The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Clare. She was "The princess of the poor. The duchess of the humble." She exchanged all worldly aspirations for the rough habit of penance and poverty and was chosen by God to be the foundress of the Second Order of St. Francis.

She was so eager for mortification that St. Francis himself was obliged to intervene to restrain the zeal of his daughter. The Blessed Eucharist was the source of all that was great, noble and generous in her life. The voice of God once came from a ciborium and told St. Clare, "I shall protect you always." The Saracen army at that time had begun to climb the walls of the convent under the cover of darkness, when they were seized by terrible panic.

Most beautifully Our Holy Mother Church has chosen the Gospel parable of the ten virgins to be read today. The life of St. Clare is obviously a life like that of the five wise virgins. And tragically most of the rest of mankind is like the five foolish virgins.

Within the Church there are good and bad, but there seems to be an over abundant supply of the indifferent. The indifferent have the faith and they practice some of the virtues at least outwardly. Before men they appear to be good Catholics just as the foolish virgins appeared to have lamps ready for the bridegroom. There is always plenty of outward show for the eyes of men but they are lacking something internally for the eyes of God.

Too many Catholics live only on the surface of the Faith. They have lamps and the lamps are burning when there is no need for them. The foolish Catholics do good works like the foolish virgins did, but there is something that is spoiling everything. Their good works are empty and only shine before men but when God arrives they find that their good works were not really good works at all. God is more interested in what takes place interiorly _ He looks at what is in the will. What motivated the actions?

If our good works are performed for the praise of men, then we can not expect to have any praise from God. If they are motivated by pride, vanity or any other vice then they obviously lack any merit before God. Without Charity all our works are empty. Even if we perform miracles but lack Charity we are as vain and empty as sounding brass or tinkling cymbals.

The bridegroom (God) looks beyond the superficial appearances. It is not enough to have lamps (good works) we must also have oil (Charity) to burn in the lamps. The virgins all practiced the virtue of virginity but not all were pleasing to God. Half of them were outwardly virtuous but inwardly were not.

Likewise there are many today who "pray" the Rosary, "attend" Mass, and observe the letter of the law in everything a Catholic should. They have these beautiful lamps shining before men. They are vain and proud of what they have done or accomplished. And since they lack Charity, God will find all their works to be useless and perhaps even worse than useless because they have used something good and holy for evil purposes _ their own pride and vanity.

The lamps are our good works, but these lamps are useless without oil to burn in them. We must not only have the good works but we must have a good will motivated by Charity.

God accepts the desire for the deed, but He rejects the deed if it is without the proper desire. The man who lusts (desires) an evil is already guilty in the eyes of God even if he never lifts a finger to turn his desires into deeds. Likewise, the man who desires to perform good deeds even if he is in someway hindered from performing it has already gained the merit for the good deed in the eyes of God.

How foolish are men who go through all the effort and trouble to do good deeds but never take any care to gain eternal merit for their actions! It is so easy if we will only follow the advice of St. Paul and do all that we do for the love of God. When Charity motivates our actions, even the most insignificant actions, they all become meritorious for Heaven. And when the motive of Charity is lacking from our actions, even the greatest acts, they are all worthless _ just like lamps without any oil.

Franciscan Benefactor Seraph Subscription Electronic copy of the December Seraph ($2.00)in Adobe Acrabat format. Vocations Have you remembered God?