The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Today we are presented with two very important questions. One asked by the Pharisees and the other by Christ.

The first asked by the Pharisees is very important because it is the essence of our spiritual lives. The greatest commandment is that we must love God with our whole mind, heart, and soul. And the second is like the first, we must love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

God is a jealous lover and He will not share a place in our hearts with anyone or anything else. He wants all of our love. But this love of God does allow us to love other beings for the love of Him. Thus we can love ourselves because God has made us lovable. We are made to His image and likeness and thus in loving ourselves correctly we in all actuality loving God. The goodness that makes us lovable is actually a reflection of the goodness of God. Thus we do not love ourselves separated from God. We actually must love ourselves in God. It is not God that lives within us as much as it is us who live in God. Therefore in truly loving ourselves as we ought, we are in essence loving God.

We are called upon to love our neighbors as we love ourselves because our neighbor is in the same position as we are. We both find ourselves created, nurtured, and redeemed by God. We find that our neighbor is loved by God and all the goodness within him is actually the goodness of God that we see reflected in him. We are even commanded to love our enemies _ not because their evil is lovable, but because they too are created in the image and likeness of God and Christ died for their sins too.

Having answered the question of the Pharisees, Christ now proposes a question to them. He asks them who is the father of Christ? And they reply with the answer given in the prophesies. Christ is the son of David. But if Christ is the son of David, how is it that David calls his own son "Lord"? How can the son be the Lord of his own father? This question silenced them so that from this time on they dared not ask Him any more questions.

The answer to this question is obvious to us. Christ is the son of David according to the flesh (as man) and Christ is Lord because He is the Son of God. Christ is both God and Man.

This simple truth has been a stumbling block to many throughout history. There have been many heresies that arose over a faulty understanding of just exactly who Jesus Christ is.

Some wished to think of Christ only as God _ denying His humanity. And others wished to think of Christ as a holy man but not as God. If Christ were only God and not man He could not have suffered and died for us upon the cross _ mankind is still lost. If Christ were only a man then His sacrifice upon the cross is insufficient to redeem us from sin _ and we are still lost.

Christ is true God and true Man.

In recent times we see that these same errors are still alive and there are many others added to them.

Perhaps the most sinister is one where some Modernist heretics have exaggerated the teachings concerning the Mystical Body of Christ to include all of mankind to such an extent that all trace of a historical single person _ Jesus Christ _ no longer exists. It is a pan-Christism (everything is Christ) as distinct from pantheism (everything is God). In this error the Modernists heretics present each and every one of us and all of us together as Christ. We are gods. And this is brought out in the changes to the various sacraments. It appears significantly in the removal of the entire concept of sin. There is no sin any longer. Thus, no need for Confession or Penance. They replaced that with "Reconciliation" with no need for repentance and amendment of life. Their funerals appear more like canonizations rather than funerals. How many have been told unequivocally that their beloved departed are now in Heaven — even those who lead most evil and scandalous lives?

Let us be cautious to avoid these evils by recalling the questions in today's gospel and striving to understand them as Christ through the true Church teaches us.

We must love God with our entire being; we must love ourselves in God; and our neighbor for the love of God. We must understand that Christ is true man and true God. He is a distinct historical human being and not just a theory or hypotheses. And by keeping His commandments we are incorporated into His Mystical Body. We must not try to reinterpret Christ and force God to become like us but we must constantly strive to become like Christ.

Franciscan Benefactor Seraph Subscription Vocations Have you remembered God?