THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

Her Doctrine and Morals

Second Sunday after Pentecost

22 June 2025

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The Sunday

Sermon

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Dear Friends in Christ,

God has given us free will. However, with free will, we are forced to make choices and decisions. And every choice or decision becomes the cause of various effects — some that we may foresee and others that are often unforeseen. With every choice, a sacrifice is also made. The choice of one thing of necessity excludes something else. If we choose to stay in bed and not get up to go to work or study, we sacrifice the good that may have come from our efforts. If we choose to get up and go to work or study, we sacrifice the comfort of our beds. If we decide to eat, we sacrifice the benefits of fasting; if we choose to fast, we sacrifice the benefits of eating.

Our lives are daily filled with numerous choices that we make, and therefore, we inevitably make multiple sacrifices. Yet, we seldom think of these as sacrifices or opportunities for spiritual merit. Saint Paul suggests to us that it does not really matter what we do as long as we do it for the love of God. If we wish to eat, let us do so for the love of God. If we want to fast, let us do so for the love of God.

Jesus gives us a parable in today's Gospel reading (Saint Luke 14. 16-24) of a man who invited many to a great supper, but they found excuses not to come to the great feast. All those invited were willing to sacrifice the great supper for various worldly reasons. "I have bought a farm, and I must go out and see it; I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I must go to try them; I have married a wife." While the supper cannot wait, all these other things appear to remain safe until after the supper. The supper cannot wait, and if people sacrifice it for worldly things, then they will never taste the supper.

This parable speaks of spiritual things rather than material ones. The great supper is the Kingdom of Heaven. God is the Man Who invites us. We, in turn, find reasons not to enter the Kingdom of Heaven because of our unwillingness to sacrifice worldly things or pleasures.

Jesus makes it abundantly clear that if we want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, we must become His disciples or followers. To truly be His disciples, we are called upon to deny ourselves daily, take up our cross, and follow Him. (Saint Matthew 16:24). Selfdenial and willingly embracing the cross are sacrifices that are not just beneficial, but essential to our spiritual and eternal welfare. We are free to choose, but whatever our choice is, we invariably will receive the consequences of our choices — good or bad. The path to God is paved with self-denial, and it is a sacrifice we must be willing to make.

If we choose to serve the world and our fallen natures, the consequence is eternal death. However, if we decide to serve God and deny ourselves the many illusions of pleasure that the world, the devils, and our fallen natures entice us with, we will be able to taste eternal life in Heaven. The joy and fulfillment that come from serving God far surpass any worldly pleasure. It is essential that we truly understand that the temptations of the devils, the world, and our fallen natures are only illusions of pleasure and not true happiness. True happiness is found in God, and the rewards of serving Him are eternal.

Saint Gregory the Great said: "This is the simple difference between the delights of the body and those of the soul. Bodily delights, when we do not possess them, awaken in us a great desire for them. But when they are ours, and we taste them, our delight soon turns to distaste through satiety. Spiritual delights, on the other hand, when we do not possess them, are distasteful to us but desired the more once we possess them."

The consequences of our choices are vastly different, even for the most trivial of options or decisions. If we eat for the love of God, we nourish both our bodies and souls. Still, if we eat in defiance of God (For example, deliberately eat meat on a Friday.), we merit eternal damnation for our souls and often many physical distresses as well. Eating, like everything else, can either elevate us or bring us down, depending on the intentional choices we make. If we nourish our bodies out of love for God, we benefit both physically and spiritually. If we choose only the material pleasure of eating to please our tastes, we suffer both physically and spiritually. If we focus our diets on our palates, we tend to choose unhealthy, overly sweetened foods, and our bodily health deteriorates. Additionally, due to our self-centeredness, our souls also deteriorate.

With a bit of understanding and foresight, we soon discover that good choices are not any harder to make than bad choices. Good decisions are easier to make than bad ones. Do we want Heaven or Hell, eternal life or death? With every decision we make, we can either improve or worsen our spiritual life. Let us deliberately choose, even in the most insignificant things, the love of God rather than self-seeking momentary pleasures.

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