The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Today we celebrate the feast of St. John. St. John was the youngest of the Apostles. He was known as the beloved disciple of Our Lord. It was St. John that rested his head upon the breast of Our Lord during the Last Supper. And not least of all, it was St. John who stood beneath the cross of Our Lord, and it was to him, that Jesus entrusted the care of His mother.

St. John is represented as an eagle, because his gospel soars to the heights of Heaven. The Last Gospel that is read at the end of Mass is taken from the first chapter of St. John's Gospel. In it we see the most beautiful and profound truths from all of eternity laid out for us to behold. Our souls are lifted up by these thoughts as if an eagle has grasped us in his talons and carried us to behold the love and beauty of heaven.

It is most appropriate to celebrate this feast so closely to the feast of Christmas, because of the truths in this Gospel, but most of all because of the love of St. John for Our Lord.

St. John and his brother, St. James, were given the surname "sons of thunder" by our Lord because they desired to call fire from Heaven to destroy the city of the Samaritans who refused to receive their Master. When we contemplate the love that these saints had for Jesus, we can begin to understand their misdirected zeal for His honor and glory.

There are many today who would like to destroy their enemies, but I would dare say that it is not for the love or zeal for God, or for His honor and glory, but rather for their own evil hatred or vengeance.

The heights of love and contemplation that St. John leads us to in his gospel appear to have been wasted upon the majority of mankind. Unable to love, or blinded by self-love they seem unable to grasp the simple but profound truths that St. John expounds for us.

St. John wrote to condemn the heretics or anti-christs who pretended that Jesus was a mere man, who had no being or existence before He was born of Joseph and Mary. And in the early days of the Church it was a perennial battle correcting all the false conceptions of the person of Jesus Christ. Today the attack against the person of Jesus Christ is not as direct as in the past. We behold any number of deniers of Jesus Christ. There are those like those of old who wish to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ like the Jews and Pagans. And there are those who wish to deny the humanity of Jesus Christ. But, perhaps the most insidious of all deniers of Jesus Christ are those who profess to believe in Him, yet deny Him in their inner hearts and outward actions.

There are those who attempt to deny that Jesus Christ is a true historical being that physically came and dwelt among men. They tend to list Jesus as a "myth" like so many beliefs in the countless false religions.

And then there are so many who wish to take the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ to heretical levels so that they believe that Christ is living in everyone and is in everything. So that everyone and everything becomes a "sacrament" to these people. This leads logically to the same myth status that denies that Jesus is a real person both God and Man.

And the culmination of so many of these false beliefs about Jesus Christ leads to a practical if not at least a theoretical denial of the true presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Eucharist. Many today speak or act as if Our Lord's Sacramental presence is only symbolical, or figurative and not actual and real. They have become Protestants without even realizing it. (Or perhaps they do realize it.)

We need to hear the words of this beloved virgin Apostle and Evangelist today just as much, if not more, than the people of old did.

Let us pray to St. John to lift up our hearts and minds to the profound mysteries of the Incarnation. We should strive to develop that love that St. John had for Our Lord so that we will be receptive to the doctrines and eternal truths concerning the Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, not only in history but also in the Holy Eucharist.

Without this love and the grace of God we cannot hope to believe the truths that God has revealed to us, and consequently we cannot hope to find Him in this world or in the next.

Franciscan Benefactor Seraph Subscription Vocations Have you remembered God?