20th Century could not legally be called a "century of Martyrs" because no man is a Martyr just because he suffered for his faith! To be legally called a Martyr, you must also shed your blood as you die for your faith! So what is it that happened in "the most evil century in the history of the world," as John Paul II said, that there are no legal Martyrs? Everybody in the world knows how many thousands were sent to their death in Siberia, so how come we don't have any legal Martyrs to show for it?

I want to explain that part today, because although the Communists waged an all-out persecution againt Catholics & the Catholic Church, they were very careful to never KILL anyone for his/her faith! People died by the thousands in Siberia from sickness, overwork, very poor food & all kinds of mistreatment & abuse, but no one ever shed his blood for the faith! They would arrest you for any stupid pretense they could think of, but never because you were a Christian! The Communists made sure that no Christian ever died for his faith! Say what you like about the Communists, but they really know the Catholic Religion inside out & they know that if they want to destroy the Catholic Church, they'd better not make a single Martyr, because, because the blood of Martyrs is the seed of new Christians! The more Christians you kill, the more new ones pop up out of nowhere!

It became obvious, right in the first three centuries of Christianity, that the more Christians they killed for their faith, the quicker the Christian Church grew! And the more fiercely & viciously Christians were persecuted for their faith, the stronger their faith became, so much so, that, they were always prepared to die for their Faith! The more the pagans persecuted the Christians, the more new converts to Christianity! Persecution made the Church to grow!

So, a little more than a hundred years ago, a most amazing change came over the enemies of the Church! Once they were convinced that the 'blood of Martyrs was really the seed of Christians', they decided to adapt their whole strategy to this fact! If to spill Christian blood will generate more Christians, they must change their tactics! They are still determined to wipe Christianity off the face of the earth, but now they understand that they must do it without spilling any Christian blood!

And that, my friends, is the situation in the world today! Anybody can see that Christianity is still being destroyed throughout the world, but with one difference, ---- Christians are being harassed, & starved, & killed, & destroyed in many other ways, but never for their faith! Did you ever stop to wonder why Communist Russia, the most evil empire in the world, built all those huge concentration camps in Siberia? And did you notice that not a single person ever gets arrested because they are Christians? In spite of how intensely those Communists hate Christianity, nobody is ever arrested, or executed for their faith? Any other charge will do, in order to send you to Siberia, but never, never because of your faith! Most often they call you an "enemy of the state," or charge you with some kind of conspiracy, just to get you to Siberia, or the death penalty, but nobody in the world gets executed for the faith anymore! They certainly know how to get you out of the way, but without making any more Martyrs, because they know for sure that the blood of Martyrs would only make the Church grow bigger & stronger!

So keep these important facts in your mind, when you listen to the news of wars & revolutions & keep in mind that wherever there is war, Christians are dying for all kinds of other reasons, but never, never, for being a Christian! Every country in the world is busy passing laws that are directly against the teaching of the Catholic Church, so if you want to be a good Catholic, you're going to have to keep breaking the laws of the land, & then they've got you where they want you! Know ahead of time, that if ever they need to "get you," you will be charged with breaking some law of the land!

Presentation of Mary

2009-11-21T15:31:00.001-08:00

Nov. 21-2009: (Sat.) "Presentation of Mary in Temple" (Heb. 9:1-7) (Lk. 10:38-42)

Dear Friends in Christ!

The Feast of "The Presentation of Mary in The Temple" is in commemoration of the time when Joachim & Anna brought the Little Virgin Mary to the Temple when she was only three years old, not just for a short visit, but to live in the holy atmosphere of the Temple Complex! To our way of thinking, it may sound quite shocking that anyone would bring a three year old child to the Temple, present her to God & leave her there to be raised in a special environment as a Temple Virgin, in the service of God!

Before we think of passing any judgment on this Old Covenant custom, we need to first take two very important things into consideration! First of all, Joachim was one of the senior Priest at that Temple, so it is quite likely that Mary knew all the people who worked or served in the Temple, in which case, she would be among friends in the Temple! On top of that, God knows much better than we, how to fill a human heart with joy & gladness!

The second consideration is Mary's Immaculate Conception! Remember that when God was creating Mary, He was creating a fit Mother for His own Son! Mary was the most beautiful human being that God ever created, & in addition to that, she was shielded from any & every sin, & at the moment of her conception, God had already filled her soul with every possible grace & blessing! I repeat, God was creating the most holy & perfect human being of all, that would be a fit Mother to His Son!

So even at that tender age of three years, & since she had been filled with every possible grace right from the moment of conception, Mary had already achieved a most perfect kind of "friendship with God" that nobody else did, either before, or after! That's what it means to be Immaculately Conceived, & to be preserved from even the slightest stain of sin, & to be "full of grace!"

Mary was God's most perfect handiwork! She was so perfect that even God could not make another human being any more perfect than He had made Mary! Even though she was made of dust, just as we were, she was the most beautiful of God's creatures! What makes Mary stand above every other human being is, her total freedom from sin!

Even the smallest little sin would have immediately brought her down to our level & would have made her unfit to be the Mother of God's Son! That's how deadly even the smallest sin is! Every sin that we commit, even if we immediately repent & confess it, it has already damaged our body & intellect a little bit more! Consider the sin of Adam, how it immediately wrecked his beautiful relationship with God, & how it has the power to pass on to every human being in the world! In a split second, this sin of disobedience, freely committed, became so much a part of Adam's nature, that, it can never be erased, but must pass on to all his posterity up to the end of the world!

But since Mary was preserved from even the slightest stain of sin, Her whole being was perfectly attuned to God every moment of her life! Her mind & soul were always in perfect harmony with God's will, so much so, that at only three years of age, Her only desire was to live with the other young virgins in God's Holy Temple, where she was trained in the ways of prayer & holiness, & spent her leisure time embroidering the Temple linens & other Temple linens, & thus kept giving glory to God!

That is how her virtues & graces kept multiplying until eventually, her glory surpa-ssed that of even the highest archangels of Heaven! To this day, Mary is the greatest maste-rpiece of God's creation! She is so holy that, never can anything come between her & God!

And yet, because of His great love for each one of us, Jesus made Mary the Mother of the entire human race, because she is the perpetual hope of even a most hardened sinner! No sinner needs to end up in Hell, unless he refuses to have Mary for his Mother!

St. Phillip's Fast

2009-11-14T17:57:00.001-08:00

Nov. 15th, 2009: "St. Phillip's Fast" (Eph. 2:14-22) (Lk. 8:41-56)

Dear Friends in Christ!

This year, our bishops want St. Phillip's Fast to be properly explained in church, so here goes:

St. Phillip's Fast, which is known by some other names, is a time to purify our minds & hearts in preparation for the birth of our Savior! The purpose of St. Phillip's Fast is quite similar to the Advent Season of the Latin Church. The Church imposes a 40-day Fast before Christmas, to help prepare our hearts & minds for the Birth of our Savior! In some places this Fast is referred to as the Philipian Fast, or Filipiwka, or Filipowka, or the "Nativity Fast." It got this name because it always begins one day after the Feast Day of St. Phillip! Our parish gives out Catholic Calendars every year, to help you keep track of the Feasts of our Liturgical Year!

The first reference to a fast in preparation for Christmas, is in the decree of the Council of Saragossa (380), which also decreed that Christians should attend church every day, from Dec. 17th, all the way to the Feast of Theophany!

For the most part, periodic fasting is still practiced by Eastern & Western Catholics, as well as most of the Orthodox Churches, although the Reformed Churches have discontinued fasting! Some Catholic Churches have tried to shorten this Fast, by beginning from Dec. 10th, which is the Feast of St. Anne! St. Anne was the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Most Holy Theotokos!

The purpose of fasting: Why does the Church always recommend fasting? Through fasting, we can bring the bodily passions under control & at the same time strengthen our spiritual faculties, allowing us to become more attuned to the things that have to do with salvation! To fast in a spirit of humility & repentance, it will bring us closer to God! Food deprivation has a subduing influence on the body, & at the same time strengthens our spiritual faculties! Some Theologians say that it's not enough to fast from food alone, but also from our addictions, ie anger, greed & covetousness, while at the same time do some serious almsgiving!

The rules of fasting: The Eastern Churches recommend fasting from meat & meat products, eggs, dairy products, fish oil, & wine! Fish, wine & oil are only allowed on Saturdays & Sundays, while oil & wine are allowed on Tuesdays & Thursdays! However, when a Feast day occurs, you may eat fish, wine & oil on that day! Feast days are: - Apostle Mathew (Nov. 16th), Apostle Andrew (Nov. 30th), Martyr Barbara (Dec. 4th), St. Nicholas (Dec. 6th), St. Spiridon & St. Herman (Dec. 12th), St. Ignatius (Dec. 20th), etc! St. Phillip Fast is not as severe as the Great Lent, or the Dormition Fast!

Nursing mothers & mothers-to-be are always exempt, as well as the ill, the very young & the elderly! If in doubt, confer with your Confessor!

On those days when no fish is allowed, you are allowed toeat the shellfish variety, but from Dec. 20th, to Dec. 24th, no fish of any kind may be eaten! Dec. 24th, is a total fast until the first star is seen in the evening sky, but if the day is cloudy, then the Fast ends after the Vespers that evening!

In the Latin Church, the rules are much simpler! You simply reduce your food intake by half! The amount of food you'd normally eat at one meal, is to be divided into the three meals of the day! Fridays, of course are meatless, but other than that, you impose your own penance upon yourself during the period of fasting, allowing you to tailor your food intake to suit the kind of work you must perform!

Fasting was very severe in the Latin Church up until the 19th century, but after that, Lenten restrictions became less severe! Some European countries asked for special dispensations on account of the colder climate & the heavier work that was performed!

Two-part

2009-11-14T17:56:00.001-08:00

Nov 10th, 2009: "REMEMBRANCE DAY ------------------- (Eph. 4:1-6) (Lk. 10:25-37)

Dear Friends in Christ!

Today we will pray for all the soldiers who gave their lives for the freedom of our country, by having a Panakhyda for the repose of their souls right after this Divine Liturgy! All peoples of the free world remember & pray for their soldiers who died in battle! Our soldiers gave their lives so that the people of this country might continue to live in freedom, & yet, how heart-rending it is, when reading the names of the fallen, to learn that the majority of them were between the ages of 18 – 30 when they died! We know that each one must have had beautiful dreams of his own to live for, & yet, when their country called, they were ready to confront the enemy who dared to threaten the freedom we hold so dear!

And the peace they won for us, how long did it last? After paying such a high price for our freedom, did our brave men really secure that lasting peace for the country they love, because, the Second World War, remember, was supposed to be the war to end all wars! It was supposed to end all wars, for all time, & with that goal in mind, no price is too high to pay for a lasting peace!

Dear Friends! We never will have a lasting peace in this "valley of tears," because evil will always exist in the world & in the hearts of ruthless men! Only evil men would want to disrupt the peaceful order that good men established for themselves & their families! In every era, evil men make war upon good, God-loving people, forcing another generation of young heroes to rise up in defense of their freedom! From the very beginning of the world, good men have always struggled against evil! We know that as long as there is sin in the world, there will be wars, because when Mary appeared in Fatima, She said that wars are a punishment for sin! It looks like we will always have wars!

We, as Christians, must also remember a second category of heroes, in addition to those on the battlefront, because this second group also fights evil, but not on the battlefront! The soldiers who die on the front lines are always the best-known category of heroes, but let us not forget the thousands of priests & Religious of our Church, who enlisted in the army of God, in order to defend humanity against the wiles of our invisible enemies, so that good people may continue to worship God in peace, the way we're doing right now!

Our Church has many brave priests & nuns, who committed their whole lives to the service of God & humanity, & the wars that they fight, are just as real as that big one our soldiers fought in Europe! Bp. Velichkowski is one of those priestly heroes to be officially recognized & beatified by the Pope! There are many other heroes of our Church, who were perhaps just as dedicated as Bp. Velichkowsky, but will never be honored in this world, simply because their deeds are not well documented! Many other Catholics, both priests & laymen, suffered as much as Bp Velichkowski did, but only God knows their full story! Siberia produced hundreds of great saints & Martyrs!

So as Christians, let us try to honor every category of our heroic defenders, who gave their lives for God & country! It is only because of them, that we are able live & worship like this, in peace! We have so many kinds of defenders to be grateful to! As Winston Churchill once said: "Never before in the history of the world, have so many people, owed so much, to so few! As for us, let us always remember how much we owe to them all!

St. Michael

2009-11-08T08:58:00.001-08:00

Nov. 8th, (Sun.) 2009: "Feast of St.
Michael" (Eph. 2:4-10) (Lk. 8: 26-39)

Dear Friends in Christ!

Today we honor one of the best known saints in the world,
& even in our own parish we pray for St. Michael's help & protection
after every weekday Liturgy! St. Michael is known as the Warrior of
God, because it was he who quickly organized & led all the good angels
during that great war in the heavens, in response to Lucifer's
rebellion against God, which all took place at the dawn of creation!
But I will come back to Michael a little later!

There is only one God in this whole, wide world & since
Jesus said that He's the Way, Truth & Life, that automatically means
that none of His teachings can ever change! God is perfect, so He can
never change & neither can His Truth ever change! 2 + 2 will always
make four! But God's face can change, depending on who is standing
before Him! Those of us who loved Him & tried to keep His
Commandments, will one day see the beautiful face of a Merciful Father
when we stand before God, but if an evil man stands before God, he
will only see the face of a Terrible Judge!

In today's Gospel, we heard how terrified the demons were as
Jesus approached that poor possessed man who had been living among the
tombs: "What have we to do with thee Jesus, Son of the most high God?
Are you going to torment us before our time?" The possessed man was
not saying this, but the devils that were inside of him! The devils
were filled with terror because the True God was approaching! So in
his terror, the devil admitted Jesus' absolute power to send him to
Hell! At the beginning of creation, as soon as some of those angels
rebelled against God, they were immediately changed into hideous
devils & sentenced to eternal fire in hell, so every devil can only
get to see the face of a terrible judge!

So today we're given to realize what a catastrophe it is,
for a human being to be possessed by a devil, & yet, there are
hundreds of possessed people living among us, which means that any
person at all can get into trouble by flirting with danger! In other
words, a person is just asking for real trouble every time he flirts
with sin! There is never a good reason for flirting with danger, or
with sin, & furthermore, since every sin is an offense against God, it
is our duty to know what things are sinful, by knowing the Ten
Commandments by heart, & also knowing by heart the teaching of the
Church, because, although The Church will always try to protect us,
it's always very hard to protect someone who thinks it is smart to
keep flirting with danger!

How can you help someone who insists on participating in wild,
dangerous & maybe sinful activities, but doesn't want to hear
anybody's advice! You can be sure, however, that the devil is more
than willing to help such a guy get his "kicks!" The devil specializes
in showing people how much "fun" it is to get high on drugs, in binge
drinking, or street racing, or wife swapping, etc! The saddest part of
it is that, sometimes it doesn't take very long to transform a nice,
healthy kid into a drug-craving weirdo, or an alcoholic, or diseased
misfit! And in no time at all, your life could be ruined forever!

Look at some of the sad people who are forced to live on
the streets! I've worked with such people for a few years, so I know a
little of what I'm talking about! We're often told that some of them
are born that way! I'm sure that by now, everybody knows that some of
them are born that way, for whatever reason, but it is also true that
some of them freely chose to flirt with dangerous drugs just one time
too many, & then ended up being addicts, or alcoholics, or whatever!
Just think, once you're addicted to drugs or alcoholic, isn't it as
bad as being possessed by the devil?

The Church teaches man how to live! The Church lays out
the proper way for human beings to live, & then encourages us to
always play it safe by sticking to that straight & narrow path, in
order to be sure of reaching Heaven safely! Our Lord once said: "Wide
is the gate & easy is the road that leads to destruction, but narrow
is the gate & straight is the path which leads to salvation, but few
are those who find it!" So Jesus almost seems to be saying that good
Catholics also have a few addictions! Even good Catholics are on the
lookout for the wide & easy road! We choose the wide road so we could
travel by car, instead of walking, & maybe that's why very few people
pay attention to that narrow gate & the narrow path that Jesus is
talking about!

But now, back to St. Michael & why he's so important to us! Actually,
every saint is important to us, & every saint will be only too happy
to help us, if we ask them for help! Even if we want to obey the
Church in everything that we do, we're going to still have to contend,
every day of our lives, with those fallen angels who hate us so much,
& that's why we should pray for the help of as many saints as
possible, because the devil will give us no rest! The devils fear St.
Michael in particular, because he has already defeated then most
shamefully at the beginning of creation, & they know he can do it
again! Michael knows the danger we are in & he would be most pleased
to come to our aid, if we keep asking him to!

Look at our first parents! They were still looking around at the
wonders of God's creation, as innocent as it was possible to be, when
along comes Satan to tell them to disobey God & eat that forbidden
apple, because it will make them as smart as God! In a few minutes
they disobeyed God's direct command, ate that forbidden apple & their
lives were ruined forever! Satan can ruin our lives just as quickly &
easily, unless we make sure we have the protection of St. Michael &
other saints!

None of us can afford to be without the protection of the saints, &
St. Michael has proved himself to millions of people throughout the
world! If we're under his protection, no devil will dare to come near!
As Catholics, we have to know all our saints, & also keep praying for
their help in getting to Heaven! If we don't make every effort to
defend ourselves, sometimes in just one short minute, we could be
ruined! Do pray to St. Michael!

Rich Man & Lazarus

2009-11-01T08:49:00.001-08:00

Nov. 1st, (Sun.) 2009: "Rich Man & Lazarus" (Gal.
6:11-18) (Lk. 16:19-31)

Dear Friends in Christ!

This parable paints a really black & white contrast between
this rich man who had everything his heart desired, & poor Lazarus,
who has nothing! In our country, life is also very good; so good in
fact, that, if someone from Africa or Mexico saw how we live, they'd
think we're all as wealthy as the rich man in the Gospel! When people
enjoy prosperity for a long time, they can easily forget the
importance of God & religion! When people are too focused on "getting
ahead," there's little time for church! It stands to reason that when
people are very focused on education, career & money, thy definitely
will "become a little more wealthy!" So, over the last 50 - 60 years,
while we Canadians were "all getting ahead" in worldly living, God &
His religion were being left further & further behind!

Another large group of people, even if they were not quite
as fixated on riches as the first group, they had a different kind of
weakness; they couldn't get enough of sports, golfing, or fishing, or
camping & since they had to work all week, they pursued their
particular hobby on the weekend, so they also had no time for God &
religion! So this is how easily we can lose the faith, when something
else becomes more desirable than God! That's why Jesus so often
stressed that: "If you love any person or thing more than Me, you are
not worthy of Me!"

Lazarus didn't have any hobbies or riches to worry about!
The Gospel says that he lay at the gate, hungry, covered with sores,
longing for the scraps of food that fell off the rich man's table,
except they wouldn't even allow him near the table! And he died like
that, there by the gate, & angels carried his soul to the bosom of
Abraham, in Heaven! Soon after that, the rich man also died, except
his soul went to the other place, the place of eternal torment, from
where he could see Abraham & Lazarus! "Father Abraham," he called,
"send Lazarus to cool my tongue with a drop of water!"

So Jesus is once again making it very clear that God in His
justice will reward the good & innocent, but He will just as surely
punish the evil!

We need to be careful however, not to draw the wrong conclusions from
this parable, because, not all the rich people go to Hell, at least
not for being rich, & neither do all the poor people go to Heaven just
because they were poor! Rich people will definitely be punished for
being sinful, greedy & immoral, but aside from that, there will
certainly be those rich people in Heaven, who loved & served God &
used their wealth for the right purposes! Think of all the beautiful
churches & Cathedrals in Europe! There's no doubt that they were built
by the hands of the working classes of people, but it also stands to
reason that the money itself, could only have come from the wealthy
class! So both rich & poor built those beautiful Cathedrals to the
glory of God! Each man gave to God, what he had to give!

Now let us consider the other example Jesus gave: when that
other rich, young man asked Him what more must he do to be sure of
salvation, Jesus did not tell him just to get rid of all his wealth,
because all the poor people automatically go to Heaven! No my friends!
Jesus told him that after he had given away all his money to the poor,
he must still take up his cross & follow in His footsteps for the rest
of his life, because, no servant is above his master! He had to humble
himself enough to carry his cross! The road to Heaven is paved with
humility & suffering!

So the most important thing to remember is: that every human
being, from the richest to the poorest, must love God more than
anything else in the world! We are also commanded to be holy, so once
again, every man in the world, from the richest to the poorest must
love & serve, glorify & worship, & keep every Commandment of God, in
order to be saved! These rules apply equally to the king & the pauper!
Rich & poor must worship the Lord their God in church every Sunday, by
participating in the Divine Liturgy, because, as Jesus said: "if you
do not eat the Flesh of the Son of Man & drink His Blood, you will not
have life in you!" So there is much more to saving your soul than just
being poor, because even the poor must love God & keep His
Commandments! "If you love Me, you will keep my Commandments!"

So then, exactly what kind of people will we find in Heaven?
We will find both rich & poor, kings & peasants, educated &
uneducated, & laborers & office workers!

And what kind of people will we find in Hell? Exactly the
same kind! You will find the rich & poor, kings & the peasants,
educated & uneducated & laborers & office workers, because the only
thing that matters to God is how much we loved & served Him during our
lives! Every person in the world will be saved or condemned, depending
on how well he loved & served God!

Dear Friends! Why is it so important to love God? Start
thinking of yourself in this way: Each one of us is the handiwork of
God, which means that each one of us is a perfect human beings! God
wanted us to be exactly the way we are! And each of us was born into
the family that God chose for us & everything else that we have & own
is also a special gift from God to us! Every human being has some kind
of gifts that nobody else in the world has, & we're expected use those
gifts for the glory of God!

Even though there are 6 billion people in the world, you are
unique, & God is waiting to hear the sound of your voice, as you say
your evening prayers, so do pray from the heart, because, nobody in
the world has your kind of voice or your kind of heart! So that's how
special & unique each individual is to God, because each human being
prays to God in a different way than every other human being in the
world! So just keep one thing in mind, that, you were created to have
a special relationship with God, that only YOU can fulfil! Slava…..

Rich man & Lazarus

2009-10-31T18:33:00.000-07:00

Nov. 1st, (Sun.) 2009: "Rich Man & Lazarus" (Gal.
6:11-18) (Lk. 16:19-31)

Dear Friends in Christ!

This parable paints a really black & white contrast between
the rich man who had everything his heart desired, & poor Lazarus, who
has nothing! In our country, life is also very good; so good in fact,
that, if someone from Africa or Mexico saw how we live, they'd think
we're all as wealthy as the rich man in the Gospel! When people enjoy
prosperity for a long time, they can easily forget the importance of
God & religion! When everyone is focused on getting ahead, there's
less time for church! As can be expected, if all your focus is on
education, career & money, you can't help but "become a little more
wealthy!" So, over the last 50 - 60 years, as we Canadians were
getting ahead, God & His religion were being left behind!

Another large group of people were not quite as fixated on
riches as that first group, are the ones just couldn't get enough of
sports, golfing, or fishing, or camping & since they had to work all
week, they pursued their hobbies on the weekend, so this group also
had no time for God & religion! So this is how we can lose the faith,
when something else becomes more desirable than God! That's why Jesus
so often stressed that: "If you love anyone, or anything more than Me,
you are not worthy of Me!"

Lazarus didn't have any hobbies or riches to worry about!
The Gospel says that he lay at the gate, hungry, covered with sores,
longing for the scraps of food that fell off the rich man's table,
except they didn't allow him to even come near the table! And he died
like that, there by the gate, & the angels carried his soul to the
bosom of Abraham, in Heaven! Soon after that, the rich man also died,
except his soul was sent to the place of eternal torment, from where
he could see Abraham & Lazarus! "Father Abraham," said he, "send
Lazarus to at least cool my tongue with a drop of water!"

So Jesus is once again making it very clear that God in His
justice will reward the good & innocent, but He will just as surely
punish the evil!

We need to be careful however, not to draw the wrong conclusions from
this parable! All the rich people don't go to Hell, just because they
were rich, & neither do all the poor people go to Heaven just because
they were poor! The rich will defin-ately be punished if they were
sinful, greedy & immoral, but there will certainly be rich people in
Heaven, as long as they loved & served God & used their wealth for the
right purposes! Think of all the beautiful churches & Cathedrals in
Europe that were built by the hands of the poorer class of people, but
it also stands to reason that the money itself, could only have come
from the wealthy class! So both rich & poor built those beautiful
Cathedrals to the glory of God! Each man gave what he had!

Now let us consider the other example Jesus gave: when that
other rich, young man asked Him what more must he do to be sure of
salvation, Jesus did not tell him to just get rid of all his wealth,
because poor people automatically go to Heaven! No my friends! Jesus
told him that even after he had given away all his money, he must
still take up his cross & follow in His footsteps for the rest of his
life, because, no servant is above his master! If Jesus had to carry
His cross, we all have to carry ours! He also said that anyone who
does not love Him more than anything else in the world is not worthy
of Him, or of Heaven!

So the thing to remember is this: that every human being,
from the richest to the poorest, is commanded to love God more than
anything else in the world! We are also commanded to be holy, so once
again, every man in the world, from the richest to the poorest must
love & serve, glorify & worship, & keep every Commandment of God, in
order to be saved! The same rules apply to the king & the pauper! Rich
& poor must worship in church every Sunday, by participating in the
Divine Liturgy, because, as Jesus said: "if you do not eat the Flesh
of the Son of Man & drink His Blood, you will not have life in you!"
So there is much more to saving your soul than just being poor! Even
the poorest people must love God & keep His Commandments! "If you love
Me, keep my Commandments!"

So exactly what kind of people will we find in Heaven? We
will find both rich & poor, kings & peasants, educated & uneducated, &
laborers & office workers!

And what kind of people will we find in Hell? Well, you will
find the rich & poor, kings & the peasants, educated & uneducated &
laborers & office workers! The only thing that matters to God is how
much we loved & served Him during our lives! Every person in the world
chooses for or against God, depending how we serve Him!

Dear Friends! Each one of us is the handiwork of God, so
we're all perfect hu-man beings! God wanted us exactly the way we are!
And each of us was born into the family that God chose for us &
everything we have, or own, is a special gift from God! Every human
being has some kind of gifts that nobody else in the world has, & we
should be using all those gifts to the glory of God!

Even though there are 6 billion people in the world, God is
waiting to hear the sound of your voice, as you say your evening
prayers, so do pray from the heart, because, nobody in the world has
your kind of voice or your kind of heart! So that's how special each
individual is to God, because each human being prays to God in a
different way than every other human being in the world! You can also
have a special relationship with God, as well! Slava…..

Christ theKing

2009-10-25T08:56:00.001-07:00

Note from the Pastor: Dear Parishioners! Nowadays, so many people
are suffering from a variety of allergies that I must ask you, on
their behalf, to not use perfumes when coming to church. Allergies are
getting to be more common every year, and you may have noticed that I
use very little incense during the Divine Liturgy, because I also have
some asthma. So please do not use perfumes! ------ ALSO, remember to
change clocks for next Sunday!

Oct. 25th, (Sun.) 2009: "Christ the King" (Col.
1:12-20) (Jn. 18:33-37)

As you heard in the Gospel, Jesus told Pilate that of course He
was a King, but not of this world! "Had My kingdom been of this
world," He said, "My subjects would be fighting to save Me from being
handed over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not of this world"

Dear Friends, only a few weeks ago we celebrated the Feast of the Exa-
ltation of the Holy Cross & today we celebrate the Feast of Christ the
King! If we just look at them both together, we're amazed at how much
the Cross of Calvary tells us about the Jesus that we are honoring as
the King of kings! So let's make sure that we first of all have that
part sorted out in our minds that Jesus is greater than every other
king in the world! Then, after we have that part sorted out, we'll
have a proper understanding of what kind of a God we really have!
Jesus is our God & King! He is everything that matters to us!

So it stands to reason that if Jesus is God, His kingship must be
greater than all the other kings of the earth! Furthermore, it means
that Jesus is the only God & the only King with jurisdiction over the
whole world, but, when we add the cross-of-Calvary to the picture, we
realize how different He is from these ordinary kings, because,
although His powers are infinite, Jesus is a meek & humble King, who
prefers to rule over His subjects through love!

Since Jesus did not come to earth to seek glory, He didn't
need or want all kinds of servants that earthly kings have! He came
only to be our Savior & to save us from Hell! He came with a burning
love for us sinful children of Eve, to make us His friends, that we
might love Him as much as He loves us! He is the King who came from
Heaven, seeking people who will love Him as much as He loves us! And
He offers Heaven to everyone that would live to live in Heaven! He
wants only friends, because there is no need for servants in Heaven!
But the first thing we must understand is that, Heaven is only for
those who love "the Lord their God with all their hearts & minds &
strength! He's already preparing a house in His Father's Kingdom for
each one of His devoted friends, so that where He is, all His friends
would also be! That's what our King is like, & that's how wonderful
Heaven will be!

Well, our King is perfect, but sad to say, humanity is not!
We know the rest of the story only too well, that this King of Love
was not received all that warmly on planet earth! He was born in a
small, cold stable among farm animals, because nobody could make room
for Him & His Blessed mother in a house! And then, only a few days
later, the Holy Family was running for their lives to Egypt, because
Herod wanted to kill Him! On top of all that, none of the Priests or
Pharisees in Israel wanted Him around, so they kept plotting His death
until they finally nailed Him to the cross on Calvary!

So the Divine King who came from Heaven to rescue the lost sheep of
Israel, was shamefully treated for the most part, & in those 3 ½ years
of public ministry, He often had no place to even lay His Head, & yet,
because of His love for us He kept walking & preaching all over
Palestine, calling the lost sheep of Israel to repentance, & inviting
them to follow Him to Heaven!

How powerfully the King loves us, that He wanted to endure the scor-
ching sun of the desert & mountains of Palestine, to turn the lost
people back to God that they may be saved! And did the people of
Israel appreciate such love? And did they appreciate the fact that
this humble King was trying so hard to get them to Heaven? Well, when
Pilate asked them: "Who do you want me to release to you, Jesus or
Barabbas?" ----- they chose Barabbas! As for Jesus, they demanded His
crucifixion!

My Friends, do you want to hear still a little more? After
He was done with Israel, this very same Jesus is now knocking on the
doors of the people of Beautiful British Columbia & He's still wearing
His Heart on His sleeve as always, & still inviting His beloved people
to church, where they may worship & glorify Him, & thus save their
souls! People still make choices, you know! People freely choose
whether go to church, or enjoy a sunny weekend on the beach? Who do
you think gets more people on the average weekend; Jesus or the beach?
Poor Jesus has to keep fighting for His rights & for the most part, He
still only gets to play second fiddle! The great majority of the
people He died for, simply refuse to take up their cross & follow Him!
They refuse to sacrifice the pleasures of golfing, fishing, sailing,
sunbathing & cooking wieners on the beach, just to get to Heaven!

Dear Friends, let us always be faithful & grateful to Jesus
our King, so He can always count on us! Let us be as faithful to Him
as humanly possible! Let us never seek or dream of any greater
happiness than just being close to Jesus every minute of our lives!
Rest assured that if we live & pray the way the Church wants us to,
when we finally do reach Heaven, our new house will be waiting for us
there, as Jesus promised! "Come, you blessed of My Father & receive
the reward that we have been saving for you from the foundation of the
world!" AMAN

Raising at Naim

2009-10-17T17:59:00.001-07:00

Oct. 18th, (Sun.) 2009: "Raising at
Naim" (Gal. 1:11-19) (Lk. 7:11-16)

"And behold, a funeral procession came out, carrying out an only son
of a widowed mother!"
Dear friends in Christ!
Funerals are always a time of sadness, & yet, they are a part of our
lives, because God did not make us for this world, but for the next!
Properly understood, death is the door we must pass through, on our
way to Heaven! We know that God arranged it this way! We have to die
after this short life, but when we reach eternity, we shall never die
again! This life is for a purpose! It is our special opportunity to
get to know, love & serve God, in order to be eternally happy with Him
in Heaven! It's so easy to understand, really, even if not always easy
to do! Each life is different, & yet, the purpose of this life is the
same for every human being in the world; to know love & serve God
here, so as to be eternally happy with Him in the next! Putting it
still another way, this is our time to prove to God that we're the
kind of people He wants in Heaven!
This Gospel tells us that as Jesus approached the gates of Naim, He
was met by a funeral procession that was carrying out the only son of
a widowed mother! This particular funeral was especially sad, because,
this son had been his mother's only means of support! For this widow,
the death of her son was like a death sentence, because without her
son, she would soon lose everything, even her home!
With her son gone, there was no hope for her! She must begin by
selling off her possessions, one by one, to buy bread, & after that,
she'd have to borrow some money against her home, & that would likely
keep her alive another couple of years, after which she will lose her
home & spend the rest of her life begging for alms on the street
corners! This woman knows that she will soon be a beggar! In those
days, every widow became a beggar if she had no one to support her!
But in her case, Jesus saw her predicament, had compassion on her,
raised her son back to life, & gave him to his mother! A terrible
crisis has been averted! It's such a heartwarming story, & we can only
presume that mother & son went home & lived happily ever after! People
like it when there is a happy ending to a story! In fact, we'd all
want a happy ending to our own lives, & that's why we invest in
different pension plans for our old age! But as for us Christians, we
have a still bigger concern, because we must also plan ahead for a
happy eternity!
Planning for a happy eternity is almost like shopping for the best
pension plan, because we really have to be sure of our happiness in
the next world! From the worldly point of view & while we can still
work, we make our monthly payments on whatever pension plan we have
chosen for ourselves, to make sure we'll be financially secure after
retirement, but since we're also Christians, we also have to plan for
happiness in eternity, so we must be very sure of getting to Heaven!
If you understand the need for pension plans after retirement, then
you also understand the necessity of making sure we get to Heaven!
Only the payments are different! To get to Heaven, Jesus said we must
have faith in Him, & love Him with all our powers, & serve Him
faithfully in this life, & keeping all His Commandments! Those are the
things God requires of us, & the more faithfully we serve God in this
life, the greater our reward in Heaven! Faith is the first requirement
if we wish to be saved! Just as you'd never miss a payment on your
retirement plan, neither would you break any of God's Commandments,
because, if we can't stand the thought of being cold & hungry in
retirement, neither can we take any chances on our eternity!
Dear Friends! Not everyone will love & serve God the same way, because
no two people think & act in the same way! Everybody in the world is
different from everybody else, but God's rules apply equally to
everyone! Because even if we're different, we're not that different!
Now for a few things about my own life! When I was young, I worked for
myself, beca-use I was always running some kind of business! Ours was
a tight-knit family, & we planned things together & worked together as
a family, & even planned our holidays together! Even the kids took
part in planning the holidays, & then, the minute school was out, the
truck & camper & camping gear was all packed & ready, & we'd take off
for a whole month, usually south into the States! We loved holidaying
in the States! Later on, we even went to Mexico a few times, but we
found that Mexico was just too different for our taste!
Anyhow, we always had a great time, doing all the things tourists do,
especially buying all kinds of souvenirs to take home! Every tourists
goes wild over souvenirs & so did we, although we found out that,
after bouncing around in a cramped & overloaded camper for a whole
month, half of those beautiful souvenirs got crushed & broken,
regardless matter how much you tried to protect them! There's no way
you can protect delicate souvenirs for a whole month, from a bunch of
active kids! The ones we did bring home in one piece, & after we
showed them to our relatives & friends, we usually didn't know what to
do with them! We had to admit that we just had no use for them! Those
twenty dollar souvenirs ended up at garage sales for a dollar! As
tourists, we had to buy those souvenirs, but at home, we realized it
was a waste of money!
Lesson #1, one hour after buying a souvenir, we didn't want to look at
it any more, so, after discussing this business of souvenirs, we
decided that before anyone dared buy another souvenir, first decide
which wall of the house you're going to hang it! After that
discussion, we still looked, but seldom bought any more souvenirs! We
knew that those trinkets were of no use to us!
Dear Friends, lets apply this experience to our religious life! Every
Catholic knows that the most important task we have, is to get
ourselves & our children into Heaven & yet we're distracted so easily
by worldly cares & desires! We're always on the lookout for things
that are supposed to keep us happy as long as we live! If we find
something like that, even if we don't have money, we go & buy it on
payments! One man will buy a boat & trailer & motor & fishing tackle &
life-vests, & camping supplies, which will keep him happy until the
day he dies! But every Sunday he's out on some lake, & too far away
from any church!
The same can be said for any other kind of sportsmen, including
golfers, & bird-watchers, campers, or whatever else, but nobody stops
to think if fishing or golfing will bring him a single inch closer to
Heaven! Or think of all those great athletes, who spend so many
hundreds of hours honing up their skills just to win a gold medal, but
wouldn't dream of reading a holy book, or spending half an hour in
prayer! And yet, at the end of life, what is it worth in front of God?
You have to wonder how many of those famous athletes will make it to
Heaven, if they never had time for God?
Dear Friends! We humans all get attached very easily to things that
have nothing to do with getting to Heaven! I have to admit that it
took two holidays to cure me of buying souvenirs, & took almost two
years to cure me of beach-combing! You will need to go through your
own kind of experience! But to get cured of anything, we have to know
where are we going & are we really trying to get there! Everybody
needs a good compass that keeps pointing to God & Church & Heaven! Let
us keep our minds on the only goal that counts, ------ getting to
Heaven!

Raising at Naim

2009-10-17T13:15:00.001-07:00

Oct. 18th, (Sun.) 2009: "Raising at
Naim" (Gal. 1:11-19) (Lk. 7:11-16)

"And behold, a funeral procession came out, carrying out an only son
of a widowed mother!"
Dear friends in Christ!
Funerals are always a time of sadness, & yet, they are a part of our
lives, because God did not make us for this world, but for the next!
Properly understood, death is the door we must pass through, on our
way to Heaven! We know that God arranged it this way! We have to die
after this short life, but when we reach eternity, we shall never die
again! This life is for a purpose! It is our special opportunity to
get to know, love & serve God, in order to be eternally happy with Him
in Heaven! It's so easy to understand, really, even if not always easy
to do! Each life is different, & yet, the purpose of this life is the
same for every human being in the world; to know love & serve God
here, so as to be eternally happy with Him in the next! Putting it
still another way, this is our time to prove to God that we're the
kind of people He wants in Heaven!
This Gospel tells us that as Jesus approached the gates of Naim, He
was met by a funeral procession that was carrying out the only son of
a widowed mother! This particular funeral was especially sad, because,
this son had been his mother's only means of support! For this widow,
the death of her son was like a death sentence, because without her
son, she would soon lose everything, even her home!
With her son gone, there was no hope for her! She must begin by
selling off her possessions, one by one, to buy bread, & after that,
she'd have to borrow some money against her home, & that would likely
keep her alive another couple of years, after which she will lose her
home & spend the rest of her life begging for alms on the street
corners! This woman knows that she will soon be a beggar! In those
days, every widow became a beggar if she had no one to support her!
But in her case, Jesus saw her predicament, had compassion on her,
raised her son back to life, & gave him to his mother! A terrible
crisis has been averted! It reads like a novel out of a story book,
except that Gospels don't end up saying that mother & son went home &
lived happily ever after! People like it when there is a happy ending
to a story! In fact, we'd all want a happy ending to our own lives, &
that's why we invest in different pension plans for our old age! But
as for us Christians, we have a still bigger concern, because we must
also plan ahead for a happy eternity!
Planning for a happy eternity is a little like looking for the best
pension plan in this world, because we really want to guarantee our
happiness in the next world! From a worldly point of view, as long as
we're still able to work, we make monthly payments on whatever pension
plan we have chosen for ourselves, because we want to be financially
secure in our retirement, but since we're also Christians, we also
have to plan ahead for happiness in eternity, therefore, we must also
do whatever it takes, to make sure we get to Heaven!
If you understand the need for retirement plans in this life, then you
also understand the necessity of making sure we get to Heaven! Only
the payments are different! To get to Heaven, Jesus said we must have
total faith in Him, we must love Him with all our powers, & serve Him
faithfully, by keeping all His Commandments! Those are the kinds of
payments God wants from us! The more faithfully we serve God in this
life, the happier we will be in Heaven! Faith is everything, if we
want to be saved! Just as you'd never miss a payment on your
retirement plan, neither would you break any of God's Commandments! If
we can't stand the thought of being cold & hungry in retirement,
neither can we take any chances on our eternity!
Dear Friends! Not everyone can follow the rules in the same way! No
two people are alike & they don't even think in the same way!
Everybody in the world is different from everybody else, & yet, God's
rules do apply to every person in the world! We're all different, but
not that different!
I'd like to say a few things about my own life! When I was young, I
mainly worked for myself, always running some kind of business! Ours
was a tight-knit family, & we always planned together & pulled
together as a family, & we also planned our holidays together! Even
the kids took part in planning the holidays, & then, as soon as school
was out, the truck & camper & camping gear was all packed & ready, &
we'd take off for a whole month, usually south into the States! We
loved holidaying in the States! Later on, we even went to Mexico a few
times, but we found that Mexico was just too different for our taste!
Anyhow, we always had a great time, doing what all the tourists do,
especially buying all kinds of nice souvenirs! Every tourists goes
crazy over souvenirs, & so did we, & as you can imagine, after
bouncing around in a cramped & overloaded camper for a whole month,
half of those beautiful souvenirs were crushed & broken, no matter how
much you tried to protect them! There's no way you can protect
delicate souvenirs for a whole month, from a bunch of active kids, &
those souvenirs that did get to our home in one piece, & after we
showed them to our relatives & friends, we found out we didn't know
what to do with them! We realized we just had no use for them! Those
are the twenty dollar souvenirs, you know, that you buy at garage
sales for a dollar or less! But we had to keep buy souvenirs, you
know, & then, at home, we realized we shouldn't have bought any!
Finally we saw the light! One hour after we bought something so
irresistible, nobody wanted to look at it any more! After discussing
this souvenir problem, we agreed that before anyone bought another
souvenir, first decide on which wall you're going to hang it! After
that, we still enjoyed looking at them, but we seldom bought any more
souvenirs! Those shiny trinkets were useless!
Can we maybe apply this experience to our religious lives? We always
did know that our most important task is to get ourselves & our
families into Heaven, & yet, we allow ourselves to keep getting
distracted by so worldly cares & worries! Or we buy things that will
make us so happy! So if we don't have money, we buy it on payments! So
one man buys a boat & trailer & motor & fishing tackle & life-vests, &
camping supplies, which will keep him happy until the day he dies! But
every Sunday he's out on some lake, & too far away from any church!
The same can be said for sportsmen, golfers, & bird-watchers, campers,
or whatever else, but nobody stops to think if fishing or golfing will
bring him a single inch closer to Heaven! Or think of all those great
athletes, who spend so many hundreds of hours honing up their skills
just to win a gold medal, but wouldn't dream of reading a holy book,
or spending half an hour in prayer! And yet, at the end of life, what
is it worth in front of God? You have to wonder how many of those
famous athletes will make it to Heaven, if they never had time for God?
Dear Friends! We humans all get attached very easily to things that
have nothing to do with getting to Heaven! I have to admit that it
took me a few years to cure me of souvenirs, & another two years to
cure me of beach-combing! It will probably be the same for you! But
still, we have to know where we're going! Everybody needs a compass
that points to God & Church & Heaven! Let us never take our minds off
our main goal, ------ getting to Heaven!