Homily for Trinity IIIA - June 28 STM Toronto

  

Jesus said: 

"Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me." 

Discipleship is at the heart of the Christian Faith.  We cannot simply believe, we are called to follow, to act, to witness in light of our relationship with Jesus Christ. We’re told that even the most humble among us have a share in the mission that Christ has given to the Church.

There are only 12 Apostles (13 if we count St. Paul). These were the first disciples to follow Jesus.  We have no prophets like Elisha today nor do we have Apostles in the Church Militant.  But we are all called to discipleship (2 Timothy 1:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:3).

At Baptism our lives are joined forever to the cross of Christ, as Paul tells us in today’s Epistle. Baptized into His death, our discipleship means that we are to live for God in Christ Jesus.

We follow Jesus by taking up our own personal cross, as Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel. That doesn’t mean we will all be asked to suffer a martyr’s death but each of us is called to self-denial and to the offering of our lives in service of God’s plan.

The Gospel affirms that Jesus must be elevated to first place in our lives—above even our closest bonds of kinship and love. By Baptism, we’ve been made part of a new family—the kingdom of God, the Church. We proclaim that kingdom with our lives, encouraging our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters and all people, to live as “little ones” under God and the kingship of God’s Holy Incarnate One.

We do this by opening our hearts and homes to the service of the Lord, following the Shunnamite woman’s example in today’s First Reading. As Jesus tells us, we are to receive others—not only prophets but little children, the poor, the marginalized and the imprisoned—as we receive Christ Himself (Matthew 18:5; 25:31–46).

We hold fast to the promise—that if we have died with Christ, we shall also live with Him, that if we lose our lives for His sake, we will find our reward, and walk forever in God’s presence.

2 Kgs 4:8–11, 14–1   Ps 89:2–3, 16–19. Rom 6:3–4, 8–11  Mt 10:37–42

STM Patronal Sung Mass June 21, 2020 STM - Toronto

 “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” 

Mat. 10: 39

St. Thomas More, is our parish patron saint, for whom we thank God today and whose prayers we ask as we face the challenges of faith and health in our own day as members of the Body of Christ.

Thomas More made a simple and clear choice for the culture of life based upon his unshakeable belief in the Church and her sacraments.  Christ is truly present in his sacraments, calling us to penitence, to conversion and to sanctification. The reality of the sacraments was the belief upon which St. Thomas More would lay down his life. 

When it came to the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, St. Thomas maintained that what the Church did sacramentally was real and permanent. Just as Baptism makes us indelibly part of the Body of Christ, so Holy Matrimony unites a man and woman for life whether they be king and queen or commoners – the bond is real.  

As we know, St. Thomas More famously refused to take the oath denying that King Henry was sacramentally married to Katherine of Aragon.  In conscience, Thomas could not deny Christ and the sacramental reality of the Word of God, the true word which effects what it pronounces. 

The sacramental bond of water and the Spirit in Baptism grafts us into the Body of Christ; the real and lasting bond of Matrimony binds man and woman in Holy Matrimony. Holy Matrimony is not, then, some legal contract sworn before a magistrate by any two people but, rather, a bond exclusively between one man and one woman for life –  a bond that cannot be broken or abrogated nor established other than as ordained by the revelation of God.

Thomas would not swear against this sacramental bond and so he gave his mortal life in order to retain his immortal soul. What could be simpler? What could be more difficult?  

In our day, when people insist that truth is relative – you know the meme: “You have your truth and I have mine,”  St. Thomas stands as a beacon of light amidst the darkness of godless secularism. 

Today we come to give thanks in the Mass for one who, in fact, did everything to uphold the sanctity of Christ present in the sacraments and supremely in the Holy Eucharist. 

Today, as well, there is a real challenge to living the Christian faith.  The secular juggernaut, an alliance of atheist, materialist and narcissistic social attitudes is challenging the Church and her norms not to mention the threat to the fabric of society which is based upon Judaeo-Christian norms.  

The creed of relativism informs the culture of death denying the light of Christ even as mob rule threatens to take over ‘civil’ society.  Social engineering by those who serve the dictatorship of relativism puts constant pressure on those who proclaim the sacramentality of the Church through which we are in communion with Christ. 

Catholic faith and practice are under attack. This Marxist inspired campaign seeks to eradicate the once universal customs and morality of natural law as embedded in laws governing marriage and family. As well, the constant campaign to make the Mass little more than a communal meeting gathers power and influence while offering no sense of the transcendence of the Creator.

All these strands are parts of a devilish design to put humanity at the centre in an empty humanism which denies the transcendence of God and to deny the vital importance of the nuclear family based upon the moral order that has been at the heart of human flourishing for time immemorial.

St. Thomas More stood in his day for the faith once delivered to the saints. We pray for the grace to stand in our day for the same faith.  As we are strengthened by the sacraments may we also be encouraged by the prayers of St. Thomas More, his companion St. John Fisher, our Lady, the BVM and by the whole communion of saints with whom we are sacramentally united on the journey of faith, the road paved for us by the martyrs of Christ Jesus.

STM Patronal Mass - Sunday, June 21 at 12:30

Welcome all to our first Sunday Mass since March, 2020.  

We have Covid-19 protocols in effect.  Please see the attached bulletin for details.

You may print and bring the bulletin with you since we are not allowed to pass our bulletins at this time.

You will find a PDF version of the bulletin here:

STM PATRONAL 2020

God bless and keep you all.