The BreadCast

(Rm.8:1-11;   Ps.24:1-6;   Lk.13:1-9)   “You will all come to the same end unless you reform.”   We hear again today in our readings of the distinction between those who are of the flesh, and so of sin, and those who are of the spirit and justice.  And since “the tendency of the flesh is toward death but that of the spirit toward life and peace,” rightly does Jesus warn us that we will die in our sin if we do not repent and turn to Him.  For indeed He and the Father, with the Spirit, are of life and have nothing to do with death, with sin. Paul continues to make clear the difference, the separation, between those of flesh and those of spirit, and continues to encourage his reader to allow the body to die that the spirit might live: “If Christ is in you, the body is indeed dead because of sin, while the spirit lives because of justice.”  It is in Jesus that our salvation from sin has come, for when “God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, thereby condemning sin in the flesh,” He made it possible for us to live no longer “according to the flesh,” but “according to the spirit,” for we know that “He who raised Christ from the dead will bring [our] mortal bodies to life also through His Spirit.”  Even now His Spirit brings our spirit to life, and on the last day our flesh shall also be joined to Him in heaven. David’s psalm questions, “Who can ascend the mountain of the Lord?  Or who can stand in His holy place?”  Only those “whose hands are sinless… shall receive a blessing from the Lord,” and so, again, we must turn to Him, we must be of “the race that seeks for Him.”  “The Lord’s are the earth and its fullness; the world and those who dwell in it” are of Him.  But how our hearts have turned from Him in sin, and so, how shaken we have become, inviting death into our lives.  And so only those who renounce their sin, who come by the power of the Spirit and the grace of Jesus’ blood, shall attain to His presence.  And only those who bear fruit in His Name will He preserve. The end of our gospel makes clear that there must be fruit in our lives, brothers and sisters.  This is indeed the sign that we are of the spirit – if we “bear fruit” in the Spirit.  We cannot claim to be of the spirit and bear the fruit of the flesh, which is sin.  Jesus will not fail to recognize the difference, however much we may fool ourselves or others.  We will die in the flesh like any sinner if we do not live according to Christ and His Word.   ******* O LORD, let us be dead to the flesh that we might bear fruit in the Spirit of Christ! YHWH, let your Spirit dwell in us that we might conquer the flesh and bear fruit in your holy NAME.  How shall we be holy as you are holy, how shall we stand in your holy place, if your Spirit is not with us?  Fulfill our desire to see your face! Your Son came and walked amongst us for three years, seeking fruit upon this fig tree.  Upon His death and resurrection He sent the Spirit forth to nourish the Church that we might perform works worthy of Heaven.  O LORD, help us to repent of our sin and reform our lives in the image of your Son. Jesus has indeed condemned sin in the flesh that what is mortal might be redeemed and come to life in the Spirit, that we might be free from the law of sin and death by which all creatures are justly condemned and come to dwell in the peace of your presence.  LORD God, may the Spirit of Christ make us worthy to stand in your sight.

(Rm.7:18-25;   Ps.119:66,68,76-77,93,94;   Lk.12:54-59)   “Why do you not judge for yourselves what is just?”   Do we not have the law of God at work in us now?  Must we yet subject ourselves to the judge of this earth, who cannot but condemn us for our sin?  If we cried out with our psalmist for the Lord to teach us His “commands,” His “statutes,” His “law,” and His “precepts,” His “promise” of “compassion” would be with us, His Spirit would come to us and instruct us on all matters.  No longer “the prisoner of the law of sin in [our] members,” we would be freed “from this body under the power of death.”  Not only would our “inner self agree with the law of God,” but our actions would reflect, by the grace of Him who is at work within us, that law now written on our hearts.  The “wisdom and knowledge” the Lord thereby imparts would be sufficient for the resolution of any problem in our lives, for there is nothing beyond the scope of the Spirit. Both Paul and Jesus Himself encourage us to find the Spirit of Christ at work in our hearts.  We as a community of believers would have no need to turn to the works of the world to resolve our problems if we followed well the teaching of the Lord and His Church.  Should not the Church be our government?  Should not the teaching of God, which transcends all earthly wisdom, be sufficient for our discerning right and wrong in any situation?  Or is sin still at work in our members?  Are we yet subject to this law and the condemnation and death it brings?  Has the devil yet a hold upon us; does he yet cast us into darkness?  Are we therefore too blind to see right from wrong? Brothers and sisters, we must cast from our souls all vestige of sin; it cannot hold power over us any longer.  We must find the light of Christ in our eyes and so be made able to judge all things in His justice.  With our psalmist we must proclaim to the Lord, “Your law is my delight.”  If we yet take refuge in the law of sin, it will bring but judgment upon our lives.  But if we turn to Him, true wisdom will be ours – and His compassion will save us. All teaching the Lord puts into the hands of His apostles.  Our Pope and bishops and priests continue, as His servants, to proclaim His truth and impart His grace.  The Church is the home Jesus leaves us; upon it He places His Spirit.  Let us follow the teachings of the Lord and find His power at work in our lives, and all things will be clear to our eyes.  And so, condemnation we shall avoid as by the grace of God we judge all things rightly. ******* O LORD, Jesus has indeed set us free by His power – let us turn to Him for wisdom. YHWH, keep us from being imprisoned by sin; only you and your Son have the power to release us from such bondage.  Help us to follow your precepts, help us to walk in His way, that we might find your kindness upon our souls and live in freedom this day. Why is it we are so blind?  Why so trapped in the flesh?  Our eyes do not look upon the things of the Spirit except with great difficulty, except by the grace that comes to us through your only Son.  O LORD, let our eyes be opened to see Him standing before us, and let us follow your Law by His power. Here we find a war at work within us.  Without you we have not the wisdom and knowledge to judge well the path to victory over sin.  O LORD, let us not be delivered up to the jailer, for we are not able to pay the price of our transgressions.  Let your compassion be upon us that we might live and do what is right.

(Rm.6:19-23;   Ps.1:1-4,6,40:5;   Lk.12:49-53)   “The Lord watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.”   The division is clear.  The Lord Himself has stated, “I have come for division.”  Far from establishing “peace on the earth,” His message makes clear the distinction between the evil and the good, the wicked and the just, drawn so well in our psalm today.  He has “come to light a fire on the earth.”  It shall purify the just for the kingdom of God even as it burns up all the wicked. Paul also makes clear the division between the evil and the good, between that which is of God and that which is of sin.  “Formerly you enslaved your bodies to impurity and licentiousness for their degradation…  But now that you are freed from sin and have become slaves of God, your benefit is sanctification as you tend toward eternal life.”  The distinction is certain: “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Indeed, the just “is like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade,” but the wicked “are like chaff which the wind drives away.”  This division is what the Lord’s light and fire reveal; and this revelation is eternal. It is painful, brothers and sisters.  It is painful to undergo our own transformation to justice and light from the depths of depravity into which we have fallen, and will be painful to witness others destroyed by the hardness of their hearts.  The Lord Himself expresses this pain when He says, “What anguish I feel till it is over!”  He takes no pleasure in bringing the agony of division, which begins with His own agony in the garden and ends with His crucifixion.  He suffers most to witness the sins of the masses so acutely.  They wag their heads at Him even as He cries from the cross.  What is to be done?  Division must come.  For the kingdom must come, the resurrection must take place, and sin cannot stand in its light – and so those who attach themselves to sin, to the works of the father of lies, will not stand in that day either.  And even now the judgment comes, even now we must take sides – even now we choose death, or life.  ******* O LORD, set us free from our sin – burn away all evil. YHWH, the sword of the Spirit your Son brings separates the wicked from the just – it is a fire purging all evil from the earth, destroying those who give themselves over to impurity and licentiousness, yet lighting your servants’ way to Heaven.  He who walks in accord with that light, placing nothing before its demands to holiness, shall enter your presence even as the insolent are consumed. What can we do, O LORD. to save souls from death?  It shall come inevitably to all slaves of sin.  We can but hope to make ourselves pure, seeking ever eternal life, and pray that men will turn to you.  All is in your hands; let us be sanctified by your touch.  Who has not sinned?  Who has not degraded the dignity you instilled in our souls?  Yet you would make us fruitful in the Spirit, O God, if we but set our hearts on your Word.

(Rm.6:12-18;   Ps.124:1-8;   Lk.12:39-48)   “Offer yourselves to God as men who have come back from the dead to life.”   If we have come back from the dead to life, should we then offer ourselves up to death again?  As Paul questions, “Are we free to sin?”  How absurd a thought!  If we are sinners, let us give ourselves freely to sin, and find the condemnation which comes from this.  But if we are men of justice, let us give ourselves to “obedience” of the teaching imparted to us, and find life firmly in our souls. Jesus states quite clearly, “When much has been given a man, much will be required of him.”  Brothers and sisters, much has been given us simply by our release from the sin which once enslaved us.  Indeed, “we were rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare,” as David’s psalm proclaims.  The “raging waters” that “would have overwhelmed us,” the “torrent [that] would have swept over us,” has been calmed…  For this alone we have much to be thankful; simply by this grace much has been entrusted to us.  And what follows only adds to this initial blessing; for each day our souls are required of us, each day He puts in our hands and calls us to the work set aside for our souls to complete.  Each day the gift of grace is increased within us.  So should we then begin “to abuse the housemen and servant girls, to eat and drink and get drunk”?  Should we then return to the slavery of sin which blinds our eyes to His eternal presence?  Certainly not.  Rather, we should “be on guard” at all times, vigilantly prepared for our master’s return, employing the gifts He imparts to us each passing day. We are no longer dead, brothers and sisters.  We have the grace of our God at work within us, lighting our eyes and filling our souls with His holy food.  We must now be holy as He.  It is not for us to return to the death of sin, to subject ourselves to its chains once again, to have our eyes darkened and our souls destroyed.  The grace, the light within us, must be diligently preserved.  We must come to Him, come to His stewards to whom the most has been entrusted, who hold in their power sacramental grace, and confess our sins in His presence, and come and eat of His Body and Blood.  Let us avail ourselves of these gifts these successors of the apostles hold and thus find the strength to give our own “bodies to God as weapons for justice” and not for sin. ******* O LORD, let us give you all that we have, all that we are; then there will be nothing left to give. YHWH, you have saved us from the raging waters, from the torrent that would have overwhelmed our souls – and should we cast ourselves back into the sea?  Should we once again give ourselves to sin?  No!  We must give ourselves as slaves of your justice and serve you all our days, never turning from the grace at work within us, never again obeying the flesh and its lusts. For soon your Son shall return for us, O LORD – and should He find us in a drunken state?  Should He find us with violence in our hands and lust in our heart?  If so, then we would prove ourselves unworthy of trust; and what would we be then but beaten for our lack of love? You yourself are present now in our very spirits, LORD.  Let us treasure this grace upon us and work out our salvation, never giving ourselves again to the teeth of the beast.

(Rm.5:12,15,17-21;   Ps.40:7-10,17;   Lk.12:35-38)  “To do your will, O my God, is my delight, and your law is within my heart!” “May those who love your salvation say ever, ‘The Lord be glorified.’”  May we who love the Lord “exult and be glad” in Him.  May we who take refuge in His grace sing aloud His praise.  What greater gift could we have than Jesus Christ, whose “single righteous act brought all men acquittal and life.  For truly we were dead in our sin,” truly the offense of Adam had infected our souls, truly through this “one man’s disobedience all became sinners” – but more truly “through one man’s obedience all shall become just,” for “His grace has far surpassed” the increase of sin.  And so, what should we do but rejoice with David at the truth of Paul’s instruction. And what should we do but be ready, truly ready, really waiting, patiently, for the return of our Lord.  “Be like men awaiting their master’s return from a wedding.”  Set your hearts on His coming again, “so that when He knocks, you will open without delay.”  This is yet the greater blessing for us servants, that even in these dark days upon this earth, we stand ready for His return.  Here is His grace at work within us, that our hearts are set on Him, that His presence, the coming of His kingdom, we know even now in anticipation of its arrival.  No greater blessing could we hope for than to be “those servants whom the master finds wide-awake on His return.”  By this we know we have conquered sin; by this we see that we have overcome the darkness which surrounds us – if whether “at midnight or before sunrise” we are found prepared, if even in the darkest times we hold His light, if our eyes are like “lamps… burning ready” and our “belts… fastened around [our] waists”… we have all that we need in this world. Be ready, my brothers and sisters, for the joy is coming; it will not delay.  That happiness of life in His presence we sense even now, we taste even this day in our mouths, will come soon to fulfillment in the reign of our God.  And so, “those who receive the overflowing grace and gift of justice [will] live and reign through the one man, Jesus Christ,” for whom we await, in whom we take our refuge, whose name we praise, His saving word etched upon our souls and bleeding in our hearts.  In all we do we wait for His coming.  He alone is our desire, and we shall not be disappointed. ******* O LORD, let us be always ready to serve you; let your grace reign in us and we shall come to do your will. YHWH, grace has come to us by the sacrifice of your Son and cleansed us of the disobedience of Adam.  We are thus set free from sin and placed on the path to eternal life.  And so, what should we do now but wait for Jesus’ return, when that grace shall be fulfilled and we shall come to dwell with Him in Heaven? Truly has Jesus been obedient to your command.  Truly has He achieved the conquering of death and the end of its reign for every man.  Truly has His death brought us acquittal and life.  And truly will He return, O LORD, to reward all His faithful servants; truly will He Himself be their food. O let us be ready for His coming!  Let our lamps be burning ever and our hearts prepared always to open when He knocks.  Let us offer ourselves with Him as His Body, dear LORD, that to us quickly salvation shall come even in the dark night of this world.

(Rm.4:20-25;   Lk.1:68-75;   Lk.12:13-21)   “We should serve Him devoutly and through all our days be holy in His sight.”   For “this very night your life shall be required of you.”  Always and forever our faith is required of us, if we are to draw breath.  Always and forever the Lord asks us what fruit we have produced.  Always and forever we must be careful not to toil in vain, but to live according to His Word, believing in His promise.  Else our lives will indeed be empty vessels. Holiness befits His house.  Adherence to His covenant is our call.  Faith in the One who is “saving strength for us” is our necessity.  We must indeed be as our father Abraham, who was “fully persuaded that God could do whatever He had promised,” whose “faith was credited to him as justice.”  And if we have the same faith as Abraham, we will find the same justice, the same reward as he.  “For our faith will be credited to us also if we believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”  Jesus “was handed over to death for our sins and raised up for our justification” and only faith in Him as the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham will give us life. Why do we turn to the things of this world and in them seek our fulfillment, and in them seek our rest, when they are so vain and when all the while Jesus calls to our souls to come to Him?  Why is it we think that in the goods of this world we can find refuge, we can find strength?  Why are we so blinded to believe that in them we can find our peace?  “Relax!  Eat heartily, drink well.  Enjoy yourself.”  Here is the fruitless mantra of this materialistic world.  Here is the epitome of our blindness to His will.  Here is the belly seeking to take the place of the spirit. Can we not see that it is only the spirit that gives life, that the flesh is of no avail, that the riches of this earth serve more as a distraction to finding the life and the peace we seek in the depths of our souls than to bringing a fulfillment of this most human of desires?  This desire cannot be satisfied except in Christ.  We must not be as “the man who grows rich for himself instead of growing rich in the sight of God,” or when these passing riches rot away or are taken from us, we will be left terribly empty.  Rather, we should “avoid greed in all its forms” and dedicate ourselves to service of the Lord.  Only in Him is life and peace made known, and only by holiness do we come there.  At all times the Lord is calling to our soul; let us answer Him in faith.     ******* O LORD, Jesus has died and been raised for our salvation – may we believe in Him and grow rich in your sight. YHWH, let us not grow rich to ourselves, setting our hearts on the wealth of this passing world, but rather grow rich in your sight, in your gifts and graces.  Let us have faith, first of all; this blessing let us most treasure. You have sent your Son as Savior for us – what more could we ask of you?  Here is the fulfillment of all our desires.  And if we put our faith in Him who has died for our sins and been raised for our justification, if we serve Him devoutly all our days, it will indeed be credited to us as righteousness and great reward will be ours in Heaven.  O LORD, let us know your mercy upon our souls! Only in you our life is found, dearest LORD and God.  Our every breath is in your hands and when we come to the end of our days, what hope shall we have but that you breathe into us new life?  And so, let us store up wealth for you alone, the wealth of a faithful heart.

(Rm.4:1-8;   Ps.32:1-2,5,7,11;   Lk.12:1-7)   “Happy is the man to whom the Lord imputes not guilt, in whose spirit there is no guile.”   All our sins shall be taken away by the Lord who watches over us and loves us, if we but believe. We must lay bare our souls, brothers and sisters.  We cannot hide from the eternal, piercing light of God.  His hand is upon us at all times; His heart is open always for our entering in.  It cannot be otherwise with the Lord of the universe, in whose sight “even the hairs of [our] head are counted.”  And He who surrounds us desires but our love, desires but our faith, desires but that we come into His presence confessing our sins, and He will take them away.  And we shall not be “cast into Gehenna” but drawn into His kingdom. His kingdom is coming.  Jesus sees it as He gazes out at the dense “crowd of thousands” gathering before Him.  He sees the kingdom coming as men’s hearts turn to Him.  And so He warns His disciples, who shall be the laborers to reap His harvest, “Be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,” for if they should take pride in their mission, if they should find in their deeds “grounds for boasting” and so forget the favor of God by which all are justified, they shall indeed tempt the fires of Gehenna.  “Everything you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight,” for the Lord hears “what you have whispered in locked rooms.”  So, keep your hearts set on Him and His goodness, and the truth of the Gospel will be proclaimed to the world, and you shall save your immortal soul. Jesus knows, too, that the faith of His disciples and their declaration of His Word to the world will bring persecution.  He sees in this scene, too, the cross set before Him, and He knows those who follow Him shall share in it as well.  And so He reassures His children that the Father is with them, that He treasures them even as He treasures His Son, and so the powers of this age will hold no reign over them, and that they should “not be afraid of those who kill the body and can do no more.” Yes, our soul is in His hands.  He has power to forgive and to protect, if we but come to Him as children, if we but come to Him in faith.   ******* O LORD, all is known to you – let us confess our sins, and we will be saved. YHWH, of what can we boast, we who cannot forgive our own sins?  Truly, we are in your hands, and so should fear you. But in your kindness you readily forgive our transgressions; if we turn to you, our sins are wiped away.  And so, there is nothing we need fear, LORD, as long as our desire is for you. Help us to confess our faults that you might remove all our guilt.  Inspire us to call upon your NAME, O LORD, and we shall rejoice in your blessings.  If we but have faith in you, your justice will be upon us. There is nothing of consequence we can accomplish on our own, nothing but sin.  All the good that we do comes from you, and so, what cause have we to be proud?  Let us not be false in our love for you, LORD, but even in the deep recesses of our hearts proclaim your glory continually.  O may all men come to faith and be saved!

(Rm.3:21-30;   Ps.130:1-7;   Lk.11:47-54)   “This generation will have to account for the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world.”   And so shall it be with Christ’s own blood, the fulfillment of all the martyrs’ sacrifice; for these same scribes and Pharisees whom Jesus proclaims guilty of the prophets’ murders will indeed devise the murder of the Son of God.  And they prove the truth of His words immediately by their manifestation of “fierce hostility to Him” and their thus giving birth to the plot to crucify Him. Perhaps most appropriate for today, with regard to Paul’s epistle to the Romans, is the Lord’s admonishment of the lawyers: “You have taken away the key of knowledge.  You yourselves have not gained access, yet you have stopped those who wish to enter!”  It is essentially the same message the Apostle teaches: “The justice of God has been manifested apart from the law… that justice of God which works through faith in Jesus Christ.”  It is not through “observance of the law” that justification comes; the works of the law – circumcision, animal sacrifice, dietary rules – which address the body, are useless in this regard.  God is Spirit and it is spiritual means He uses to redeem us – we must come in faith to Him.  And those who would restrict faith by the imposition of these laws serve only to impede the working of the Spirit and His grace.  Paul states the question succinctly: “Does God belong to the Jews alone?  Is He not also the God of the Gentiles?”  If He is God of all nations, it is not meet to impose Jewish religious practice upon those apart from Jewish tradition.  But these protectors, or rather “possessors” and defilers of the law – defiling it by their greed in seizing it, their pride in assuming it as their own and not God’s – cannot accept that “it is the same God,” that the Gentiles are equal in grace with the Jews… and so to them this teaching is blasphemy. At the root of the problem is the fact that these leaders are not as the psalmist in our readings today, who sings: “My soul waits for the Lord more than sentinels wait for the dawn.”  Nor do they cry “in supplication” “out of the depths” of their iniquity for God’s forgiveness.  If they had been so disposed, they would have seen who stood before them, they would have recognized His coming, and they would have fallen to their knees and found His grace. Let us not be so hardhearted, for indeed the blood of Jesus is upon the hands of all who sin, just as His salvation is upon all who repent and believe in Him.  Water alone will not wash us clean; we must recognize the lack of love we have, and find His Spirit working in us.   ******* O LORD, your justice is shown in your mercy, which you offer to every faithful soul. YHWH, we have all sinned and fallen short of your glory, and cannot by our own strength find our way back to you.  We cannot justify ourselves but need the grace that comes to us through the blood of your Son to justify our souls, to set us right with you. But what of those who fail to see they need your forgiveness, who fail to recognize that they, too, are sinners, that they have the blood of Jesus upon their hands?  O LORD, how can these be justified?  How can they come to faith in you if they do not listen to the One you have sent to draw us back to your presence?  They shall but continue in the way of sinning, mounting up the blood of the prophets for judgment day. Your Son offers His life for our sakes; freely He sacrifices Himself upon the Cross that we might be saved.  Help us to turn to Him, O LORD, to see what we have done, repent, and be redeemed.  You are the God of us all, and to all souls Jesus’ blood does call.

(Rm.2:1-11;   Ps.62:2-3,6-7,9,13;   Lk.11:42-46)   “Your hard and impenitent heart is storing up retribution for that day of wrath when the just judgment of God will be revealed.”   “He will repay every man for what he has done…  Yes, affliction and anguish will come upon every man who has done evil…  But there will be glory, honor, and peace for everyone who has done good.”  This is the just judgment, and it comes only from God, not from sinful man. And so we are chastised in preparation for that day, that of His wrath we may be spared.  We should all wish to be “insult”ed by Jesus as are the Pharisees and lawyers in today’s gospel, here, today, while there is still time.  We should all desire His difficult words of instruction which would serve, if heeded humbly, to separate us from the sins of the world, the attachments of this life that cling to our soul and prevent our coming into His presence.  Under His mighty hand we should all subject ourselves, that He might lighten our “impossible burdens,” that He might take from us all that is not holy, all that is not true – that we might be freed from the judgment upon our souls and walk with Him in immortality.  We must be ready for His day.  But as it is the darkness is with us. “Only in God is my soul at rest.”  With David we must sing this truth from our hearts.  The emptiness of the flesh and its imagination must not possess us; vain pride must take no place in our lives…  All our lusts must be set aside and we must know with certainty that only in God do we find our peace: He is our refuge and our strength.  “He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold,” we must cry, and “trust in Him at all times,” or wandering from the truth we will find ourselves in the way of destruction. “God’s kindness is an invitation to you to repent.”  In His patience He gives you time to turn from sin and find His grace and mercy.  Pray He will convict you of your sin in this time and you will not convict yourself by your judgment of others.  Seek His redeeming hand at work in your life and do the good before Him.  Then you “shall not be disturbed,” when His Word has taken root in your soul, when you have left behind all the vanity of this world.  Then the glory of God will be your own, and nothing shall remove it from you.  Soften your heart to His blessed chastisement; it shall work for you against the day of judgment. ******* O LORD, we will be judged by what we do, and by what we fail to do – let us set our hearts on you alone. YHWH, let us not fall into judgment of others but treasure rather your Son’s chastisement of our souls, that we might find freedom from our sins and take our refuge in you alone.  Soon your just judgment will be revealed; let us benefit from your kindness and take this time to repent, lest we be condemned on your day of wrath. Your love, O God, is shown in the call to repentance you make to all your children, the Jew first, then the Gentile.  You indeed chastise every son whom you love.  And so Jesus proclaims great woe upon the Pharisees, hoping to turn them from their wicked ways; and so St. Paul makes known to us our hard and impenitent hearts, that from the punishment they invite we might be spared. While there is time, O LORD, while your grace and mercy are yet being offered forth, let us place our trust in you alone, and so find rest for our souls in your eternal glory.

(Rm.1:16-25;   Ps.19:2-5;   Lk.11:37-41)   “They stultified themselves through speculating to no purpose, and their senseless hearts were darkened.”   If these words do not refer to modern man most poignantly, then I imagine nothing can be said of anything.  In ancient times, “they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images representing mortal man, birds, beasts, and snakes” and bowed down to statues as if they were gods.  The images man worships today are also the creations of his own hands, sometimes as physical as the idols worshiped before the time of Christ – who does not long to see his own image on one of our television sets, and who is held in greater esteem than those movie stars whom we have never met but know only of their image on a screen? – but perhaps most particularly they are the vain ideas, which reveal their utter absurdity to any mind with a modicum of common sense, but which are propounded as sacred by the elite thinkers of our day.  Their numbers seem endless, and one wonders if man will rationalize himself out of existence, as perhaps he already has philosophically in the declaration that God is dead, and so often done in reality through movements such as Communism and Nazism. Indeed, how relevant are all Paul’s words today: “They certainly had knowledge of God, yet they did not glorify Him as God or give Him thanks”; “they claimed to be wise, but turned into fools instead”; “they engaged in the mutual degradation of their bodies.”  But “the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against the irreligious and perverse spirit of men who… hinder the truth.”  “These men who exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” cannot but come to naught, for “day pours out the word to day, and night to night imparts knowledge” – the Gospel goes forth “to the ends of the world” and Truth overwhelms all lies.  As Jesus overturned the Pharisees who “cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but within… are filled with rapaciousness,” so shall the mind of modern man be shown for all its absurdity in the clear light of day. Time.  There is but time to wait.  Time for the Word to go forth and to pray for the conversion of the nations, of all peoples.  And there is hope, hope that men shall turn from their absurdity and their perversity to embrace the light of the Gospel and the true teaching of love it brings.  We pray the senseless will find faith and be led thereby to salvation.    ******* O LORD, openly your Word speaks to all men’s hearts, calling them to salvation. YHWH, how shall the senseless mind of man be redeemed?  If it turns from you, the Creator of all, to give praise to senseless creatures, will it not be ever as blind as they?  Trapped in its own contrivances, it shall never see the light of day or hear the Word of Truth.  And so, to these faithless souls the Gospel will be so much foolishness, as in foolishness they die. Your Word goes forth to the ends of the earth and is revealed in all Creation.  But men who cannot see beyond the flesh quench the Spirit even as they engage in the destruction of their bodies.  For the purity of your Creation they pervert, and so fail to stand in your holy light.  O LORD, let us cleanse the inside of our cup that we might come to your glory! Your eternal power and divinity help us to recognize, that filled with knowledge of you, O God, we may keep our hearts from being darkened by the false worship of this corrupted age.