Our high school youth group in the parish met every Sunday night, and we’d have Ledo’s pizza every other week (which the kids really liked). It worked out well because the delivery man was always on time…7:00 on the dot just about every time. Well, one night we had a big group of kids show up for a discussion about being ready for Heaven. The pizza guy was late. The hungry kids were getting restless, but really didn’t complain. At about 7:15, we called Ledo’s and asked where the delivery man was. They said he had left a while ago; the place was only 5 minutes from us. So, we decided to begin the discussion and just eat afterwards.
In our discussion, we talked about always being ready to go to Heaven because you never know when your time will come. We brought up examples like 9/11 which remind us that our time can come at any time. Towards the end of the meeting, the pizza arrived…finally! But, it was a different delivery man. We asked him what happened to the first guy. He told us that he got into a serious car accident on the way to our place (again, only 5 minutes away). He was in very bad shape and his car was totaled. I told the teens what happened and we all gathered in a circle and prayed hard for him. A few minutes later, someone said, “this is exactly what we were talking about. You never know”. It was a very powerful moment. The man recovered and came back to see us some time later. But, the point was made to sll of us that night and we got it.
So, if we always need to be ready for Heaven, how do we get ready? The young man in tonight’s Gospel essentially asks Jesus this question in tonight’s Gospel when he says: “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Like, ‘what do I need to do to get to Heaven?’ Jesus’ answer is to live a moral life…to keep the Commandments. This isn’t the total answer because elsewhere in the Gospel, our Lord says that we need to be baptized to be saved, we need to receive the Eucharist to have eternal life, and we need to take care of the poor to get to Heaven. But, here, He focuses on keeping the commandments in order to receive eternal life.
Jesus is not just talking about how to get to Heaven when we die. Heaven is not just a future event. It can also occur in the present. We can inherit eternal life here on Earth. We call it happiness. Jesus wants us all to be happy in this life and forever. He is telling the young man and us that we will only be truly happy if we keep the commandments…if we choose the good…if we live as the people we are meant to be. Sin doesn’t make us happy. It might give us pleasure, but it doesn’t bring happiness. I have learned this is in my own life and after hearing a few thousand confessions. Sin doesn’t make us happy; choosing what is good makes us happy.
If you want to move away from sin and inherit eternal life, I offer you the sacrament of Confession…the sacrament of Mercy. Now, I know, just the very mention of Confession makes you nervous. I understand. It is hard to confess. Let me make it a bit easier for you by saying: I don’t care. If you come to me for Confession, I don’t care about: what sins you have committed, how many times you have committed them, how long it’s been since your last confession, or if you’ve forgotten how to go to Confession. What I do care about is your happiness. Confession will help you to be happy; it removes the huge weight of sin that drags us all down and makes us miserable. And, Confession reconnects us with Christ; we are happiest when we are with Him.
We have copies of a Guide to Confession in the back of Church that will help you to prepare for Confession along with little cards that have the act of contrition. They are for you to take. You know that I offer confession after Mass; if you are not ready to go tonight, call me or email me during the week. I am open 24/7 for Confession. As a minister of mercy, I am always available to offer you the mercy of Christ….not anger, not judgement, not condemnation…but mercy.
Finally, you hear me say at Communion every time, “let all faithful Catholics come receive our Lord”. What this really means is that Communion is reserved for Catholics who are in a state of Grace. If you have stepped out of the state of Grace through mortal sin (serious sin that you knew was wrong and freely chose to do it), then please just come up for a blessing. It is bad news to receive the Eucharist unworthily, as St Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11. He says that anyone who does this brings judgment on himself for the death of Christ. I don’t want anyone here to do that. If you’re worried about what people will think if you don’t receive, forget them. They shouldn’t be judging you anyway. I would worry about what the Lord thinks. Please, have respect for the Eucharist. Just come up for a blessing and then hit Confession as soon as possible. In this way, you will please the Lord who loves you so much and wants you to happy. May you know his love and may you find happiness in this life and forever.
1 comment:
Father, I wonder what Catholic students think….
The University of MD banned prayer at graduation, but allowed “independent groups” to show a XXX film (and even justified its value with a safe sex speech from Planned Parenthood following its showing). Now, were a student to hang a noose on campus, that would be a hate crime. So, how is the promulgation of hate an offense to the 1st Amendment but the exploitation of women upholds it? Omt – the UK banned “extreme pornography,” but how does one define those terms (it’s a rhetorical question)? When one views the norms of human sexual behavior, shouldn’t all pornography be seen as extreme?
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