Twenty-Second Sunday Ordinary Time

The name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Seeking our Lady's Intercession. Let us pray.

Hail Mary, full of grace.

the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women,

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

pray for us sinners

now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

 

Good morning, brothers, and sisters. I actually feel much better than I sound.  I you know, I was sick for several days. I do apologize that I was unable to celebrate the sacraments for you, but I feel fine. I just kind of lost my voice this morning. Our Lord's words to Saint Peter and the Gospel today are quite profound and we must remember that he speaks to them not only to Peter, but to each one of us. He says, get behind me, Satan, you are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do. Now, if you recall in the Gospel of Matthew, right before this gospel event, Jesus had just renamed Simon Peter and given him the keys of the Kingdom and established him as the first head of the church.

 

The Pope, all the other apostles were present. Everybody witnessed. Jesus just changed his name from Simon to Peter, made him the head and then the first thing he does after this is call him Satan first. He's the rock. Now he's the tempter. That's what Satan means. We call him Satan because it means to tempt the tempter, the one who tempts Jesus says, You're an obstacle to me. Now I just made you the first Pope and now you're not even following me. You're an obstacle. You're trying to lead me away from God's plan, not towards it. Now, if the first Pope can do that, anybody can do that. And if you can imagine, if you're there at that moment, along with the apostles and Jesus turns his back on Peter and says, get behind me, imagine how painful that must have been for Peter.  I mean, we use that expression, right? You turn your back on someone. The idea that you've rejected them turned away from them. It seems very devastating, only because you have no idea what Jesus is really doing here. He's not rejecting Peter. He's still the first Pope. He went on to continue to do so and became a saint. The reason Jesus turned his back on him was he was reminding Peter; I lead you follow the same reason I have my back turn to you.  When I celebrate mass, it's because I'm leading you to Jesus. We're all following Jesus. We all are facing. Jesus is back. He's the shepherd, right? We're the sheep. We follow him. This wasn't a rejection of Peter. This was a reminder. I am the one you follow. Wherever I lead, you go. And then Jesus says so clearly. Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me and our second reading, Saint Paul, gives us a beautiful reflection on on this specific teaching of our Lord Paul's theology. Of course, the theology of Christ is very clear about the relationship between a disciple and the Lord and their suffering.

 

Saint Paul says, I urge you, brothers, and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice wholly and pleasing to God your spiritual worship.  He is telling us that the way we worship God is by offering our bodies as a living sacrifice. He says, do not conform yourselves to this age or any age in which you live, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. The way you think needs to change. If you speak the way that humans speak, that's because you think the way that humans think.  This is why, Peter, why Jesus reprimands Peter and the apostles. He says, you must discern what is the will of God, what is good, pleasing, and perfect. And Jesus clearly gives us direction again when he says Whoever wishes to come after me must first deny himself, then take up his cross, and only then can he follow me. You want to follow Jesus, right?  Ultimately, our goal is to follow Jesus to heaven. That's where we want to get Jesus not only opened the way to heaven, but He is also the way so conformity with and through him is the only pathway to heaven.  We've got to follow him and be conformed to his life.  He says, you want to follow me? Fine. First, deny yourself.  What does that mean? At the heart of self-denial is penance, meaning giving things up that you desire, that you want self-denial as opposed to self-fulfillment. I want this so I achieve it or obtain it. If I'm not willing to do penance, mortification in my life, give up things that I want, then I am not following Jesus Christ, period.  Because you haven't even begun. Remember, self-denial is just the first step. This is why the church gives us a whole season called Lent, in which we practice self-denial. Why every Friday of the year, barring feast days and celebrities, we're supposed to be fasting from something meaning denying ourselves something that we want food, drink, sleep, warm showers, whatever it is true, Christians live a life of self-denial.  It's not like every second and every moment there are days and solemnity and reasons to celebrate. But self-denial is a natural thing for us. Or at least it should be. In fact, it must be for anyone who claims to follow Christ. But that's the first step. You're not following Jesus unless you practice self-denial. After you've gotten at least consistent about self-denial.  Then there's one more step before you're following Jesus. He say, first deny yourself, then take up your cross. What does that mean? Obviously, Jesus is referring to his own cross that he is going to be taking up very soon. And what is his cross? Every cross that comes from God, I don't think the devil wants me to talk about this.  I'm losing my voice. So, every cross that comes from God is built on the cross of Christ. And there are two sides to that cross in our Lord and our Lady revealed to us kind of the fullness of the ways in which we are going to be asked to suffer by God. All of them are unjust. That's the first rule.  The first rule of a cross is that it's not fair. It's not just you shouldn't have to suffer it. If you should have to suffer it, then it's a punishment. It's not a cross. You deserve it, right? I mean, when I do something wrong and I get punished for it, that's not a cross. I was supposed to get punished.  The whole point of the cross is that I didn't deserve this. I did nothing wrong. I was in the right and I'm still suffering. So first, it's unjust and it can be unjust in one of two ways. It can be unjust because you, the individual, are suffering unjustly or someone you love is suffering unjustly, right? Jesus. And enduring His cross was innocent, and yet he willingly endured it and carried it. He took it up himself, knowing it was the will of the father to save us from sin. But Mary, her cross, along with her son, was very similar. It was unjust and yet it was different. You see, she would have happily died on the cross in place of her son. When you love someone that much, you'd gladly suffer if it would alleviate their suffering.

 

But if she had taken away the cross from her son, we would all go to hell. You see, if Jesus had not accepted this unjust suffering, we'd be damned. And if Mary did not accept that her beloved son had to endure this unjust suffering, we would all be damned. No souls would be saved. Both the son and the mother had to accept the cross as it was within the plan of God,

 

in your own life again, look at these crosses that God asks you to bear. Are you taking them up or do you fight against them? Did you know you can always reject a cross? I mean, you might not be able to stop yourself from physically suffering it, but you can deny and reject it in your heart so that it does no good for you or anyone. It bears. No fruit provides no special graces. People waste suffering all the time. I mean, you can offer up any suffering, even the things that you deserve, but most especially those crosses that we don't deserve, those are the best. And if I were to give this homily to just any Joe Schmo and secular society, they think I was insane.  This way of thinking doesn't make sense to them. Why? Because this is the way God thinks. That's what our Lord is telling us. Whereas the rest of the world thought the way Peter thought. God forbid that you should have to suffer and die. God forbid. Not only Satan thinks that way, and yet that's the way of the world.  In fact, for many of us, right. That's the way we often think, isn't it? God forbid that I should have to suffer this that Satan, God forbid that you should have to suffer this, that Satan. That's not the way the Lord thinks. Saint Paul is right. We have to be renewed in our minds. And this isn't an easy thing. It takes time, takes the sacraments and grace and prayer. But ultimately it comes down to these three things. If you really want to follow our Lord, you begin with self-denial. Practice penance and self-denial, giving things up even each day. It could be something small. Somebody in your family wants to do something. You don't want to do it, so you deny yourself and you do it with them, or vice versa.  That last piece of cake or pie in the fridge, you know, nobody's around. And if you ate it, nobody would know. Do you leave it there for somebody else? You walk away self-denial. There are so many little ways in which we can practice that without self-denial, we'll never get to a point in which we can take up our crosses daily again.  That's the second stage. It's learning to suffer unjustly that we Christ and the Blessed Mother did. Then lastly, we do all this following Jesus. So, if you want to know if you're following Jesus, these are the two things you need to work on. If you want to know if somebody else is following Jesus, then you will see them doing these two things,

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen

You may watch the Mass in its entirety on our YouTube channel. Homily begins at 20:02