The Price to Keep the Truth (Transfiguration)

Homily - The Price to Keep the Truth (Transfiguration)

Opening Move: The Godly Context of My Life

FRIENDS: 

I HAD THE GOOD FORTUNE of...

• Growing up in a devout Evangelical Christian home
• My parents were simple, godly people
• They were without guile: At Home as they were at Church
• Mum and dad loved our Lord Jesus Christ and so...
• They trusted the Scriptures implicitly!

• IN TIMES OF PLENTY, and in more severe times, my parents were disciplined in their use of money: 

• They restrained their spending on our family and on themselves so that they could be...
• sacrificially generous in support of the Gospel,
• our congregation, 
• Local evangelists and international missionaries;

• THEY LIVED WITH LESS, and we lived with less, so that...
• the sick could find healing, 
• the men and women confined in the Fox Hill prison would someone to visit with them
• and so that the poor — first within our family, and in our congregation, and then gain beyond it would have what they needed or at least as much of it as my parents could provide!

• MY MUM AND DAD taught us, 
• They encouraged us, and 
• They challenged us...
• And, yes, Mum and dad both corrected, disciplined and punished us when we disobeyed them: They were Immovable, Firm, Consistent, and Gentle!

• THEY WERE NOT PERFECT, but they sought vigorously, diligently and persistently to know, love and serve Jesus Christ...
• As best that they knew...
• As baptized people...
• In a real sense, unknowingly separated from the Church that the Lord that they loved had founded!

Central Move: When asking questions about the truth

WHEN I WAS A BOY of about 8 or 9 years, something happened:

• I do not now recall what...
• But, something happened that provoked my dad to...
• Turn to me, 
• Stoop down...
• Look at me eye to eye...
• and, say:

“When asking questions about the truth, never ask what it will cost you to get it.”

He then continued:

“If you ask the question about the price, you will never get to the Truth.”

“Seek the Truth,” he said, “and when you find it, pay whatever price you must pay to get it, and then pay whatever price you must pay to keep it!”

DEAR FRIENDS: 

WHEN MY FATHER SAID those words neither he nor I realized that the price that I would have to pay in order to get and to keep the Truth would be my parents.

When it was clear that I was going to become a Roman Catholic my parents severed our relationship.

I cannot tell you how painful — how grievously painful — it was to have to offer correction to my father through my very life by remaining faithful to Christ and entering the one and only Church that He has founded, the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

Penultimate Move: The Present Context of the Church

DEAREST FRIENDS:

Today, we, the sons and daughters of God — both ordained and the laity — members all of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Holy Roman Catholic Church find ourselves in a situation not unlike the one with which I was confronted in my relationship with my dad.

OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST taught:

“Whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery.”  (Matthew 19:9)

SAINT PAUL TAUGHT:

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. 

Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 

For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. 

(1 Corinthians 11:27-29)

AND, POPE JOHN PAUL II, reiterating the perennial, unbroken, infallible teaching of our Holy Tradition wrote: 

“THE CHURCH REAFFIRMS her practice, which is based upon sacred scripture, of not admitting to eucharistic communion divorced persons who have remarried. 

They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the church which is signified and effected by the eucharist. 

Besides this there is another special pastoral reason: If these people were admitted to the eucharist the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.” 

~ Familiaris Consortio (no. 84)

BUT, NOW OUR HOLY FATHER Pope Francis is teaching otherwise. 

He has done so, in his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

And, he has confirmed this teaching by placing his personal letter to the Bishops of Argentina among the official acts of the Holy See: A letter which sanctions the practice of admitting to Holy Communion — in some cases — divorced persons living in adulterous civil unions without repentance, Confession, and amendment of life.

Concluding Move: To Pay the Price to Keep the Truth

• SO NOW THE TIME HAS COME for each of us to pay the price needed to hold onto the Truth!

• OUT OF LOVE FOR OUR GOD AND LORD JESUS CHRIST we are called — each according to his station — to offer correction to our Holy Father!

DEAREST FRIENDS:

For near twenty years, my father would have little to do with me. He withdrew his affection. He never spoke with me unless he had to. Even though I would fly home in order maintain whatever bond I could sustain, he would sit in silence for hours in my presence.

But, just months before he entered into a deep silence brought on by the twin plagues of Dementia and Parkinson’s Disease, we were reconciled.

• IF YOU LOVE OUR HOLY FATHER, POPE FRANCIS, hold onto the Truth... And keep paying whatever price you must pay to keep it!

• MAY THE LORD GRANT to you, and to me, the grace to remain faithful to him in this disorienting hour...

• AND MAY WE BE FOUND faithful in cooperating with the grace that he will generously bestow on each of us.

O Lord Jesus Christ,BHead of the Church; You whose promise alone will prevent the Gates of Hell from prevailing against her: Have mercy on us!

Have mercy on us!