The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friends,

The gospel for the third Mass today is taken from the Gospel of St. John and is the same one that is usually said at the end of each Mass. The other evangelists begin with Jesus’ birth here on earth, but St. John in today’s gospel opens up for us a much wider view. He takes us back to the beginning and shows us that God the Son existed before all of creation. St. John establishes beyond any doubt that Jesus is true God and true Man.

God has taken upon Himself our human nature. It is impossible for us to completely fathom the most profound humility this entails: God made man. The obvious question when considering this profound humiliation of the Creator becoming one of His creatures is: Why? Why did God do this?

The Son of God has become a Son of man so that men might become the sons of God. From all of eternity God has planned to become one with us and to elevate us to this exalted status. In this way we can become one with God. Before His birth the world finds itself in great longing and anticipation because Heaven had been closed. The prophets kept hope alive constantly reminding us of the coming of our Savior. Tragically, the people still were unable to recognize and accept Him when He did come. “He came unto His own and His own received Him not.” But for all those that did they were made sons of God.

Today we know that Christ has come and gone back to heaven, but we also know that He has not left us completely. He has promised to remain with us until the end of time. It is true that God is everywhere and therefore we can never escape His presence, but there is a more palpable presence of God in the Holy Eucharist. Jesus remains with us in the true Catholic Church upon the altars where the true sacrifice of the Mass is offered. In this manner He has made it possible for us to fulfill His demand: unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man … you shall not have life in you.

The humbling presence of God upon earth in the form of His creatures continues even now in a more humbling status than before. Christ no longer appears to us as a man, but rather as mere bread and wine. This is how far God’s love for us has taken Him. What we need to consider now is how far are we willing to go to meet him? Will we not only believe Him, but will we keep His words? Will we worthily eat His flesh so that we may be transformed and given new life? Jesus was born in the flesh so that we might be born into the spirit with Him. If we will worthily receive Him we are promised eternal life.

When we entered the Church we became members of the Mystical Body of Jesus. Just as Jesus by being born, has become our flesh, we also by being reborn, have become His Body. If we are living as we should we can say with St. Paul that it is not ourselves but Christ living within us. In receiving Him we become transformed into Him. We become one with Christ. We find that because of the humiliations of Christ we have been exalted. We have great reason therefore to be ever grateful for the wondrous gift that we have been given. Today is truly a day to rejoice in our own good fortune, but at the same time it has become an occasion for us to be truly ashamed of ourselves. In the depths of our sins mankind deserved nothing but yet God gave him hope.

God has gone so very far to reach out to us and yet the majority will not reciprocate. It is truly a shameful thing to have to admit as Catholics that Jesus has come to us in the Mass so many times. He has come to His own and His own received Him not. So many have refused to receive Him in Holy Communion, or do so unworthily. So many have neglected Him in the tabernacles: acting no differently before Him in the Church than they act in any other building – as if He were not really there at all. Is it no wonder that He has permitted the Mass and the Church to be eclipsed by so many Modernists in the Novus Ordo?

He came to us but we would not! He wished to gather us as a hen gathers her chicks. He wished to feed us with His Body. He wished to be one with us so that we may be one with Him. He wished that we would love Him. It is truly an occasion for us to weep with St. Francis because: Love (Jesus) is not loved. Even more importantly today is an opportunity for us to repair at least on our own part this terrible lack of true Charity. It is an occasion for us to rejoice because the invitation is still open for all who will heed it. Let, us make sure that this Christmas and always we welcome Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, into our hearts and lives.

email: father@friarsminor.org Franciscan Benefactor Seraph Subscription Vocations Have you remembered God?