Two Altars (Bede)

Homily - Two Altars (Bede)

IF YOU BE UNWILLING to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

DEAR FRIENDS:

With an unexpected clarity...Today, God has set before his people...The Sons of the Holy Roman Catholic Church TWO ALTARS:

THE FIRST ALTAR that the LORD has set before us is that of the radical individualism that pervades our culture...

• BLAZONED ACROSS the frontpiece of this altar is written: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity...

• THE BATTLE CRY of the Neo-Paganism of Modern Man.

• UPON THIS ALTAR...Man is established and exalted as an end in himself;

• BEFORE THIS ALTAR...Man declares his independence from what he ridicules as the tyranny of all duties placed upon him;

• AT THE FOOT OF THIS ALTAR... Man confesses: My Will Be Done!

• NON SERVIUM!

• I WILL SEEK TO KNOW myself alone;

• I WILL LOVE ONLY what pleases me;

• I WILL SERVE NONE but myself!

THE SECOND ALTAR THAT GOD HAS SET BEFORE US...Is the Altar of the Living God: 

The God who redeemed the Children of Israel from Slavery in Egypt: 

The God who redeemed Man from the Slavery of Sin by the Blood of His Cross!

• UPON THIS ALTAR...God is exalted as Man’s only ultimate End!

• BEFORE THIS ALTAR...Man prostrates himself in worship!

• AT THE FOOT OF THIS ALTAR... Man sings with great joy: Thy will be done!

• Be it unto me accordingly your word!

• I WILL KNOW YOU with my whole mind;

• I WILL LOVE YOU with fullness of my heart;

• I WILL SERVE YOU with all that I am and have!

DEAREST FRIENDS:

YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE BLIND not to see with what great clarity God has set before us these two altars!

EVEN WITHIN THE HOLY CHURCH OF GOD...

• WE HAVE CLERICS exalting Man as an end in himself;

• THESE PRIESTS OF GOD Call us to free ourselves from the prison cell of the commands of God;

• THESE MEN use carefully crafted... They use clever language to get us...

TO SUPPOSE...

• THAT SOMEHOW... God has changed his mind;

• THAT SOMEHOW... God has rewritten His Law;

• AND THEY TELL US THAT SOMEHOW... God has now set Man upon His holy Altar!
• 
  

EVEN MEN in Red Hats...

• AND MANY in miters...
• AND MANY MANY MORE...who bear the priestly dignity upon their souls...

THESE MEN...

• SITTING IN the place of honor...
• IN THE CHURCH of God...

THESE MEN CRY OUT: 

• “We Will NOT Serve!”

BUT DEAR BRETHREN:

YOU SHOULD REMEMBER... It has often been this way!

FOR JOSHUA WAS NOT SPEAKING...To the Egyptians...

HE WAS NOT SPEAKING... To the Amorites or the Perizzites...

HE WAS NOT SPEAKING... To the Canaanites or the Hittites...

HE WAS NOT SPEAKING... To the the Girgashites, the Hivites, or the Jebusites..

HE WAS SPEAKING... To the Children of Israel... 

To the Descendants of Abraham... To whom God had promised that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed!

SO WHY ARE WE SURPRISED...WHEN WE HEAR... 

• Men who ought to know better... 

• And, who do, in fact, know better...

WHO IN DEFIANCE OF The Will of God... SAY TO US...

IT IS NOW PERMISSIBLE for public adulterers... without repentance and amendment of life... To come to the holy Altar of God to receive theBread of Eternal Life...And to drink from the Chalice of Everlasting Salvation...

THESE MEN DECLARE THAT IT IS NOW PERMISSIBLE...

FOR A MAN to sleep with a man as a man sleeps with a woman...

THEY SAY SOMEHOW THAT THAT WHICH...ONCE CRIED OUT to Heaven for vengeance is now to be thought honorable... 

THAT THOSE RELATIONSHIPS once declared by God to be an abomination... 

POSSESS GOODS that ought to be shared with the Mystical Body of Christ...

BUT, DEAREST BRETHREN:

WE OUGHT NOT TO BE SURPRISED... BECAUSE THE ONE WHO APPOINTED the holy Apostles said himself:

"Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?" 

(John 6:70)

AND AGAIN, DID NOT THE HOLY APOSTLE PAUL...GATHER THE BISHOPS of Ephesus to himself and say to them:

I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.

(Acts 20:29-30)

AND SO TODAY...GOD CRIES OUT TO US....THROUGH the Holy Prophet Joshua:

Choose you this day, Whom you will serve!

WILL WE FOLLOW THOSE TEACHERS...

• Who cry out against the Living God...The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob;

• Teachers who tickle our ears...As they destroy our souls?

WILL WE HEED THE VOICE OF THOSE WHO SAY...

• We can live as we wish...

• THAT HUSBANDS can live for their own pleasure Disregard their husbandly duties to their wives and their paternal obligations to their children...
• THAT ALL MEN are free to and ought to live for themselves alone!

• THAT WIVES need not be subject unto their own husbands as unto Christ...

• THAT THEY CAN cast aside the duties of maternity, and pay no regard to their husbands, and children and families...
• THAT ALL WOMEN should throw off the duties of matrimony...And offer their bloodied children on the Altar of Liberty;And live for themselves only!

WILL WE SHADOW THESE MEN WHO WHISPER...

• That our children may play God with their bodies...
• That, if they please, they may deny that God has made them male or female...
• And they are free to mutilate their bodies to make it subject to their wills...
• That our children are free to be whoever or whatever they wish to be...
• That they are free to and ought throw aside the shackles of Nature;
• And live for no one, but themselves!

WILL WE LISTEN TO THESE FALSE PROPHETS & TEACHERS, WHO SAY...

• THAT WE CAN LIVE For ourselves only...

• AND, YET, STILL BE FOUND pleasing in the sight of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?

WILL WE LISTEN TO THEM? OR WILL WE SAY with Israel in the days of Joshua...

• AND WHAT EVERY HOLY MAN of God has said ever since?:

FAR BE IT FROM US that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;for it is the LORD our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed; and the LORD drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land...”

FAR BE IT FROM US that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;for it is the LORD our God who brought us and our fathers up from the Land of Darkness, Out of our Bondage to Sin...and who did in his incarnate Son those mighty works,and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed!

Therefore... Therefore... Therefore...

WE ALSO WILL SERVE the LORD, for he is our God.

DEAREST BRETHREN IN CHRIST...

• This is what God has set before us...

SO CHOOSE THIS DAY whom you will serve!

— — — — —

Reading 1

Joshua 24:1-2A, 15-17, 18B

Joshua gathered together all the tribes of Israel at Shechem,

summoning their elders, their leaders,

their judges, and their officers. 

When they stood in ranks before God,

Joshua addressed all the people:

"If it does not please you to serve the LORD,

decide today whom you will serve,

the gods your fathers served beyond the River

or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are now dwelling. 

As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

But the people answered,

"Far be it from us to forsake the LORD

for the service of other gods. 

For it was the LORD, our God,

who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt,

out of a state of slavery. 

He performed those great miracles before our very eyes

and protected us along our entire journey

and among the peoples through whom we passed. 

Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God."

Responsorial Psalm

PS 34:2-3, 16-17, 18-19, 20-21

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

I will bless the LORD at all times;

his praise shall be ever in my mouth.

Let my soul glory in the LORD;

the lowly will hear me and be glad.

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

The LORD has eyes for the just,

and ears for their cry.

The LORD confronts the evildoers,

to destroy remembrance of them from the earth.

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

When the just cry out, the LORD hears them,

and from all their distress he rescues them.

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;

and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

Many are the troubles of the just one,

but out of them all the LORD delivers him;

he watches over all his bones;

not one of them shall be broken.

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

Reading 2

Ephesians 5:21-32

Brothers and sisters:

Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. 

Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord.

For the husband is head of his wife

just as Christ is head of the church,

he himself the savior of the body. 

As the church is subordinate to Christ,

so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives,

even as Christ loved the church

and handed himself over for her to sanctify her,

cleansing her by the bath of water with the word,

that he might present to himself the church in splendor,

without spot or wrinkle or any such thing,

that she might be holy and without blemish. 

So also husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. 

He who loves his wife loves himself. 

For no one hates his own flesh

but rather nourishes and cherishes it, 

even as Christ does the church,

because we are members of his body.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother

and be joined to his wife,

and the two shall become one flesh.

This is a great mystery,

but I speak in reference to Christ and the church.

Alleluia

John 6:63C, 68C

Alleluia, alleluia.

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life;

you have the words of everlasting life.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

John 6:60-69

Many of Jesus' disciples who were listening said,

"This saying is hard; who can accept it?"

Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this,

he said to them, "Does this shock you?

What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending

to where he was before? 

It is the spirit that gives life,

while the flesh is of no avail.

The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life.

But there are some of you who do not believe."

Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe

and the one who would betray him. 

And he said,

"For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me

unless it is granted him by my Father."

As a result of this,

many of his disciples returned to their former way of life

and no longer accompanied him.

Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?" 

Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? 

You have the words of eternal life. 

We have come to believe

and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."