The First Commandment (2/21)

a few announcements before the homily first the charitable portion of our tithe this weekend will go to our bishop's annual appeal it's important that we understand that the annual appeal goes solely to the charities and pastoral outreach of the diocese none of the annual appeal goes to administration so we are very happy to support our bishop and this pastoral outreach i know that the bishop oftentimes makes a direct appeal so i do encourage you to please support the bishop as best you can with his appeal to donate directly you should receive envelopes or have received envelopes from him again please support his annual appeal due to the penitential season of lent we do not have flowers in the sanctuary also please note that the gloria at the beginning of mass as well as the alleluia before the gospel are also suspended by the church as a penitential practice this is the third weekend here at our lady of grace we know that means confessions huh so after mass i'll be available in the confessional i do encourage you to avail yourself of that sacrament this coming week i'll be away on vacation from monday through thursday i'll try to look sad right no actually team grace you know i don't like being away but every once in a while the mind and the body says it's time to be away so i'll be away monday through thursday we will not have confessions or daily mass here at the parish but we will still have the daily rosary the devotions the daily briefings and adoration will continue as usual this coming wednesday we'll still have our bible study due to my vacation time the lesson will be pre-recorded but it will still premiere at 6 45 on wednesday evening and then be available after that at your leisure on grace lilly this week we'll discuss abraham and sarai's visit to egypt after the great patriarch was taken to the promised land he goes to egypt why well tune in wednesday and you'll find out right so i hope you can be a part of this bible study for lent this year our stations of the cross will solely be prayed via live stream it's not ideal but it's what we're able to do this year so every friday at 6 pm the stations will be available on grace lilly encourage you to pray them then or later at your leisure one benefit that we did not expect is that often times in the past when we've done the stations in person we've pulled maybe 40 or 50 people i looked at the numbers last night and so far over 700 people have viewed the stations of the cross from this past friday so it's a powerful outreach of course next year we look forward to being able to do it in person and by live stream right we'll do both and so this year we can only do live stream next year we look very forward to doing both in the name of the father and the son of the holy spirit so truth be told team grace i was praying and reflecting on what our series should be for lent our homily series and i had some ideas one idea came to mind i said no no no no i had other ideas and that same idea came back i thought no no no no no it's too elementary i said no no i wanted to do something else that you came back and finally in biblical obedience i said speak lord your servant is listening and god said i want you to focus on the ten commandments so lent this year here in our lady of grace we're going to focus on the decalogue the ten commandments given to us by god our father now it's important that we look at these ten commandments honestly i would prefer to maybe do something else and they are elementary in fact i pray that most of these learn most of us learn these as children but oftentimes it's important to relearn them as adults because there are applications that maybe weren't emphasized when we were children and truth be told there are many christians who could not even list the ten commandments if they were asked and regrettably even more so there are many christians who are not even attempting to live by the ten commandments so perhaps this lent as we assess our discipleship it might be helpful for us to walk through the ten commandments so let's look at these ten commandments first of all we know that our fallen nature we know that we cannot figure out right and wrong on our own we're too fallen we need the help of god's grace so god's commandments come and they guide us in the way in which we are called to live as human beings as the children of god there are some who approach the commandments and say but it represses my freedom quite the opposite when the commandments are lived well they actually help us to order our passions and our emotions so we can actually be more free we can understand how we are called to live as the children of god you can imagine if that argument were to be made that rules repress us imagine if that would be to be applied to our traffic laws we shouldn't have traffic laws they're too repressive imagine the chaos and the disaster that would ensue you know our traffic laws are very important they tell us where our lane is they help us to get where we need to go they help us to communicate with one another in similar fashion but of a much higher order the moral law of god helps us to stay in our lane to stay focused on where we're going and to make sure that we communicate with one another and play our part in god's covenant so the commandments are essential to the christian way of life and traditionally we would say that there are two tablets of the commandments the first tablet pertains to the relationship we have with god that entails the first three commandments god's sovereignty god's holy name and god's sabbath the first tablet our relationship with god the second tablet pertains to our relationship with one another with our neighbor the following seven commandments to honor our father and mother to make sure we don't kill we do not commit adultery we do not steal we do not bear false witness we don't cover our neighbor's wife we don't covet our neighbors goods the seven commandments relating to our relationship with our neighbor with one another these two tablets form the entirety of god's moral law everything else flows from these ten commandments and we have to understand that understand this movement between the two tablets at some point i pray that here at lady grace we can continue to go even farther into the spiritual life because i would like to say to you that the entire ten commandments by our early tradition was the entire backdrop of the lord's prayer jesus relied on a knowledge of the ten commandments as he taught us his prayer and that's what i would love to talk about but truth be told we're not there yet because if i were to try to teach the ten commandments based on the lord's prayer if we don't know the ten commandments you couldn't understand and that's what i want us to point to that's why i want eventually for us to be able to get to as a community and i say that not to belittle anyone but rather to point to the glory and to glory that's available to us in our spiritual tradition that's where i want us to be able to get to the truth be told is we have to review the basics make sure that this foundation is solid before we build upon it so let's go back to these commandments that first tablet let's go to the first commandment the first commandment is clear you shall love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind you shall love god with everything that you are every ounce of your existence and every moment of your being you should love god and pour out yourself in selfless service of that love that was a radical way of life in the ancient world god's chosen people were considered oddballs then and now in the ancient world they were considered odd because they acknowledged that there was only one god their god was the one god and they sought solely to love him the pagans among god's chosen people said oh come on there are other gods how can you be so narrow-minded why don't you spread the love a little give it to the multiple gods but god's people were called to fidelity to the one living and true god they were considered oddballs in the ancient world god's chosen people are considered oddballs in the contemporary world we may not have to worry about zeus or apollo or moloch or all the ancient mythological gods but today we have to worry about other gods respectability vanity power prestige sports entertainment leisure these are the gods that are so worshiped in our culture today that even the commandment of god the first to love god with all that we are is oftentimes eclipsed and the world looks at us again as the oddballs come on don't be fanatical you can miss mass it's okay it's all right for you to talk like this you don't have to fulfill this promise come on just dump her divorce her move on with your life we compromise everything the contemporary world compromises everything and we christians the gods chosen people are once again the oddballs because we seek with all our hearts all our minds all our souls to love god god has revealed himself to us and he has revealed his love and his moral law to his children to each of us says the world spins i cannot tell right from wrong it is clear for us how we are called to live as the psalmist cries out and sings your law o lord is a lamp unto my feet that's how we see the law of god a light in the midst of the darkness that points us the way to our father's house our vocation in this life is to obey the law of god and to manifest god's goodness precisely by our obedience the world looks at us who are those people one god so narrow-minded so arrogant one god their moral code is above all others the narrow-mindedness the hubris the world tells us but when we show mercy when the world all knows only judgment and when we show kindness even to those who are unkind to us when we live the law of god the world is confounded it doesn't understand what is this and it's precisely our way of life that lends credibility to our claim of one god and you need to understand that dear children of god it is our way of life that will give credibility or lessen credibility to our claim of one god our entire life our vocation our calling in this life is to fulfill the law of god and to praise him with all that we have to love him with all that we have years ago when i was a seminarian in rome one of my professors became an endeared mentor and he was hosting some jewish scholars on one occasion and he had meetings all throughout the day he was supposed to join them for dinner he wasn't able to make it due to a conflict he called and said could you go i thought wow i get to have dinner with two jewish scholars when do you ever get to do that right so i said happily so i went and it was a husband and wife they were both scholars of the jewish law we sat at one of these small italian restaurants as i sat down they said asked if i would mind if they were to pray the traditional jewish prayer before meals i said no we have something like that i had no idea what i just said yes to i didn't know it was sung i didn't know how long it was so there we are in the middle of this restaurant they start chanting this long jewish prayer it's in hebrew i didn't know what they were saying and truth be told at first i was embarrassed is everybody watching what are they doing what are people going to think eventually i got out of myself and while i could not understand the language i just listened and it was powerful and a beautiful prayer again i didn't know the words but there was power in that prayer and i was able to share in that prayer in the course of our meal i remember asking them on one occasion why is israel still here the israelites saint paul sought to answer this question throughout his entire letter to the romans why is israel still here when the messiah has come they took me to an even deeper question in true rabbinic fashion why was israel ever here and their answer was simple israel exists solely to praise and honor god that's powerful you might be aware that jewish theology does not have a developed concept of the afterlife and for the jewish scholar they would say if we live and we praise god and we praise and adore him throughout our lives and at the end if he blesses us with his presence thanks be to god if we return to the earth and simply fade away then thanks be to god because we live israel dwells and exists in order to praise and glorify god that's powerful that's a reflection of that first commandment to love god with all that you are israel's highest prayer the shama hear o israel remember the lord your god is lord alone now dear friends we in christ know that there is an afterlife that the lord has risen from the dead and that he awaits us in paradise and that promise has been given to us which means we christians should even more so and more vehemently and more jealously live this commandment to love god with all that we are if one two were to ask us why do you exist i exist the new israel the roman catholic church exists for the praise and the glory of god that should be the mark of our lives of all that we do all that we don't do to seek to love him with everything we have our moral life flows from our faith in god and that first commandment summarizes both the faith and the obedience that we are called to have in god saint paul summarizes this beautifully in the new testament when he speaks about the obedience of faith do you realize dear friends we are called to obey god but we can only obey the one that we love and we can only love what we know and so we are called to know god to love god so that we can then obey him and give him even greater love and deeper love and more passionate love in order to follow his moral law and to be faithful to his covenant but the first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith and to avoid anything that would harm that faith it requires us to be prudent and vigilant to understand that we live in a dark age a secular age that seeks to dismiss god revealed religion or any reference to the supernatural and that is the gas we breathe if we are not careful those fallen views can get into our heart if those views are in our heart we cannot love god with all our heart so we must be vigilant the catechism of the catholic church gives us some things to be attentive to to watch out for to name if we find them within our souls the church speaks of voluntary doubt how many christians allow voluntary doubt to sit on their minds and hearts you cannot love god with all your mind when you allow a doubt into that mind any question you have about the faith has an answer if you have a question or a concern or a doubt you should ask for guidance turn to prayer study the scriptures study the catechism of the catholic church and seek guidance because doubt on the mind takes over and eventually you will find doubt leading you very quickly into a denial even of the existence of god voluntary doubt is heaven real is jesus really present in the eucharist does god really care about us should i really care about all of this religious stuff and the doubts can go on we must name them and we must allow them to be healed and then there's involuntary doubt we are fallen never be surprised by the things that pass through our fallen minds fallen involuntary doubt they can come and they should be allowed to go but oftentimes involuntary doubts are kept they very quickly can become voluntary doubts so if we find things passing through our minds let them pass let them go the catechism also identifies despair as an offense to the first commandment despair is when we say we are completely unlovable nothing has meaning nothing has purpose and we allow ourselves to live in darkness that is a rejection of the first commandment because we are the children of god well beloved and we are called to reciprocate his love well if we allow ourselves to sit in the darkness of despair we cannot love the church also identifies in gratitude you realize that all the good we do is because of the grace of god we are too fallen we cannot do a good deed without the help of god's grace every good deed that's attempted without god's grace eventually becomes adulterated in self-interest we can only do good deeds by the grace of god which means every good thing that happens we are called by the first commandment to show gratitude thanksgiving to god and yes oftentimes gratitude is lacking the saints tell us that gratitude is the rarest flower in the garden of virtues when we are ungrateful we are offending the first commandment and then there is the sin of presumption presumption so powerful it actually has two expressions the first is when we think that we are greater than what we are we think everything we have is because of us i work hard for this i earned this there's a lot of eyes in there in fact so many eyes there's no room for god when we presume on our own strength as if it is not a gift from god and we presume that we can live a good life without god there are too many christians who approach their faith as if it's some type of hobby rather than the very air that we need in order to allow our spiritual lives to breathe presumption also has another expression when we presume on the mercy of god and we commit even major sin because we know god will forgive us it's the total affront to love to complete denial the first commandment imagine if i were to say of a good friend i know that friend will forgive me if i punch him in the nose as i go over and i punch him in the nose and as a good friend he forgives me you should not question his friendship but you should certainly question mine to presume in such a fashion kills love and those who presume in god's mercy in order to commit grave sin have killed the love of god in their own hearts the catechism goes on to describe many other things indifference to just not care do you know how many catholics this applies to to just not care to not care about your relationship with god to not care about your discipleship to just not care and so oftentimes we find that among the faithful but we are called by the first commandment to care to give god all that we have the catechism also describes the very serious sin of lukewarmness which flows from indifference pope said john paul ii said that lukewarmness has covered the entire body of christ and the problem with the lukewarm is they think they're good catholics i'm a good catholic i go to mass every sunday most sundays when was the last time i went to confession well it's been a couple years but do you pray every day well a lot of times when was the last time you read the bible or served the poor or forgave your enemy or died to yourself solely because in some way you wanted to serve god and suddenly we start to find a lot of no's nose nose and eventually you have to ask in what world or in whose mind do you think that you are a good catholic lukewarmness has taken over the church and the zeal of faith the dynamism that should exist within the heart of the believer for the love of god has been severely suppressed and that is a grave sin against the first commandment because we are to love love god with all that we are and to constantly look for ways in which we can love him more or more creatively or more deeply true love has no room for lukewarmness what about spiritual sloth now this one is the one that oftentimes gets misdefined spiritual sloth is not simply laziness it can include that but spiritual sloth is when we get involved in so much activism so many activities so many things that our soul is tired our heart is tired and cannot fulfill the spiritual duties of the virtue of religion the person who works too much throughout the week i cannot get up on sunday morning to worship god the person who is overly involved in activism throughout the day and in the evening their heart is too tired in order to pray that spiritual sloth to so exhaust our heart of its energies that we cannot even perform the religion the duties of religion and yet we see that a lot a sign again of the struggles we have with the first commandment because we are called to have the energy and the dynamism of love and if we allow spiritual sloth into our hearts it cannot perform those acts of love then there's hatred of god there are some people who absolutely hate god we can see that in our culture i just have to wear my roman color out in public and i find very quickly who hates god but then there's another version of that there are some perhaps even among us today who hate god and they hate god so much that they come into his house they perform worship to him to show him how much they hate him because they come and they do not believe him they do not trust him they do not obey him they are here in open defiance against him because they hate him it's a deceptive hatred but it's one found in the hearts of some and then there are some other areas of the first commandment that are described in the catechism of the catholic church promises and vows vows are pretty obvious if you tell god that you're going to stay with this person for your whole life god expects you to stay with that person for your whole life promises are below vows if you promise something god expects you to do it and this is why the lord warns us to be cautious about making promises let your yes mean yes and you know me no but if a promise is made it must be fulfilled if you call on god to witness a promise and you willfully break that promise [Music] that you have asked god to witness a lie and that is sacrilege grave sacrilege promises of vows must be fulfilled then there's superstition this is when we think that something in the created world has power which it doesn't have all spiritual power in heaven and on earth comes only only from god yes sometimes people think well i have to have this it's lucky you know lucky's actually a pagan god it makes it's lucky i need this in order to be successful when i was growing up we had the rabbit's foot remember those things and i wish that those had been phased out because we christians argued against them but it wasn't us it was the animal rights groups they had more zeal than we did i wish we were as committed to our message as they are to theirs and then there's idolatry dear friends if you have a statue of buddha in your home get it out if you have indications of hindu worship or native american worship or worship of anything other than the true god get it out of your home it does not belong there someone could say oh come on father that was just something i went on a trip i got that it doesn't mean anything good if it doesn't mean anything get it out of your home because it may not mean much to you but it means a lot to god because if your heart and your home you claim are consecrated to the living and true god then idols have no room no place and then there's divination and magic this has become very popular regrettably even among our young do you know that right now tarot cards and ouija boards are sold as board games in major department stores and the young use them as if they are some play thing and oftentimes adults will dismiss them oh it doesn't mean anything yes it actually means a lot that actually has a spiritual power whether you acknowledge it or not and again people will say oh come on just it's not a big deal have you read the scriptures it's a big deal to god he does not want his people dealing in such things i remember years ago traveling to new orleans with some priest friends one of whom was a trained exorcist and rather scandalously right in front of the cathedral in new orleans are all the palm readers they get a lot of good business from the catholics from the catholics and as we were walking this priest exorcist was exercising each of the palm readers he wouldn't look at them he was exercising one after the other after the other then he exercised this one stand and one of the other priests said hey what are you doing he said i'm exercising this divination another priest said you just exercised ice cream man he was in that row of people we should not dismiss nor think that divination or magic is not important in fact read the scriptures dear friends some of god's most severe punishments toward his people were oftentimes the keeping of a few necklaces of pagan gods how would you feel if tomorrow morning your spouse would wake up and around his neck or her neck they had an image of a former girlfriend or boyfriend and they simply wore them and even the most secure spouses would be shocked because it would seem to indicate that something in your spouse's heart still belongs to this person when their whole heart should belong to you this is what an idol does this is what magic of divination does to our relationship with god and what we are saying about our own hearts and god loves us with all that he has and he calls us to respond and to love him back we do not need to play with the things of this world we have a loving father who cares for us who knows every hair on our head we don't have to worry about manipulating the things of this world in order to somehow be lucky but we can instead rely on the love and the confidence and the care that our father has for us i have to mention air religion since satanism and the occult are on the rise i see now it's especially popular in entertainment on television you should not watch such garbage do not let such things in your home or in your heart we have to be careful about tempting god today on this sunday of lent we recount the lord in the desert and the lord will not tempt god the father we should also avoid tempting him we should avoid sacrileges when we offend a sacred thing we should avoid simony when we seek to buy sacred things or to control the church with our money some of you need to hear that lesson every time you don't get what you want you throw the amount of your tithe in the face of the church that's simony it's a great violation of the first commandment you didn't give it to the church or to me you gave it to god and we give to god completely no strings attached we have to be careful of atheism and agnosticism the willful denial or the willful doubt of the existence of god dear friends what i've just given you is a summary you can read more in the catechism of the catholic church to understand how we are called to live in obedience to the first commandment to be able to say with all of our hearts i exist for the praise and glory of god and to allow the shama hear o israel the lord your god is lord alone to echo in our own hearts and in our actions and to give a sober examination of our conscience if you have found that you have been guilty of some of these or an accomplice to some of these or have permitted some of these in your home then confess your sins before god and seek once again to recommit yourself your entire heart your whole being and your family to god this is the work of lent and if lent doesn't hurt a little bit or a lot then we're not doing it right so dear friends we're going to continue to walk through the ten commandments during this lenten season again this is being done so that we might know right and we might know wrong we might know how we are called to live as a children of god and that by being obedient to our loving father we might truly be free to understand what it means to have the dignity of a childhood god and to receive the joy and the hope that he desires to give to each of us as we celebrate this eucharist once again i encourage you commit your entire self your whole heart your whole soul all your strength to the living god and to him alone

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Length: 33min 37sec (2017 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 21 2021