THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

Her Doctrine and Morals

Third Sunday after Pentecost

18 June 2023

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The Sunday

Sermon

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Dear Friends in Christ,

In today's Gospel reading, Saint Luke gives us an account of two parables that Jesus gave along with the circumstances that occasioned the parables. (Luke 15, 1-10). The Pharisees and the Scribes murmured because Jesus received and ate with known sinners. Jesus instructs that He has come to this world to return the straying sheep to its proper place in the flock and to find the lost soul.

With the original fall, we have wandered far from our place in the Heavenly flock of God. Jesus left the community of Angelic Spirits in Heaven to come to this earth and return us to our proper place in God's Heavenly Flock. Jesus took the punishment for our sins upon Himself, as well as the burden of bringing us back from our sinful wanderings. The only requirement on our part is not to resist Him and His ministrations for us. We must cooperate with Him and not fight Him as He labors to return us to our proper position in His Kingdom. God has given us free will and will not force us into Heaven. We will not go into Heaven kicking and yelling. Jesus will carry us, and we will enter meekly and humbly or not at all.

All of Heaven will rejoice with God over the salvation of sinful men. The sinners who have repented and cooperated with Jesus will take their places in Heaven and join in the rejoicing. The joy is because what belongs to God has been returned; what was lost to Him by our disordered free wills is now properly ordered and restored. We will participate in and be united in the joy of God. This joy is not an individual joy in having been found and saved. We will have lost all thought of ourselves as we enter our proper place in the Fold of Heaven. We become one with the rest of the flock — one with the Angels — one with God. Our life is one with the very life of God. He lives within us, and we live in Him. Some of the saints have described it as like the air we breathe. The air is inside us in our lungs and coursing through our bloodstream; however, it is much easier to see that we are in the air that we breathe rather than it is in us. We are to find ourselves in God even though we may also find Him in us. The joy of Heaven will be ours, and it will be within us, but it is better conceived that we will be absorbed or lost in the very joy of Heaven.

The first parable shows us the Son of God — Jesus Christ — as the Shepherd leaving Heaven to find and bring us back to God. The second parable shows the Catholic Church as the woman lighting a lamp, sweeping, and searching the house for the lost coin. Coins are impressed with images. Likewise, our souls are impressed with the Image of God. We are made in His Image and Likeness. The coin is the real property of the person/state who has issued it, but it is given to others for their benefit. God creates human souls which bear His Image, but they are entrusted to the Church to bear interest for God. The Image of God within us is purified, cleaned, or polished in or through the Church.

As our souls become stained and tarnished by sin and the influences of the world and devils, the Church (Commissioned by Christ) comes looking for us — or instead, looking for the image of Jesus in us. She lights the lamp to shine throughout the house by offering the Mass and Sacraments in the world. She shines God's grace and light in this world of darkness. She makes special efforts to enlighten even the darkest places. She not only seeks to sweep clean the house, but upon finding the coin, She takes special care to clean and polish it as well. The woman's efforts are to remove all the dirt that may have clung to the coin or tarnished the inner luster of the image so that it may shine through. The Church's efforts are similar. The Church uses the Sacraments and the treasury of indulgences entrusted to her to purify and polish our souls and impart to them an even greater luster and value than we originally had.

God does not despise sinners. On the contrary, we are sought out by Him and the Church to which He has entrusted our souls. If we allow Him, Jesus will find us and bring us into the Church and Heaven. The Church will cleanse and polish our souls with His Sacraments and enlarge and increase our value by feeding us the very Source of Life — The Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Living Son of God — Jesus Christ, in the Most Holy Eucharist. This the Church does through the power of Transubstantiation entrusted to her priests and is only made possible through the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary — the True Mass.

May the Immaculate Heart of Mary inspire, guide, and protect us!