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Homilies

Ash Wednesday

The prophet Joel tells us:

Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God.

And so I tell you: Repent, put on sack cloth and cover yourselves in ashes.

Frankly, you are going to hell and so am I. Joel was being very honest. I too must be honest. We need to turn from the course we are on. We need to return to God.

It is easy to say nice things and to preach platitudes. I can tell you to be nice, to be kind, to love your brothers and sisters, and to give to the poor. It will go in one ear and out the other. How can I do that when you are going to hell? How can I make you stop and think? How can I make you change your ways?

Joel left Father and me a very important message as well:

let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep,
And say, —Spare, O LORD, your people

And we do cry to the Lord every day. We carry constant concern for you. We pray for you. We ache when you are hurting. My family and I pray for you each night. In cases of special need we pray for you by name. I personally pray for you in the morning, at noon, and at night. I pray because I worry about your salvation and your everlasting soul.

We ask God to spare His people from the evil of the day. We ask God to spare you from temptation. We ask God to spare you from the kinds of easy justifications we all perform. We ask God to spare you from the evil that makes you think you will live forever.

Last Wednesday the letter of James said:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town, spend a year there doing business, and make a profit”– you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears.

How true. In an instant you will be gone. In a moment you will be no more.

Psalm 103 tells us:

As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

And in 1 Peter we read:

You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God, for: “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of the field; the grass withers, and the flower wilts; but the word of the Lord remains forever.” This is the word that has been proclaimed to you.

So I proclaim it to you. You will not remain in this earthly life forever. Now is the moment. This is the time. Repent.

Behold, now is a very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.

If you think tomorrow will come you are deluded.

My poor children,

Use this moment and this Lent to consider your life. Put all of your focus on God.

If you despair of illness, bad relationships, hard times, or economic failure make a right offering of your pain, sorrow, and sickness to God. Wash your face, keep a clean appearance, and do not look glum. Offer yourself and every sorrow to God. Tie yourself to the cross, for you are sharing in Christ’s suffering. Do it joyfully. Thank you Lord Jesus for this time of suffering. Lord Jesus, let me be ever closer to You in my sorrow.

When you are wronged react with kindness and forbearance. Indeed, we are a small community, a little under a couple hundred people. It’s easy to offend and to be offended. It is easy to snipe and not forgive. It’s easy to be jealous and to hold bitter grudges. I see it and hear it all the time. I do it myself.

Remember, all will be laid bare, all will be seen by God at your personal judgment, and by everyone at the final judgment.

Are you willing to stand before God and explain to the Universal King how so-and-so made you mad? How they hurt your feelings? Are you willing to show God the bitterness that is in your heart and on your tongue?

Let it go now. Seek forgiveness. Reconcile with your brothers and sisters now. Now, before it is too late.

When you engage in an immoral life, when you manipulate your reasoning into excuse making and false justification, when you men objectify women and when you women use men, when you live in sin, just remember how good it makes you feel. You may feel good on the outside, but you are dying inside.

Today we emphasize tolerance, getting along, not upsetting the apple cart, and being accepting. You might even say —Jesus never judged, condemned or excluded anyone—.

You would be wrong. Jesus took the whip to those who profaned His Father’s house. He cast Peter out when Peter thought he knew better than God. He called the Pharisees what they were, white-washed tombs and vipers, hypocrites all.

When you make judgments about what you think is right and wrong, or when you think something is not sinful, pick up the teaching of Jesus Christ and His Church. You bet it’s wrong and your everlasting soul is in jeopardy.

My brothers and sisters,

In the end I have good news. The good news is that Christ has saved you. By your conscious choice in being here every week you show your commitment to Jesus Christ and His Church. Jesus died for you and carried your sins in the nail marks in His hands, the scourges on His body, and the thorns in His head.

He did this to open the door of heaven to you. This Church believes that your trip to hell will be a trip of your own choosing. Choose God now. Choose life not death.

Remember that every occasion for sin is an occasion for God. Turn your back on sin. Break those immoral relationships, take the bitterness and anger from your hearts.

I would like to conclude with the story of St. Ephraim.

St Ephraim the Syrian wrote beautiful prayers, homilies, poetry, and hymns. While doing so he lived in a continual state of penance.

One day St. Basil the Great came to visit Ephraim and asked:

“Why, venerable father, do you not receive consecration to the order of priesthood, as befits you?”

“Because I am a sinner, my lord!” answered Ephraim through the interpreter.

“O, if only I had your sins!” said Basil, and added: “Let us make a prostration to the ground.”

But when they were bowed to the ground, St. Basil laid his hand on St. Ephraim’s head and recited the prayer of consecration to the diaconate. That is how St. Ephraim was made a deacon. He was at that time about sixty years old.

Let us recall Saint Ephraim’s humility. Let us recall his passion for penance. Let us recall his holy prayer. Let us kneel and pray with him:

O Lord and Master of my life,
Take from me the spirit of sloth, despair,
lust of power and idle talk;
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my
own transgressions and not to judge my brother,
for blessed art Thou unto ages of ages. Amen.

Poland - Polish - Polonia

Polish American Arts Association (PAAA) Scholarship

Applications for the PAAA Scholarship Award of $2,000 will be accepted from December 1, 2005 until April 12, 2006. The winner will be notified of his/her status after May 1, 2006 and will be expected to attend an award presentation at PAAA¹s May 2006 General Membership meeting or other event.

You do not have to be a member of the Polish American Arts Association to apply for this scholarship.

For more information, contact:

Gordon Kray, PAAA scholarship committee chair
703-536-9783 (home)
202-265-7390 (studio)
E-mail Mr. Kray

Estelle von Wachtel-Torres, M.D., scholarship committee co-chair
703-742-7675
E-mail Ms. Wachtel-Torres

Homilies

Quinquagesima Sunday

I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.
She shall respond there as in the days of her youth,
when she came up from the land of Egypt.
and you shall know the LORD.

Go into the desert, on retreat, into the seminary or the monastery, into the Great Lent and go away to be alone.

When you are alone you become afraid. Some people babble on. Their own voice fills their head and they never know quiet. They are afraid of what God might tell them. They are afraid of the voice of justice and truth.

If you can get past your own voice and your fear, and you are still for long enough, God will come to break you down. His voice will tell you what you should be and where you should go.

On this Quinquagesima Sunday we are but 50 days from Easter. Our journey into the Lenten dessert will begin in three days.

Have you prepared yourself? Are you willing to shut off the outside world and its distractions and go into the desert with Christ? Are you willing to be still and listen for His voice?

In the desert you will come to know the Lord. The Lord as He is. The Lord Jesus Christ will test you in this Lenten desert. He will test you, break you down, and qualify you as His friend.

Remember that Paul had to be broken down. Paul had to be knocked off his high horse, made blind, and subject to the people he formerly persecuted.

Now he proclaims the truth. Not a truth founded in his background as a Pharisee and legalist, but a truth that surpasses all legalities; the truth written on his heart.

Such confidence we have through Christ toward God.
Not that of ourselves we are qualified
to take credit for anything as coming from us;
rather, our qualification comes from God,
who has indeed qualified us as ministers of a new covenant,
not of letter but of spirit;

That same truth, delivered to us by Jesus Christ, through the Holy Apostles and by their successors in the Holy Catholic Church, must be written on our hearts.

The truth is that Jesus came into the world to deliver us from the power of death. Death has no power over us. His sacrificial death on the cross once for all and instituted in perpetuity in the Holy Eucharist, offered up by Christ to the Father again and again upon this Holy Altar in an unbloody way, has delivered us. His glorious resurrection is our future.

We are delivered from adherence to the letter of the Law. The Pharisaical concept of adherence to the Law, for the sake of the Law, rather than for the sake of love, is what Jesus is talking about today.

Do we wish to appear pious like the Pharisees so that others give us adulation? Oh, look at what he sacrificed; look at what she gave to charity, look at how they are fasting.

What sort of Catholic Christians and Lenten observers are we to be? Will we adhere to the Law, fasting, giving alms, giving up something just to comply? Or will be take this desert time and go for the gusto. Will we walk in empty and walk out qualified?

Our Lenten sacrifice must be one of truth and love. Not a legalistic or ritualistic show, but a joining of our hearts in love to Christ on the road to Calvary.

Jesus tells us:

—…no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,
and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.—

Jesus is telling us that the ways of the Pharisees, adherence to the letter of the law without understanding and living in accordance with its Spirit, is death and destruction. His Word is the new wine. Pouring it into the ears of the legalists and minimalists will render it useless. Pouring it into your ears if you are bound to your old ways will bring about your destruction,

Remember that Jesus came not to set aside the law, but to strip away the manner in which the people lived it. Those people and indeed some of us live legalities and do not understand the purpose of the Law. People back then, and you and I today, need to see the power and spirit of the Law. We need to repent, preparing for the coming of the Kingdom. We need to live in truth, true to what Jesus taught. We need to let the wine of His words fill us with joy. Fill us so that we may be re-created.

What is genuine and good has always been there. As you live your Lenten journey remember what is at the core of what you do. Make this journey into the desert a journey of joy. Make this journey an odyssey of love. Practice the rules and regulations of Lent in love. Seek what is at the core of these spiritual exercises and The Lord:

will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the LORD.

Current Events, Political

Remember Chappaquiddick

WorldNetDaily reports: Student under fire for yelling: ‘Remember Chappaquiddick!’ Self-described liberal hollers phrase as Kennedy begins on-campus speech

A community college student in Massachusetts faces possible disciplinary action for shouting “Remember Chappaquiddick!” during an on-campus speech by Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy yesterday.

Paul Trost, 20, a student at Massasoit Community College in Brockton, Mass., says he was upset by an introduction of Kennedy given by Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., in which the congressman noted how the long-time senator overcame hardship in life on his way to success.

“Lynch said Kennedy had overcome such adversity to get to the place he was, and that’s a bunch of bull,” Trost said of the introduction, which occurred in the school’s student center yesterday morning.

Just as Kennedy began speaking, Trost was walking out of the room when he shouted, “Remember Chappaquiddick!”

“Most of the crowd gasped,” Trost said. “Then I walked out of the student center.”

…

“One of my teachers called me ignorant and told me this was an embarrassment to the school,” Trost told WND. “She said to me, ‘Can’t you forgive him after all these years?’ And I said, ‘No, he killed somebody.’

“If it had been me or any other person, we’d be in jail,” Trost says he told his instructor.

I guess being rich beyond all belief, having a pampered existence your entire life, getting away with murder, and having the blood of millions of murdered babies on your hands without any consequence belies a difficult life and hardships that must be overcome.

Will somebody please not re-elect this disgusting cow.

And thank you to the young Mr. Trost. It’s good to know that you believe in and stress accountability, even in the face of the passing of time.

Current Events

Port This

In computer science, porting is the adaptation of a piece of software so that it will function in a different computing environment to that for which it was originally written.

I recently ported an MS Access database to MySQL. It is lots of fun if you like to dabble in things.

Unfortunately the U.S. Government is dabbling in ways it shouldn’t. It is playing with our ports as well as our safety and security.

Porting the means of access to this country from what should be in U.S. hands to any Muslim owned company is stupid beyond belief. We are moving from an environment which we control to one where the control, or at least influence, is vested in foreign hands.

In the interest of protecting our sovereignty shouldn’t some things just be off limits? Is everything for sale?

Among the recent revelations, company records will be stored outside the United States and Dubai Ports will:

…operate American seaports with existing U.S. managers “to the extent possible.” The company promised to take “all reasonable steps” to assist the Homeland Security Department. (ABC News)

Reasonable is a pretty big concept.

Now I am no protectionist and I believe in free markets. However, I do not believe in having any relationship whatsoever with a people and a culture that is founded upon Muslim beliefs or an Islamic system. They have not proven themselves. They have only proven the negative.

These countries and their people need to earn our respect and trust. They need to change their mode of operation from a nodding acquiescence to terrorism and subjugation to one of freedom and democracy.

It starts with their ability to be honest. Let’s hear the Emir say: “We are responsible for terrorism, not the United States and not Israel. It is not the Jews and it is not Western culture. It is us. We are the enemy and we must change.”

If they should wish to change it cannot be an overnight change either. It is one that must be tested again and again over time.

President Bush has sold out on the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Remember trust but verify. The Soviets had to earn our trust while under constant surveillance.

President Bush has said several amazing things including: “people don’t need to worry about security.”

(Pause for a moment of stupefied silence.)

The administration also calls Dubai a good friend who grants access to our ships and planes. I’m thinking, who cares? If they do not, just use their ports and airspace anyway. If their one tugboat navy and one prop plane get in our way, oh well…

The Australians seem to be getting it right. The land of the laid back and the vegemite is standing up for its values. I’ve quoted a story regarding a speech given by their Treasury Secretary below. When will our Treasury Secretary tell those who do not adhere to our ways to leave?

Per the Salt Lake Tribune:

In September, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said the Treasury Department, as head of the interagency committee that reviews such deals, had used an overly narrow definition of national security threats because it wanted to encourage foreign investment.

Yep, that’s our Treasury Department.

In the end, those who run the ports can use their influence (isn’t that what it’s all about) to slip in the one or two people needed to accomplish a terrorist objective. It doesn’t take many people to do such an evil deed.

Here are some excerpts from The Daily Telegraph on Australia’s stance.

Ultimatum to Muslims

PETER Costello last night condemned “mushy multiculturalism” and told Muslims who could not tolerate others to leave Australia.

The Treasurer said the citizenship pledge of loyalty and respect for law should be a “big flashing warning sign” for those Muslims.

Mr Costello departed from economic matters to address Muslim protests following the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed.

He said those offended “must recognise this does not justify violence against newspapers, or countries that allow newspapers to publish them”.

His comment reinforced the stand of Prime Minister John Howard, who this week criticised Muslims who were “utterly antagonistic to our society”.

Mr Costello said Australia was a secular nation and law was set by Parliament under the Constitution.

“There are countries that apply religious or sharia law —“ Saudi Arabia and Iran come to mind,” Mr Costello told the Sydney Institute.

“If a person wants to live under sharia law these are countries where they might feel at ease. But not Australia.”

Calling for enforcement of the values pledged in the citizenship oath, Mr Costello recalled a ceremony he had attended this year at which people from 36 countries became Australians.

He said a state MP told the audience citizenship did not mean having to give up culture or language or religion or opinions, or love of their native country.

“The longer he went on about how important it was not to give up anything to become an Australian the more it seemed to me that, in his view, becoming an Australian didn’t seem to mean much at all —“ other than getting a new passport,” he said.

He called that view “confused, mushy, misguided multiculturalism” which underestimated those taking out citizenship.

“They are conscious that this is not a trivial event. It is a big decision. Becoming a citizen of another country changes their identity,” he said.

…

“Before becoming an Australian you will be asked to subscribe to certain values. If you have strong objections to those values, don’t come to Australia.”

Mr Costello said hardline Muslims born here represented “citizens who are apparently so alienated that they do not support what their own country stands for”.

Amen PM Howard and Mr. Costello. Mr. Costello knows who’s on first.

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