The Happy Priest on Lent, Happiness and the Call to Selfless Love
Where would the Church be today without the blood of the martyrs?
The happiest and most remarkable people that I have known throughout my life are those who are totally selfless. Great things: ideas, beliefs, cultures have lived because men and women have decided to die for causes greater then themselves. The countless martyrs of the Catholic Church give witness to the multitude of selfless people, young and old, who have given themselves to the cause of Christ and his Church.
PrintBut the customer was persistent. He told the bartender, "I'm tired of listening to the piano. I want that guy to sing!"
The bartender shouted across the room, "Hey buddy! If you want to get paid, sing a song. The patrons are asking you to sing!"
So he did. He sang a song. A piano player who had never sung in public did so for the very first time. And nobody had ever heard the song Mona, Mona Lisa sung the way it was sung that night. The piano player was Nat King Cole.
"Amen, amen I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life" (John 12: 24-25)
The happiest and most remarkable people that I have known throughout my life are those who are totally selfless.
Great things: ideas, beliefs, cultures have lived because men and women have decided to die for causes greater then themselves. The countless martyrs of the Catholic Church give witness to the multitude of selfless people, young and old, who have given themselves to the cause of Christ and his Church. Where would the Church be today without the blood of the martyrs? Martyrs are selfless people who believe in a cause greater than themselves.
However, there lies a deeper reality in these heroes of the Church. They are able to believe in something bigger than themselves precisely because they have first died to themselves. They have died to their comfort, to their laziness and to their personal ambitions. Only the selfless, only those who have truly died to themselves, become useful instruments of God.
When a person is truly empty of self, God can take full possession of that person and do marvelous and powerful things. Only the authentic disciple of Jesus who has truly died to self can truly possess the fullness of divine grace. The more we die to self, the more Jesus can take over.
"Amen, amen I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life."
To die to self is not an easy endeavor. Death is always painful. Sometimes we will want to hold on to an idea, a place, a particular sin, or a bad relationship. Inherent in all transformation, change, conversion, is destruction. The grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die.
As a priest, I have seen many people make radical changes in their lives. In order to bring about the desired change, something had to end. Some young people have had to terminate a relationship in order to live a life of chastity. Others have taken all of their CD's and thrown them in the garbage in order to stay away from satanic rock music.
Once I told a penitent who had a terrible problem with pornography that as a penance he must go home and throw into the garbage all of his magazines. Would it have been as helpful just to say, "For your penance recite three Hail Mary's?" To bring about new life, the grain of wheat has to fall to the ground and die.
When disciples of Jesus Christ truly die to self, they become the most happy, most hard working, most dynamic and most productive people of any enterprise. They are the moms and dads rearing happy families, the priests nurturing spiritually alive parishes, and the religious and lay leaders engaging in fruitful apostolates.
Just imagine what this world would have lost had there not been men and women determined to die to self and forget their personal safety, security and ambition. Where would we be without the great doctors, nurses, policemen, firefighters, school teachers, wise political leaders, and the heroic men and women of the military?
This Sunday's liturgy reminds me about a story that took place many years ago regarding a woman, who was carrying her baby on her back as both were trapped by a prairie fire.
As the mother looked around, she realized there was no way to escape the fire. Quickly and without thinking about her own safety, she took the baby off her back and began digging a hole in the earth with her bare hands. She then placed her child into it and covered the child with her body. Later the woman was found dead, but the child was ...
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'Christ Himself said that His disciples would fast once He had departed' Lk. 5:35
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Elizabeth:
I am sorry to hear about your loss. I am pleased that my Sunday homily article was able to help you. Be assured of my prayers.
Today, I came home to the news that my grandfather had passed away. I came on Catholic online to find a prayer in his honor and came upon this article to read. He was a man of "selfless love" and is in heaven with God. Thank you father for such an uplifting article that brought me to tears and reflected my grandfather.
What a great message.In this world that is so geared to "me,me,me!" All around us people,especially young people,are exposed to the self-centeredness of this world,on television and sadly,even so called christian evangelists preach a message of how great one's life will become if they will follow Jesus.....health and wealth and the best of everything.Please keep teaching the truth in a world that so desperately needs to hear it.
Good, important, and always timely message.
It is sad to know that many Christians either dismiss entirely the notion of sainthood or find it difficult to incorporate into their spiritual life the communion of saints and their value to the universal Christian church. I do not know that you can be Christian and not believe that the human soul is eternal. If it is eternal then its status in life and after death, especially to those who knew and loved the person, becomes an important concern.
We know that this life of ours is but for a season and how we live and share it with others is of eternal consequence for the body and soul which envelops it. This is why it is so important that as parents we honor our obligation to instill deeply within the hearts and minds of our children those very first two rules of the catechism to know and to love God. Children without a true understanding of their heavenly father and why they were created have little hope to perform the third rule of Christian life, to serve Him. Hopefully our little children might develop the perspective that life was a playground where we sinners could train ourselves to become saints. The games or activities did not matter that much, only active loving participation and service at all times and a willingness to assist anyone needing help achieving the goals designed for us by our heavenly Father.
As grown ups we become so entrenched in our often drab day to day existence by the requirements of producing and providing that we forget that we too are children, God’s children. We look at our children playing and think of how worry free they are since we have taken on all their cares for them. We forget that Our Father through the Holy Spirit has lovingly provided our Lord Jesus who invites us to place our cares and worries upon him so that we too enjoy freedom to become children of God, His saints. It has been said that a saint is someone who deep within his heart believes God loves him and offers him eternal life through Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection and desires to use their life to witness, inform and assure others of the same truth about themselves. It’s that simple.
So, who are the saints? They are people like you and me who believe and hope in their Creator and begin their heaven here on earth living Christ’s prayerful request by helping build thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. We all have an invitation to sainthood and can respond according to our own abilities, gifts, and station in life willingly in the name of Jesus who relieves our burdens and has freed our spirits to be among the saints. Hopefully many of us will be among that great number which no man could count spoken of in Revelations which will eternally be the communion of saints.
Father God, we pray that we can rejoice fully in the world as children of light and holiness so men can witness and know the truth of your merciful love and accept Jesus as their personal savior through and within the eternal one body of Christ.
Yes, all are personally welcomed to the community of saints, here, now, and forever
The purpose defines the Martyrdom , to which the greatest has been the Lord Himself to the express purpose of redeeming man & all the other Martyrs in His name, as his Witness, to the purpose of the Kingdom of God on earth, such that where Christ is to man, man in turn is to Christ, both in the unselfish love for each other through Martyrdom, where the purpose be to salvation the aim is to the Kingdom.
I got up this morning to run before school. After I did I came to this website like I have been for the past couple days as I look more and more towards the Catholic Church being the one for me. I saw this article at the top and the part that caught my eye the most was the "and Selfless Love." When I think of love that is what I think it is in its purest form. I always strive to be this way, and I know I'm not always doing the best job at it. I've read and have heard many times before about how to completely give yourself over to Christ in order to reach your full potential. But I never heard it in this way or presented as such with the grain of wheat. Maybe I never understood the passage as well, but the interpretation above, for me, really makes a lot of sense and makes me want to go through life with more fervour and energized strength than before I read it.
Thanks, Father, for making us think, and for challenging us.