Faith in God Acting Now

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

“Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” I think that this gospel that the Lord has given us today, and all the Gospels, all the events around the first coming of the Lord, shed so much light on this challenging situation that our poor little mission finds itself in today, this very controversial situation that we’re in. And so I think this is an opportunity to come back to a topic I’ve often talked about. I was just talking with the Amici Christi about it yesterday, but it’s so central, I think, to what the Lord is entrusting to our little mission. And so the topic of what’s called private revelation, I don’t think that term is very good but, but that’s what’s the term it’s often used. And that’s God speaking to somebody, or God revealing something. It’s something that a lot of members of the hierarchy, not all of them, but a lot of them. I mean, for instance, Bishop Strickland is a beautiful exception, and someone, like St John Paul also, but a lot of them are very, my experience is that they’re very dismissive of those type of things. But also a lot of faithful Catholics in this very confusing time where so much is changing and so much is new, a lot of faithful Catholics are understandable, suspicious of anything new. Because as Catholics, we want to be faithful to our tradition, and so what are we supposed to do with all these new things? So a lot of faithful Catholics feel that it’s more prudent, it’s more intelligent, it’s more conformed to our Catholic faith to kind of put all of that stuff aside. And so it’s interesting to notice what the Gospel is showing us in this visitation of our Blessed Mother. I’ve said this before, but I think it’s important to come back to it, that Elizabeth is inspired by the Holy Spirit. So she’s speaking. It’s the Holy Spirit speaking through her. And what does she praise in our Blessed Mother? There would be so much to praise in our Blessed Mother. But she praises, she doesn’t say, you’re a great person, you’re awesome. She doesn’t say, Oh, you’re wonderful, you’re so holy, you’re so pure. All of that is true, but what is it that Elizabeth says, what is it that the Holy Spirit praises in her? It’s “blessed Is she who,” – what? – “who believed?” So what she is praising is her faith. But what faith is she praising. She says, “Blessed is she who believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled.” That is she’s not, what the Holy Spirit is praising through Elizabeth is not just Mary’s faith and what had already been established at that time, which was all the Old Testament, the Torah, the law, the prophets, but the fact that Mary believed what was spoken, had just been spoken to her. This, this astonishing revelation from through Saint Gabriel. So what Elizabeth is praising in our Blessed Mother it’s not just her faith and what has already been established, but it’s her faith and what God is revealing at that moment. And wouldn’t it seem more prudent of our Blessed Mother to go talk to her spiritual director first, or maybe go seek counsel at the temple at Jerusalem and ask the religious authorities? Doesn’t that seem like what – she’s just a young girl. But what does she do? She responds, and we say that. We say, Well, Mary, she’s kind of imprudent. She wasn’t very sensible; she didn’t really have her head on straight. She wasn’t very mature, so that’s why she was doing that. Or is that the Holy Spirit? The work of the Holy Spirit? So shouldn’t that raise big questions for us about what is the proper way to respond to God. So I want to focus on two points, (and I try not to go on for two or three hours,) but because this is important points. So just the first point is tha we believe in a God who acts, who intervenes in human history, who acts in our lives. If Sacred Scripture, and our faith is based on sacred scripture, if Sacred Scripture shows anything, it’s that we have a God who acts. From the very beginning, when He creates Adam and Eve, throughout all the centuries that sacred scripture covers, and then the great book of Revelation, which points to the culmination. It’s all about God acting. It’s not just a book of laws and teaching and advice. It’s a book which is a book of history of God acting. It’s not just a book of mythology, like the Buddhism and Confucianism. It’s about the religion, or if it’s some people say it’s not really religion, but it’s about a bunch of teachings and practices. And we have teaching and practices on scripture, but it’s more than that. It’s God acting in history. And like Hinduism, which has all these crazy myths about the 1000s of gods, but they’re not historical. Whereas our Catholic faith is based on things that happened when God interacted in our world. And often in very surprising ways. In fact, that’s what we’re celebrating at Christmas. That’s what this whole preparation is to celebrate. It’s to God acting in the most surprising way by becoming man and living in our world. So it couldn’t get more historical than that. And the Gospels make it very clear that this is not happening in a never, never land. It’s happening. It tells it precisely, historically, when it’s happening. How much God enters this world and acts in our world. And so there are periods in which God’s action is very hidden. There’s entire centuries in Scripture, which we don’t know much about, because maybe God’s presence was very hidden during that time, but the key moments that Scripture tells us about are moments in which God acts. And so that’s a key point, that as we look at our Catholic tradition based in Scripture, it’s a tradition of God acting in our world. And so it’s not anti-tradition to believe that God can act in our world. That’s the basis for all our tradition. And so some Catholics, it’s almost like they believe – Well, yeah, God acted a long time ago. It went with Jesus and the Old Testament, and then the acts of the apostles, but then He kind of stopped. But does that make any sense that God says, I’m going to act through all these centuries, and then I’m going to act by sending My own Son, and then He, by His death and resurrection, is going to pour out the Holy Spirit. And the Acts of the Apostles shows the Holy Spirit acting in the Church. And the book of Revelation speaks of the acts of the Church, and the Holy Spirit stops acting. No – God continues to act. We have so many examples that one of the most beautiful ones is this, the great apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and so many other apparitions of our Blessed Mother and the angels and saints. And then we have this image of Divine Mercy we’re calling another great action not so long ago, of God acting, manifesting, revealing in our time and throughout the whole history of the Church. And even the Vatican, a couple of months ago, published a document -the document is entitled ‘Norms for Proceeding and the Discernment of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena.’ And I think there’s a lot of problems with this document, I think a lot of ways, it’s a good example of the opposition to these revelations. But the first paragraph, I think, is very good. And I want to read you the first paragraph, “God is present and active in our history.” That’s not how Father John Mary is saying it, that’s this document “God is present and acting in our history.” And it goes on to say, “the Holy Spirit, who flows from the heart of the risen Christ, works in the Church with divine freedom.” Divine freedom with whose permission does God have to ask to do something? What rules does God have to follow when He wants to do something? As this document says, He has divine freedom. He’s God, and He can do whatever, whenever, with whomever He wants, with divine freedom. And it goes on to say “and offers us many valuable gifts that aid us on the path of life and encourage us in our spiritual growth in fidelity to the Gospel.” Always in fidelity to the gospel. That’s always the guide. Is it faithful to the gospel? “This action, the Holy Spirit,” it says, “can also reach our hearts through certain supernatural occurrences, such as apparitions or visions of Christ or the Blessed Mother, or other phenomena like prophetic messages.”  I mean, I think that’s what we’re experiencing, but always in fidelity to the gospel. So we know that Jesus will never be improved on or replaced. Jesus is the fullness of truth, and He has given us His gospel, and that is the measure for all subsequent revelations. It’s not that God stops revealing, but all those revelations have their model and their guide in the fullness of what Jesus has given, in Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ is the fullness of God’s truth, but He continues to guide the Church, to deepen and live that truth all throughout her history. And I shared with you a couple of weeks ago a passage from Maria Val Torta, in which the Lord said that His second coming is a process which began with His resurrection and will continue to His final coming, and He says He does that because we need His continuing manifestations, and especially in such a difficult time that we’re living right now in the Church with so much confusion and so much division in our world, with it’s also suffering so much. Wouldn’t it be good if God would help out? I mean, isn’t that what we need? And if He’s trying to help out, should we say, No, we didn’t give you permission. I mean, would it be sad if the Church, if the pastors of the Church, instead of being those who are most welcoming of God’s graces, became obstacles to His action. Sadly, we see that’s what happened at the time of Jesus, those the religious authorities. Because if God, if scripture, shows clearly – so my point is that it’s not against Catholic tradition to believe that God acts in our history. That’s precisely what our Catholic tradition is based on. And so how should we respond? How do the heroes of the gospel respond? And first of all, look at the how the bad examples, some of them are even very good people, but they’re like paralyzed by uncertainty and doubt. One example which, because we just today have the gospel of Mary coming to visit Elizabeth and Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, Zechariah, remember, is mute. So Zechariah is a good person. He’s a very good person. The scripture says that Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous, and Zechariah was a priest. But the problem often with us priests is that we are too confident, too proud in our own understanding. And so we can sometimes not be open to what God is doing. And so Zechariah, righteous, Zechariah. But when the angel comes, the angel, Gabriel, comes and gives him the revelation of that Elizabeth, in her old age, who has been barren, will bear a son, and Zechariah doubts. And it’s striking that, how does the angel Gabriel respond to Zechariah? Does Angel Gabriel say, Well, it’s a good thing you’re a prudent priest, that you’re not so ready to believe all this crazy stuff – that you’re very hesitant, that you’re very slow to believe. Does the angel say that? No, what does the angel do? The angel punishes him because he doubted. So shouldn’t that at least raise question marks? And how God wants us to respond? Because Zechariah’s respond is more along the lines of what a lot of the pastors in the Church today do. And the angel doesn’t praise Zechariah, the angel Gabriel, on behalf of God punishes him. And then we know the religious authorities who claim to be the experts in Scripture and tradition, were the greatest obstacles to Jesus. In the name of prudence, instead of believing in Jesus, they kept demanding more signs. And no matter what signs, Jesus said, even when Lazarus rose that because they weren’t looking for signs, they were just trying to place obstacles, reasons to not believe. They were delaying. And so those persons who respond with cynicism, with skepticism, with rationalism, are those the models of the gospel? Or are those, the bad examples of what we shouldn’t do? What we see clearly, what the gospel proposes as the models, the heroes, the saints, are those who respond with childlike, simple, bold faith. As Jesus says, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, and you revealed them to the little ones.” And the wise and the learned, those who consider themselves wise and the learned today are often still placing obstacles to Him. Those the gospel praises, those who respond promptly and boldly, even in a way that might seem rash and imprudent to us, and even those who they don’t demand complete certainty, they respond even when there’s some uncertainty, because some people are paralyzed if everything’s not completely clear. But the gospel shows people responding very boldly, sensitive to the interior action of the Holy Spirit. One of the clearest examples is when Jesus, as a little child is presented in the temple, and there’s an old man, Simeon, who, it says, inspired by the Holy Spirit, comes into the temple and sees this couple, young couple, bringing a little baby. Like there’s so many couples. That’s what they’re always, there’s all these couples always coming, bringing babies, because that was the Jewish tradition. And yet somehow, he sees in this poor young couple, something is, how does he know? If you had asked Simeon, what proof can you give, what even sign can you give, exterior sign that this was somebody special? What could he have said? Was there any sign? Was there any miracle? No, but it’s he who had the grace, it says, moved by the Holy Spirit. He was sensitive to the inspiration the Holy Spirit was giving him. And that is often a key, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that gives a person the grace to know, to see in something that there was no exterior signs, but he had that interior grace. And it’s striking to me, even like with the messages that we’ve been releasing, that here, a number of people said that as soon as they read the messages, they sensed the Holy Spirit, confirming that it was from the Lord. So those are the models in Scripture, those who respond so boldly. Oftentimes, there are people in pain and distress who are suffering, or someone they love is suffering. A lot of times, it’s even the pagans who are responding, coming but it’s those who have trust and holy boldness who can respond very quickly to Jesus. Sometimes like Simmon, without any exterior signs, sometimes even without seeing Him or hearing Him, they just hear about Him. And yet there’s this interior grace of the Holy Spirit which permits them, and there’s not a few of those all throughout Scripture. Those are the heroes from Noah and Abraham, Moses. Moses struggles, but then they finally respond that all the series of prophets, and they often the prophets struggle too, but especially around the coming of our Lord, it’s filled with these great examples of people responding with a childlike simple, bold faith to the Lord, like Elizabeth here, like Mary, like St Joseph, like the shepherds, like the wise men. And think of St. Joseph, when the angel comes to him in a dream and says, Joseph, take the mother and the child and flee to Egypt. Would it have seemed more prudent for Joseph to say, oh, that was a wild dream. I need to think about this a little bit. Maybe I’ll try to go get some advice. Maybe I’ll go talk to Zechariah, or maybe there’s some other priest in Jerusalem. Because, I mean, I certainly wouldn’t want to do that hastily, right? You want to take time. Wouldn’t that seem like what we would think? But what did Joseph do? He responded right away, and thanks be to God he did. So my point is that this should raise questions about the attitude that is often proposed today about our response to manifestations. Because in all these cases, these persons were responding to what we would call today, private revelations. That is, it wasn’t just faith that had already been established, like I said, the Law and the Prophets, but it was faith in all these examples that I’ve just cited. It was faith in something that God was revealing at that moment. Then it became part, now it’s part of our public revelation. But at that point, it was something new which was happening at that moment. And the greatest example, as I mentioned, is the example of our Blessed Mother at the Annunciation, responding with a simple trusting faith in a private, what we would call today a private revelation. So that doesn’t mean they were rejecting the Old Testament, but that meant that they saw in Jesus, actually the fulfillment of the Old Testament. So that helps us understand that faith in God act. Because when God acts, what we see in Scripture is that He wants us to have, because He gives us the grace, the Holy Spirit, He wants us to have, an openness, a trusting openness to His action. And so shouldn’t that apply today? Shouldn’t that guide us today? We have the deposit of faith, the public revelation of Jesus Christ, and that’s the basis. But my point is that I’m not rejecting that. I’m saying precisely, it is that that is the model for how we should act today. It’s precisely if we say my faith is like one priest, when I was talking many years ago about this, one priest said, “we have the gospel. We don’t need all this new stuff”. But it’s precisely the gospel that calls us to be open to God acting. I’ll read you a few paragraphs with what the catechism says about this. It says, “Even if revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit. It remains for Christian faith will gradually grasp its full significance over the course of centuries. Throughout the ages, there have been so called private,” and it puts private in quotation marks, “private revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith, it is not their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history.” So not to change or improve but to live more fully. “Guided by the magisterium of the Church, the Sensus fidelium, the sense of the faithful, knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or saints to the Church.” So know that saying the Church knows how to discern. That recent Vatican document seems to be saying the kind of the Church doesn’t know how to serve because it can practically never say it is Christian. And the Catechism goes on to say, “Christian faith cannot accept so called revelations that claim to surpass or correct the revelation of which Christ is the fulfillment, as in the case of certain non-Christian religions.” So for instance, I think that’s the case of Mormonism, and that’s also the case of Islam, which proposes to be surpassed the revelation of Jesus. And also in certain recent sects which have based themselves on such revelations. So there’s a lot more to say on this topic, but so we always need with revelations that are happening today, we always need prudence and discernment. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be prudent in discernment, because there are false prophets. And the pastors, I’m not saying that pastors don’t have an important role. The pastors do have an important role, but that’s why it’s so important that they be have a humble spirit of faith. And so I won’t try to go into all of those other points today, but I’m just calling attention to I want to at least raise questions about whether the attitude that is seen as the good, Catholic, traditional, safe, prudent attitude today, if our faith is based on the gospel, on scripture, does what we are being taught in those instances really conform to the Gospel, or does the gospel call us actually for a very different spirit?  So just to conclude, “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had just been spoken to her from the Lord.” And so the two key points I was focusing on today, the Gospel reminds us that God acts and continues to act, He surprises us, acts in our history. And Christmas, what we celebrate. Christmas is the great example. And that’s the first point – God acts in our history. And the second point is that He wants us to, with humility, with faith, with trust, to be open to His action, to His speaking today –  faith in God who acts.  Amen. 

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Luke 1:30-45