Cleanse Us of Two-Face Catholicism

[Music] when i was a kid one of my favorite superheroes was batman and i always have a soft spot in my heart for batman and the batman movies and uh it's one of the things father john and i uh share we love batman and he was even in a batman movie so i'm kind of halfway jealous of him when they were filming in pittsburgh for the third movie of christopher nolan's trilogy he happened to be in the crowd among the the many thousands of people but he was in a batman movie so i'll hold that against him but the beautiful thing uh about my little love for batman is that there's great analogies that sometimes come out of those movies and and the stories of um of the batman dc universe and one of the bad guys if you remember the second movie of both trilogies was two-face the man the politician harvey dent he is a great man he's the white knight as they call him and he's a good man he always does the right thing he always puts away the bad guys and does good things and yet their tragedy in his life disfigures him and he ends up burning half the side of his face and the other half is in intact and that's why he calls himself two-face because he's good but he's always seeking vengeance he's always looking to get um uh get away with things so he'll show you the good side but really he has that evil side as well and this is what we call of course the vice of duplicity someone who is two-faced who will smile at you and stab you in the back kind of like if you're familiar with shakespeare brutus right that's the famous line that julius caesar says even you brutus you're going to stab me in my back and even worse brutus looks julius caesar in the eyes as he's stabbing him in the back this duplicity is something that is terrible it's an affliction and it is something that cripples mankind and of course it stems from our concupiscence our desire for pleasure our desire to seek our own good and our aversion for pain and suffering we want to save our life but yet jesus tells us if we try to save our life we're going to lose it we have to lose our life in order to save it but yet harvey dent and two-face give us this example of kind of what happens in our soul especially during lent when we're put under pressure when our catholic faith is put to the test through prayer fasting and works of mercy what we call almsgiving those three works during the lenten season and we're supposed to extend them throughout but this is an intensive time of those three works for us as catholics prayer fasting and almsgiving this shows and puts us under attention to say do i love god to give myself more to prayer do i love god to give myself more to mortification of my senses through fasting from things do i love god enough to make this sacrifice whether monetarily making a sacrifice of maybe a coffee in the morning and giving that money to the poor or to make an offering to saint vincent de paul or something like that or feeding the sick giving thirst giving drink to the thirsty clothing the naked cleaning out your closet this tension of our lenten journey puts us to the test ultimately it shows us whether we're made of metal or made of mush because each one of us can have that two-face we can have that aversion to mortification because we desire to look good in everybody's eyes we desire to smile but yet stab them in the back when they're not looking we all have this tendency to duplicity and that's why jesus one of his first acts after the wedding feast of cana is today's gospel jesus goes to the wedding feast of cana his disciples believe him this great miracle of water changed into wine happens even an overabundance of wine more than they could want then the passover is near and what does jesus do he reminds his disciples he takes them to jerusalem and he casts out the money changers he makes a whip out of cords and he cleanses the temple and us as catholics we tend to hold on to this because why it gives me a billy club to beat up on all the other catholics because look at jesus's anger look at that righteous anger look at how he cleansed the temple look at the zeal for his house consumed him and i follow in his footsteps because i'll make a whip out of the cords and i'll tell everybody what to do and what they need to do but you forget that the money changers they were duplicitous they were defiling the temple of the lord they were jews who were taking advantage of their people by extorting money by charging too much for the animals for sacrifice by maybe asking for a little bit more so that they could put that little bit more in their pocket jesus went into the temple because his father's house was being defiled but yet it was for conversion he tells the scribes and pharisees who say what sign do you have for this and he says the sign of me raising from the dead being rise from the dead that's the sign that will come not right now not here and now but it will come so that his disciples were even reminded that he said this john records it for our benefit we use this example of jesus a lot of times to justify our own anger to justify our bad behavior honestly to justify our own duplicitousness because a lot of times we're not doing it for the temple we're not even doing it for god we're doing it for me we're doing it to make sure that those people that i'm scattering that i'm making whip out of cords and driving out of god's temple know that it was me who drove them out made sure that i was higher than them that i'm a better catholic than them see this duplicitousness comes into play for us catholics even in our home life i say i love my wife but i look at pornography on the side i say i love my friends but i gossip about them as soon as they're away from me i say i love the church but i question did matthew 16 18 really mean that this pope is validly elected is that this pope is infallible when he teaches about faith and morals i love my catholic faith but i don't know where my catechism is i love my catholic faith but i haven't cracked the bible in probably five years i love my family but i got to work late tonight we tend to say good things we tend to be that harvey dent in the morning time but at night we turn into two-face we become duplicitous one probably because we don't know our catholic faith well enough to put our faith when we can't control a situation we can't trust god enough that he will get me through this or that circumstance in my life that it is difficult yes to have in-laws that grind on your nerves that get on your last nerve but because we call ourselves catholic we should say forgive them for they know not what they're doing they're wounded they got a lot of baggage they don't just have issues they have subscriptions how sad it is that we tend to think we're good catholics but yet we turn our back on christ when the tension when the difficulty when the pressure is on i did it just yesterday all high and mighty as novice master all great just washed my cassock just got ready finished everybody's telling me how great a homily and then i blasted my brother at lunchtime i eviscerated him in front of somebody else and it was sick and i got called on the carpet and it's to my shame we're all susceptible to this two-faced syndrome we're all susceptible to that duplicity of these tax collectors and thus that's why god gives us lent lives gives us lent to remind us of the commandments that you heard in the first reading to remind us of the cross which is foolishness to everybody outside of the church why would you want to mortify yourself give up things why would you want to put your trust in some local guy in rome why would you even think that you could go to church after you did that or did this why would you even think about confessing your sins to the priest how many time we times we've heard that and we've actually bought into that lie we've said yeah maybe this one or maybe that person maybe god will let me slide on this or that issue it's high time we take this seriously this lenten journey that god ravishes our hearts so much that we root out that duplicitousness in our life that we allow jesus to come into the temple of our bodies the temple of our hearts and say no more no more changing of the money no more extortion from me god is a jealous god as he said in the first reading from exodus he doesn't have to be told what human nature is all about we heard that in this last line of john's gospel today he doesn't need anybody to tell him about human nature he knows it all too well why because he knows the depths of our heart he knows that we try and get away with fornication with our girlfriend we try and look at pornography in the dark times of the night we we try to sneak that extra food after midnight on friday night he knows what we do he knows what's going on in our heart and he desperately wants us to come to him with that brokenness with that duplicitousness and say lord forgive me i'm sorry lord help me with your grace not to do this again and that's what our prayer fasting mortification our almsgiving everything you're doing in your personal penitential practices that's all to root all of this out you're doing good work keep it up we're at the halfway point of lent let that duplicitousness let it go let it go stop questioning what the pope is saying just because some blogger is bloviating on youtube go back to the gospels go back to the catechism go back to the teachings of the church the authentic magisterium not the magisterium of youtube and facebook and twitter and whatever else you're looking at any news organization can be wrong take it from me i was in there they get things wrong and they don't apologize for it so stop just stop go to the truth go to the rock go to where you know you can be freed of that two-facedness that you can be good you can be charitable you can be who god wants you to be as a husband as a father as a wife as a mother as a child because even children fall into this too i'm doing my homework mom don't worry about me but you got the pen and paper on the desk and you got the game controller in your right hand you hear mom coming oh oh it jumped to the task okay yeah yeah i'm doing math no problem so easy so diabolical even because that's two-facedness yeah i cleaned my room yeah but everything's in your closet you didn't clean your room god comes to cleanse the temple today in our holy gospel let him cleanse the temple of our hearts let him cleanse the temple of our bodies our minds our souls whatever it takes this lent we desire god to come make a whip out of cords and scatter the darkness of my heart so that i can have light so that i can seek the lord because he gave us those commandments he gave us the cross to give us a pressure cooker to separate the goats from the lambs and most of all he comes to cleanse us because his mercy extends to the thousandth generation his punishments only to the second and third generation as you heard his mercy endures forever punishment is only for a little bit of time so when we're struggling when we're having difficulty when we find ourselves duplicitous two-face when we can't find harvey dent for the sake of two-face go to the cross go to him go and receive the love and mercy of christ in the confessional get a fresh start be renewed and refreshed by the precious blood that flowed from that cross for my salvation and for yours that we will celebrate in three weeks we will remember but most of all when you receive him here at this altar rail when you receive him in holy communion ask him for the strength ask him for the grace to do more for him who loved you who laid down his life for us and who saves us from our sins may jesus christ be praised now and forever in our hearts and throughout the world amen [Music] you

Channel: Fathers of Mercy

Views: 7,920

Rating: 4.9269776 out of 5

Keywords: Father Andy Cravalho CPM, Fathers of Mercy Auburn Kentucky, Sunday March 7 Homily, Third Sunday of Lent 2021

Id: Q7POgrpZqFY

Length: 15min 44sec (944 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 07 2021