What Will Happen

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

“Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days, rise again.” These words, which are over 2000 years old, are so important for us today to understand our situation today. When the apostles heard these words, they were hard to believe. It was hard to believe that God could permit satan to do so much evil, and it was hard to believe that God would triumph after so much evil. And it was hard for them to believe that they themselves would live this, because this was so different from what they were living at that point, from all that they had lived before. And I think all of that is true for us. It’s hard for us also, to believe what the Lord is speaking of, and to believe what we also are called to live. Sometimes in Scripture, Jesus words when He’s speaking about the future, like in the Book of Revelations, are very mysterious, hidden under a lot of symbolism. But this is not that case. Here Jesus is speaking very plainly, very plainly, and He says it not once, but repeatedly. And the gospel, the very gospel that we heard today, He said this plainly, not hidden, not symbolically, but plainly. And so when they don’t accept, it’s not because they don’t understand what He’s saying.  It’s because they understand too well. It’s too clear what He’s saying. And so it’s not because it’s hard to understand these words of Jesus, these prophetic words of Jesus. It’s not because they’re hard to understand. They are, in a sense, too easy to understand. And it’s because there’s part of it that they don’t want to accept. They don’t want to accept the part about Him suffering. And then there’s a part of it which they would want, but it’s so hard to believe the part about His resurrection, it’s almost like that part, because He talks about His passion, and then He ends by talking about His resurrection, it’s almost like they didn’t even hear that last part about His resurrection. And so Peter responds. We have Peter’s response, Peter, who is so frank and honest and impulsive, so open.  It’s good to remember that this gospel, this is the Gospel according to Saint Mark.  Mark was a disciple of Peter’s, and so the tradition believes that Mark is recounting the gospel the way Peter preached it. There’s no gospel which speaks so harshly about Peter as this gospel. So it’s Peter himself who is sharing this, in his humility, sharing this. And I think we find ourselves in Peter. We see a lot of ourselves in Peter, because there’s this, as the word, as Jesus will say, this conflicts between what is human and what is divine. Peter’s response is a very normal human response, and it sounds good and loving. “No, Lord, may that never happen to You. I don’t want You to suffer. We’re not going to let You suffer. That should never happen to You.” I mean, that seems like a very loving response, and it is, it’s loving, but it’s too human. It’s loving but it’s too human. Or you could say it’s loving. Another way of saying that is, it’s loving but it’s not loving enough. It’s loving, but it’s not loving enough, because, as Jesus is showing that Peter is thinking in a human way, but he is being called to something that is beyond human, that is divine, and that’s why it’s so demanding. To follow Jesus, human efforts, human ideas are not sufficient. Divine Grace is needed, and that’s what Jesus leads us to, and that’s what for all of us, because all of us are called to a path which is not just human, but which is divine. So how can we poor little humans do what is divine? Only by God’s grace. Peter probably thinks he’s being more realistic than Jesus. Jesus is a great guy. He’s so holy. He’s got all these spiritual, beautiful ideals. But Peter probably thinks, but life’s not quite like that. Peter probably thinks he needs that. Jesus is younger than Peter. Peter probably thinks, yeah, you’re much holier than I am. But I have to tell you about some things. You know that Peter is more realistic, but nobody, and this is important to realize. And so nobody is more realistic than our Lord. And so Peter, there’s some love here, but there’s also hidden under the love, which is often the case for us, hidden under Peter’s affection, there’s also some pride. He thinks he knows better. He thinks he knows better than our Lord. And there’s also some lack of trust. He doesn’t truly trust Jesus completely. And so what are the consequences for Peter of not accepting these words of Jesus? Peter wants to avoid that suffering. He wants to avoid it for Jesus, and he wants to avoid it for himself and all of them. But by not listening to Jesus, he doesn’t avoid the suffering. He doesn’t avoid it for anybody, doesn’t avoid it for Jesus or anybody, doesn’t save anybody from it. He makes it worse. By not listening to Jesus, by trying to avoid the suffering, he makes the suffering worse. And this is important for us, because none of us can avoid a life in which there is suffering. If we’re following Jesus, will always encounter the cross, but if we’re following Jesus, we won’t just encounter the cross, we’ll encounter the cross with God’s grace. And that doesn’t mean that it’s not very painful, but it means that God’s grace will sustain us through that. And the greatest example we have of that was our Blessed Mother. But by Peter, by not listening to God when the time comes, he’s very weak, and so he suffers without all the grace that God wanted him to have at that moment. And so for him, that suffering lasts his whole life, in a sense, all the pain of knowing his weakness at that point. And so my point is that a lot of times when we try to avoid the path that God is calling us to, instead of making things better and avoiding the pain, we make things worse. So how does Jesus respond to Peter? Again, this is so shocking, because Peter is saying, Lord, I don’t want you to suffer. He says, “May this never happen to you.” And so Jesus said, Peter, that’s a nice idea. I appreciate, I appreciate your affection, your care for me, your concern. But Jesus doesn’t say that. He says, “Get behind me, satan.” Get behind me satan. “You are thinking not as God does, but as man does.” And you might think, yeah, that’s what we do all the time, right? We’re always thinking as man does, not as God does. So that’s the challenge. I mean, that’s why we gather here to listen to the Word of God, because God’s calling us to see things in reality and not just according to our human limitations. Never does Jesus speak so harshly to Peter. Even after Peter denied Jesus, Jesus never spoke so harshly as at this moment. So Jesus never spoke so harshly to Peter as at the moment in which Peter was trying to avoid Jesus from suffering. Does that make sense? Doesn’t that sound crazy? Jesus never spoke so harshly to Peter, as when Peter was trying to keep Jesus from suffering. And the gospel shows us how satan was tempting Jesus in the desert to try to get Him to abandon His path of salvation and take an easier path. And Jesus had to reject that temptation. And here Jesus, it sounds like you saying that satan is using Peter to try to keep Jesus from His saving mission. Jesus is determined to give His life for Peter and for each of us and all but, but not just that. So Peter is trying to be loving, but Jesus is being truly loving. Peter’s love is there’s good in it, but it’s very imperfect because he doesn’t want to love completely. And Jesus wants, and is determined to love completely, love even to the point of giving Himself. Peter wants to love, but not to that point. And but also, Jesus is revealing what is going to be the true path to victory, the true path to glory. So that’s to Peter. But what about us? Right away. Then Jesus calls to Him the multitude with His disciples. So here Jesus is not just speaking, He’s no longer just speaking to Peter and the apostles, He’s calling the multitude – so all of us. And he says, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” So he’s saying that this is not that His path is the path of anyone who wants to follow Him. So all of us, what all of us are called to. He says, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake,” in the Gospel, “will save it.” And these are these words which sound so stupid, so idiotic, so weak for the world. That’s what St Paul says. He says this path of Jesus, the path of the cross, sounds idiotic and weak for the world, but this is the true path of victory, and so it’s the path for each one of us, and it’s the path for the whole Church. So I wanted to share with you, because of this Gospel passage, this I shared some of this last spring in a homily, but I think it fits so well the gospel today, that I wanted to go back to it. So this was a message that the Lord gave to our Amici Christi, April 14, 2023. It says, “My beloved friends, rest in My heart, in My love. I see your hearts. I see the pain you carry. I see the sacrifices you make that no one sees. I see the efforts and the work that no one appreciates, but I do. I see, I know I appreciate. And as you give all these things to Me, I unite them through all My pain, all My hidden work, all My effort, and I offer it all to the Father.” So that’s the reason for this Mass to bring all our pain and sacrifices and unite it to the Lord. So that right now, in this very Mass that He can offer it to His Father, He says, “Nothing is lost or fruitless when you offer it to Me, how much this pain seeps into your souls, My little ones, I know.” So the Lord knows all the pain that each one of us is carrying, sometimes very hidden. “Pain and sorrow at seeing so many fall, at feeling yourselves so weak, and at seeing all the woundedness in the world and in my Church, My poor, poor Church, so battered. Very little of it remains sound, and soon it will be entirely like Me, betrayed, abandoned, scourged, crucified, mocked, insulted and laid in the tomb.” So that’s why I was saying that these words of the Lord from 2000 years ago are so important to understand what is happening today. Because not just each one of us, personally, individually, but the Church itself is called to follow the Lord. And He says, “Do not abandon My Church, but rather pray for it and offer it to the Father.”  So we’re not called to abandon the Church. Those who are abandoning it are those who are usurping positions of authority to lead the institution away from the Lord. So we’re called to remain rooted to the Church that Jesus founded 2000 years ago, the true Church. He says, “the Church that is covered in My blood and in the blood of all My martyrs, the physical and mystical blood that atones and cleanses.” So not just the physical blood of those who literally shed their blood, but also those, He calls it the mystical blood, that is all who offer their pain and interior pain and sacrifice that atones and cleanses. “Plead the tears of My mother.” So, as Mother Magdelene said, this is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. And so many of the manifestations of our Blessed Mother have been manifestations where the statues would begin crying, even weeping, tears of blood. And Mother Magdelene referenced Our Lady of La Salette, the feast that’s coming up today, when Our Lady of La Salette appeared to the children, two children, she was sitting on a rock, she sit on a rock and her elbows on her forehead and her hand. Her face was in her hands, and she was weeping. So sitting, weeping, that’s how they saw her. “Plead the tears of My mother and of all the hearts that love Me that it may be purified and raised. You are My friends too.” That’s what the Amici Christi means – friends of Christ. “You are My friends, too.” And now listen to what He says, “and you are undergoing the second great darkness.” You are undergoing the second great darkness. What is the first great darkness? I think it’s the great darkness of Jesus’ Passion. And He’s saying that today we are living the second great darkness. Because a lot of people say, Oh, in the Church, the Church has always had its ups and downs, and that’s just what’s going on today. Some more ups and downs, and everything will be okay pretty soon. But that’s not what the Lord is saying. He’s saying “you are undergoing the second great darkness.” That is the church coming to the great moment of its passion. The Church has always had sufferings throughout its history, but this, in a special way, the whole Church will be called to live its passion. “You are not alone, just as in that terrible hour of My Crucifixion.” Now listen to this. This is very hopeful, “just as in that terrible hour of My crucifixion, the life of the Holy Spirit was never more active or present.” It seemed like where was the Holy Spirit seemed like he was absent on that day. It seemed like just a day of evil, but Jesus is saying the Holy Spirit was actually never more present, as when He was offering, when Jesus was offering Himself on the cross, and even though the effects were not immediately apparent, it was from that sacrifice that the Holy Spirit’s graces would be flowing out for forever, for all eternity. He says, “just as in that terrible hour of My Crucifixion,” so that was the first great darkness. Remember, that was at His crucifixion. Remember the whole, it’s the gospel. So the whole darkness came over the earth. And that was a sign of the spiritual darkness. He says, “so it is now again.” That is that the Holy Spirit, even though it doesn’t look like that, the Holy Spirit is especially active today, He says, “behind the dreadful appearances, the light of faith and hope and the endless work of the reconquest is taking place.” So even though things look so bad, the reconquest is already beginning. It’s already happening. And then He talks about His words. He says, remember, we talked a couple weeks ago about that, that scripture passage about holding on to the word, words of God and Jesus. Rather, in the Old Testament, the Lord is telling his people to bind these words, to remember these words and teach these words. Here, our Lord says, “bind.” It says, “bind these words to your forehead. Bind them on your hands.” And here the Lord says, “bind these words to your heart. Write them upon your mind, repeat them to yourselves, so as to remain steadfast.” So how can we remain steadfast? By holding on to the words of God. “Those who stood by My cross with Me and those who obeyed from afar.” That is the Lord, as Maria Valtorta, her account says that there are some people, like Lazarus, that the Lord asked to stay someplace else, to obey the sacrifices staying someplace else. That’s very, very beautiful to read. You can read that in Maria Valtorta’s account, “those who stood by My cross with Me and those who obeyed from afar stood and obeyed because My words had penetrated to the depths of their souls.” So that’s the importance of these words of the Lord. So when Peter, by his obstinacy, is not permitting these words to penetrate, he doesn’t want to hear what God’s saying. So the words don’t penetrate. And so since the words haven’t penetrated, when the time comes, he doesn’t have the grace that he needs. And so by letting the words penetrate, God’s grace penetrates. “And though all human appearances and all the hatred of that hour said to them that it was all ended, that I was an imposter, that it was all futile, but My words gave them light, and their faith and trust in My words and in Me allowed them to see beyond the darkness of what their eyes and their mind told them,” because every everybody and it looked obvious, and the devil was tempting them to say, it’s all over. It was a nice, pretty idea, but it just didn’t work. And so, and that seems, it seems obvious, but if they were, if they had faith and trust in the words of Jesus, they had a light that they could hold on to. And he says, “That is why I insist on faith, trust, obedience. These are the only acts of your soul, of your whole being, that can pierce through the darkness and the lies of the enemy.” It’s not just study that can pierce through it’s only the words holding on to the words of Jesus with faith and trust and obedience. Then he says, “my little ones, I am leading you up a very steep, rocky path.” So those of you who walked up the little path that led to our mission, you know, that’s a reminder. And we have a lot of steep, rocky paths here at the mission. Someone the other day asked me if they could take a rock from the mission. I said, Yeah, we’re very rich in rocks, so we have plenty of rocks to share. You know, there’s a lot of rocks here, and so just the here, in this hill country, this site is a reminder of this steep, rocky path, “painful and exhausting, but I am leading you up high, beyond the reaches of the enemy and His works.” That’s why it’s so hard, because He’s leading us up high to safety. He pulls at your every step. He places obstacle after obstacle. I mean, that’s our experience of trying to do things at the mission. So many times it’s and all our team knows it’s obstacle after obstacle, terrified that you are more and more out of His grasp. “Do not fear. I am leading you. Soon I will come to you to strengthen you.” So a great promise, Lord, a great promise. I want you to. I want to remind the Lord that as soon as you said that don’t let him off the hook. Just sometimes it feels like he gets busy with other things. Oh yeah, I forgot I was supposed to do that. So no that we don’t want to. We got to keep reminding him. “Soon I will come to you to strengthen you. The hour,” and this is very hopeful, he says, “The hour of great darkness is also the hour of the greatest mercies.” The hour of great darkness is also the hour of the greatest mercies. Why in our time did the Lord give us this great revelation through St Faustina? To prepare us for the hour of darkness, but also the hour of greatest mercies. Like the cross, was that moment, which was so dark, but which was also in a hidden way, the hour in which mercies flowed. “And as the times are unprecedented in the denial of God and the multiplication of sin and error and the betrayal of My children, in the betrayal to My children and to Me.” And that’s happening in the Church, betrayal. So the Lord saying that there’s something happening now which is an evil This, of course, has been evil throughout the history of the world and throughout the history of the Church, but He’s saying it’s at an unprecedented level today, and so it’s important to recognize that. But you could say, well, then there’s just no hope. But He says, no, on the contrary, “these times are also unprecedented in grace and mercy and the helps that I give my children to help them continue on and survive.” Saint Paul says, (where grace abounds. Excuse me,) he says where sin abounds, and sin abounds today, Grace over abounds. And so if we’re living these, if we’re suffering through these times of great evil, but there are also times in which God is already preparing for greatest of mercies. “Help Me, My children, My friends, My beloved friends, stand firm with Me. Look up at Me and never fear. I am with you always. I love you. I bless you. You are Mine and I am yours.  Your Jesus, who will come to you soon.” Lord, you said you will come soon. What’s your idea of soon? Lord, so that’s the message. And just to conclude, we’re facing extreme challenges today. No human response will be enough. We have elections coming up and so forth, and elections are important, but no human effort will be enough. The Holy Spirit is speaking to us today, through scripture, through the signs of the times, through prophetic words, through His interior voice and prayer. And so what should we do? What is something concrete and practical that we can do? It’s receive with faith, with trust, the words of the Lord. Humbly accept what the Lord is saying to us today, asking our Blessed Mother, who is the greatest example, to help us receive with faith, with trust, with hope, the words of the Lord for ourselves and for the whole Church, so that in tribulation, we don’t give in to discouragement, but the words of the Lord give us strength to lead us through to His great triumph. Jesus has suffered, but He has risen. Jesus, we trust in You. Amen.  

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Mark 8:27-35