The Call to Be Modern-Day Maccabees
Summary of Headings
- St. Ignatius and the Jesuit Mission
- Blessing of the Church in West Palm Beach
- The Courage of the Maccabees
- Current Challenges in the Church
- Call to Action: Be Modern-Day Maccabees
- Personal Sanctification and Mission
St. Ignatius and the Jesuit Mission
We have three recent events that really brought this sermon together. The first one, of course, was the feast of St. Ignatius on Friday. St. Ignatius of Loyola is something of a hero in the church. He was a soldier first and foremost, and everything that he did, he saw everything militarily. He saw everything as a conquest. First his own soul, and then the world. The Jesuits were created, as he described them, as the light cavalry of the church, the most versatile of the weapons of the church that could go anywhere and do anything and accomplish any task. They fought the Protestants in Europe during the great debates of the so -called theologians.
Blessing of the Church in West Palm Beach
They defended Europe from Protestantism. They went out into the new world, and they conquered it with their missionary spirit. They went to the far end of the world, the far east in Asia, and made incredible inroads in the conversion of souls over there and the pagan cultures. They did so much in this aspect because of that spirit of generosity, that missionary spirit of going forth and conquering the world for Christ. Then yesterday, we also had the blessing of the blessing of the church in West Palm Beach. So for those who don't know, we bought a church in West Palm Beach about seven or eight years ago.
It's been a long time. And fortunately, before that time, they were not able to say mass in the chapel itself because it was dilapidated and there was a lot of issues. But then, so they had to say mass in the basement. I was surprised to find out there are basements in Florida. The water table is so high. But one of the only basements, I think we actually owned all the basements in Florida, honestly. But we had a basement that we were saying mass in, and obviously, it was not comfortable. The chapel couldn't grow anymore. It was, it was, it was dank. It was difficult to run. A lot of different things.
So finally, they were able to receive the blessing of the church. Father Vanois blessed the church so that now they're going to be able to say mass upstairs where it should be. And it's a truly beautiful ceremony of blessing the house of God, making it more than just a building, more than just a building where the mass is said, but really properly the house of God where the mass must be said. It is something, it is something truly beautiful. And at that same time, yesterday we had the feast or the commemoration of the Holy Maccabees. Now for the, I hope everyone knows the Maccabees are the last two books of the Old Testament.
And it's the story of a family who defended the church at the time of the temple against the profanation
The Courage of the Maccabees
and the destruction of the faith. Because the ruler of the Holy Land at that time commanded the desecration of the temple and then obliged everybody to offer incest to false gods in what was the desecrated temple. The Maccabees were of the priest class and when they saw what was going on, they were mourning and they saw one of the Jews cross the line and offer incest to the false god. They struck him dead at that moment, fled to the mountains and started their resistance to fight back against the destruction of their religion, their culture. Now these three things kind of come together for a specific point.
And that is, the situation in the church. We talk about the desecration of the church.
Current Challenges in the Church
We talk about the blessing of the church. And we talk about the missionary spirit of the church. All three things are interwoven all together at the same time. First and foremost, we must understand just how bad the situation in the church is. We're almost inured to the fact that communion in the hand happens. We're almost calloused to the fact that there are attacks against the blood of Jesus. We're almost inured that people receive the blessed sacrament constantly. That people receive him unworthily. That people attack him, whether in doctrine or whether in person. That there are scandalous goings -on within the church itself.
Within the church building. Things that profane the church. And again, that's on many different levels. With the excused liturgical practices of the church. With the excuses of liturgical dancers and liturgical ministers and all the other things. But then also, in an even worse way, with the bringing in of false religions into the sanctuary. We see this consistently. We allow space to non -Catholic religions in the Catholic church. This is something that is strictly against canon law and strictly against the first commandment. Giving room to pagan idols and to Muslim prayer areas in the Vatican itself.
Again, we are kind of calloused to all of this. We don't think about it. We don't think about the consequences of what that means. We don't think about just how horrible this is. What an offense to God it is. Therefore, we don't exactly have the spirit of the Maccabees. But what was horrible for the Maccabees to see wasn't just the fact that this was happening to the temple, but that so many of the Jewish people were going along with it to avoid persecution, to avoid personal issues and problems. So many of them just went along with it. And if we look at the church, how many, what kind of percentage of people just go along with things that they may even know are wrong?
Now again, not everybody here is a Christian. Not everybody here doing these things are bad actors. They are not doing this necessarily out of bad intentions. But it is still wrong. And it's wrong to go along with it. Now for us, because we are separated from that situation, the natural inclination is to kind of rest on our laurels and think that everything is fine. Because we have our little niche. We have our little group. We have our little enclave. Where we don't have to worry about all those abuses and all those problems. We can shut the horrors out. We can close the blinds and pretend the storm is not happening.
And how many souls are lost because of our apathy? How many occasions of horrors happen without us doing anything about it? How many offenses against the Blessed Sacrament that we do not make acts of reparation for? How horrible is the situation in the church and how little we do for it? The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. And while we are doing something very important by staying in our chapel and having our Mass and having our sacraments, we cannot shut our eyes to what's going on outside. We cannot shut our eyes to the pain and suffering and the total faithlessness of so many people.
Some intentionally, but for the vast majority, not intentionally. They just don't know any better. Many of us are guilty because of that. Because we are not doing our job as missionaries. So all these three things merge into one single thing. The church is being desecrated. The church is being offended. Our Lord Jesus Christ is being attacked. We must consecrate and bless the church. We must purify it and make it clean. And we must serve God in it. And then we must take that and move out and become the missionaries that this world needs to bring more people to it. This requires us to actually do something.
So what can we do? What can we do against this monstrosity? What can we do against this monstrosity that is going on all around us? How can we change the world? How can we save the church? How can we actually do anything good? Well, let's start to look at the Jesuits. They did amazing things. They were extraordinary missionaries. If we read the example of what they did, the North American martyrs, what they did when they were trying to convert to Huron, the way they had to live, the difficulties they had, actually creating a written language for the Huron, things like that.
Living the conditions of the Indians. It's truly phenomenal. Truly phenomenal. But it didn't come from nowhere. It didn't just appear randomly that they had this ability to do these things. They had to go through intense training, spiritual and otherwise, to be able to survive spiritually in those conditions and in those environments. They had to live a life that was already dedicated and consecrated to God to a level that was unseen before in the church. They already had to live that life. They had to live a life of consecration and of dedication to God. So that's the first step.
How are we going to clean the church up? We need to clean ourselves up. We need to change ourselves. How do we enter the church? How do we enter the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ? How do we behave when we are here? How do we dress? How do we dress? How do we dress? What kind of importance do we give to Him? And what kind of importance do we give to everything else going on around us or within us? How much attention do we pay to what the priest is doing? And how much attention do we pay to what everybody else is doing?
Call to Action: Be Modern-Day Maccabees
We have the blessing of being able to receive Holy Communion. How do we do that? How do we receive our Lord? Do we open ourselves up to Him? Do we melt away before Him? Do we diminish so He can increase? Do we treat it as just perfunctory? How do we receive Communion? How do we treat the Blessed Sacrament? It's very important that we reflect on this and consider this. But then also, almost as importantly, not just how we behave here, how do we behave outside of here? Are we two different people? Do we wear the mask of the good Catholic when we're in church, and then when we go home, we're just like everybody else?
Do we carry what we receive here out into the world, back into our home? Do we carry the love of our Lord Jesus Christ in everything that we do? And do we really, have the faith in the Blessed Sacrament so that we are able to, no matter what, demonstrate our faith and dedication and consecration to the service of God in our day -to -day lives and in our very actions? How we speak, how we work, what we do. Do we do those things? Here it's easy. But out there, it's not so easy. We want to conform. We want to conform. But that's not how we do it. That is why we have to carry everything we receive here and carry it closely guarded with us each and every day and each and every instant that we are in the world.
That is the second thing. The first thing is how we attend Mass, how we come to church. The second thing is what we take with us and how we live it after leaving church. The third thing is the care of the church. I mentioned before the profanation of the Blessed Sacrament. How it is defiled constantly, disrespected, treated as, it's treated with less reverence than the Missal. And the new Mass. The Missal, at least, is kissed and bowed before. But what is the Blessed Sacrament? It's picked up and shuffled around and tossed around with unconsecrated hands. What are we doing about it?
What are we doing about it? Every month, we have one night of consecration. Where we dedicate ourselves in front of the Blessed Sacrament for the entire night. We offer ourselves in reparation for these blasphemies against the very sacrament of our Lord. One night per month. And we get good numbers. I like to brag about it up in Sanford. But the fact of the matter is, for everybody who is so generous in coming and spending time with our Blessed Sacrament, how many do not? It's one hour a month. And it's the Blessed Sacrament. Surely we could dedicate, we could consecrate just one hour.
We can give a little bit more. That's one way. Take those little opportunities to actually give something back to God, to offer something up, to appreciate the abuse that He has been receiving, and to try to make some soothing reparation for it. I fully understand. Not everybody lives as close as I do to the Blessed Sacrament. It's not that easy. I fully understand that. But there are people here who consecrate their entire night. They spend the entire night with the Blessed Sacrament. There are people who travel for more than an hour away to spend an hour with Him. Dead of night.
Can't blame traffic at three in the morning. There is such a beautiful opportunity. One of our priests, Father Bariel, the spiritual director of Acon, every night from three to four o 'clock, excuse me, from two to three o 'clock, he would spend one hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament praying for priests. Even when he was so sick he couldn't stand up, he had a seminarian carry him from his room to the chapel so he could spend that hour no matter what. To the day he died. And how many vocations did he sanctify with those prayers? The next step is we need people to do things.
First and foremost, in this chapel. We can't fix what's outside until we fix what's inside. There is a lot that needs to be done. I met a priest who was a pastor. He mentioned the adoration and the holy hours. That is essential. That is necessary. But there's also practical activities that we are asking people to help with. The city now owns this chapel. It's part of our land swap. We rent it. We're responsible for a lot of it. They're responsible for some of it. But it also means that we have to take some care with it because they now have more power and authority to come in here, see, shall we say, fire code violations, and decide to change the lease a little bit, as it were.
So I need your cooperation on that. Make sure you clean up after yourselves. Make sure you respect the space a little bit. Make sure you're not leaving things all over the place or leaving doors open or the like because this is now something that we need to be more careful of. But also in more practical ways, we need help with our ministries. This weekend we had a lot of chaos involving the servers. One of the reasons is we don't have enough servers. We have a lot, and that's good, and that's beautiful. But the servers that we have are not doing their job, which is one thing that Mr. Aragon is going to address.
But then on the other hand, we need more.
Personal Sanctification and Mission
With all these men and boys in the parish, and with the honor that it is to be next to the Blessed Sacrament and part of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we need more people to participate, more servers, more men and boys learning how to serve. It's a tremendous gift. And yes, it is a sacrifice, but a good and necessary one too. We need more men to be ushers in security, especially at the Mass at 5. Again, it is a sacrifice. Again, it is something that is going to be slightly inconvenient, but it is a gift that you can give to God. And it is also a participation in one of the minor orders of the priesthood, that of porter, a very important role in the church that used to be a part of the priesthood.
It used to be dedicated only to clerics. There is something holy in what that job is that participates directly in the Blessed Sacrament. We need more people in the choir, especially girls. That is the first time in history anyone has ever said that. We need more women in the choir, because usually it's the men we need to push in there. But we need more people in the choir. Yes, it's a sacrifice. Yes, it requires commitment. Yes, it's a sacrifice. But it is still something that is beautiful and that participates directly in the sacrifice of the Mass. You become a part of it.
A tremendous honor. Again, it's not for everybody. I understand that. But it is still... I'm still encouraging people to please take care of that. But also, we have all these other apostolates that I'm trying to get off the ground. I want to start a school, but I can't do that without families coming together and trying to work together to be able to form a homeschool co -op so we can launch the school from that. But that requires a lot of effort and generosity and collaboration, something that has been very difficult for homeschool families to accomplish, because everybody has their own way of doing things.
I was homeschooled. I get it. But it is necessary to work together for a greater purpose. I want to get some youth groups off the ground. I don't have the time or the energy to do that, that's why I need people to step up. I need people to step up and help out. We've had some people, thankfully, do something for the young adults, but now we need something for the adolescents and teenagers. We need more... And then the children. We need something to try to get people together, to move together in that sense. There's a lot of different obligations that we have. And now with the project, even more so.
It may surprise you to know that in the seminary, they don't teach us administration, marketing, and accounting. They have never been my forte anyway. I need help. I have tremendous helpers. I really do. But we need more. A lot more. People with expertise, people who have know -how, people who are willing to dedicate time and effort. We need it. We need it. As terrible as I am for asking for money, we need that too. In a bad way. We are now on the clock, and we are now moving full steam ahead, so we need to start paying our bills. And that's going to get expensive really fast.
And as much success as we have had fundraising, now it needs to be double time or triple time. We need to get the money in the bank fast and furious. And we need your help for that. Not just what you can give, but what we can get. There is a quote that was attributed to Archbishop Sheen. I haven't found it yet that he said it, but someone said it to me. I like it, so I'm going to share it with everybody. That when it comes to giving to the church, and it's not just about money, but anything, giving anything to the church, the question isn't how much do I have to give.
It's how much do I have left after I give. Unfortunately, I can't be here all the time. Unfortunately, I can't do everything. I really wish I could. But the fact of the matter is, all of you need to collaborate. Each and every one of you. Every last person. We need more help with the maintenance of the building. We need more help with the servers, with the choir, with the ushers. We need a lot more help with the marketing and the moving and the fundraising for the church. We need a lot of help. And understand, this isn't just something that we're doing for the church.
This is a call to arms. The church needs us. The church needs us to be the Maccabees. To fight back. To be the Jesuits. To be the missionaries that go out and to actually conquer the world for Christ. The church needs us, therefore, to sanctify our temple. To sanctify our church. To sanctify our souls. The church needs us. The church needs us to be holy and entirely generous. Giving of ourselves no matter what it is that is asked of us. The church needs us. Souls need us. And there is no way on God's green earth that we should ever say no to him when he asks. Because we owe him everything.
And there is nothing that we can do except to ask for his help. And we can't follow him if we want to do any good in this world. Because he is the only one who can do any good. And it is only through him that we can do good. And it is easy and it is comfortable and it feels safe to be in our little enclave, our little niche. Stay away from the problems and dangers of the world and the church. But the fact of the matter is we can no longer do that. The situation in the church is so bad. We have to be different. We have to take a stand. We have to be missionaries.
We have to go out and we have to rescue souls from their loss of faith. We have to rescue the Blessed Sacrament from its profanation. We have to defend the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary against the attacks against her. We have to do everything we can to defend and to spread the faith and the Mass and the Sacraments in every corner of the world. But it starts with the little details of giving of ourselves here and now in the barest possible way possible. During this Mass, watch as our Lord gives himself and sacrifices himself yet again for our souls.
Body, blood, soul and divinity he sacrifices himself. Body, blood, soul and divinity he gives himself to us in the Blessed Sacrament. While that goes on, while you are watching that happen, while you are receiving the benefit of it, ask yourself a very simple question. And it is the same question you ask yourself every day. It is the question the priest recites after he receives the Body of Christ and before he receives the precious blood. Quid utribum Dominicum utribum in mici? What can I give to you who has given me this? What can I give for what you have given me?
Ask that question of yourselves. And listen for the response because God will tell you what he wants you to do. Especially after Communion. He will answer. But you have to ask the question. It is a scary question because when we give God a blank check, he is going to cash it at some point. But it is a necessary question. And it is necessary for our souls. It is necessary for our community. It is necessary for the Church. And it is necessary for souls. And most importantly, it is most necessary to serve God. Amen. Ave Maria Purissima. Amen. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen.
Summary
The homily begins by highlighting three recent events: the feast of St. Ignatius, the blessing of a church in West Palm Beach, and the commemoration of the Holy Maccabees. These events serve as a backdrop for discussing the current state of the Church and the need for a renewed missionary spirit. The preacher emphasizes the severity of the Church's current situation, including the desecration of sacred spaces and the need for reparation. He calls for the faithful to recognize their role in sanctifying the Church and to actively participate in its mission. The homily concludes with a call to action, urging the faithful to become modern-day Maccabees by sanctifying themselves and spreading the teachings of Christ. This requires personal dedication and a commitment to serve God in all aspects of life.