Homilia - Triens Dies Solis Adventus

St. Jose Maria Escriva

Amici, Americani et Compatriotae,

This past Sunday - the Third Sunday in Advent - Fr. Kirby gave an excellent homily on St. Jose Maria Escriva at Our Lady of Grace. The liturgical readings may be found here:

Third Sunday of Advent Lectionary: 8

And a 12+ minute audio recording may be found here:

Homily - Our Lady of Grace - December 17, 2017

The sermon was excellent and covered the following points:

• Martyrdom and the Communion of the Saints
• The Spanish Civil War and Communism
• Holiness

Our Lady of Grace has received a First Class Relic of St. Jose Maria Escriva, hence Fr. Kirby's homily. This opened an opportunity to explain how the Church certifies and distributes relics, how great men of old were martyred for their beliefs and the importance of the Communion of the Saints. Protestantism misses much of this, ignoring to its peril Hebrews 12:1-2:

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God."

Interestingly on the previous Thursday night  I attended a Protestant Bible Study with my wife, and while the faith chapter of Hebrews 11 was duly emphasized, the phrase at the beginning of chapter 12 was ignored:  "We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses." Strangely Protestants erroneously believe that the Saints being dead have no current function or purpose. But as Fr. Kirby pointed out, this was not the faith of the Church since the beginning. The Tradition of that great cloud of witnesses was preserved and gave us at the Councils of Carthage and Rome in the late 4th century AD our Bible. There was no true Bible before that - just the Greek Septuagint as the Old Testament and different collections of books from the Gospel writers and St. Paul. Individual churches accepted some of these, added others like the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas, and rejected other like Hebrews, Jude and Revelation. But finally the Church Herself using the living Tradition of the great cloud of witnesses who went before us finally determined the authentic Canon of Sacred Scripture well after the Gospels and Letters in our New Testament had been written. Indeed, I got to explain this to a Baptist co-worker today who had never seen a Catholic Bible until I let her borrow one of my extra ones. She was amazed that such books as Sirach and Wisdom in the Deuterocanonicals (or Apocrypha as Protestants call them) had been rejected by the Protestants in the 16th century regardless that the undivided Church had accepted them for over a thousand years.

Fr. Kirby went on to describe St. Jose Maria Escriva's ministry which took place during the Spanish Civil War. Communists under the disguise of Republicans fought against Nationalists who were mainly Catholic. These communists murdered Catholics - clergy and laity without regard. This lasted from 1936 to 1939. While we may have objections to the style of government which arose under Francisco Franco as the Republicans were defeated, we must remember that the communists in Spain did what their Soviet brethren had done in Russia in the early part of the 20th century. Under communism more than 20 million people were murdered in the last century. Today snowflake airhead millennials cry about how communism will bring about social justice and serve the common good. But as Fr. Kirby explained, this is a lie from Lucifer himself. Communism is evil and must be eradicated from the face of the Earth. Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical against communism called Divini Redemptoris and Pope Paul XII issued a decree against it as a Papal Bull. One cannot be Catholic and be a communist, period.

The last thing that Fr. Kirby discussed was holiness - how holiness isn't just for the clergy but for all of us. As Hebrews 12:14 says:

"Strive for peace with everyone, and for that holiness without which no one will see the Lord." And 1st Peter 1:14-16 says:

"Like obedient children, do not act in compliance with the desires of your former ignorance but, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, for it is written, 'Be holy because I [am] holy.'"

Considering that on Monday next week we celebrate the Birth of our Savior, Lord and King, it would do well for all of us to strive for holiness, for the alternative to not seeing God once we die is unacceptable.

Toxicomaniacus et Sanctus: Marcus Ji Tianxiang

Mark Ji Tianxiang
Toxicomaniacus
et Sanctus

Amici,

I have finally stumbled across the story of a Chinese man by the name of Mark Ji Tianxiang about whom Deacon Greg Kandra delivered a homily in September of 2011:

"He was a Chinese layman who was executed in 1900, along with dozens of other Catholics in his village during a bloody persecution of Christians. St. Mark was steadfast in his faith, and refused to renounce it – and for that, he gave his life. That is extraordinary enough. But so are the circumstances under which he died. St. Mark, you see, was an addict. An opium addict. In the 19th century, the Church didn’t understand addiction as it does now – and his life was seen as gravely sinful and scandalous. As a result, for 30 years Mark Ji Tianxiang was denied communion. Yet his devotion never wavered. Witnesses say that he sang a litany to the Blessed Mother as he was led to his death."

This story is particularly noteworthy to me since I too am an addict and an alcoholic. While I have been blessed with almost three decades in sobriety, this account of St. Mark reminds me that God does not count the number of years one has been sober as a measure of one's worthiness to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The fact of the matter is that none of us are worthy, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin are death. So what saved St. Mark, an addict who could not put down the pipe, and who lived a life of utter scandal and disrepute? Only one thing saved him: God's grace through faith. It is however ironic that St. Mark did not have the strength to put the opium pipe down, but he did have the strength to chose death before renouncing his Catholic Christian faith, and he did that even though the clergy of that faith denied him access to the Sacraments for the 30 years of his addiction.

God does not judge by the outside, nor as men judge.