March 6, 2022 Homily

we all know the story from deuteronomy about the egyptians oppressing the israelites but as i was putting this homily together or at least trying to um i was thinking about modern-day the modern day oppressors who those who oppress others such as what is going on in ukraine people who are persecuted for their faith people who experience human trafficking domestic abuse and the list can go on and on so really since the beginning of human history oppression has existed in god did not will any of this but we know that sin exists as i said last week the adam and eve is not a fairy tale sin exists because of the fall of man and woman and we experience that sin sometimes personally but certainly collectively as a world community and it seems today that we are a world community much more so than i ever experienced as a child what do we do with all this well as people of prayer we come to the altar of god and ask for freedom of all who are oppressed and downtrodden we ask god to help us to be instruments of peace and to reach out whenever we can a helping hand to someone saint paul continues this message in his letter to the romans he knew what persecution was about because not only did he persecute christians but after his conversion he experienced persecution for preaching the gospel st paul says since we possess the word of god we must treasure it and we must be ambassadors for christ we must represent christ in our community in our world in our parish in our very home when the love of christ does not exist in our very home it's hard for someone to have a good experience of love in a church or anywhere you know you can't give what you don't have so if someone has not been loved it's hard to love others but we must do whatever we can to help others in need in our small but significant corner of the world now luke luke's gospel the fourth chapter so much can be said about this it's a very interesting gospel jesus of course attempt was tempted by the devil here is a story that is true of good versus evil this is not a superhero movie this is real life it consists of spiritual warfare and if someone says that they spiritual warfare doesn't exist i don't know what planet they're living on so as we see spiritual warfare around us and sometimes within us hopefully not ever we understand that we as children of god are called to battle this spiritual warfare it was kind of before my time nice but you know remember the days when we would pray all the time the prayer of saint michael during mass or before mass when we would ask saint michael to defend us and battle a spiritual battle of good versus evil but let's kind of break down for a moment if you will the the dialogue between jesus and the devil first of all before i forget i want to say that it says in the gospel that that the devil possesses power that's what the devil thinks he has that he possesses power and glory because remember when jesus excuse me when the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world what did the devil say i shall give you all this power and glory for it has been handed over to me and i may give it to whomever i wish where does the devil think he has this power who gave it to him he gave it to himself that's what autocracy is and then the devil says all this will be yours if you worship me and then jesus says worship the lord your god and him alone shall you serve each time that the devil offers or i shouldn't say offer each time the devil asks jesus to worship him [Music] he always starts the question by saying if you are the son of god well come on now the devil knows who he's talking to what do you mean if you are the son of god you are the son of god and he knows that the son of god has power over him and he can't stand it he is dejected and he is beaten down so he goes around to all corners of the world satan does and tries to stir up sin and evil and oppression and human trafficking human trafficking domestic abuse he stirs up all of these things so that people like us and all believers will draw away leave the altar of god and above all to say no to jesus you know the devil is extremely happy every time someone leaves the church they're extremely happy because that's a victory for the devil and hopefully we stay closer no matter how upset we might be with the church the church is the body of christ and we are called to be that body that suffering body in that glorified body so what does the devil mean what a joke if you are the son of god the devil satan shows jesus all the kingdoms of the world the devil is all about power only power that's all he wants and he knows he can't have it unless he convinced someone to to draw away from jesus christ so satan tells jesus i can give you all this power that's another joke because jesus possesses the kingdom of god which is power and love but not power that is autocratic but a power that is shared among the children of god in the world that was created by god the devil robs people of their human dignity so what else can we say at the end of the gospel satan gave up but he doesn't leave does he what does the gospel say at the very end he departed from him for a time the devil will be back temptation is real but god's love and god's mercy is always stronger so stay close to god and the sacraments saint paul says everyone who calls on the name of the lord will be saved the only way that we can do that i believe is to stay close to god and the sacraments

Channel: Mass at Christ the King Indianapolis

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Length: 8min 22sec (502 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 06 2022