Fr.
Jeffrey Montz spoke up on November 10 & 11, 2012
at St. Elizabeth Ann
Seton Church, Kenner, La.... God Bless him!
See his summary
of some of the election results about mid way
through.
I believe this
sermon can apply to all Christians and moral
individuals regardless of denomination. Do you know any
luke warm individuals?
Folks - this is a
good sermon all Christians will enjoy this. I can only hope
this will continue to be a strong message across the
land.
Love Val pass it
on.....without edit please.
*I want to begin today by thanking
those of you who went out on Tuesday and voted for the sacredness of human life.
Just as the widow’s deed in our 1st reading will never be forgotten
as long as the Scriptures are read, be assured that no righteous deed that we ever
undertake will be forgotten by Almighty God.
This past Wednesday, the day after
the election, I received a message on my phone at the parish office, from a
gentleman who didn’t identify himself by name but who said he was a parishioner.
And in this message, this gentleman ranted for several minutes about Tuesday’s
election results. And here were the first words out of his mouth, “You lost
Father; you lost!” Well, the first thing I want to say about Tuesday night’s
election results is that I didn’t lose. On Tuesday night our entire country
lost!
Now, having said that, I know that
there are several of you who have just decided to tune me out, or you’re now
burning up with anger at me because of what I just said and you can’t wait to
give me a piece of your mind. But let me say two things in this regard. Number
one, I am a priest of Jesus Christ, not because of any merit of my own, not
because I’m any better than anyone else. God probably chose me because I am
nothing and He wants to make something out of me. But I have been anointed and
consecrated by God to preach His truth. And so, you can tune me
out, but be warned, you do so at your eternal peril.
Second, if you’re angry because you
read into my words that this homily is going to be about one elected official
that you probably voted for, you’re wrong. What I have to say today goes far
beyond just one elected official. What I have to say is about the over all trend
that was put on display in Tuesday’s election results.
Did you know, for instance, that on
Tuesday several states voted by popular majority to legalize the recreational
use of marijuana? Did you know that a plan to legalize physician assisted
suicide was barely
rejected in
Massachusetts? Did you now that for the first time in our country’s history
several states, by popular vote, chose to legalize gay marriage? Did you know
that two of these states are run by “Catholic” governors who actively encouraged
their constituents to vote in favor of same sex unions? Did you know that in
Florida, a ban on tax payers funding of abortion was rejected by the people? Add
to all of this the fact that some who were elected in Tuesday’s elections are
pathological liars, people who have been exposed in their lies numerous times.
Apparently, a majority of Americans now condone lying, or perhaps worse, for
them the lie has become the truth, evil has become good. Now can you begin to
see the trend?
In the days after the elections all
the talking heads in the media have been trying to explain how this all
happened. But not one person in the mainstream media has gotten it right. You
see, these election results are not about one party’s marketing advantage over
another. Ultimately, they’re not about the appeal of one person over another,
nor are they about one party being more up-to-date while the other is behind
times. What we saw on
Tuesday night IS about the moral decline of our
nation.
Tuesday’s voting results are a mere
confirmation of a choice that a majority in this country made, some as far back
as 50 years ago, to reject God and to embrace evil in one form or another! And
who’s to blame for this choice? Well, ultimately, each individual is responsible
for his or her choices. Those who chose to vote with evil are to blame for their
own choices, and they’ll have to answer to God for the way they voted. But the
reality is I don’t think any of us can take ourselves completely off the hook on
this one. Why? Because one of the worst contributing factors to the moral
decline of our country has been the lukewarmness that has plagued the Catholic
Church for years all the way from the Bishops down to the people in the pews.
Pope St. Pius X once said that “All evil in the world is due to lukewarm
Catholics.” Think about that for a second, “All evil in the world is due to
lukewarm Catholics.”
Well, I have to be honest with you.
I’ve seen this lukewarmness in every church parish at which I’ve served. But you
know where else I see this lukewarmness? I see it when I look in the mirror; I
see it in myself. And if we’re honest with ourselves I think all of us would see
one or more area of lukewarmness in our own spiritual
lives.
My brothers and sisters, each one of
us has a moral obligation to do all that we can to try to reverse the moral
decline of our nation. And the first place that we have to begin is within
ourselves. We have to begin by responding to that vocation which is common to
all of us, what the Church calls the universal call to holiness, the call from
Jesus to each one of us to become a saint!
In his letter to the Philippians, St.
Paul says, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” How many of us,
each day, tremble as we strive for holiness?! How many of us live with a lively
fear of hell, a place that is real and a place where souls go for all eternity?!
Or have we instead accepted mediocrity in our spiritual lives? “Oh, I’m too busy to pray
Lord; I just don’t have the time… I’m too tired to pray; I’ll get to it
tomorrow... Oh, I don’t like that teaching of the Church, I am not going to do
that, who do they think they are coming up with this stuff... Well, I think I’ve
done enough for God; what more do I have to do for
Him…”
In one of His parables Jesus poses an
important question that we would all do well to ask ourselves. “Which of you
wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to
see if there is enough for its completion?” Well, what cost is Jesus talking
about? He’s not giving construction advice to builders and contractors. The
context of that Gospel is the cost of discipleship, what it costs to be a saint,
ultimately what it costs us get to Heaven. But all too often we act as if that
cost is cheap! “Well, I
go to Mass on most Sundays. I’m a good person; I haven’t murdered anybody. Of
course I’m going to Heaven!”
Jesus dealt with this kind of cheap
discipleship in the Gospels when He said, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord,
Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” On the day of judgment many will say to
Jesus, “Well, didn’t we
go to Mass fairly often on Sundays and didn’t we put some money in the
collection basket? Didn’t we accept at least some of the Church’s teachings?
Besides, as I said before, I’m a good person; I didn’t murder anybody.” Then Jesus will declare to
them, “I never knew you; go away from me you evildoers!”
My brothers and sisters, in ordinary
times lukewarmness in our approach to salvation is deadly. But we are not
entering into ordinary times. We are not moving forward into ordinary times.
There is a great battle brewing; in fact this battle is already upon us, a
battle in our country between good and evil and I can feel this battle in the
very marrow in my bones. If we are not striving for holiness with every fiber of
our being we will
not have what it takes
to pay the cost of discipleship, we will not have what it takes to get to
Heaven! As Jesus says near the end of Matthew’s Gospel, “For then there will be
great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until
now and never will be. And if those days had not been shortened, no one would be
saved…no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be
shortened.”
It’s clear from the trends that we
see in Tuesday’s election results that people of faith in this country are going
to be attacked relentlessly over and over again by one wave of evil after
another. And so we must be sure that we have included these attacks in our
calculations. A lukewarm faith will never survive the attacks of an army of evil
that is Legion. We must become saints! And do not wait for tomorrow to work out
your salvation with fear and trembling, for tomorrow may be too late. Today let
us resolve to root out all sin from our lives! Today let us resolves to remove
all evil from our hearts! Today let us double our efforts at prayers! Today let
us pray that Mary, the Mother of God, our Mother, will once again crush the head
of Satan, and intercede for us the grace of perseverance!
Today, let us resolve to take up our
cross and be a disciple of Jesus Christ! Christ, who in the words of the Servant
of God Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, “will restore within us moral indignation, Who
will make us hate evil with a passionate intensity, and love goodness to a point
where we can drink death like water!”
The final message that I received from that gentleman’s
call on Wednesday was that I need to stop preaching the way I do. I need to stop
telling people how they ought to live their lives, what teachings of the Church
they need to follow. “If he wants to support gay marriage I just need to shut
up and give him a choice.” Well, sir in answer to your
request I give you a choice: You can either come here to this Catholic Church
and listen to the Word of God and to the teachings of Jesus Christ and His
Church or you can leave and go somewhere else!*
Comment: The Lord spoke to Paul in a vision. Do not be afraid, keep on
speaking, and do not be silent. For I am with you (Acts 18:9).
