True Friendship and the Love of God
Summary of Headings
- True Friendship in Society
- Friendship with God
- Teaching and Understanding the Faith
- The Role of the Holy Mass
- Rituals and Worship
- The Importance of the Priesthood
- Living as Witnesses of Faith
- The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Ghost
True Friendship in Society
You know, I want you to think about this for one minute, my dears. When you think about friendship, true friendship, okay, somebody who has a true friend. Right? Now, unfortunately, you know very well, and so do I, that in a lot of cases, friendship is kind of skewed in a negative way in the society we live. Okay? A lot of people consider themselves to have friends that are not really their friends. As an example, if you are, if you have a thousand facey friends, are those your real friends? I don't know. I mean, I don't do facey. That's my sarcasm about that.
I don't do it because I don't see the point. If I actually want to have a friend, I want to be able to converse with that man and speak to that man and grow to love that man in a very, very beautiful, healthy, normal way. Right? So I encourage you to think about that. Right?
Friendship with God
What does it mean to be a friend? Right? What does it actually mean to be a friend? And there are good examples of this. You know very well that an unmarried woman, right? A number of the saints were very, very dear friends. And those friendships were based upon something very, very real. But I also want you to think about this. If a man wants to be a friend of God, what must he do? You know, a lot of the other religions have a tendency to assume that if I'm going to be God's friend, that I have to have God line up with what I want. Okay? You know, as Catholics, we have a tendency to think that we have to have God line up with what we want.
And as Catholics, we believe that we are called to know, love, and serve God. A lot of the other religions believe that God is to know, love, and serve me, which is grossly incorrect. If you truly love God, you want to learn about him as much as you possibly can. And you know, it's interesting how if you look at the gospel tonight, my dears, in the gospel, our Lord tells the apostles twice to go and teach. Twice. Go and teach them. Teach them what I have handed on to you.
Teaching and Understanding the Faith
You are the teachers. And if you're going to teach them, then you need to make sure they understand. Understand. I was just talking to a gentleman a little while ago. He was telling me a story about an older lady who was basically able to read. That was it. She could read, and she got herself a catechism, and she became a master apologist. Not because she was a superstar intellectual working on applied math at MIT, but rather because she realized the catechism was written for all men. It's for all men. And of course, a lot of men nowadays, they read what they want to read.
You know, a lot of great comic books out there that teach you nothing. I mean, I know, I know. Comic books are fun. I went through a comic book phase as well. But I'm 58 years old, and the last time I checked, I couldn't care less what Spider -Man is doing. Don't care. Sorry. I don't care if Peter Parker is now in his 70s or 80s and still kicking it. I don't care. Don't care. But I do know very well that the deposit of faith is that which should be learned by all of us. If you truly want to become a friend, you grow to love your friend daily, and you grow to love him in a way that is intimate and true, honest, sincere, and real.
Think about a man and a woman who are happily married. And a number of you are married. A number of you have your families here with you. A number of you have little kids. A number of you have older kids. Some of you have your children home from school right now or back from college. And think about that for one moment. A man who loves his wife does not just love her the way he loved her when they met for their first date and he said, Cling, cling, you're the prettiest thing on the face of the earth, babe. Because guess what? Now he shares something with that woman he didn't share with her before.
A sacrament and also a family. And that leads that man and his wife to want to grow in intimate love for each other in more than just a carnal way, but to truly love each other. And is there a better way for a man and a woman to grow in intimate love? There is a better way for a man and a woman who are married to show their love for each other than to grow in the faith together. And there's not. Because it also reflects in the children. And I want you to think about that. You know, if we say, I love God, how do you love God? It's a good question.
A lot of people, they love God their own special way.
The Role of the Holy Mass
You know, I can't help but laugh. It was really quite funny last week. I was going to dinner with some of the faithful last week. It was really quite cute. And the heretics over here were having water gun fights. What a great way to show how much you love God. Now again, if your kids want to run around the yard and play, fine. Good for them. Great. Enjoy yourself. But guess what? Your kids went to Holy Mass. They worshiped as God ordained them to worship that day. Right? They didn't make it up as they go along. I want you to think about, for one moment, the Holy Mass.
And I want you to think about the order of the Mass and how perfect it actually is. You know, people say to me all the time, I'm not ritualistic. Really? Really? Your Bible leader gets up there and reads out of the Bible. Then he preaches to you. You have music. He preaches again. You have more music. And then he passes around the collection plate. Is that not a ritual you're used to every single Sunday? It's not exactly the ritual of God, but it is a ritual. And you know, my dears, every one of us has rituals that we all do. Right? In my case, it's get up in the morning, turn on the coffee, make your bed, say your prayers, shower, shave, go to Prime, say Mass.
And when I'm in school, teach all day. That's part of my ritual. And I feel very uncomfortable if I miss something. Right? I feel off. Yet a lot of people nowadays don't realize the beauty of the ritual of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And I'm talking about the Mass. I'm not talking about some hybrid makeshift that was pretended upon by Bognini, but rather the pure Mass. The Mass of all time. The Mass of the ages. The Mass of our grandparents. You know, it's amazing to me, my dears. When we talk about love of God and we look at the Holy Mass, we see God truly being loved.
Through what? Worship. Remember, what are we doing? This is worship. We're here to worship God. We are not here to entertain ourselves or to be entertained.
Rituals and Worship
We're here to worship God. I want you to think about this for one minute. Just think about Catholic music. Think about Gregorian chant. Okay? As an example. Now, you all know very well that Father Pironi is a Christian. How would one say? Very, very singing lacking. I don't pretend to be a beautiful singer. Your pastor is a beautiful singer. Father has a beautiful voice. I pretend really good. Okay? I do. But at the end of the day, why am I singing the Holy Mass? Because it is proper. It is what the church expects of me as a priest. And you think about as an example the Gregorian Mass.
Why is that so important? Because it draws a man in closer to God. The beauty of the monks. Or the beauty of your Scholas singing the Gregorian is because it draws a man closer to God. You know, I was talking to a gentleman just recently. He told me a funny story about being a kid going to Mass and hearing what he thought was a popular rock hymn in the warm -up. Well, there's no reason for that to be played during Holy Mass. It doesn't edify a man. It doesn't draw a man closer to God, does it? You think about the rituals of the Holy Mass and realize how important these rituals actually are and what they actually show us in our adoration of God.
The fact that in a chapel that is run by the Society of St. Pius X, there's about a 100 ,000 % chance you will never see an altar girl. You're saying, well, duh, really? Why is that a good thing? Because women are not configured to serve at the altar. That's why. It is a man's office. No, it's not. These vestments are for men, not for crazy women who wander around in England who think they're archbishops. This is for a man, for those of you who know what I'm talking about. The crazy Archbishop of Canterbury who is not a man. And one of the not exactly an attractive lady, but not a man.
Okay? Should not be there. It is a gross heresy. It is sacrilege for her to be pretending to be a bishop. She is not. I don't care what the state of England says. She is not a bishop. Bishop Vallee, Bishop de Garretta, and these four men who are going to be consecrated in July, they will be the members of the hierarchy of the church. Two of them already are. Two of them may they rest in peace. And I want you to think about that. These local ordinaries are bishops. But they're men. That is proper. It's part of the proper order. I also want you to think about this, my dears.
That when a man goes to offer Holy Mass, he has rules and regulations he has to follow. Okay? I remember being a boy when I was a kid, young boy, into high school. And you would see priests that had all these quirky things they would do which made zero sense. You know, I remember one time when I was a kid, this priest who was just kind of off. And he would, if somebody went to go ring the bells, this was the glory days of the altar boys before the girls came along the scene, thank God. He would try to lean over and step on the boys' hands because it damaged his hands.
It damaged his ability to pray. Even though that's part of the ritual of the church. It's part of the ritual. Now obviously there are certain Masses where you don't ring the bells like a private Mass on a side altar. But the truth is it's part of the Mass. The prayers of the Mass are the prayers of the Mass. They're not made up as you go along. You know. And these are things we have to think about. If we truly want to be men who are ordered to love God, we have to do God's will. And the Holy Mass is a great example of that. I know we live in a time, my dears, where we're not allowed to do that.
But remember, we're a completely different race. We're in the state of humanity where a lot of people want to do their own thing. And they're very comfortable with their own thing.
The Importance of the Priesthood
Okay? When it comes to ethics, or morality, or the way a person carries themselves in a relationship, they think it's my rules my way. And he's going to have to get used to it. Well the truth of the matter is, he, God, has established what he wants for his creation. Remember, there are the two great creations created by God, the angels and men. Now the angels, as you know, do not have bodies. The reason why we have those beautiful statues of St. Michael, like the one in the back there, is because it helps us to have an idea of what Michael would have looked like.
We don't know. When Gabriel came to Our Lady, as much as I love Barochi's beautiful painting, I don't know what Gabriel looked like because he is not a man, he is an angel. Your guardian angels do not wear little wings and you don't pick them up at the Hallmark store. I'm sorry to tell you. Okay? But we are men. We are unique creatures. Every one of us is unique, but we are created in the image and likeness of God. And if you think about that, we are configured by God to do God's will. What does that exactly mean? Oh, whatever I want. No, it does not. And the thing that's really impressive about that is God himself, the Blessed Trinity himself, does not give you a totalitarian way of living.
You have free will, every one of us. We can make a choice. Decide. Determine what we want to do. Okay? And you know as well as I do, when you're little, little, little, your mom and dad make a lot of choices for you because you don't know what to do yet. You don't know what to do. Okay? A little child says, I don't want to eat my vegetables, and dad says, well, if you don't eat your vegetables, there's going to be consequences because he knows they're good for you. Unless, of course, you have an analogy to broccoli, I don't know. But they're good for you. Because the parent is looking out for the well -being of the child.
Does the child have free will? Can he fight you tooth and nail? You better believe he can. But at the end of the day, who's going to win? Dad is. There comes a point, though, where a child has to be able to grow and mature and make their own decisions in life, but they must be properly formed, well -formed, to look at the things that they should not be doing and know why. You know, one of the gifts of the Holy Ghost is something called fear of the Lord. You know, people don't even know what that means. Oh my God, God, that's so scary. Oh my God, she's scary.
But at the end of the day, what does that mean? Respect God. Love Him. Think about that, my dears. Think about what that actually means. Now, a number of you are young people in this parish, and that's a good thing. Thank God. You're the future. But you think about the fact that if you're sitting around with your boys, dudes, and you hear something like, so, man, how come you don't step out of line? What's the matter with you? Well, I'm afraid of my dad. That's legitimate. Okay, fine. What if somebody actually said, why don't you ever step out of line? And the young man says, because I love my father so much, I do not want to do anything to ever offend him.
I love him so much that all I want to do is be a good son to my father. You ever thought about that, young people? As opposed to trying to pull one over on dad and mom.
Living as Witnesses of Faith
But in actuality, you realize, wait a minute. This would be offensive to my parents and it would be offensive to God. And I love my parents and I love God. It also means that we have to be men who truly admit the awesome reality of God himself. A lot of people. Now, again, I'm older, so I can remember the bumper sticker era. All the cute little bumper stickers. My favorite one was, God is my co -pilot. How dare you, arrogant son of a gun, to even assume God is your co -pilot? How dare you assume that? That is arrogance. That means you lead the ship. How dare you assume that?
The one who gave you your life and is the one who determines if you go to heaven or not, due to your merits, of course, and if you're in a state of sanctifying grace. What an arrogant man to assume that. But we know very well what that actually means to be a faithful son or daughter of God. And we have to live it. We have to make good decisions. You know, a lot of people nowadays, they don't read the Scripture like a Catholic would. Who is our Lord talking to? Well, he's talking to all the girls in the youth group and all the guys in the youth group and all those kids who go to FCA and blah, blah, blah.
Wrong. No. Who is he talking to? Peter and the apostles. Which also includes, of course, St. Paul. That's who he's talking to. He's saying, I want you to get out there and teach them. And they went, is the kingdom coming, Lord? And he went, no. Not the time nor the hour. And of course, what happens last weekend? I'm sure you all remember that. That's called Pentecost Sunday. That was a very, very beautiful day. Kind of gets overlooked. Oh my God, there was so many people that got there. They got baptized. It was so beautiful. Any of you ever read really what St. Peter says in Acts chapter 2 when he goes ballistic?
That homily that Peter gives is so powerful. You're saying, was that Acts chapter 2, Father? I want to go home and read that tonight. Hope you do. I do. It's worth reading. And what he says is so powerful. 3 ,000 men. Do the math. 3 ,000 divided by 12. They were busy that day. They were busy. That's powerful. Just think about that. And you know what's amazing about that gospel, or that letter, that epistle, is that a lot of people don't even remember that there's an ending to that that most people overlook. Which really, I find to be quite sad. And it says this, And they met for prayers and the breaking of the bread.
Well, you know what that means. They had a kumbaya and they hung out and ate some pita bread. No! Who led the prayers and the breaking of the bread? St. Peter did. That was the day that those 3 ,000 men received their first Holy Communion. Have you ever thought about how powerful that is? How serious that is? Yet we overlook that, don't we? We overlook it all. We overlook it all. We overlook it all the time. We forget what we actually are as Catholics is more than just a moniker. You know? There are a lot of people nowadays. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm Catholic. I belong to a church.
I go three or four times a year and sometimes more than that. Wow. You're impressive. Well, how often should we go to Mass, Father? I don't know. Every Sunday. Because that's the law of God. Oh, right. Yeah, well, you know, I mean... First, second, third Sunday, we have soccer, lacrosse, volleyball, dance troupe, and other stuff. And, of course, the last Sunday, well, the kids are normally pretty tired. Now, again, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with sports. I love sports. You guys know that. But there has to be an accommodation made not for the sport, but for God. We go to Mass.
When I was a boy, I played competitive soccer. You're saying, boy, that's hard to believe. But I actually did. I played a lot. And sometimes you had the big tournaments on Sunday. And guess where Father Pironi was at 6 .30 in the morning with his dad? Not warming up to play soccer. He was in the pew. Nine times out of ten, he was in the sacristy putting on a casket to go serve. Because that was primary. When I was a college student, I was that weirdo that got up every Sunday to go to Mass at a Catholic school. Go figure! Go figure! Hey, man, what are you doing, my roommate?
I said, I said, it's Sunday. And he says, and? I said, oh, come on, man. Don't you go to Mass with your parents? Well, my parents aren't here. Oh, sweet. Good for you, dummy. How dare you say that? We should be the exact opposite of that. It is Sunday. And you know what's really great about this beautiful little parish we have here, which is growing in leaps and bounds? We have four Masses on Sunday. I understand some of our faithful who live a long way away. Lord knows, I run a lot of those missions in my time. Some of those people can't get to Mass except maybe once a month because they're driving three, four, five hours.
And sometimes they're driving through the snow or the rain or the sleet or mud or God knows what. And those people make an effort to get to Mass every month. And they get to Mass every month. And they say their Missal every Sunday with the family and say their Rosary. And they're still offering that day to the Lord opposed to saying, you know what? Let's go do some fun stuff. We'll get to Mass on the third Sunday if Dad gets around to it. They don't do that. We have a great luxury in this chapel, my dears. Think about the Priory too, right? The Priory in Sanford. What a luxury that is.
Jacksonville has three Masses, right? We have all these different options for people. If they want to go to Mass at a certain time, but there are those who say, well, you know, I just can't get around to it. I've got more important things to do. Went out with my friends last night, got borracho, and you know what? I got to sleep. Well, stupid, you shouldn't have done that to begin with. That's a very, very serious sin. Oh, well, I'll get around to it someday. Will you really? Are we truly showing God that we love Him? How do we show God that we love Him? How do we show God in the depths of who we are how we truly love Him on this feast especially of the Blessed Trinity?
You know, my father told me a story, and you're saying, boy, you have a lot of stories. Well, you know what? I'm old. This is what we do. Get over it, okay? This is what old people do, all right? My father told me a story when he was a boy, boy meaning in high school, about the Eucharistic procession, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. You know, for some of you, you might be like, oh, where's that? It's a state about 35 hours from here in a car near Colorado, Utah, Arizona. You may know it as the Four Corners. Yeah. My father told me a story that there would be thousands and thousands of people walking down the street on Corpus Christi Sunday, and the bishop would walk in procession with the monstrance.
There would be thousands of people, and they would walk past the shop fronts, and they would walk past the stores, and all the Catholics would come out, and they would genuflect, and they would kneel down in adoration. How many times have we been out on our processions here, my dears, or in West Palm, or Jacksonville, or Miramar, or wherever we have our chapels, and people are like, what are those idiots doing? The arrogance of those people. The arrogance of those people. But they don't know any better, do they? They don't know, but we know. We know what it means to love God.
We adore God. We adore God. We worship God. That is how we show God the depths of our love. And the compliment to that is we do His will. We do the will of God in all things. We don't make excuses. We do the will of God in all things. And I encourage you, my dears, to think about that. It's also important you remember something. Much as we like to admit we have 20, we're 20, we're 20, we're 20, we're 20, we're 20, we're 20, we're 20 deep in all the priories. We're not. Now, there are some priories that have a lot of priests. We have a good number in Sanford. But at the end of the day, I want you to think about something, right?
How do all these converts end up coming here? Some of them come on their own. Some of them find, hey, Latin Mass. I wonder what that is. And they walk in. But the truth is, as much as we love and admire those who teach catechism, because Lord knows that's a very, very serious task to prepare a man or a woman to become a Catholic, at the end of the day, without a priest, it doesn't matter. Because a priest is the one who receives you into the church, who baptizes you, who hears your confessions, who gives you Holy Communion. So if you think about it, it should be an effort that is done.
The layman is drawing people to the priest. You think about all those stories in the New Testament, excuse me. I think one of the best ones that would have to be is that sweet little old lady who eventually dies by being tossed in a well, and you may know her as Fotina. Who is that? That's the real name of the woman at the well. Remember the gal with five husbands who, by the way, was not her husband at the time when our Lord met her? Fotina was baptized with all of her children. And she ended up becoming a martyr because she stood up for the faith. Can you imagine the number of people, that that poor woman from Samaria brought to the faith?
Isn't that incredible? All those people that Fotina affected. And here we are in the world, my dears, every one of you. You're in the world. In your occupations, in your friendships, in your families. And how many times do we skirt the issue when people start to talk? We don't want to talk about it because it's uncomfortable, or we don't want to talk about it because if I talk about it, somebody might... not have niceness for me anymore. You know, it's important for us to think about this, my dears, when it comes to St. Paul. St. Paul. As you all know, St. Paul was a brilliant man.
Spoke three languages fluently. His teacher was the teacher of teachers. And St. Paul had a major, major situation happen to him where he got blinded. And opposed to cursing God, he said, Who art thou? And our Lord reveals himself to him. And then St. Paul, not Saul of Tarsus, but St. Paul, is baptized by Ananias. And what happens after that? Paul goes and starts talking to those who he could not stand. For he understood that he must love them. He did not say to the Greeks, or to the Chaldeans, or wherever he spoke to, the Colossians, whatever. Hey, what's your religion?
Well, you know, I'm into... We do a pagan... We do a pagan ritual on Wednesday afternoon. That's so cool. You know, I'm Christian. But it's cool, dude. Is that what St. Paul did? No, he didn't. He challenged them. He spoke to them. He spoke to them a hard truth, but because he loved them. Not because he was trying to get one up on them. Because he wanted all men to be members of the body of Christ, as you and I are. There's something worth thinking about there. Do we truly have a desire to want to know the faith or not? Or are some of you going to go home tonight and just like, you know, that was cool.
That smarty pants Italian got up there and blethered again. And well, now we're over with that for another week. Cool, sweet, good. Let's go. Let's... Facey friends. Facey friends are calling on me. All of my real... All my friends in virtuality. I don't know. Is that what it's called nowadays? I don't even know what that means. And I really don't care. But at the end of the day, my dears, think about the truth of that, right? You are a light shining in the darkness. Every one of you. And I hope to see you again. And I hope to God you allow that light to shine. To shine as a devout Catholic.
Looking upon the face of God. That's who we are. And again, you know, I encourage you and I want to remind you of one thing before we continue in the Holy Mass. It's this. That if you really want to be a model, a witness for the faith, you look to the one who gave her whole life.
The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Ghost
Who gave her whole life for the faith. And never once shed a drop of her immaculate blood. But her whole life was the perfect witness of what it means to be. And that was the Blessed Virgin Mary. I want you to think about that. Okay? I want you to think about that, especially when you're saying your rosary. Ask the Blessed Mother to give you the courage to become closer to her Son. Because she has a perfect intimate union with her Son. A son that nobody else shares. She is the Mother of God. Ask her in those times when you are frustrated. And oh, by the way, let's not forget the forgotten person of the Blessed Trinity, which all of you confirm on should be very close to.
And that's the Holy Ghost. Wisdom, counsel, knowledge. All those things that the Holy Ghost will give you. But do we truly, do we truly want them? Or is that too much to handle? How many times have we all known people who are truly brilliant, right? They have a brilliance about them. Whatever it may be. Mass, science, literature, art, I don't know, whatever. Somebody who's a brilliant athlete. Somebody who's a brilliant musician. But they just want to be mediocre all the time. It's all they want. You know, make a few bucks. I'll swindle some people on the basketball court.
And somebody says, you know, you've got some incredible talent. Well, it's too much work. What about us as Catholics? We've been given all these gifts by the Holy Ghost. We have to work. We have to work for God. We have to work for God because we want to see all men, all men be received into the Holy Church. That takes work. You guys are the ones that have to bring them to us. But we cannot bring them to the altar to receive their first communion, can we? We can't do that. So be encouraged, my dears. Be encouraged. Learn the faith and truly, truly show God how much you actually love him.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Summary
The homily begins by examining the concept of true friendship, contrasting it with superficial connections often seen in society. It highlights the importance of genuine relationships based on mutual love and understanding. The sermon then transitions to discussing friendship with God, emphasizing that true friendship with the divine requires aligning our will with God's will. It underscores the importance of learning about God and living according to His teachings. Finally, the homily calls on the faithful to be witnesses of the faith, drawing inspiration from the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Ghost. It challenges us to use our God-given talents to bring others to the faith and to live as true lights in the world.