Have you ever been duped? Fooled, tricked, deceived, conned, swindled?
“You duped me O Lord!” That was Jeremiah’s complaint. Somewhere along the line, he must have gotten the idea in his head that the life of a prophet would win him friends, success, and honors. Instead, it won him derision and mockery.
And why not? Violence and outrage were Jeremiah’s message. Who wanted to hear that? Who wanted to hear that due to sexual immorality, child sacrifice, and false worship, the Babylonians were coming?
Did you think the Apostles may have felt duped? Shortly after Jesus fed the multitude, walked on water, and admitted He was the Christ, He said He would suffer at the hands of His own people and be killed. Do you think that surprise prediction of His passion and death might have brought on some second thoughts about being His follower?
A New York priest once wrote:
Perhaps this should not be a surprise. Jesus, after all, never once said, “Come follow me, and you will fit in very well with your peers!” He never said, “Take up your cross, and your friends and family will say ‘Wonderful! Good for you!’” What Jesus did say was “You will be hated because of me.” Throughout the Gospels, He warns the Twelve that people will vociferously reject those who follow Him.
Edith Stein (Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), a Carmelite nun who was killed at Auschwitz in 1942 because she was Jewish, reminds us that Jesus “asks each one of us: Will you remain faithful to the Crucified? Consider carefully! … If you decide for Christ, it could cost you your life.” Stein tells us that the Cross creates a division “between those whose first love is God, and those whose first love is self.” In similar fashion, St. Paul taught that “The message of the cross is complete absurdity to those who are headed for ruin.” (George Rutler)
At that moment it seemed a complete absurdity to St. Peter, who had just been made pope. Bishop Sheen wrote:
The Divinity of Christ, [Peter] would accept; the suffering Christ, he would not. The rock had become a stumbling stone; Peter would have a half Christ for the moment, the Divine Christ, but not the Redeemer Christ. But a half Christ was no Christ. [Peter] would have the Christ Whose glory was announced at Bethlehem, but not the full-orbed Christ who would be a sacrifice for sins on the Cross.
And so, Christ had to tell Peter to get behind Him, to get out of His way. No one would stop Christ from going to Jerusalem. Because He would save, He must die. Isn’t that interesting? That is what we proclaim at Holy Mass. We proclaim a holy death. And this is complete absurdity to a world headed for ruin. It is complete absurdity to modern-day Catholics who have been duped into thinking Mass is nothing more than a Bible Study, sprinkled with songs and a fellowship meal.
I had a parishioner once, an old-time farmer, a big man, put his hand on my shoulder and tell me, “Father, I don’t like to get preached at. I just come to Mass to feel good.” I looked up at him, a man whose four sons had left the Faith, and I said, “My job is not to make you feel good.” My job was to tell him that due to sexual immorality, child sacrifice, and false worship, the Babylonians were coming.
A priest from Brooklyn who died a few years back wrote:
It’s a fact of life in our Church, as far as I can see, that my job as a parish priest is to keep most people, if not everyone, happy. Doctrinally faithful sermons will not do that. It is not that most Catholics want to be heretics; it is that they have never been formed in the Catholic faith. They have been fed a steady diet of this mutually affirming mommy religion for so long that to suggest that they might be sinners, or even that some sin they have embraced as a lifestyle is wrong, is to “attack” them. It is to be “mean,” and Jesus was not mean. I am a good priest if I leave you smiling and feeling good; a bad priest otherwise.
Why do you come to Mass? Do you come to learn about the Bible, or to become a better version of yourself? Those are fine things, but they are hardly your primary objectives. No, you came here to die. You came here to witness a sacred and mystical death and to die yourself, to lose your life in order to gain it.
Bishop Sheen wrote:
The Cross was the reason of His coming; now He made it the earmark of His followers. He did not make Christianity easy; for He implied not only must there be a voluntary renouncement of everything that hindered likeness with Him, but also there must be the suffering, shame, and death of the Cross.
They did not have to blaze a trail of sacrifice themselves, but merely to follow His tracks … No disciple is called to the task that is untried. He had taken the Cross first. Only those who were willing to be crucified with Him could be saved by the merits of His death and only those who bore a Cross could ever really understand Him.
What does it really mean to carry your cross? A priest wrote:
The daily carrying of our cross can be a prolonged martyrdom. Poverty, ill health, cruelty and hardheartedness met with in the home and in one’s neighbors are heavy crosses which only a truly Christian soldier can bear. But, if we were offered health, happiness, peace, wealth and power for the next fifty years or so on earth, in exchange for an eternal heaven after death, what rational one among us would accept that offer? (Kevin Sullivan)
Friends, don’t be duped by what this passing-away world sells. Instead, offer your body as a living sacrifice. Like any worthwhile pursuit, that is not easy. But if you participate, as Christ commanded you, in His one Holy Sacrifice, you will be given the strength to do so. That being the case, listen to a professor from Detroit:
In the course of each day, in the course of each hour, the single most important event that unfolds upon the face of the Earth is the celebration of Mass. For it is the supreme sacrifice of Our Lord on Calvary for the salvation of the world, but also the ultimate means by which man responds to the unfathomable riches of Christ. Man does so by offering to God the utmost worship and praise. (James Monti)
The utmost worship and praise. What should that look like? What should you look like when you dare to enter God’s temple and tell Him you are ready to die for Him? St. Peter told Christ he was ready to die for Him the night before He died. But then a few hours later Peter reneged on his pledge. Peter was still placing his bet on the half-Christ—the Divine one, not the Redeemer one.
However, as Sheen wrote, a half Christ was no Christ at all.
At Holy Mass Christ does not give you half of Himself. He gives you the whole thing—Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Why then would you show up here and give just give half of yourself to Him? Why would you give Him anything less than the utmost worship and praise? To a rational person that is complete absurdity. But that of course is what the cross is—complete absurdity to those headed for ruin.
My friends: The Babylonians are coming. Will you remain faithful to the Crucified? Understand that if you decide for Christ, it could cost you your life. Listen in the silence at Mass as Christ gives you the opportunity of a lifetime. Hear Him say, “Get behind me. We’re going to Jerusalem. I’ll blaze the trail. You follow behind.”
Image from Wikimedia Commons
