Freedom from Idolatry - Excerpt from Let Freedom Ring

                                   

  Excerpt from Let Freedom Ring 

"Freedom from Idolatry" by Fr. Rick Heilman

Reports surfaced that there was no cell phone activity in a high-security portion of the Wuhan Institute of Virology from October 7 through October 24, 2019, indicating that there may have been a "hazardous event" on or about October 6. On the very same day (October 6), Sr. Agnes Sasagawa of Akita received a private message ... the first since 1973 (year of infamous Roe v. Wade decision). The message was not unlike the warning Jonah received for Nineveh, in that it called for repentance: "Put on ashes and pray a repentant rosary every day."

It's more than interesting that Our Lady of Fatima appeared with her warning from May to October in 1917, urging the world to pray the rosary, repent, turn from its wicked ways, and return to the Lord, or there would be consequences. This warning came just before the 1918 plague (the Spanish Flu) broke out and claimed 50 million lives. Until now, this was the last plague in which churches were closed.

A consistent theme in the Bible is that when the people distance themselves from God and His will, which always leads to idolatry, God repeatedly allows a punishment, which is usually a plague.

Our Lady of Fatima pointed to the errors of Russia: "Russia will spread its errors throughout the world, raising up wars and persecutions against the Church." It was in May of 1917 (just as Our Lady first appeared to the children in Fatima) that the Russian Revolution broke out, leading the way to communism. Communism is a reductively atheistic materialist worldview which aims at undermining anything Christian in society. At its essence, communism is an idolatry of man over God, and its atheistic materialist worldview has spread across the planet like a virus.

What about our time? On March 24, 2020, as we were entering the height of the COVID-19 plague's worst devastation, Bishop Strickland of Tyler, Texas, tweeted the following: "People of the world, fall to your knees. Fall to your knees to beg forgiveness of your sins. Stop worshiping yourself, stop worshiping creation, stop worshiping your desires, fall to your knees and worship God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Repent!" Bishop Strickland was among many, including myself, who recognized the biblical and historic connection between idolatry and plagues.

According to paragraph 2113 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, Satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc." What do we revere ahead of God?

So many times, I have pointed to the Pew Research study from August 5, 2019, which revealed that nearly 70% of professed Catholics don't believe in the Real Presence. 70%!!! I recall Bishop Robert Barron being shaken by this, but very few others. Personally, I believed this was a "make or break" moment in which the Church needed to act decisively, or else.

But no, instead, the talk of communion for those in mortal sin, ending celibacy for priests, women as deacons, sodomy no longer being a sin, nature worship, etc. only accelerated in the weeks and months that followed (leading up to October 2019). It became so escalated during this time, that there was even an apparent movement to "normalize" pagan idols being brought into our churches. It was as if you could hear God say, "ENOUGH!"

Okay, so what do we do? My thoughts go to Nineveh and Jonah's warning given to them. What did they do? They repented and even put on sackcloth as an outward sign of their humility before God. Most importantly, and this is repeated throughout the Bible, they put down their idols and made God the highest priority in their lives.

Now is the time for us to be honest with ourselves and ask, "What am I making a priority ahead of God in my life? What are my idols?" We must ramp up our prayer and fasting, particularly for the bishops and priests in our Church to become more and more courageous in their stand against the forces in the world who oppose God and His will. The laity must be courageous too!

Satan and his narcissistic useful idiots are emboldened, maybe as never before. Why? Because we are too busy with our idols to stand up for God and His will. The hope is that the horror of this plague and the shock of unbridled evil from sea to shining sea will bring us to our knees, as a country, as we call out to God seeking His love and His mercy!

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14).

We love You, Lord! We are so sorry, Lord! Heal our land, Lord!

 

Prayer of Reparation

My Lord and my God, we have allowed the temptation of the devil to move our hearts to not see fulfillment in Your goodness. We have stilled our tongues in the face of evil. We have been too self-involved to notice the damage our sins have wreaked on our neighbor and broken faith with You. We have expected You to be pleased with our duplicitous and selfish hearts. We have, at times, been a source of scandal for those searching through our sinfulness and rebellion to You. In our fear, we have allowed the ancient foe to advance. We turn to You Lord, in our sorrow and guilt, and beg Your forgiveness for our idolatry and lack of sorrow. We beg for the grace of Your goodness to build up within us what You sought to build up in Your apostles in that tempest-tossed boat. We know, Lord, if You will it, it will be done. Trusting in You, we offer our prayer to You who live and reign forever. Amen.

Freedom from Jealously - Excerpt from Let Freedom Ring

                                     

  Excerpt from Let Freedom Ring 

 

"Freedom from Jealously" by Fr. James Altman

Dear family, let us ponder the root cause of jealousy. It's called being human. From the beginning, humanity has always been susceptible to its grip. Humanity is prone to jealousy because - remember this now, it's so basic and fundamental - nothing ever is enough.

Think of what I call The Life Lesson of Adam and Eve. They lived in paradise! They essentially had everything, and they did not have sickness and death, so they could have enjoyed everything forever! I like this part: they had dominion over the animals. They did not have to fear a lion or a shark. If they were trying to take a nap - I'm sleep deprived, so this is a very meaningful example for me - if they were trying to take a nap and the lion was getting all growly making noise, all they had to do was to tell it to get lost. They. Had. Everything. Except one piddly dumb tree. And yet, having everything wasn't enough. Human nature kicked in. Lucifer understood human nature. What did he do? He tempted Adam and Eve not with more of everything, but only with the one thing.

The same goes for us, dear family. The devil does not come in with a red cape and pointy horns. He comes as everything you ever wished for.

Here is a true story about human nature from psychology. Fill a room full of toys...chuck full of toys. Then put one kid in the middle of it. Like the proverbial "kid in a candy store," the kid can pick and choose whatever he wants. He's happy. Couldn't be happier. Then ... introduce another kid. Put another kid in the room, a second kid. He looks around at all the toys and picks one for himself. What happens? The first kid gets jealous. He thinks along the lines of "I must have not chosen the best one for myself because that kid over there chose that one." Even though the first kid was perfectly happy playing all by himself, when that second kid comes in and chooses a different toy, the first kid just has to have it!

Adam and Eve. Two kids in a toy room. Both have a form of jealousy. The Cambridge Dictionary defines jealousy as "a feeling of unhappiness and anger because someone has something or someone that you want." We might readily understand this and apply it to the two kids in the toy room. But what about Adam and Eve? They were jealous of something God had, or at least what Lucifer told them God had.

Remember Lucifer's damnable lie: He asked the woman, "Did God really say, 'You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden?'" The woman answered the snake: "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'You shall not eat it or even touch it, or else you will die.'" But the snake said to the woman: "You certainly will not die! God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil" (Gen 3:1-5).

How often do such words poison our own thought processes? How often do we turn our eyes away from what we have toward something someone else has? How often do we compare and despair?

Dear family, there is a secret to peace and tranquility. It is easy to say, though perhaps, at times, especially at a time of seeming deprivation, it is hard to do. The secret is this: to be happy, you must be happy for what you do have, and not unhappy for what you do not have.

Our humanity is poisoned by a compulsion to compare and despair. Looking back, at various times I thought I wanted to be a champion tennis player, a very wealthy person, or a rock star, maybe live on some island in the Caribbean. Ultimately the wants came from comparing and despairing over such things as the fact that I was growing up in a snow-belt where the tennis courts were buried for 2/3 of the year. Would I have been happy and content and at peace if I had attained any of those things? No. The Life Lesson of Adam and Eve proves not. Nothing ever is enough. My parents tried to teach this to me, saying such things as "there always will be someone with more ____" - just fill in the blank. Even if we accept this as truth, it still is hard to come to terms with the proposition that someone else has more of something.

There is only one way to overcome jealousy, and that is to discover that God is in love with you. Wholly and completely in love...with you. Yes, yes, we know: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life" (John 3:16). Nowadays, most people do not even believe in God, much less that He loves them personally, much less that He sent His Divine Son to die for us. So instead, let us focus on another Johannine verse: "And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).

Dear family, St. John, the beloved apostle saw the glory of Jesus, full of grace and truth. That is why he could write to us: "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life - for the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us - what we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing this so that our joy may be complete" (1 John 1:1-4).

Notice, St. John did not say his joy would be complete if he had a new car or a house on the beach. He certainly did not say his joy would be complete if he had dominion over the animals. St. John's joy only would be complete if he shared the glory of Jesus, His Grace, His Truth.

Dear family, that is the only way we ever will be happy. If jealousy pangs strike, understand we are not happy for what we have, but unhappy for what we do not have. But God has given us all we need to be happy...Himself. That is why He came in the first place. To give us that only thing. Himself. So, the next time jealousy rears its ugly, Luciferian head - and that is indeed where jealousy originates - turn your eyes upon Jesus. Turn them upon His Holy Cross. Ponder the infinite love poured out in every drop of blood, in every struggling breath ... unto His last drop of blood and His last breath.

Take your eyes off whatever tree Lucifer points you to, whatever forbidden fruit with which he taunts you, and as the hymn goes: "Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things, the things of earth, will grow strangely dim. In the light of His glory and grace."

 

Prayer of Reparation

My Lord and my God, we have allowed the temptation of the devil to move our hearts toward jealousy. We compare and despair. We have fallen into countless times of sinful dissatisfaction, when all the gifts You have given us - are never enough. We long for so many meaningless things of earth. We spend so much time working so hard for such meaningless things of earth. And then we discover we still are not satisfied; we still are not happy. We turn to You Lord, in our weakness, and beg Your forgiveness for our jealousy - our desire to have those gifts You have given to other children - for our dissatisfaction with the gifts You have given us. We love You, Lord, and we beg for the courage to live out our lives as St. John wrote so perfectly - that we will find our joy in sharing the joy we find in You, and only You. We know Lord, if You will it, it will be done. Trusting in You, we offer our prayer to You who live and reign forever and ever. Amen.

Freedom from Envy - Excerpt from Let Freedom Ring

  Excerpt from Let Freedom Ring 

"Freedom from Envy" by Fr. Bill Peckman

It is the green-eyed monster that mocks what it feeds upon. In Othello, Iago warns Othello of the green-eyed monster that we know as jealousy or envy. How appropriate that the deadly sin of envy should be given a monstrous or demonic personage! Envy is the resentment one feels for the success or good of another. It is not necessarily directed only at enemies but also at one's family and friends, which leads to the German term schadenfreude (leave it to our German ancestors to have an extensive vocabulary for pain).

In the Gospel of Mark, 9:38-40, the apostles come across a man who is exorcising demons in Jesus' name and they try to stop him. Jesus responds by telling them to let the man be, as anyone who is with Him cannot be against Him. We see time and again the envy of the religious leaders who persecute Jesus, seeking ways to trap Him in the process of showing mercy. Envy, as Shakespeare noted, mocks what it feeds on because it is incapable of rejoicing in the good of another.

Envy is pervasive in our society. We are taught to resent the success of others as if somehow it threatens our identity or morale. We are taught to resent the belongings of others as if they somehow came from our portion of the pie. We are taught to find excuses in our perpetual victimhood that can be laid at the feet of those who succeed. Some political movements, such as Marxism, rely on envy to stir resentment that destroys the social order. Envy leads us to demonize the successful, to seek their downfall, to denigrate their talents, and to destroy their reputations. It is much easier to tear someone down than it is to convert oneself to something greater.

Such a mentality can find itself in our churches. I worked in the business world for several years prior to going into the seminary; I have seen and climbed the corporate ladder. On those rungs, I did not see nearly the amount of professional jealousy that I have seen among those who work in the Church. Envy and ambition are constant companions. I have seen volunteers tear down and wish failure upon other volunteers because they were envious of their success. I have seen this in priests and have been guilty myself, from time to time, during my over 23 years of priestly ministry. Envy is as destructive within the Body of Christ as it is outside of it.

How do we combat such a demonic presence? Let us go back to the response of Christ in Mark 9: "No man who performs a miracle using my name can at the same time speak ill of me. Anyone who is not against us is with us." The apostles should have rejoiced that the man in question was exorcising in Jesus' name. They should have seen his success as Christ's success. Hence, part of defeating the demonic influence is learning to share in the joy of those who have succeeded justly and to pray for the redemption of those who have succeeded under nefarious means. Either leads us closer to our Christian call. Cultivate joy at the good. Cultivate mercy through prayer for the bad.

Another way to combat envy is thanksgiving. Gratitude for what God has done, and continues to do, will do more to alleviate the grasp of the green-eyed monster than anything else. It is easy to be envious when one has a dearth of thanksgiving. When one is truly thankful, one has less time and inclination to be envious of what others have or who others are. This thankfulness leads to a generosity and a correct stewardship of what God has given us. Nothing so starves and chases away the green-eyed monster of envy quite the way a heart full of thankfulness does.

Finally, one must cultivate the virtue of humility. Humility seeks the truth about oneself, both good and bad, and restrains us from getting caught up in the tentacles of envy. A good example of this can be found in St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. St. Paul is tempted to resent Peter and Apollos in their preaching in Corinth. Although none of these three men saw themselves as anything other than being of the team, the people of Corinth had allowed division based on who said what. In St. Paul's response, a plea for unity in Christ, he does not defend himself as greater than Peter or Apollos, rather he humbles himself. He acknowledges that God uses each as He deems fit. Humility, because it is bound in truth, enables us to rejoice in the good of our brothers, to be thankful for what God does for us, and to have an attitude of mercy.

 

Prayer of Reparation

My Lord and my God, we have allowed the temptation of the devil to move our hearts to resent the blessings You bestow on others and to be blinded to the blessings You have given to us. We have allowed the thanksgiving we should have for You to become resentment and envy. We have been too fearful to stand out in our culture, allowing selfish desires to suffocate Your love that is to dwell within us. In our fear, we have allowed the ancient foe to advance. We turn to You Lord, in our sorrow and guilt, and beg Your forgiveness for our thanklessness and resentment. We beg for the grace of Your goodness so we can rejoice in Your goodness to others and be truly thankful for the many gifts You bestow on us. Help us to love as You love. We know, Lord, if You will it, it will be done. Trusting in You, we offer our prayer to You who live and reign forever and ever. Amen.