Sermon by Fr. Louis Campbell. Dear Friends, My sermon for Sunday, January 26, 2014. Gods Blessings, Fr. Campbell Third Sunday after Epiphany, January 26, 2014 *Truth Among the Ruins* The truth is found in Jesus Christ alone. What He teaches He receives from God the Father: “Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever he does, this the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all that he himself does… My teaching is not my own, but his who sent me” (Jn.5:19,20;7:16). The true disciple does what he sees the Master doing. This is why it is so important to be familiar with the life of Jesus Christ as found in the Gospels. When we listen to the Lord we are being taught by God. In absorbing the sublime teaching of the Gospels we become like God, we come to resemble Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and God the Father. How well do you know Jesus Christ? A marvelous thing happens to those who come to know Him. Those who have the humility to listen to Him begin to change. They are freed from sin; they are freed from enslavement to their passions; they are freed from an undue attachment to the things of this world. It is our pride that stands in the way of our spiritual progress. Can we possibly think we know better than God? Oh, yes! Pride makes us think it is better to do things our own way. What an insult to God! In such a case He lets us struggle on our own for a while until we learn that God’s way is best after all. Submit yourselves to His Gospels and their teaching. Submit yourselves to Jesus Christ, Who is your Teacher! That is what it means to be a disciple – one who submits to the discipline of Jesus Christ and His teachings. Think of the Apostles and the other disciples. They followed Our Lord everywhere. When they were unable to follow Him because of circumstances in their lives they followed Him in their thoughts and in their hearts. They wanted to be like Him. This we can do too. If we can’t cross the stormy Sea of Galilee with Him in a fisherman’s boat, we can cross the stormy sea of this world with Him in our hearts. If we can’t sit on the mountain listening to His preaching, we can sit in our chair or at our desk and read His Gospels. If we can’t invite him to dinner like Martha and Mary and Lazarus, we can receive His as our Bread of Life in Holy Communion. Those who do not take the trouble to become authentic disciples of Jesus Christ end up being disciples of this world, which means ultimately being disciples of the devil. The world with its beauty and riches is good because it was made by God, but there is a real danger that the good things of this world will turn us away from God if we become focused on them instead of on God. As Our Lord said about the seed sown among thorns (in His parable about the sower and his seed): “And the one sown among the thorns, that is he who listens to the word; but the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it is made fruitless” (Mt.13:22). Our Savior entrusted the riches of His teaching to His Holy Catholic Church. This is the pearl of great price, or the treasure hidden in a field, for which true disciples are willing to exchange everything they have. Even life itself is not to be compared with this treasure, as the blood of the martyrs testifies. This treasure entrusted to the Church is carefully guarded and handed on to succeeding generations. It must be kept alive in the hearts of the faithful lest it be altered in any way or tainted by heresy. But today the deposit of faith is being mangled beyond recognition. Our Lord warned His disciples: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Lk.12:1b). Leaven is the yeast that spreads throughout the whole batch of dough. Heresy is the leaven that is spreading throughout the whole Catholic world. The Modernist heretics think they know better than the Church of St. Pius X, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Sts. Peter and Paul, and they teach their false doctrines now unhindered by Modernist Rome. The powers of this world do not know Jesus Christ, and they can never know Him as long as they remain in rebellion against God. “No one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Mt.11:27b). The Modernist “conciliar church” does not teach what Our Lord and the true Catholic Church always taught. The Modernist Church teaches that virtually everyone goes to Heaven. But Our Lord often warned us about Hell, and said, “Enter by the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who enter that way. How narrow the gate and close the way that leads to life! And few there are who find it” (Mt.7:13,14). Our Lord taught that it is necessary to believe in Him and to be baptized, so as to be “born again of water and the Holy Ghost” (Jn.3:5). The Modernists say that everyone in the world was united to Jesus Christ at the moment of His conception, denying the existence of Original Sin and the necessity of Baptism. Jesus spoke of Himself as the Bread of Life, Whom we receive in Holy Communion, telling us how necessary it was for our salvation: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life everlasting and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn.6:54,55). The truth is found in Jesus Christ alone. St. Paul testifies against those who trust in “the god of this world”: “In their case, the god of this world has blinded their unbelieving minds, that they should not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves merely as your servants in Jesus. For God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts, to give enlightenment concerning the knowledge of the glory of God, shining on the face of Jesus Christ” (2Cor.4:4-6).
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 11:44:15 +0000