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| Purificacion Family w/Fr. Raj & Sr. Peter Catherine |
12pm Mass
8am Mass
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HOMILY #63:
“The Church is the Most Important Part of Your Life:
Heavenly Treasures”
18th Sunday in Ordinary Time
St. Catherine’s, Vallejo
July
31, 2016
Angela Rubang, a fellow parishioner, was also a teacher
at St. Catherine’s School. She recently
entered a teaching religious Order of nuns called the Dominican Sisters of Mary
Mother of the Eucharist. She is now known
as Sr. Peter Catherine.
Several years ago, she served as godmother to my
second child. After the baptism ceremony,
the priest turned to Angela and said, “You’re a godmother? But you’re not rich.” Angela immediately replied, “I’m rich in things of heaven, Father.” As you can see, treasure is not just material
monetary treasure. For Sr. Peter
Catherine, her treasures were the spiritual
things of heaven & spiritual friendship.
In a similar story, when St. Lawrence the Pope’s
deacon, was arrested in the year 258, the authorities told him to bring them
the treasures of the Church. Lawrence later
returned with the sick, the suffering poor, and fatherless orphans. He pointed to them and said to the judge, “Here are the treasures of the Church!”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches about saving up spiritual treasure. Jesus warns that if our time, talents, and monetary
treasures do not help us go to heaven, if they are not used to bring us, our
families, or others to God and His Church in some way, if it does not help us grow
in holiness and virtue, then – with all due respect, dear brothers and sisters
– those things we spend our time, talent and treasure on from the point of view
of eternity...are… just....a…big…useless…waste.
In the First Reading, it is written, “Vanity of vanities….says Qoheleth, all
things are vanity.” What does it profit
us if we gain the whole world but lose our soul? Eternally losing our soul is like the rich
man in the Gospel where God says to him, “You fool, this night your life will
be demanded of you.”
This leads to the main message of this homily, esp. for
Catholics:
1.) The Church
is the most important part of your life.
2.) The
Church is the most important part of
your life.
3.) The
Church is the most important part of your
life.
So let’s go to the first point, shall we? The Church is the most important part of our
lives because she is the Body of Jesus Christ.
Her teachings are His own! The two are one. His Excellency Archbishop Alex Sample of Portland
recently wrote:
QUOTE "The 'salvation of
souls,' which must always be the supreme law of the Church, must be kept before
our eyes. The salvation of souls.
How often do we hear this language in the Church today? Not very often, I am
afraid. And yet that is the very mission of the Church!” END Quote.
The primary mission of the Church is spiritual— to bring the spiritual treasure of souls into
heaven. Earthly concerns follow. We’re here to evangelize and bring the world back
to God through His Son. Jesus saves
souls through His Church.
That’s Good News: Jesus is risen! Through His Cross, he destroyed sin and death
and made Heaven possible. That is why, in
the Second Reading, St. Paul wrote to the Colossians, “If you were raised with
Christ, seek what is above….Think of what is above, not of what is on
earth.”
But if there’s Good News, there’s also bad news. People
reject the treasure of God’s mercy and love through sin. It’s said that the “only tragedy in life is
to not be a saint.” You know, there is
this gravely mistaken idea somehow that when everyone dies, they all go to
Heaven. That’s not true. As Catholics, we need to do everything we can
so that we ourselves and those we love are not eternally lost through immoral
lifestyles and choices.
[Post-Homily Note: I did not mention here that there are saintly Fathers and Doctors of the Church that hold that the greater majority of mankind is actually damned.]
[Post-Homily Note: I did not mention here that there are saintly Fathers and Doctors of the Church that hold that the greater majority of mankind is actually damned.]
Our Lady of Fatima in 1917 showed three children a
vision of Hell. She said, “Most souls go to Hell because of sins of
the flesh than for any other reason.”
You see, even though there are more serious sins than impurity, such as
pride, impurity is among the easiest of deadly sins to fall in to.
But we should choose Heaven over these temporary
earthly joys. Again, in today’s Second
Reading, Paul wrote, “Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is
idolatry. Stop lying to one another…..put
on the new self.” The best way to practice
purity and put on a new self is a fervent sacramental life— frequent Mass and Confession,
praying the rosary, and using sacramentals.
When I was a teenager, a priest encouraged me to pray 5 Hails Marys on
my knees every time I woke up in the morning for purity.
I especially want to turn to us men for a few seconds,
whether fathers of families or not, younger or older. Dear
brothers, let us resist pornography with the Second Reading. I’ve listed powerful spiritual tools to fight
it: the Sacraments and sacramentals.
Pornography can open the home to unwanted spirits that cause family
disturbances. Let’s not be ashamed to
confess this in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Let’s put on the new self, even after we
fall. Just get back up, like Jesus who
fell. The Sacraments are spiritual
treasures!
Now let’s move briefly on to the next point that the
Church is the most important part of our lives: Our Catholic faith is a spiritual treasure more important than
politics. Our Catholic faith is more
important than culture or ethnicity. Our
faith is more important than economics or any other aspects about life. That’s what happened to the elderly French
priest, Fr. Jacques Hamel, who was killed by Jihadists in Normandy during Mass
last week. He showed us, even though
retired, how to serve the Church until his dying breath. As one woman suffering on her deathbed
recently said, “I pray that our family will all be together in the next life.”
Finally, if the Church is the most important part of
our lives, what are we doing with our time, talent and treasure to support our
parish? Even with our busy schedules, you
and I know that if something or someone is important in our lives, we make these
priorities happen first. Have we made
the building up of our parish and making it a strong spiritual community a spiritual
priority? I invite you to consider
storing a huge spiritual savings account in Heaven.
So to summarize: The
Church is the most important part of your life. Like Sr. Peter Catherine and St. Lawrence, let
our hearts too be rich in those spiritual treasures
that only matter to God and going to Heaven. “If today you hear His voice, harden not your
hearts.”
