Solemn Pontifical Mass
Basilica of the Immaculate Conception
Washington, D.C.


Celebrating the fifth anniversary
of the ascension of Benedict XVI to the throne of Peter
- ad multos annos! -

Bishop Edward Slattery's Sermon at the National Shrine on April 24, 2010

We have much to discuss - you and I …

… much to speak of on this glorious occasion when we gather together in the glare of the world’s scrutiny to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the ascension of Joseph Ratzinger to the throne of Peter.

We must come to understand how it is that suffering can reveal the mercy of God and make manifest among us the consoling presence of Jesus Christ, crucified and now risen from the dead.

We must speak of this mystery today, first of all because it is one of the great mysteries of revelation, spoken of in the New Testament and attested to by every saint in the Church’s long history, by the martyrs with their blood, by the confessors with their constancy, by the virgins with their purity and by the lay faithful of Christ’s body by their resolute courage under fire.

But we must also speak clearly of this mystery because of the enormous suffering which is all around us and which does so much to determine the culture of our modern age.

From the enormous suffering of His Holiness these past months to the suffering of the Church’s most recent martyrs in India and Africa, welling up from the suffering of the poor and the dispossessed and the undocumented, and gathering tears from the victims of abuse and neglect, from women who have been deceived into believing that abortion was a simple medical procedure and thus have lost part of their soul to the greed of the abortionist, and now flowing with the heartache of those who suffer from cancer, diabetes, AIDS, or the emotional diseases of our age, it is the sufferings of our people that defines the culture of our modern secular age.

This enormous suffering which can take on so many varied physical, mental, and emotional forms will reduce us to fear and trembling - if we do not remember that Christ - our Pasch - has been raised from the dead. Our pain and anguish could dehumanize us, for it has the power to close us in upon ourselves such that we would live always in chaos and confusion - if we do not remember that Christ - our hope - has been raised for our sakes. Jesus is our Pasch, our hope and our light.

He makes himself most present in the suffering of his people and this is the mystery of which we must speak today, for when we speak of His saving presence and proclaim His infinite love in the midst of our suffering, when we seek His light and refuse to surrender to the darkness, we receive that light which is the life of men; that light which, as Saint John reminds us in the prologue to his Gospel, can never be overcome by the darkness, no matter how thick, no matter how choking.

Our suffering is thus transformed by His presence. It no longer has the power to alienate or isolate us. Neither can it dehumanize us nor destroy us. Suffering, however long and terrible it may be, has only the power to reveal Christ among us, and He is the mercy and the forgiveness of God.

The mystery then, of which we speak, is the light that shines in the darkness, Christ Our Lord, Who reveals Himself most wondrously to those who suffer so that suffering and death can do nothing more than bring us to the mercy of the Father.

But the point which we must clarify is that Christ reveals Himself to those who suffer in Christ, to those who humbly accept their pain as a personal sharing in His Passion and who are thus obedient to Christ’s command that we take up our cross and follow Him. Suffering by itself is simply the promise that death will claim these mortal bodies of ours, but suffering in Christ is the promise that we will be raised with Christ, when our mortality will be remade in his immortality and all that in our lives which is broken because it is perishable and finite will be made imperishable and incorrupt.

This is the meaning of Peter’s claim that he is a witness to the sufferings of Christ and thus one who has a share in the glory yet to be revealed. Once Peter grasped the overwhelming truth of this mystery, his life was changed. The world held nothing for Peter. For him, there was only Christ.

This is, as you know, quite a dramatic shift for the man who three times denied Our Lord, the man to whom Jesus said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Christ’s declaration to Peter that he would be the rock, the impregnable foundation, the mountain of Zion upon which the new Jerusalem would be constructed, follows in Matthew’s Gospel Saint Peter’s dramatic profession of faith, when the Lord asks the Twelve, “Who do people say that I am?” and Peter, impulsive as always, responds “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

Only later - much later - would Peter come to understand the full implication of this first Profession of Faith. Peter would still have to learn that to follow Christ, to truly be His disciple, one must let go of everything which the world considers valuable and necessary, and become powerless. This is the mystery which confounds independent Peter. It is the mystery which still confounds us: to follow Christ, one must surrender everything and become obedient with the obedience of Christ, for no one gains access to the Kingdom of the Father, unless he enter through the humility and the obedience of Jesus.

Peter had no idea that eventually he would find himself fully accepting this obedience, joyfully accepting his share in the Passion and Death of Christ. But Peter loved Our Lord and love was the way by which Peter learned how to obey. “Lord, you know that I love thee,” Peter affirms three times with tears; and three times Christ commands him to tend to the flock that gathers at the foot of Calvary - and that is where we are now.

Peter knew that Jesus was the true Shepherd, the one Master and the only teacher; the rest of us are learners and the lesson we must learn is obedience, obedience unto death. Nothing less than this, for only when we are willing to be obedient with the very obedience of Christ will we come to recognize Christ’s presence among us.

Obedience is thus the heart of the life of the disciple and the key to suffering in Christ and with Christ. This obedience, is must be said, is quite different from obedience the way it is spoken of and dismissed in the world.

For those in the world, obedience is a burden and an imposition. It is the way by which the powerful force the powerless to do obeisance. Simply juridical and always external, obedience is the bending that breaks, but a breaking which is still less painful than the punishment meted out for disobedience. Thus for those in the world obedience is a punishment which must be avoided; but for Christians, obedience is always personal, because it is centered on Christ. It is a surrender to Jesus Whom we love.

For those whose lives are centered in Christ, obedience is that movement which the heart makes when it leaps in joy having once discovered the truth.

Let us consider, then, that Christ has given us both the image of his obedience and the action by which we are made obedient.

The image of Christ’s obedience is His Sacred Heart. That Heart, exposed and wounded must give us pause, for man’s heart it generally hidden and secret. In the silence of his own heart, each of us discovers the truth of who we are, the truth of why we are silent when we should speak, or bothersome and quarrelsome when we should be silent. In our hidden recesses of the heart, we come to know the impulses behind our deeds and the reasons why we act so often as cowards and fools.

But while man’s heart is generally silent and secret, the Heart of the God-Man is fully visible and accessible. It too reveals the motives behind our Lord’s self-surrender. It was obedience to the Father’s will that mankind be reconciled and our many sins forgiven us. “Son though he was,” the Apostle reminds us, “Jesus learned obedience through what He sufferered.” Obedient unto death, death on a cross, Jesus asks his Father to forgive us that God might reveal the full depth of his mercy and love. “Father, forgive them,” he prayed, “for they know not what they do.”

Christ’s Sacred Heart is the image of the obedience which Christ showed by his sacrificial love on Calvary. The Sacrifice of Calvary is also for us the means by which we are made obedient and this is a point which you must never forget: at Mass, we offer ourselves to the Father in union with Christ, who offers Himself in perfect obedience to the Father. We make this offering in obedience to Christ who commanded us to “Do this in memory of me” and our obediential offering is perfected in the love with which the Father receives the gift of His Son.

Do not be surprised then that here at Mass, our bloodless offering of the bloody sacrifice of Calvary is a triple act of obedience. First, Christ is obedient to the Father, and offers Himself as a sacrifice of reconciliation. Secondly, we are obedient to Christ and offer ourselves to the Father with Jesus the Son; and thirdly, in sharing Christ’s obedience to the Father, we are made obedient to a new order of reality, in which love is supreme and life reigns eternal, in which suffering and death have been defeated by becoming for us the means by which Christ’s final victory, his future coming, is made manifest and real today.

Suffering then, yours, mine, the Pontiffs, is at the heart of personal holiness, because it is our sharing in the obedience of Jesus which reveals his glory. It is the means by which we are made witnesses of his suffering and sharers in the glory to come.

Do not be dismayed that there many in the Church have not yet grasped this point, and fewer still in the world will even consider it. You know this to be true and ten men who whisper the truth speak louder than a hundred million who lie.

If then someone asks of what we spoke today, tell them we spoke of the truth. If someone asks why it is you came to this Mass, say that it was so that you could be obedient with Christ. If someone asks about the homily, tell them it was about a mystery and if someone asks what I said of the present situation, tell them only that we must - all of us - become saints.

Richard Dawkins seems to be exerting a lot of energy and staking an awful LOT on a "PROBABLY".
He stands in front of a big red bus that has a large sign which reads: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Doesn't seem too bright to me to exert that much energy defending a notion that you PROBABLY believe and be willing to bet your eternal soul on it in the process. I have to wonder where these folks get their motivation.

Were they from the 'old school' and perhaps a nun smacked their knuckles with a ruler in the 50's and they've held that animosity all these years? All I know is in the 50's and 60's when teachers in general were able to discipline and parents generally went a long with it, within reason, that there were no shootings or stabbings in schools and the teen suicide rate in itself was MUCH lower. Hmmm .. perhaps prayer in schools and the 10 Commandments in public government had something to do with values and morals .. ya think?
But, I digress.

So now, Dawkins and Hitchens want to arrest the Holy Father when he steps foot in the UK after a state invitation. Absolutely friggin' amazing! Will they do this before or after they have Obama arrested for all the crimes and evils that members of congress have done as well?? Oh! My mistake, that must have been Bush's fault, right?? How far will pride, arrogance and hatred take a person? Truly it IS a poison and infectious malady unto itself! We know the Holy Father has much to suffer being the Leader of the One, True, Holy and Apostolic Church that Jesus founded .. but these times, I believe are history in the making and prophecy unfolding before our very eyes. Please ... all need to pray and do penance for Benedict XVI, that he "may not flee for fear of the wolves"!

It seems to me that folks that vehemently dispute the existence of God have much deeper issues than they perhaps are willing to admit even to themselves. It appears that their extreme disdain for all things holy and almighty stems rather from pride, hatred and arrogance than a true philosophical factually based conclusion of which they have a shred of evidence.

These are one of the largest groups of folks that we must pray for. I believe it's their past hurts and recently constructed emotional walls that wraps them in the kind of pride that doesn't permit them to seriously consider that they might be wrong. After all .. there are literally just TWO choices. You either believe there IS a God and act accordingly, or you don't. I, for one, like to err on the side of caution.

It makes more sense to me to believe and search out the Truth and origins and live my life accordingly so that when I die and I have to face God, I can look forward to a loving and merciful Father that I have known all my life rather than be shaking in my boots and saying "OOPS" when I must face the King of kings who's going to judge me on my pride and arrogance in refusing to accept Him after being presented with the Truth.

So here it is .. the average person will exert more energy and effort in searching out the best prices for vacation packages and other equally erroneously superficial pleasures and extravagances, than he will to find the TRUTH that is the ONLY thing that REALLY matters in life. Most live as if this is ALL THERE IS, with *eternity* being the 'illusion'.

There are a number of people who would not think of gambling on anything for any amount of money or for any reason. Yet, they are willing to stake their eternal existence on a bet. The bet is that God will think that they are good enough to be let into His kingdom or better yet, that God doesn't even exist, so they don't even have to worry about it. These people would not even consider a speculative investment but they refuse to invest in the only endeavor that will pay an eternal reward. They refuse to exert any energy to seriously find out the TRUTH which will effect their very existence. They have heard the truth and they even know the price, but they refuse to respond.

My heart breaks for them ... please PRAY FOR CONVERSIONS, that NONE BE LOST!!!

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
~Luke 12:34 & Matt 6:21 4/14/10

2/16/10


2/12/10


2/11/10


2/10/10

Coakley Excludes Devout Catholics From Emergency Rooms
Posted on January 15, 2010, 9:21 AM | Deal W. Hudson

coakley.jpgIf you wonder if there is any limit to the anti-Catholicism of pro-abortion "Catholic" politicians, you should try to get your arms around this story.

Yesterday, Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, was asked in a radio interview whether doctors and nurses working in a hospital emergency room have religious freedom. Coakley replied, " You can have religious freedom, but you probably shouldn't work in the emergency room."

No, I didn't make this up. The radio host, Ken Pittman, was asking her about her perspective as a "Catholic" on issues like birth control. Coakley immediately went with her dissenting, reflex reaction of insisting on a "separation of Church and State." The conversation descended from there into the pit of puerile anti-Catholicism.

If politicians like Coakley are put in charge of "health care reform," the day may come when orthodox Catholics will be excluded from any medical services where they might decide not to provide an abortion, prescribe contraception, or euthanize a suffering patient.

Our country needs to wake up and realize the centrality of attitudes like Coakley to the entire health care debate! Coakley's attitude is representative of dissenting Catholics in Congress from Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) to Senator Mikulski (D-MD) to Rep. DeLauro (D-CT).

It was only a short while ago Pelosi was lecturing us, in good ninth-grade fashion, on how the Church's teaching on abortion was a denial -- yes, I said a "denial," of free will.

Please, please realize it's as bad as it appears to be -- there are no excuses for this kind of ignorant comments. After all, Martha Coakley is the attorney general -- imagine that! -- of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Doesn't that position require some modicum of detachment from one's own personal prejudices?

Coakley's willingness to use her political power against orthodox Catholics serving in the medical profession should be a wake-up call.

We really need to start looking more closely at the commercials being shoved down our throats and wondering what's REALLY being SOLD to us!!