Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:01 Today's Gospel. We have that wonderful story of our Lord and his disciples crossing over the Sea of Galilee to the country, the Gerrish scenes. That's where our Lord is about to cast out that Legion of devils in the demoniacs, into the herd of pigs as they're soon across our lord sleeping in a boat when suddenly this terrible storm rises, the storms quite probably a stirred up by the devils in a futile attempt to keep our lord at bay. At any rate, the storms raging when's hauling and waters crashing over the boat? The boat starts taking on water so we can see from the count and Saint Mark's Gospel, it seems like they're going under and everything is lost and so the terrified disciples Waco Lord up and then what does he do? He rebukes them. Why are you fearful o ye of little faith? It's really important to notice here. Here's the ship apparently sinking and he actually rebukes the disciples for their fear. Why are you fearful o ye of little faith? Then he stands up, commands the winds and the sea, and instantly there's this great call. Now. Let's just imagine that suddenly we're to find ourselves on board that little bowl with our lord sweeping quietly there and that terrible storm rose up. Each one of us should ask himself, how would I act?
Speaker 0 01:22 Would I be scared? What our Lord rebuke me? Well, how do I act when storms and trouble are looming in my life? Do I act as if I actually believe the Lord is alive? He's living right there in the tabernacle and of course in my heart size, I'm in a state of grace and haven't stupidly thrown him overboard with a mortal sin. He's alive. He's in me. What do I act that way?
Speaker 1 02:03 Okay,
Speaker 0 02:03 flake, great father. Dan has some excellent practical advice and how we can learn to deal with the stresses and strains, storms and trouble, practical advice we can recognize that we should be able to do. If we had the faith, we should be perfectly calm. Come up May. How do we get to that point? Father DM, we must make up our mind that whether we like it or not, whether we are good, bad, or indifferent, there will be crosses in our lives. Since this isn't inevitable, our happiness must necessarily depend upon our attitude towards these crosses. Now, what should our attitude be towards crosses? In order to explain this, it's necessarily to say by way of prelude that there's one fact of which we must be absolutely convinced who are to have a proper attitude towards crosses and that is that the first and foremost reason why anything happens in this world is because God wills it.
Speaker 0 03:12 Nothing happens unless God wills it or permits it. Being truly Catholic means that we realize that whatever happens happens first and foremost, because of God's will, either commanding or permitting it. Even what we are accustomed to think of as evil can only happen because God permits it. So Saint Augustan said, God deemed it wiser to permit evil, that he might draw good from it then did not permit evil. In Romans five 20 St Paul says, where sin is abounded, grace is a bounded. All the more since then, whatever happens happens only because God wills it or permits it. Our chief concern as lovers of God should be to conform our will to his as perfectly as we can. We conform our will to God's will positively when we do what is commanded and avoid what is forbidden by him through legitimate authority, namely his church and our superiors, negative conformity to God's will lies in this, that whenever anything happens without our choice, we accept it all with a calm mind is coming from a loving hand of God. The reason we do this is because it's pleasing to God and we thereby imitate our Lord. Who said negatively in John Six 38 I've come down from heaven not to do my own will and positively in John Eight 29 I do always the things that are pleasing to him.
Speaker 1 04:55 Yeah.
Speaker 0 04:55 Doing God's want means positively doing what is commanded or desired by legitimate authority. Negatively. It means graciously wanting and accepting whatever God will should happen to us. This last aspect is what we mean by loving the cross to be explicit. Loving the cross means that we will let God wills and we will not what God wills, not for us. We love the cross when we want what God wants for us. Saint Paul says in Romans eight 28 for those who love God, all things work unto good and he meant literally all things the good, the bad, the indifferent. It is failure to realize this which leads to so much in happiness. We cannot be unhappy unless we are blindly willing and choosing according to our own judgment of what we think is best for us and not in accordance with God's judgment. That's an important principle.
Speaker 0 05:59 We cannot be unhappy unless we are blindly willing and choosing according to our own judgment of what we think is best for us and not in accordance with God's judgment. A little thought will show this to be so for. We are happy only when we get what we want, but things being the way they are. We can never get everything that we want in this world. We're happy only when we get what we want, but we can never get everything that we want in this world. So then the way to be happy is to want what we get and that's the only way to get what we want and when we want. What we do get than it is that we want what God gives to us and what God wants us to have. What God's wants us to have is the best thing for us. Contentment is as simple as that. This is why the saints are always happy
Speaker 0 06:51 in thinking about this, we must realize it's not the whimsical. We'll have a cruel tyrant with whom we are concerned. Rather we must remember it's God's will, God who infinite wisdom and goodness and power. Since God is infinitely wise, he knows what's best for us. Since he's infinitely good, he wants what's best for us and since he's infinitely powerful, he can and will do what is best for us. But if we're living on the level of feelings, our feelings or our passions, we will rebel at the cross. We will sulk and make ourselves and others unhappy and miserable with our complaints. If we're living at the level of our reason or common sense, we will tend to rationalize things and find every possible excuse why we should not submit to the cross. It's only on the level of faith that we will see the cross as a mark of God's favor and generously accept whatever he sends us.
Speaker 0 07:54 A man who truly loves God and knows that God loves him. Accept whatever God sends because he knows that's best, however difficult it may seem at the moment if he's living by faith, he has complete trust that whatever God's sins is best for him. So the attitude we should have towards the cross is this. Since whatever happens happens only because God wants it or allows it to happen. Therefore, we show our love for him by graciously accepting whatever happens that's coming from the hands of our loving father. I loving father who alone knows what's best for us. Our attitude should be like that of the young girl at a boarding school. At 20 years of age. She was already the victim of a mortal disease on her desk. She always kept a strange looking piece of paper. It was quite plank except at the bottom of the page where she had already signed her name to her friend. She confided, God can write whatever he wants there. I've already signed it, but we might ask whether such love of the cross means that because we want what is we thereby want. What is to stay as it is.
Speaker 1 09:09 Okay?
Speaker 0 09:10 Does it mean that we're failing? Required us are satisfied to do nothing about injustice, wrongdoing, our sickness not at all. Loving the cross does not mean we must do nothing about remedying evil situations which may constitute our cross. It is not at all mean that we are satisfied to let evil continue to exist simply because God permits it. What we love is not the situations behind our crosses. We only love God's will, which is allowing or causing those situations. God wants us to do what we can to remedy the evil so that the future will not be the same as the present. We're not fatalist, but in any given moment, what is is and therefore is God's will and that is what we want for the now. The next moment God's will may be different. That is what we most want. Then it is his will and not the thing that is happening that we must love. It's the will of God and not the thing that is happening that we must love. Therefore, we should do our best to correct evil situations and even pray that God will remedy them. That's what our Lord did in the garden. He prayed to the father, did the cross be removed from him? Father, if it's possible, let this chas pass away from me,
Speaker 1 10:30 okay?
Speaker 0 10:31 But once we have prayed and done our best to remove the evil, we leave it up to God's good pleasure as Christ did. Whether or not here a moves or a cup of bitterness, our job is to keep on wanting what God wants as long as the situation exists. If we have this attitude towards the cross, there'll be no such thing as worry in our lives. For worry is simply the fear of getting the evil that we hate of not getting the good that we love. The only remedy for fear and worry is faith in God's goodness and it's an indisputable fact that happiness can come only from conforming to God's will by graciously accepting whatever he sins. There is no other course, but how can such conformity be attained? Certainly it is beyond the powers of unaided human nature to love the cross in this way.
Speaker 0 11:25 It is a supernatural thing and therefore it requires supernatural means to reach it. If we sincerely use the means, we will surely attain the end. The supernatural means of prayer, particularly prayer during temptation. The key is this, whenever anything happens that we do not like say the little prayer, thanks God in any situation that is displeasing to us, let us say thanks God. When we get up in the morning and find we have a headache or arches are aching again, let us say thanks God. If a bit of time we had planned to use for ourselves is interrupted, let us say thanks God. If someone is interfering with our work and the way we want to do it, let us see. Thanks God. When we say thanks God, we show that our will is in true conformity with God's will. It's only when we've made continued daily resolutions to say thanks God for what we do, not like time after time that we will begin to acquire the ease and facility by which we can say thanks God in every difficult situation.
Speaker 0 12:37 This is the true habit of love of the cross. If we continue to do this in spite of all our feelings to the contrary, after a while we will be surprised to find ourselves actually feeling like saying thanks God. We will as a result of seeing God's will and everything come to see God and enjoy his happiness right here on earth for nothing that ever happens will really bother us again, just how the saints deal with things. If we love the cross, we'll always be happy. We'll cast our cares upon the Lord. Not being solicit is not being concerned. We will never be sorrowful over the past. I'm going to have black. It might be for that lies in God's mercy, which is his greatest attribute. God's weakness is that he has a poor memory. We might say with all reverence, if we're sorry for the past, he forgets it again as lovers of the cross.
Speaker 0 13:31 We will not be worried over the future for that lies in God's Providence. Likewise, we will not be concerned about the present for that to object of God's love now and his love for each of us is without limit, not shared and not divided. He loves each one of us as if we were the only one in the world to be loved and because he loves us in this way, then we know that he will do it for us only what is best for us. That is where happiness can lie only in wanting for ourselves what God wants, when other words in loving the cross. Thank you father dean. Since God is infinitely wise, he knows what's best for us. Since he's infinitely good, he wants what's best for us and being infinitely powerful. He can and will do what's best for us. God loves each of us as if we were the only one in the whole wide world to be loved because he loves us and this way then we know he will do for us only what's best for us. This is why our happiness can, I only want it for ourselves what God wants or in other words, and loving the cross. Whenever anything happens that we do not like, say the little prayer. Thanks God. We say thanks God. We show that our will is in true conformity with God's will.
Speaker 0 14:52 He's alive. He loves us. We shall strive to imitate the beautiful trust shown by our blessed mother, accepting the good and bad events in our life. When she said <inaudible> had done it to me according to thy word, she accepted God's will on its entirety with all its consequences.
Speaker 1 15:16 All of them.
Speaker 0 15:19 Hello, it's alive. He loves us. We need to get this virtue of loving the cross so you can deal with the storms and troubles or life does not take a prophet to see the devil spotters Tripp, terrible storms and this society doesn't take a prophetic charism. See persecution in the wind.
Speaker 0 15:45 Let's close by considering some comments from origin, some brilliant commentator that live from the late one hundreds to the middle. Two hundreds comment on today's gospel passage. Origin says quote by means of all these happenings. The Lord gave us a figure and image of his teaching, so we might be pasted in the face of every storm and persecution that we might be steadfast that we portray, not our faith. And if all this world should boil up as the sea and rise and fury against us, though on every side there should rage the winds and whirlpools the demons. Though as we have said, every minute to the sea, that is every principality and power of this world be roused against us, forming with the swelling of the wrath, soasta torment, the sanctified and the light of the sea. They whip up wickedness and treacherous to the very skies that's truing up against you. The murmuring of the evil minded, yet be not afraid, be not troubled, do not tremble, do not yield for as many as you're in the little ship of faith are sailing with the Lord. As many as you're in the bark of holy church, we'll voyage with the Lord across this wave tossed life. The Lord himself may sleep and wholly quiet. He's about watching your patience and endurance. Looking forward to the repentance and conversion of those we have sinned.
Speaker 0 17:18 If all this world should boil up as a sea rise and fury against us on every side, there should rage winds and whirlpools the demons for every principality and power of this world be roused up against us, foaming with the swelling of their wrath. So it's a torment, the sanctified and the like. The sea. They whip up wickedness and treachery to the very skies it be not afraid, be not travelled, do not tramble, do not yield for as many as they're on the little ship of faith are saying what the Lore, as many as there are in the park of holy church or voyage with the Lord across this wave tossed life. The Lord itself May Sleep and holy quiet is, but watching your patience and Torrance, looking forward to the repentance and the conversion of those who have sin, the Lord may sleep and wholly quiet. He's about watching our patients and insurance looking forward to the repentance and the conversion of those who have sinned.
Speaker 1 18:34 Amen.
