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Day: May 3, 2008

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Homilies,

Seventh Sunday of Easter

I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me,
because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours
and everything of yours is mine,
and I have been glorified in them.

Why is it that Jesus doesn’t pray for the world?

We would love to have Jesus pray for the world. We would love it if He would perfect the world. It would make everything easier, peaceful, kinder, wonderful. We live here and would like it to be a little slice of heaven. Jesus, why didn’t you pray for the world? Also, why is it that Jesus prays only for the ones the Father has given Him? Is He only praying for the Apostles and disciples? Did He neglect to pray for everyone?

Brothers and sisters,

We ask: Jesus, why didn’t you pray for the world? The answer is: Jesus does not pray for the world because the world is not our destination. The world is the place where we battle against every type of sinfulness. It is a battleground and a crucible in which we are proved.

St. Peter tells us that as Christians we are to avoid and reject sin. We should not be made to suffer on account of committing sins:

But let no one among you be made to suffer
as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as an intriguer.

St. Paul lists the many sins Christians are to avoid. In 1 Corinthians 6:7-10 he says:

To have lawsuits at all with one another is defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?
But you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that even your own brethren.
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts,
nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.

In 1 Timothy 1:9-10 St. Paul goes on to describe that:

the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
immoral persons, sodomites, kidnapers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine

We are to battle against all that and all sin. We are to fight the urge to malice, gossip, calumny, and bickering. We are to resist the temptations laid out before us by the world: fame, lust, greed, contempt for others. We must resist the world and resist every temptation, here in our parish, in our parish meetings, in our homes, at work, and at play. We are to fight against every evil. We are to love, even when loving is hard.

My friends,

We do not have it easy. That is why Jesus’ prayer for those the Father has given Him is Jesus’ prayer for us. We are the people the Father has given Him. In fact, every person in the world is to resist evil because the Father has placed the whole of mankind into Jesus hands. The Father has seen the whole of mankind washed in the blood of His Son – our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Jesus prayed for us. For this parish. For you and for me. He knew the strength of temptation and the lure of evil. Knowing that He reminded the disciples, just before they left for the Garden on the night He was betrayed:

I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me;
but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.

The ruler of the world has no power over Jesus or over us. That is why we are to reject sin, reject the world’s easy and wide road of sin. In rejecting sin we make ourselves ready to do the Father’s will, to show the world that we love the Father.

We are Jesus’ disciples. We bear His name – Christian. We must do as the Apostles, the women, and the brothers did:

All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer

We are to be of one accord. We are to pray together first, then work together, bear with one another, and above all love each other. We are to forgive and in forgiving reject the root of sin – selfish desire to put ourselves first, to call ourselves perfect and just.

St. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 6:11 that we were sinful worldly people:

And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

We have been washed and we are renewed. We, the people of this parish, the people of our Holy Polish National Catholic Church are to do our best, and with God’s grace fulfill Jesus’ prayer; that He be glorified in us.

Reject sin. Love and serve God and each other. Amen.

Fathers, PNCC

May 3 – St. Ambrose of Milan from On the Belief in the Resurrection

If these things happened when He gave up the ghost, why should we think them incredible when He shall return to judgment? especially since this earlier resurrection is a pledge of that future resurrection, and a pattern of that reality Which is to come; indeed, it is rather itself truth than a pattern. Who, then, at the Lord’s resurrection opened the graves, gave a hand to those who were rising, showed them the road to find the holy city? If there was no one, it was certainly the Divine Power which was working in the bodies of the dead. Shall one seek for the aid of man where one sees the work of God?

Divine action has no need of human assistance. God commanded that the heavens should come into existence, and it was done; He determined that the earth should be created, and it was created. Who carried together the stones on his shoulders? who supplied the expenses? who furnished assistance to God as He toiled? These things were made in a moment. Would you know how quickly? “He spake and they were made.” If the elements spring up at a word. why should the dead not rise at a word? For though they be dead, yet they once lived, once had the breath of life for feeling, and strength for acting; and there is a very great difference between not having been capable of life, and having remained lifeless. The devil said: “Command this stone that it become bread.” He confesses that at the command of God nature can be transformed, dost thou not believe that at the command of God nature can be remade?

Philosophers dispute about the course of the sun and the system of the heavens, and there are those who think that these should be believed when they are ignorant of what they are talking about. For neither have they climbed up into the heavens, nor measured the sky, nor examined the universe with their eyes; for none of them was with God in the beginning, none of them has said of God: “When He was preparing the heavens I was with Him, I was with Him as a master workman, I was he in whom He delighted.” If, then, they are believed, is God not believed, Who says: “As the new heavens and the new earth, which I make to remain before Me, saith the Lord; so shall your name and your seed abide; and month shall be after month, and sabbath after sabbath, and all flesh shall come in My sight to worship in Jerusalem, saith the Lord God; and they shall go forth, and shall see the limbs of men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched and they shall be a sight to all flesh.” — Two Books on the Decease of His Brother Saytrus – Book II, para. 84-86.

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