5th Sunday of Lent

5th Sunday of Lent

“Has no one condemned you?
She replied, “No one, sir.”
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.

So, is Jesus telling us that it’s ok to commit adultery? He didn’t condemn the woman. He let her go. Before we answer the question, maybe we need to look at the big picture.

Jesus is in the temple area. The Gospel says “all the people started coming to him and He sat down and taught them.” We don’t know how many people there were. It doesn’t say. But “all the people” seems like it might have been a crowd. Jesus is teaching them and here come the scribes and Pharisees with this woman who’s committed adultery. They interrupt Jesus’ teaching and make the woman stand right in the middle of the crowd.

So here we have the Pharisees demanding that Jesus do something about this sinner. They don’t think she might have committed adultery. They didn’t hear a rumor. They didn’t see her boyfriend’s camel parked outside her house all night. She was “caught in the very act of committing adultery” they tell Him. We don’t know how they caught her. There might have been some sinning on the Pharisees’ part, too.

Anyway, the Pharisees are indignant. They’re there in their big Pharisee robes and their big Pharisee hats, with big rocks in their hands, demanding to know what Jesus is going to do about the woman’s sin.

Of course, they didn’t confront Jesus when He was alone with His disciples. They waited until he was in front of a crowd of believers. They wanted to embarrass him and to come up with something they could use against Him. Sound a lot like some of our modern-day politicians.

[pause]

Let’s talk about adultery for a minute. In a recent poll, 83% of Americans said that adultery is always wrong. I’m sure most of us here would agree with that. But what about the flip side? If 83% believe adultery is always wrong, then 17% don’t believe it’s always wrong. Nearly one in five Americans think adultery’s ok sometimes??? I think that’s mind boggling. Even people who do it should know that it’s never ok.

The reason I bring it up is because if this incident were to take place, there are more people than you might think who would say the woman’s sin wasn’t really such a big deal. We live in a world of situational ethics. In the same poll, only 36% of people said that they believe we should live by God’s principles.


Our kids can see adultery on television, and not just on pay cable. Our so-called “modern” society has lost it’s way when it comes to morality. Our “old-fashionedChurch still holds to the traditional values. You know, silly things like the Ten Commandments. But the people of the first century, the people in today’s Gospel story took the Ten Commandments very seriously. You’ve heard the expression that something’s chiseled in stone? The Ten Commandments WERE chiseled in stone. They were the law. They still are. And this woman had broken the law.

In Mark’s Gospel, one of the scribes asked Jesus which was the greatest of the commandments. He answered that the first, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” was first and that “Love your neighbor as yourself” was second. Evidently the other eight are tied for third place.

But if you look at those eight, they all support the first two. Thou shalt not commit adultery is a part of loving God and loving your neighbors.

From the second chapter of Genesis all the way through Revelations, the scriptures speak of marriage. The love of a husband and wife is God’s way of revealing His love for us in a physical way; a way that we can see. He told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. The Gospels are full of marriage symbolism. Jesus is the bridegroom and His Church is the bride.

The very first words spoken by a human being in the Old Testament were spoken by Adam after God had created Eve. He said, “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called ‘woman’, for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”

“That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.”
[pause]

Getting back to our story, this was a VERY SERIOUS matter. How did Jesus handle it? He put it back on the Pharisees themselves. In effect He said, “ok, you’re right. This woman’s a sinner. She deserves to be stoned. Go ahead and stone her, but the first rock has to come from someone who hasn’t sinned himself. Whichever one of you has never sinned, go ahead and go first.” He didn’t say that they all had to be sinless, just the first one to throw his rock.

Of course we know that none of them could go first, so there was no stoning that day. They all dropped their rocks and went away, BEGINNING WITH THE ELDERS. If the elders were admitting that they had sinned, surely no one else would be bold enough to go first, including the crowd who had gathered to hear Jesus teach. Remember the Gospel says that when Jesus looked up the second time, “he was left alone with the woman.”

When no one had condemned the woman, Jesus told her that He didn’t either. Which brings us back to the question, is Jesus telling us that adultery is ok?
No, He’s not. He didn’t condemn the woman THAT DAY. He told her to go and not sin any more. In a few minutes we’ll recite the Creed and we’ll say “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” It wasn’t time for Him to judge the woman. None of us knows when that time will come. Jesus didn’t condemn anyone while He was here. Notice though, that He didn’t forgive the woman either.

Not condemning and forgiving aren’t the same thing. We assume that if the woman didn’t sin anymore that she would be forgiven. We know that He forgives all of us if we ask Him to. That’s what’s missing from this story. The woman didn’t ask for forgiveness. For all we know, she may have gone right back to her old ways. If she did, then she didn’t escape condemnation, she just put it off.
None of us is strong enough to avoid all sin. Adam and Eve made sure of that.

You and I can put ourselves into this story. We can be the sinful woman. Jesus doesn’t condemn us for our sins either. It’s not time yet. The trouble is, we don’t know exactly when that time will be. He WILL condemn us for our sins someday, unless we ask Him for forgiveness. The neat thing is that he WILL forgive us if we ask.

We could also be one of the Pharisees, standing here with stone in hand, just waiting to throw it at whoever we think deserves it. C’mon, you know there’s somebody that you could hit with one of these babies. But, we don’t get to do that. Jesus has the power to judge. You and I don’t. In fact, the Gospels make it pretty clear that Jesus will judge the stone thrower much more harshly than the throwee.

We can also be one of the members of the crowd. People in crowds are easy to influence. It’s called “mob mentality”. Once somebody throws that first stone, we’re right there, ready to join in. Have you ever been in a group of people when one of them starts to throw verbal stones at somebody. Did you rush to the person’s defense, or did you join in the criticism? We’ve all done it. It’s human nature. Human nature: That’s what we call it when we do something we’re ashamed of and we don’t want to take the blame.

Two weeks from today (tomorrow) is Easter Sunday. No matter whether we’re the sinner, the stone thrower, or just a face in the crowd that goes along with the rest, the next two weeks would be a good time to examine ourselves, take a look at our sins, and ask Jesus to forgive us. This coming Tuesday we’ll have Eucharistic Adoration from just after 8:00 mass until 8:00 in the evening. Take an hour, spend it in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, thinking about the times you’ve sinned and the times you’ve judged what you thought were others’ sins.

If you haven’t been to confession lately, this would be a good time to go. You don’t have to make a reservation. There are always seats available.

We’re never going to stop sinning. We can’t help it. All we can do is ask for God’s help to be strong and ask for his forgiveness when we’re not.

Rules

So why does the Church have so many rules anyway? Didn’t Jesus say that all we have to do to be saved is to follow Him? Where does the Church get off imposing all these man-made rules? Don’t I have free will?

Those are all good questions; questions that many Catholics struggle with every day. An awful lot of people have even left the Church because they disagree with the Church’s teaching on one thing or another, and that’s too bad. It’s too bad because the Catholic Church is Christ’s bride. Remember that when He established the Church, He said to Peter “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church”.

The word Peter means “rock”. When Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, He was indicating that Peter would indeed be the rock, the cornerstone, of His new Church. He also told the Apostles, “Whoever hears you, hears me.” In other words, He gave his first Pope and Bishops, the twelve Apostles, and their successors the authority to speak for Him.

What about those successors? Just because Jesus gave powers to the twelve, why do we think that the current Bishops have any power? Another good question. Here's the thing. After Jesus was crucified and Judas had committed suicide, the remaining eleven Apostles were together. They weren't really sure what had just happened and for all they knew, they were the next ones to die. So what did they do? Did they come up with a plan to escape? Did they say "we're all going to have to work harder now that there are only eleven of us? No, Peter said "we must appoint a successor to Judas." He knew, they all knew, that their office must continue on, even after their death.

Remember that while God doesn’t control the future, He does know what’s going to happen because He exists outside of the concept of time. He knew that we would have a hard time understanding the Scriptures. He knew that in our weak human nature, we would never agree about what Jesus said, or what would be written in the Bible.

So, Jesus gave us a Church which is protected by the Holy Spirit from making errors in matters of faith and morals. That’s the basis for our entire belief system. Today, many Catholics like to think of themselves as “cafeteria Catholics”. They believe some, or even most of what the Church teaches, but they want to pick and choose. Pick one from column A and two from column B.

Why “cafeteria Catholics”? It’s as if they’re saying “I’ll have three desserts but I’ll pass on the meat and the vegetables.” We all know that that kind of diet will eventually destroy our health. Well, a diet of spiritual desserts with no meat and vegetables will destroy our spiritual health.

When Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses on the door of the Cathedral, he opened the floodgates. For the first fifteen hundred years of the Church, Catholics accepted Church teaching with very little question. Luther’s criticism along with Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, led to wide-spread questioning of the Church’s authority. Luther’s translation of the Bible became widely available. Because some of the books of the Bible contradicted Luther’s ideas, they were left out of the “new” Bible.

Up until this time, Bibles were copied by hand. They were very rare and very expensive; far out of reach of the average person. With the advent of the press, more people had access to the new Bible and were drawn into Luther’s new religion. In effect, Luther substituted his interpretation of the scriptures for the Church’s official interpretation. This acceptance of different interpretations of the Sacred Word of God has led us to the point where today we have over 20,000 protestant denominations, each with its own idea of what the scriptures mean.

And that brings us back to the question of the “rules” of the Church. Actually, there are two types of Church rules. One is called “doctrine”. Doctrine deals with matters of faith and morals. It’s non-negotiable. It can never change. The truth doesn’t change to fit the times. Some say that the Church is inflexible and they’re right! When it comes to the truths of the faith, the Church is extremely inflexible and we should be glad that it is.

The other type of rule is called a “discipline”. Disciplines cover things that are more administrative in nature. A celibate priesthood is a discipline. Abstaining from meat on Fridays during Lent is a discipline. These things can change. For example, it used to be a discipline that Catholics abstain from meat on all Fridays. That discipline was dropped.

Doctrines are necessary for salvation. Disciplines help us along the way.

But that still doesn’t answer the “rules” question we started with. For example, why did Archbishop Burke suppress the Polish parish of St. Stanislaus in north St. Louis? Isn’t he just after their money? Why did he excommunicate their priest?

That’s really two questions. Let’s look at them one at a time. Every parish in a diocese is under the leadership of the “local ordinary”. That’s the Bishop or the Archbishop. The ordinary is responsible for the well-being of every parish in his area. Through a series of actions, the leaders of St. Stanislaus parish made it clear that they had no intention of following Archbishop Burke’s leadership. The Archbishop had removed the priests from the parish because the parish’ board of directors had refused to give them the money needed to operate the parish. After several attempts by the Archbishop at reconciliation, the parish board hired their own pastor from another diocese.

This is a gross violation of one of those disciplinary laws. The Archbishop really had no choice but to suppress the parish. There are a billion Catholics in the world who belong to thousands of parishes. The Roman Catholic Church is far and away the oldest organization in the world, existing for more than 2,000 years, with more than one billion members. There is no way any organization can survive that long without rules that everyone must follow. If every Catholic and every parish “did their own thing” the Church would have disappeared many centuries ago. If every priest decided to choose which parish he was going to serve, the priest shortage in the Caribbean would most likely disappear, but the rest of us would be out of luck.

As far as the pastor’s excommunication, the Archbishop didn’t excommunicate him. Excommunication is automatic when a member of the Church commits certain violations. The priest’s actions certainly fell into the category. He didn’t defy just one Bishop, he defied two. He abandoned his assignment in another diocese in direct violation of his Bishop’s instructions and he violated the instructions of the Archbishop of St. Louis. He excommunicated himself. Because his actions were very public, the Archbishop was required to make a public announcement of the priest’s excommunication.

The word “excommunicated” means out of communion. It’s not the same thing as “banishment” which is practiced by some protestant denominations. Banishment is imposed on a member by church leadership. Excommunication is self-imposed. There’s a big difference. A person can be “out of communion” even though no one in the Church leadership has publicly said so. I’m afraid there are hundreds of thousands of nominal Catholics who are anonymously out of communion with the Church. Some of them don’t even know it. Is a “non-practicing” Catholic in communion with the Church? Think about it.

What about some of the other so-called rules? Marriage rules give people a lot of trouble. There is an entire industry of former priests who have left the Church, usually because of some sort of scandal, or because they wanted to get married, who rent themselves out to couples who want to have a “Catholic” wedding but who have been turned down for one reason or another.

The reason people resort to these “rent-a-priests” is usually because they are still in a valid marriage and want to marry again, or because they want to have their ceremony on a beach, or on top of a mountain, or while they’re jumping out of an airplane, or in some other “exotic” location.

In the first case, we as Catholics believe that marriage is forever. However, a marriage can be declared null if it’s determined that it wasn’t valid in the first place. Some people don’t want to go the trouble of having their first marriage investigated, so they go another route. Jesus clearly stated that a second valid marriage is adultery. The Church exists to help all of us get into heaven. How can anyone expect the Church to sacramentalize an adulterous union? It can’t and it won’t.

As far as the beach/mountain/skydiving wedding is concerned, Catholics “do” sacraments in Church. When someone says they were married “in the church”, that’s what it means. In the church. Not in the backyard. Not at a casino in Las Vegas. In the church.

But, why is that? First, sacraments are public. Anyone should be allowed to attend. The church building is our public place. A wedding at a country club is going to exclude people. Well, you may say, a city park is a public place. Why can’t I be married there? Because the Church understands human nature. If she gives us an inch, we’ll take a mile. Once you make an exception, then everyone will want an exception and you end up with people being married on the Boss roller coaster at Six Flags.

As someone who witnesses weddings I can tell you that many modern brides are much more concerned with the pomp and circumstance that goes along with a wedding than they are with the ceremony itself. It's not unusual at all to have the bride and groom approach the church with the date picked out for the wedding because it's the only day they could book their favorite hall. They've chosen the dresses and the tuxedos, picked out the band and the food for the reception and the members of the wedding party. God help the priest or deacon who tells them that the Church isn't available that day. How dare we??? It would take a priest or deacon with a lot of courage to tell the couple that they just aren't ready to get married. Sadly, if one minister turns a couple down, or tells them they should wait, they can almost always find someone else who will let them go ahead.

It's hard enough to get the couple focused on the business at hand when the ceremony is going to take place in God's house. I can't imagine what it would be like if the ceremony was going to be held elsewhere. If couples spent as much time planning their marriage as they spend planning their wedding, the divorce rate wouldn't be 50%.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to have a nice wedding. After all, it only happens once in a lifetime (we hope). But when the focus is on the reception, the clothes, the pictures, the guest list, the honeymoon, and all the other incidentals, with the wedding itself almost an afterthought, that's a big problem. At least, when the wedding is held in God's house, there's some possibility that the message of the sacramental union may get through all the clutter.

According to a recent story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, a local couple is planning to be married in a cemetery! Is there any wonder why so many marriages fail? I'm sure the couple means well. Apparently the cemetery offers a great view of the surrounding countryside. But, if you're planning to be looking at the scenery while you make your marriage vows, how serious can you be about those vows? There's really no place for so-called out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to making a lifetime commitment to an institution that was created by God eons ago. You wouldn't rent an apartment without reading the lease. Should you agree to live with someone for the rest of your life while you're concentrating on the hills and trees?

What about the guests? Of course the marriage ceremony is for the bride and groom but it's also for the guests. The exchange of vows reminds all of us of our own commitments and commitments to come. I don't know about you, but if I were to attend a wedding in a graveyard, my mind would not be focused on the topic at hand. There would just be too many distractions.

As I said, I'm sure the couple mean well. I assume that they're in love. None of us are in a position to judge what's in someone else's heart. But clearly this couple could use some guidance. That's why Holy Mother Church, in her great wisdom, lays down rules for important events. By specifying that marriages must take place in a church, there is no question about what is or isn't allowed. The minister doesn't have to decide that a park's ok, but a cemetery isn't. Or that one park is alright, but another one is off limits. If I can get married under the Gateway Arch, why can't I tie the knot on the carousel at Faust Park?

There are no rules covering the rehearsal dinner or the reception. The choice of clothing is left up to the bride and groom (within reason). They can choose the music, and the number of bridesmaids, and whether to have a flower girl and ring bearer or not. No one tells them where to go on their honeymoon. There are plenty of opportunities for the prospective bride and groom to exercise their creativity. But you can't mess with the sacrament itself. That's just the way it is.

"Free" is a popular word today, especially in the United States. Everyone wants to be free. Freedom of this; freedom of that. But freedom has a flip side. It's called responsibility. You can't have one without the other. God has given us free will. But first, he gave us responsibility.

Freedom doesn't mean the absence of rules and regulations. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater and claim freedom of speech. The freedom of the majority of the audience to enjoy the movie without fear of being trampled to death trumps the individual's freedom of speech.

Christ left us a Church to guide us, sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently, which gives us the greatest freedom of all. I don't have to spend time deciding whether or not abortion is evil or whether or not I should go to mass on Sunday. Those things have been decided for me before I was even born. Many learned, holy people have spent untold hours studying the scriptures and the writings of the Church Fathers. Church "rules" are based on their findings, always guided by the Holy Spirit. My faith in God, in His Son, and in His Church gives me the freedom to concentrate on living my life, which is the greatest freedom of all.

1st Sunday of Lent

Most of you know that I didn’t grow up Catholic. I was raised Baptist, but to be honest, we were a strange sort of Baptist. For one thing, every year my mom would ask me what I was going to give up for Lent. Baptists don’t give things up for Lent. I guess it’s because good Baptists have already given up all the fun stuff so theoretically there really isn’t much left. But for some reason Mom always expected me to give up something. Like most kids, I got to be pretty good at giving up something that sounded really good, but didn’t involve much of a sacrifice. I’d give up roller skating, even though I didn’t even own a pair of skates. Or I’d give up some kind of food that I never ate anyway. I really got into the Lenten penance thing.

Probably the strangest thing about my family, Lent-wise, was my aunt, God rest her soul. I can’t say I ever remember my aunt going to church. I couldn’t even tell you what her religion was. The only thing I know for sure is that, like my dad, she was a devout anti-Catholic. But, she seemed to be convinced that she would be headed straight for eternal damnation if she ever ate meat on Friday during Lent. That was her thing.

If you went to Aunt Fern’s house for dinner on a Friday during Lent, you were going to have salmon patties and creamed peas. And we went to her house most Fridays because it was family poker night. My mom and dad and my two aunts and uncles played poker almost every Friday night. So it meant that in the spring, we were going to see a lot of salmon patties and a lot of creamed peas. I don’t think she ever fixed them any other time of the year, but during Lent, that was the daily special every Friday.

Aunt Fern’s salmon patties came to mind the other day when I realized that it was almost Lent. Every year at this time, we start to ask what we have to do for Lent. The Church issues some regulations, but frankly they’re pretty lame. We’re to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and abstain from meat on those two days plus Fridays from now until Good Friday. But “fasting” means eating one full meal and two small meals with nothing in between. It’s not exactly starving ourselves.

Abstaining from meat means you have to limit yourself to seafood and vegetarian dishes. You can have lobster, or shrimp, or scallops, or any one of a hundred different of types of fish, but you can’t have a cheeseburger. Of course they make cheeseburgers out of soy beans nowadays that are pretty hard to tell from the real thing. So, if you just have to have a cheeseburger on Friday, you’re not totally out of luck. Face it, compared to Jesus spending forty days in the desert, our “obligations” aren’t much. We’re advised that Catholics shouldn’t hold themselves “lightly excused”. I’m not sure what “lightly excused” means, but obviously we can excuse ourselves, as long as the excuse isn’t light. When St. Patrick’s Day falls on Friday most Bishops, especially the Irish ones, consider that to be a non-light excuse.

Do we REALLY need the Church to give us Lenten regulations? Let’s think for a minute about what we’re really doing here. Today’s Gospel tells us that Jesus went into the desert for forty days to be tempted by the devil. HE ATE NOTHING! He didn’t have one big meal and two small meals each day. HE ATE NOTHING! There were no excuses, light or otherwise. He didn’t just fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, he went hungry every single day for one entire month plus another ten days. According to our this year’s calendar he went without food from the end of February until the second week in April. And we think we’re doing something if we eat at Red Lobster instead of Ponderosa for one Wednesday and seven Fridays.

In his column in last week’s Review, Archbishop Burke wrote “Our Lord permitted His Heart to be pierced so that He might pour out His life, to the very last ounce, for love of us. He waits patiently for our response of love.” What a beautiful thought. Jesus gave everything for us. We don’t know exactly what heaven is like, but we know it’s a heck of a lot better than St. Louis, MO, even if St. Louis IS baseball heaven. Jesus gave all that up to become one of us, to live as one of us, and to suffer a terrible, painful death. He was beaten, and scourged, and humiliated. He was forced to carry His own cross up the hill. Nails were driven through His hands and feet. He was pierced with a sword. And all He could say was, “Forgive them Lord. They know not what they do.”

Now He waits patiently for our response of love. In some cases, He doesn’t have to wait long at all. In too many cases, it’s a very long wait. We should respond lovingly to Jesus every single day, but most especially during the holy season of Lent. The few things that the Church says we should do should be just the tip of the iceberg. I’m not talking about giving up candy, or booze, or television. Those are great disciplines but do they really represent a loving response to Jesus death on the cross?
There’s a big difference between doing something because we’re told to do it and doing something out of love. A person could go through life without ever violating a single one of the Ten Commandments and still not get into heaven. It’s called ethics and it’s not the exclusive property of Catholics, or Christians, or any other group. Many atheists are very ethical.

There’s a Greek word, “ethos”, which means a person’s inner values. Ethos is what Jesus called us to in the Sermon on the Mount. He didn’t tell us not to follow the commandments, He told us to internalize them. If we don’t kill our neighbor because of the Commandment, naturally that’s a good thing. If we don’t kill our neighbor because we don’t want to go to jail, that’s a good thing too. But if we don’t kill our neighbor because it goes against everything we believe in and stand for, because Jesus taught us to love one another as He loves us, it’s something much different. We’ve internalized the commandment. It’s part of our ethos.
In the Gospel today the devil tempts Jesus three times. He tempts Him with power. He tempts Him with domination. He tempts Him with possessions. In short, he tempted Jesus with things that He already had.

He didn’t need to turn a stone into bread. He would do much more. He would turn bread into His own body and turn wine into His own blood. He didn’t need for the devil to give him power and glory. He would have all the power and all the glory. He would be the King of Glory.

He didn’t need to hurl himself off of the temple to have the angels guard and support Him. At the mention of His name every knee on earth and in heaven would bow down before Him. So, what’s the point? What can we learn from His turning down things that He already had?

Doesn’t the devil tempt you and me with the same things every single day of our lives? Aren’t we tempted by power, and domination, and possessions? Isn’t that what gets us into trouble? Wasn’t Jesus showing us, by His example, what we really need to do during Lent?

Maybe that’s our real challenge during the next forty days; to face those same three temptations, to reflect on them, and to respond to them in the same way that Jesus did. He could resist those things on his own. You and I can't. We need His help. Rather than give something up, maybe He's calling on us to add something. He gave us forty days of fast and prayer. But He was single and unemployed. He understands that you and I have other obligations that keep us from going off into the desert until Easter. But, in our own way we can make a kind of Lenten retreat. We can spend time each day asking Him to help us overcome the temptations that He overcame. That would really be responding to him in love.

Nobody can tell you what your response to Jesus’ sacrifice should be. We all have different situations. If I put $100 in the poor box, that’s one thing. If Donald Trump puts $100 in the poor box, it’s something else altogether. But if the Donald and I both spend some time each day prayerfully reflecting on our temptations and how we can overcome them; asking Jesus to help us overcome those temptations, and making a sincere effort, then we’re both on the same page.

If, instead of giving up M & M’s, we give up judging one another, or if we give up some bad habit, or if we just make an effort, every day, to do something nice for someone else with no expectation of getting something in return, then maybe that’s what He’s asking us to do.

If we pray the rosary, or attend the stations of the cross, or spend an hour before the Blessed Sacrament this coming Tuesday, especially if we have to get up early, or stay up late, or give up our lunch hour to make the time, then we’re on the right track. If all we do is fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and replace our cheeseburger with a fish sandwich on the Fridays of Lent, we really haven’t done much at all.

“Our Lord permitted His Heart to be pierced so that He might pour out His life, to the very last ounce, for love of us. He waits patiently for our response of love.”