Cleansing the Church

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author. 

“In the temple, Jesus found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers at their business. And making a whip of cords. He drove them all with the sheep and the oxen out of the temple, and he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.” So today is the feast of St John, the dedication of St John Lateran. And that might not spark many bells for most of us, but St John Lateran is actually the Cathedral of the Pope as the Bishop of Rome. We think, of course, of St Peter’s, the magnificent Basilica of St Peter’s, but the actual Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome is St John Lateran. So, it’s been called sometimes, the mother of the churches of Rome and of all the world. And so, as I say, today is a special day to reflect on the mystery of the Church, and especially the mystery of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. And so, it’s striking what the gospel is today, the gospel that the Church gives us on this feast of St John Lateran. And I think of the light it sheds on our situation. And of course, I think also of the situation of our little Mission of Divine Mercy. As you know, Sister Amapola will be giving testimony this week. And so, a lot of people are saying that we’re causing problems. We’re being divisive in the Church, causing division. We’re being disrespectful, we’re being disobedient, we’re being very negative. We’re attacking the Church. We’re attacking the Church’s hierarchy. And a lot of time people, when they come to church on a Sunday, they don’t want to experience controversy, they have enough problems in their life. They don’t want more controversy; they would just want to find peace. And then some people also saying, what kind of like, what signs do you have to show that? By what authority are you doing this, are you publicizing these messages and so forth. And so all these are legitimate questions. We understand this is a very difficult and painful situation, so we can sympathize with all those questions. But I think this gospel today, on this feast of St John, the dedication of St John Lateran has a special meaning for us now. So, we see that Jesus is coming into this situation in St John’s Gospel. This is taking place at the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. So, He comes to Jerusalem as He’s beginning His ministry. And this practice, which is going on, it must have seemed normal to people. It’s not something that’s being done in hiding. It’s being done, you know, right there in the most important public place of the Jews. And so, it must have the approval of the authorities. So maybe some people didn’t like it, but it must have seemed well, but that’s normal. The authorities are approving this. And what our Lord is doing then, is now manifesting what is God’s judgment? What is God’s light on this practice? Jesus says, “You shall not make My Father’s house a house of trade.” And in Mark’s gospel, He says, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers.” And so, we see the difference between what the authorities, the religious authorities have approved, and what Jesus is saying is how God sees this situation. One example I think of is when I was serving in Monterrey in the 90s, we were at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Monterrey. And so, we often celebrated, we were often assigned marriages to celebrate, or often quinceanera, you know, the special solemn celebration of a young girl’s 15th birthday. And the dress for those occasions, that’s the woman’s dress, was often very immodest. And one of the things that struck me when these two women began sharing messages from the Lord, a number of the messages were talking about wanting the Lord’s desire to renew respect and reverence for the Holy Eucharist. And one of the points He made several times, was that He did not want this immodest dress. He said even something like He would rather His temples be empty, rather than profaned. “ Well I’d rather My temples be empty rather than profaned.“  Well that’s very different from our modern way of thinking. You know, you might have noticed or maybe no longer know, but we have signs about a dress code coming in here, signs on our entrance and on our website about a dress code. We don’t do that to win public approval, because it doesn’t win public approval. It’s not something people like. It makes, oh, you’re being judgmental. You’re being you know, you’re being whatever. We didn’t do that because we wanted to do it. We were just doing that because the Lord told us that that He wanted people to respect His temple, and that much of the style of dress today was very bad, bad for offensive to God and bad for us, and that He especially didn’t want it in His Churches. And so that’s an example of the way what seems normal in a human society and how differently God can see it. And so here we have Jesus with prophetic words and prophetic gestures. And Cardinal Ratzinger wrote this speaking about prophecy. He says “prophecy is eminently the place God reserves for Himself to intervene personally and anew each time taking the initiative through charisms. He reserves for himself the right to intervene directly in the Church to awaken it, warn it, promote it and sanctify it.” So, this is Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict. But at this time, he was already the one in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. That is, he was the one in charge of designated by Pope John Paul for watching over the faith of the Church. And what he’s saying in that position, he’s talking about prophecy, and he says prophecy is where God reserves the right for Himself to intervene directly in the Church. What does that mean, intervene directly? It means that God often works through the Church, through His ministers, the Pope, the bishops and pastors of the Church. But sometimes that system doesn’t work, especially when there’s been a lot of corruption or usurpation. And so, he’s saying that God, through prophecy, God reserves the right to intervene directly in the Church. That is through prophets. God doesn’t have to pass through the hierarchical structure. He can intervene directly. And that’s not me saying that, that was the cardinal prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, the future Pope Benedict, who said that.  So let me read that again. “Prophecy is eminently the place that God reserves for himself to intervene personally, not just through the media of His hierarchy, but personally through the prophets. Taking the initiative through charisms, He reserves for himself the right to intervene directly in the Church, to awaken it, warn it, promote it, and sanctify it.” And so, especially in times of crisis, and we’re living a time of crisis, in times of corruption. God, we see in Scripture and through the history of the Church, God often sends by His mercy these prophets. And so, I want to share with you. I don’t know if we’ve shared this publicly or not. I don’t remember. So, we had a very important meeting with the three bishops of the archdiocese. This was February of 2024, February of last year. So, a very important meeting, a critical meeting, and that night before, Sister had just received a message for the three bishops. And so, this is a little excerpt from this letter, that this message that I gave to the bishops that day. So, this is a part of it. So, it’s a loving message, but it’s also a very strong message. It says, “My sons, open your eyes and see how I see.” That’s what prophecy is, helping us to do, to see how God sees. He says, “open your eyes in My everlasting truth, that you might see what is truly before you, what is truly unfolding before your eyes, here now. My Church is besieged on every side. Do you not sense it in your souls? Can you not feel the pain of my children as they cry out to Me for help? It is not their bellies or their bodies or their minds crying out to Me, but their souls. Their souls that sense the horror that is enveloping My once radiant Church; radiant in the instant it came forth from the pierced heart of My Jesus. But how darkened she has become. You have become dull, blind and asleep, and can no longer see the hordes of wolves and serpents that are surrounding and attacking my sheep, maiming them, scattering them, consuming them.” So, saying the bishops are – it’s not saying that they’re evil, but He’s saying they’ve become blind. They can’t see what is really happening. A little bit later, He says, “the enemy has succeeded in overtaking My sanctuary. What do I mean by this? The eternal enemy, satan and his cohort, has successfully placed his servants, his servants, in place of authority in My Church.” What is He saying? “Satan has placed His servants in places of authority in my Church.” That’s what we mean by usurpers. “That through them, he might subvert My truth, My Teachings, turning them into a mockery, and thus leaving My children bereft of the usual means for them to receive My grace.” Just a few days ago, this document from the Vatican came out from the new prefect of the position that Ratzinger had held about wanting to wanting us no longer, to call our Blessed Mother co redemptrix. So the message goes on to say, “what I see instead of the living beautiful, holy, mystical body of My Jesus,  -that’s the Church –“instead of the living, beautiful, holy, mystical body of my Jesus, is a near dead corpse, already so decayed it is falling apart. Because you have been blinded and cannot see, I must tell you that what you think is whole healthy is, in reality, being consumed by demonic cancer. My Church has been taken hostage.” So, he’s saying they can’t see this problem. They see things as going along pretty well, and He’s saying, in God’s eyes, it’s almost a corpse. So, are those words of hatred for the Church, or those words of love for the Church? Are those words of attack against the Church, or those words that are trying to save and renew the Church. So, the Jews, it says the Jews then said to Jesus, “what sign have you to show us for doing this?” So, it seems from the gospels that Jesus actually did this twice, once, almost at the end of His ministry. But when John is relating this, it’s at the very beginning. So, Jesus hasn’t worked, according to the gospel, He hasn’t worked any miracles yet in Jerusalem. So, without any miraculous signs, He’s doing this without any miraculous signs, he’s basically still a nobody as far as they’re concerned. So, they’re saying, what signs? Why would Jesus do that before working His miraculous signs? Just walk into the temple and create this uproar without any signs. Maybe because they shouldn’t need a sign. They should be able to see the evil that was in front of them, and that what He is doing is just. And for some people, no signs were necessary because they sensed that this was wrong and what Jesus was doing was right. Of course, we know that Jesus would work miracles afterwards, but He did this before then. And when they asked for a sign, He doesn’t. Because think of that – Jesus could have done any type of miracle before He does this, to make this more impressive, but He didn’t. Or when they ask for a sign. He could have made any sign He wanted, right there on the spot, but He didn’t do that. What He did was prophesy about His death and resurrection, which wouldn’t come for three more years. And so, they were demanding signs, and Jesus, who could have given signs, did not give any signs at that point. And so, He’s acting without authorization. None of the authorities have authorized Him to do this. He has no human authority to do this, but He’s acting from God, His Father. And one of the messages that we gave, the Lord gave us for the bishops, this one was in 2018, so years ago, 2018, was on the topic of obedience. I’ll read you a passage from it. It said, “how much can be said?” It’s important, because that’s one of the things we’re being accused of, of being disobedient. He says, “how much can be said of true obedience?” Because it’s a long message, but this is just an excerpt, but He says, “but it is enough to look and reflect on how I lived, the living example I have given to you as a teaching.” So, what is the example of Jesus? He says, “reflect on how I acted when I was 12, remaining in the temple. I obeyed the voice of the Father who called Me to give witness before the doctors of the law, disobeying My parents on earth, and reflect on who they were, their holiness,” – so, they were the holiest of authorities. “And despite that, in this instance, there was a greater obedience.” So normally, He did obey them, but in this instance, there was a greater obedience to God His Father. He says, “I obeyed during the long years of the private, hidden life, and as any other faithful, fulfilling the requisites of the law, fulfilling my duties as a citizen. But then the moment arrived to begin the mission of the redemption entrusted to Me by divine command,” not by human authority, by divine command.  And then I obeyed only the voice of the Father because the first obedience had passed, and now I was instituting the perfect obedience based on faith and in love and not in the simple fulfillment of the precepts. Children. I Your Jesus, always obeyed the Father or Abba, and in everything that was not opposed to this greater and fundamental obedience, I obeyed the established human order.” So, Jesus obeyed the established human order, except when it was in contradiction with what His father was telling Him to do. So, the question when we’re being accused of being disobedient is, are we disobeying God or not, or is this an exceptional circumstance in which, of course, following the example of Jesus, we have to do something exceptional, and are we attacking the Church?  So, remember what Jesus said when they asked Him for a sign. He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They didn’t understand what He meant. They thought He was talking about the material temple, but John’s Gospel said He was speaking of the Temple of His body. Jesus was prophesying that their corruption would lead to the destruction of the temple. Some 40 years later, that very beautiful, magnificent temple would be completely destroyed, and that’s what Jesus is alerting them to, because of their disobedience to God. But the Temple of His body that they would crucify would be raised in glory. And so, I think the messages that the Lord is giving our little community are not attacking the Church. They’re defending the Church. They’re messages of true love for the Church. Say, a person goes in to see a good, wise, very competent doctor, and a doctor realizes that the person has a dangerous cancer, but a cancer then if they act now, there’s ways to cure it, but the doctor doesn’t want to upset the person, so he’s just going to focus on the positive. He doesn’t tell the person about the cancer. He says, well, you know your blood pressure is not bad, and you know your weight is getting better and so forth. And he doesn’t even address the real issue.  Is that a loving doctor? He’s saying nice things, happy, positive things, to the person. Oh, great, great. I had a great, great checkup. But would you consider that a doctor who truly loved the person, or would you say that was a doctor who was really doing something terrible for the person? So, when the Lord speaks the truth, the harsh truth about the Church, it’s not out of hatred for the Church or its pastors. It’s out of love, as it’s proclaiming the divine mystery of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ, as the bride of Christ. But as His mystical body, as His bride, It’s called to follow Him in the Paschal Mystery of suffering death and rising in a new life. And so, to conclude, Jesus wants His Church, His Bride, radiant in holiness, radiant in love and truth, divinely beautiful. And the reconquest that He has initiated is to liberate His Church from the infiltration and the corruption of the evil one. And so, I think these prophetic messages He’s giving are to show His light, to help us see as He sees, before the great signs. He’s promised great signs like He promised in this gospel, He promised that great signs would be coming. But Blessed are they who can already believe without the signs yet. And so, with our Blessed Mother, co redemptrix, with our Blessed Mother, let us respond with humility, with faith and with courage. Come Lord Jesus.  Amen.

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
John 2:13-22