Build your house on rock through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Sermon of March 6th

9^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

March 6^th, 2011

Matthew 7:21-27

Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.

When a professor is teaching a class, it happens on occasion that the students may not be paying attention. There is, I am told, one thing which the teacher can do, one thing which works for students from around the 5^th grade all the way up through to graduate school – the teacher or professor can regain the students’ attention by saying these simple words, “This will be on the exam.”

All of a sudden, the students perk up and are paying attention. They are taking notes and even checking with their classmates to make sure that they didn’t miss anything. I teach the 7^th and 8^th graders at our Catholic grade school, and I have never had to threaten with an exam yet – but, I hear it is something worth considering…

On a much more profound level, something like this occurs in today’s Gospel. Christ our Savior has come to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the longest and most complete discourse on Christian morality; and he wants to make sure that we are all paying attention. For this reason he tells us, “This will be on the exam, this makes a difference for the final judgment.”

The Good Lord directs our hearts and minds to the final days, to judgment, to Heaven and Hell. “On that day,” he says, many will come and will cry out; but I will reject them, for they did not follow my commands. The teachings of the Sermon on the Mount are necessary for our salvation.

Perhaps we are a bit afraid when we think of the final judgment and the second coming of our Savior. Indeed, there is something terrifying and great about the end of time – for on that day, each of us will answer for our doings, whether good or evil. Moreover, we recall that Fear of the Lord is a gift of the Holy Spirit – it is the beginning of wisdom. It is good to fear the Lord.

However, the fear that we have ought not to be the fear of a slave, terrified that his master will beat him. Nor, less, should it be the fear of a dog, expecting punishment from his owner. No, rather the fear we have is the fear of a child who wants only to please his father.

We fear lest we should disappoint the God who has so loved us. Recognizing the goodness and the love of God, we fear lest we may separate ourselves from that Love through sin. We fear lest we should be separated from him who has so loved us.

Christ’s words are challenging, and perhaps even a little bit scary; but remember that the Good Jesus only wants you to be happy! That is what this is all about: Beatitude, eternal happiness, and joy even in this life. Thus, even the challenging teachings of the Sermon on the Mount – that we must love our enemies, that we must not have lust or anger in our hearts, that we must be free from attachment to worldly possessions since we cannot serve God and mammon – even these challenging teachings have been given for our benefit. Christ challenges us because he wants us to be happy with him, both here on earth and forever in heaven.

It is for this reason that the Good Lord tells us to build our house on solid rock, not on sand. The house is the soul, and the rock is Christ, but the sand is the passing delights of the flesh. We build our house by seeking after either the delights of heaven or the momentary gratifications of earth. We build our house by either following the commands of Jesus, or ignoring our Lord’s words and seeking pleasure.

If we seek our consolation and delight in the things of earth, these things which are passing away, we build our house on sand. And it is fitting that we compare this to building on sand; for just as sand passes through the grip of the fingers, so too the pleasures of this life pass away swiftly and are gone. If we think rarely of heaven, if we focus all our energy on the duties and demands of this life, we are fools who build on sand – our house will not stand long.

How then do we build our house on solid rock? How do we found our soul upon Christ?

This is to find joy and consolation in the Lord and in the hope of heaven. Next week, we begin the season of Lent, a time to re-found ourselves on Christ as our true rock. We build our house upon Christ through these three Lenten practices: Prayer, fasting and almsgiving. All three are necessary, together they will give us supernatural joy in this life, and eternal happiness in the life to come.

First, we consider prayer. Lent is a time of prayer, focusing on the things of heaven. Do you want to go to heaven when you die? Then ask the Lord for this grace! Every day, ask the Lord to bring you to heaven! Ask also for the graces needed to get you through the next day in the state of grace.

But we must also meditation – for how can we ask anything from the Lord, if we do not have a solid relationship with him? We must meditate daily on the mysteries of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Daily meditation is necessary for salvation. During Lent, we have the opportunity to focus particularly upon the mysteries surround our Savior’s passion and death. Think of how much Christ loved you – he loved you so much that he died for you! Will he not give you everything else besides?

Then there is fasting. This is most necessary, for fasting is the body’s way of participating in prayer. We often pretend like we do not have bodies, we forget about the importance of fasting and mortification. The body works for our salvation too! It is not enough simply to pray with our minds – we need also to fast.

Remember, fasting is easy when done out of love. Christ became hungry out of love for you, will you not hunger for love of him?

Finally, there is almsgiving. Almsgiving covers a multitude of sins, and therefore is central to the mystery of Lent. Almsgiving can be part of an expression of sorrow for sin, especially during this time of repentance.

Moreover, almsgiving helps us to grow in charity. It frees us from mammon and opens us to the Lord. Simply put, without almsgiving we cannot be saved. Unless we love our neighbor and, especially, the poor; how can we ever hope to have a true love for Christ Jesus?

Sermon on the rich man and Lazarus, September 26th

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C. September 26th, 2010.
Gospel. Luke 16:19-31, The rich man and Lazarus.

Abraham replied, “My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.”

Hell is not a topic many people today are comfortable hearing about. In fact, of all the doctrines of the Catholic faith, hell is certainly one of the most neglected. Perhaps we have never, or hardly ever, heard a homily about hell.
Indeed, we live in a world which denies the existence of hell, a world which refuses to believe that eternal punishment is a real possibility. Perhaps we ourselves can fall to this temptation at times. Even if we do admit the reality of hell, we might be inclined to reserve damnation to a select few, to those particularly horrible sinners – terrible murderers, war criminals, and the like. Hell is for people like them, hell is for monsters.
In doing this we separate ourselves from sinners, we save ourselves from having to confront the judgment of God, we make hell a place for “them” not a reality which has anything to do with “us”. But then we are confronted with a passage like the parable of today’s Gospel.


We hear that there was a rich man and a poor man, and the rich man did not help the poor man. For this sin alone, the rich man was condemned to hell; but the poor man was saved. It strikes me that we know almost nothing at all about the rich man…we do not even know his name. He may have been married, perhaps he was a good father and a good husband. He was most likely an active member of his community. He was certainly a fun guy to be around. We might note with some surprise that he might have even been fairly generous to some poor people – we have no reason to think that he wouldn’t have given to the food bank (or the 1st century equivalent thereof).
All we know about him is that, whatever else he did in his life, he did not help Lazarus. And for this one sin – a sin which cries out to heaven for vengeance – for this one sin he was condemned to the everlasting punishments of hell. He was rich and he refused to relieve the poor man who begged from him. This cost him his salvation.

And I ask, my brothers and sisters, has anything changed in 2000 years? Perhaps this: if the rich man ignored the poor man’s cry, he at least allowed Lazarus to sit and beg at the door. I think it likely that, if a poor man was begging outside our homes day and night, we would probably call the police and have him taken away. If the rich man ignored Lazarus’ cry, we live in a society which systematically suffocates the cry of the poor!
Some day we will all come to understand what our Savior meant when he said, “Blessed are you poor, but woe to you who are rich.”

The poor are God’s gift to us. It is through mercy and charity toward them that we will work out our salvation. Pope John Paul II has said, “It will be necessary above all to abandon a mentality in which the poor – as individuals and as a people – are considered a burden, as irksome intruders trying to consume what others have produced.” Whatever we do to the poor, we do to Christ. And whatever we do not do to the poor, we do not do to Christ.

And so I ask: Without almsgiving, how should we ever inherit life everlasting?