7th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Feb. 19, 2012
Fr. Anthony Brankin
Gospel: Mark 2:1-12 Healing of the paralytic
(Full text of sermon. Today’s sermon was followed by heartfelt applause.)
Cardinal George once said that while he expects that he will die in his bed, he assumes that the cardinal who comes after him will die in jail. And that the one who comes after him will be executed.
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Whoa! What is that all about? Well, if the truth be known, this is Cardinal George’s way of expressing his deep anxiety and concern over the trajectory of our society—where is our country—where is our world going?
Coming after us
And he does not think it is going in a good direction. In other words, the cardinal is convinced that the atheist secularist anti-catholic government of the United States is coming after us—subtly, smoothly, seductively— but surely.
He is deeply worried that the non-believers who run this country (and who run modern society as well)—the ones who finance it and grow wealthy from it and create its laws and shoddy and dirty way of life, hate Jesus Christ and the Catholic people so much and so thoroughly, that they will stop at nothing to eliminate the influence of Jesus and His followers from this world. And so the government will do what it must do, pass the laws it must pass, punish those it must punish, in order to neutralize grace and goodness in our world When the Cardinal says that his successors are probably going to be arrested and then executed, he is warning us—the priests and the people—that not too long from now we are going to get the chance to prove how Catholic we are. We are going to get the opportunity to suffer for our belief in Jesus. Often enough as Catholics we must shed our pride in this modern world. The cardinal is telling us—we may have to shed our blood.
Defied the government
We read the Cardinal’s letter last week defying the government. In no uncertain terms he told the government that we Catholics would not comply with the command to involve ourselves with providing insurance for our people for such immoral things as artificial contraception, sterilization and abortion.
And, in fact, almost all the Bishops in all the cities in the United States said the same thing. This is not about money—this is about our utter refusal to be involved with practices and activities regarding life and love that are in themselves intrinsically immoral. The Bishops have let the President and all his minions know that we will not be involved with immorality.
Right now, the issue revolves around insurance. The federal government says that Catholics must provide for immoral activities for our people. But we will not. Therefore, unless the government relents and changes its demands, we who work for the Church—priests in parishes, teachers in schools, professors in Universities and nurses and doctors in hospitals—may very well lose our insurance.
Fined again and again
It is that simple. The schools and agencies and Dioceses who do not comply will be fined large amounts of money, and then they will be fined again and again until the government succeeds in finally closing down all that we Catholics have built in this country the last two hundred years.
I am sure at some point (and this is what Cardinal George is warning us about) they will start arresting Bishops for failure to comply. And then they will come for the priests and then they will harass the Catholic people and any who continue to resist. If we hold to the faith and to Our Lord, we will all be cell-mates.
But we will not participate in damming up our mothers with contraceptives. We will not participate in making our men and women infertile and we will not be involved in killing any poor little babies that actually get conceived—having escaped their chemicals and drugs and devices and scalpels and poisons. We will not kill babies and we will not kill love.
We as Catholics believe in life and love and the intimate bond between the two. We believe in the love between husband and wife—and we believe that that love is faithful and permanent and fruitful. That is the Law of God. And no mandate or dictate from any government can change that.
We will not surrender
And the selfish, wizened atheists who pass all the laws and mandates of this country—the ones who abort our babies and send our young people off to die in their perpetual wars—can rattle their manacles in front of us all they want. We will not surrender.
Of course, if the government relents—if it caves in and surrenders to the Bishops and says “Oh Sorry, we didn’t know you felt that strongly about it!” We can be sure that they will soon try again. This was only the first gambit—the first sortie in a whole series of attacks and charges. They will come around from this angle or from that corner or even head-on. They will not stop until we are crushed.
Their father is Satan
Of course, this has been their pattern for two thousand years. This is the same crowd and they use the same technique. Their father is Satan—the Great Deceiver—the Great Tempter—and he uses humans as his battleground to continue his fight with God.
Do you remember when the Romans told the Christians that the Christians had to offer a sacrifice to the gods to prove that they were loyal Romans? All that meant was that the Christians were asked to burn a little incense before a statue of the emperor. That was all. It was not a lot. Come on. Just for fellowship with the other Romans. Just go along to get along.
But the Christians refused. There was no god to whom they would burn incense, except our Lord and Jesus His Son. And the believers were tortured, burned alive, eaten by wild animals, skinned, boiled, beheaded. You do not say “no” to the government with impunity. You do not say that there is a higher authority than the Emperor (or president for that matter) and expect no consequences.
Same persecution in Mexico
This crowd (the children of the father of Lies) did the same in Mexico in the 1920’s. The government, jealous of the goodness of the Church, took over all the orphanages and schools and universities and Hospitals. They told the Catholic people that all their institutions belonged to the State now and that they people would all have to accept the supreme authority of the government.
The government said: “ If you resist—you will be shot.” Well, they were shot —dozens and dozens of priests—including Padre Uribe and San Toribio and Padre Pro along with hundreds and hundreds of Catholic people. The persecutions became so terrible in Mexico that the people could not take it any longer and so they rose up in a fighting body—the Cristeros—and they gave battle to reclaim their Catholic heritage and their Catholic life.
A hundred burning nuns
Then of course there was the French revolution—the direct antecedent of our own secular crowd of rulers. How cruel and bloodthirsty were those revolutionaries who one time even danced a ring—around-the-rosy around a burning pyre of a hundred dead nuns—executed for the crime of believing in Jesus.
Well, let them do their best against us. They do not threaten us. We are the Church of Christ—who is God. We are therefore the Church of martyrs; and our blood—even if it is shed figuratively—will only help the Church grow.
Obama and his legions can start now. Go ahead. It is ok. We can take it. Besides, this will only give us a wonderful opportunity to clarify and appreciate what we really believe about life and love—and who it is that we really worship—the God of life and love.
All sermons of Fr. Anthony Brankin